[plug] Red Hat 7

[Steve Grasso]

On Tue, 26 Sep 2000, Bret Busby wrote:
> Christian wrote:
[snip]
> > 
> > See, if you were running Debian then the prospect of upgrading wouldn't
> > bother you in the slightest...
> 
[inflamitory detritis removed :-P]

> The September 2000 issue of Australian Personal Computer review of the
> more common Linux distributions, says about Linux;
> "Debian GNU/Linux 2.1
> Described as 'Linux for hackers, by hackers, Debian is respected among
> technical users as a compact and well-crafted distribution. It isn't
> user-friendly and it doesn't try to be; it's a hands-on way to run a
> finely tuned operationg system, and demands extensive Linux
> knowledge."..."The desktop is almost non-existent."..."As Debian is
> targeted at the expert Linux user,..."
> 

I wonder if they actually installed it first hand

> Thus, it appears that a user has to be a Linux guru, or, approaching
> guru status.
> 

I'm not and I use it

> And, with what I heard of the results of the Debian installs at the
> installfest, it can be problematic (unless the installer/user is a Linux
> guru-type person).

I'm definately no guru, but I managed to install Debian, with a GUI, on a guy's
machine during the dying minutes of the Installfest, while I was installing
Mandrake on two other machines - no applause, they were basic installs, with
very little additional config done. Having some intelligent info
about the machine, and some idea what the machine's to be used for, I've found
Debian terse but straight forward to install, and a dream to update.

> Also, people who tried to have Mandrake installed, appear to have had
> problems, which, apparently, was why, in some cases, Debian was tried.

What difficulties were encountered? I had a machine where the owner had
elected to have the CDROM on the first IDE controller, and neither RH nor
Mandrake liked booting from hdb - once the CD and the HD controllers were
swapped, Mandrake installed and worked like a dream

> 
> It appears that Red Hat seems to be the distribution for us to use (we
> believe).
> 

If it works for you, go for it! Just don't write off Debian as being too
difficult until you've tried it for yourself.

> I note also, that the APC review said of Mandrake 7.1 "Despite its buggy
> reputation, 

I'd like to know what buggy reputation APC is referring to

Mandrake is more stable than most non-Linux operating
> systems". 

Linux is more stable than most non-Linux operating systems

So, at least, Mandrake is more stable than Win 9x ;) Perhaps
> the bugginess of Mandrake's repute, is the reason for the problems at
> the installfest?

Nope. Not that I'm aware of. At their owners' request, I installed Mandrake
onto 4 computers, none of which you could call "standard" apart from being
Intel architecture, and experienced no difficulty other than the previously
mentioned hda/hdb hold-up.

My 0.02+GST

Steve