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

[Clare Johnstone]

On Wed, 28 Apr 2004, Denis Brown wrote:

> 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

There has already been some comment; but in terms of my own experience
I would send for someone who understands BSD, as the Crux seems to be
related to that; and linux "experts" are very disparaging as a result.

> In terms of security updates, does Crux maintain a security group who
send

No, but they have always updated very quickly after anything appears in
bugtraq or the standard Cert and other Security sites. They keep most
things right up-to-date. Possibly more than you might want.
(Repeat that the packages all come direct from authors, from the kernel on down,
with only minor and visible modifications.)
I check my versions against what is current and update anything which
seems important.
The system could be improved. But it doesn't scare me anything like as
much as the following gem which comes from the FAQ on
www.debian.org/security

Q: How is security handled for testing and unstable?

A: The short answer is: it's not. Testing and unstable are rapidly moving
targets and the security team does not have the resources needed to
properly support those. If you want to have a secure (and stable) server
you are strongly encouraged to stay with stable. However, the security
secretaries will try to fix problems in testing and unstable after they
are fixed in the stable release.

cheers,
clare