[Tfug] Thinking linux

[Jim March]

On 2/4/07, christopher floess <skeptikos at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Interesting. Yeah, I was thinking LFS too. It could teach me a lot of
> things. If slackware is "source(ish)", what's with all the discs involved
> w/
> the distro? FreeBSD only uses one disc for the install, and you only need
> the second if you what to install any binary packages. Sources and stuff
> are
> on the install disc. Is gentoo based on an established distro like ubuntu
> is
> based on debian? Is anyone familiar with LFS?



We're kind of in a funny state right now.  You may actually be better off
waiting between one and three months.

Ubuntu "Edgy" is unstable.  Sorry, but it's a mess.  The older Dapper is OK
but...not great.

Debian "Stable" - when Debian calls a particular version "stable", it is.
Their length of time between versions is quite long, so the last "stable"
("Sarge") is getting long in the tooth.  "Etch" (v.4.0) is about to ship in,
near as anybody can tell, anywhere between weeks and months, best guess
early marchish.

Ubuntu's next cut will probably be in April ("Feisty Fawn").  They realize
they screwed the pooch with Edgy and are apparantly working on stability and
hardware compatibility issues.  IF they get it right, it could be very, very
good.  They have one of the best installers out there for any OS, Linux or
not and they're based on Debian so they have Debian's add/remove software
process ("apt") and available packages.

Meanwhile I'm holding tight with Fedora Core 6.  It's pretty hardcore, not
for beginners, but it's handling of RPMs is quite good.  I'd rate it's
package management as 80% of Debian/Ubuntu's but it's also very up-to-date
while remaining stable.  I've had minor glitches - one update caused USB
media to stop auto-mounting until a two-line terminal fix was typed in.  Not
a single crash though in a couple months now of hard daily-use pounding.  I
also have all three desktops available on a single box - Gnome, KDE and XFCE
and can switch at will and again, no stability issues plus a lot of the KDE
tools now work in Gnome because they can call any KDE "guts pieces" they
need.

If you have FreeBSD experience Fedora won't drive you nuts despite being
"RPM based".  Be sure and get the "newest spin" with updates since the
initial cut at:

http://fedoranews.org/wiki/Fedora_Weekly_News_Issue_74#Fedora_Unity_releases_updated_Fedora_Core_6_Re-Spins

Jim