[plug] The same old argument RH vs. Whatever

Peter Wright pete at cygnus.uwa.edu.au
Thu Apr 19 01:34:44 WST 2001


On Thu, Apr 19, 2001 at 12:52:26AM +0800, bp wrote:
> Hi Pluggers
> 
> I want to migrate my Freesco box

Freesco?? What on earth is Freesco?

*pause as pete looks it up on google*

Ohhh, okay. Looks interesting actually. Thanks for mentioning it.
I thought for a second it was some sort of "free" variant of SCO Unix, but
I see that is not so (thankfully ;-).

If anyone else was wondering, see http://www.freesco.org/

> which runs a small web server and named and acts as a router over to a RH
> or Mandrake or Debian linux machine.
> 
> From recents posts I see that RH7 is not actually the most popular distro
> amongst this ng -
               ^^
(incredibly picky mode on) List. :)

> Ok I'll cut to the chase -- which one if any of the distros above can
> people recommend from their own experiences ?
[ snip ]
> I just wanna get a feel for what people are having success with and
> enjoying linux.

I cannot quote any offical PLUG poll results for this, but my impression is
that the majority of people who post regularly on PLUG are Debianites.
However there is certainly a significant group of Redhatters and
Mandrakers, though I think they tend to be more "workstation" than "server"
people - inasmuch as you can draw a line between the two (ie. not much).

I'm pretty much obliged to state my recommendation here would be for
Debian, though I also feel obliged to state that essentially, you'd also be
perfectly fine with an up-to-date RH or Mandrake (though I'd strongly
recommend using the Bastille hardening script(s) first, especially on
Redhat).

The main concrete and visible advantage of Debian over RH/Mandrake/etc. is
simply that it can be very very easily kept up to date with apt-get.
That's really all, but it's hard to explain in words how wonderfully
satisfying it is to do something like:

# apt-get update ; apt-get upgrade

and have a smoothly upgraded system without you having to think about it.

It's really not a _huge_ issue though, especially on a server.

> Bill

Please note, I'm _not_ familiar with the latest RH/Mandrake - I believe both
have some auto-package-upgrading facilities either in the works or
happening now, but if they were up to Debian's standard I'm sure I'd have
heard about it by now :).

Pete.
-- 
http://cygnus.uwa.edu.au/~pete/

--
hundred-and-one symptoms of being an internet addict:
102. When filling out your driver's license application, you give
     your IP address.



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