[plug] distro non-wars: Debian vs Gentoo vs LFS for specific purposes

[Denis Brown]

At 10:15 28/04/2004 +0800, Clare Johnstone wrote:
>On Wed, 28 Apr 2004, Denis Brown wrote:
> > compile-from-source-tarball deal) have made it obvious that Debian woody is
> > not cutting edge in terms of support packages (gcc and many graphics

<snip>

>Denis you are now at the point where you just might be interested in my
>favourite http://crux.nu

I think you're correct!   Thanks for refreshing my memory.

>THis comes as a 200 Meg download for the basic distribution, and has a
>few hundred compile yourself packages supported by a small but very

<snip>

>who want something basic that they can tailor for their own
>requirements. If interested please call by and I will show you.

Thanks, I shall do that - will 'phone first :-)

Two extra points:
In terms of a "Denis just went on leave but we need some Linux support 
urgently" situation, how well would Crux or any other non-mainstream (no 
offense to Crux, LFS, etc) be received by commercial Linux 
support?   Comments from the likes of Scott, Matt and Leon (CyberKnights) 
would be valuable here.   Of course there is the Linux-is-Linux viewpoint 
but doing an apt-get or rpm equivalent might be significantly less costly 
than learning a new packaging system.

In terms of security updates, does Crux maintain a security group who send 
out alerts?   I think that is valuable... the AusCERT list routinely has 
alerts from Debian, RH, BSD, ... that have arisen from their respective 
security teams.   I haven't seen anything there from Crux or gentoo or LFS 
- or probably many others for that matter.   A quick check on the Crux 
website shows mailing lists but nothing explicitly 
security-focused.   Thoughts / comments please?

Cheers,
Denis