[WEB4LIB] RE: Advice on Linux

[Chris Gray]

Well, I just have to put in my two cents for Debian GNU/Linux.

There are things I like about RedHat and things I don't like about Debian
but it is still my distribution of choice.  First of all, it is the only
distribution that is committed to the ideals of Free Software, which is
what brought us GNU/Linux in the first place.  Second, it has a far
superior package management system for installing new software and keeping
your system up-to-date.  Third, it comes with 3950 software packages ready
for installation.  (When people say RedHat is the market leader, I want to
say, "No, it isn't; Windows is.")

Debian is, however, not as easy for a novice as RedHat.  If you want that,
you might give DemoLinux a try <http://www.demolinux.org/>.  It is based
on Debian, but it runs entirely off a bootable CD.  It is truly an amazing
thing to see: no hard disk partitioning, no boot loaders, no intallation.
You can "anchor" DemoLinux to whatever file system is already on your hard
disk so that you can save files.

Chris Gray
Systems Analyst
University of Waterloo Library


On Tue, 4 Jun 2002, Thomas Bennett wrote:

> 
>   In the late 80's I began with a Slackware version .98 of Linux.  Since
> then I have installed and tried out Caldera, Mandrake, Turbolinux, and
> Redhat.  I haven't tried Debian but there is a strong loyal following to
> that distribiution.  I also haven't tried Conectiva Linux.  Now we come to a
> time where you can consider United Linux
> (
> http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/0,14179,2868859,00.html 
> ), Redhat, Debian, and maybe even Lindows.
> 
>   Lindows looks like it is working more toward the desktop market rather
> than the server market. At LindowsOS ( http://www.lindows.com ), their goal
> is to develop a Linux OS which will seamlessly allow you to install MS
> Windows programs and Linux prgrams as easy as possible even for the novice
> user.  They are making use of Wine and I think trying to go beyond that.  I
> installed the newest release yesterday on a Dell Optiplex GX1 and it took a
> full 6 minutes to install and even my wheel mouse works.  Another feature is
> Click-N-Run, this basically lets you choose a software category which links
> to the Lindows "Warehouse" and click on a program which then installs and is
> ready to run. Right now they are only distrbuting their beta/pre-release
> products to "Lindows Insiders" for a membership fee of about $100.00USD.
> This includes recieving their first production release when it is ready.
> 
> As far as server Linux distributions, I am sold on Redhat. There is a lot of
> support out there for Redhat.
> 
> Thomas
> 
> PS.  Thanks to Bill Barnes and Aaron Dobbs for help on my Postgresql
> problem.  To make a long story short, I installed RHL 6.1 on a PC,
> Postgresql 6.5 and copied the "base" directory form the upgrade server to CD
> and then copied that to the 6.5 db "base" directory.  Dumpall had errors
> when I went to restore, and had to dump each db, delete the old db off the
> upgraded server and restore all the dbs to the upgraded server.  Its working
> now.
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: web4lib at webjunction.org
> [mailto:web4lib at webjunction.org]On Behalf Of Charlie Irwin
> Sent: Tuesday, June 04, 2002 12:59 AM
> To: Multiple recipients of list
> Subject: [WEB4LIB] Advice on Linux
> 
> 
> I'm thinking of trying Linux on my home machine. My thought is to add a hard
> drive to my machine and run it "dual-boot". Does anyone have any
> ideas/suggestions as to what favor Linux (ie Red-Hat, Mandrake, etc.) or
> tips, hints, etc? Since this is probably not really a list discussion,
> please contact me directly at cirwin at theworld.com.
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> 
> Charlie Irwin
> 
> 
>