[ltp] Distributions

[Frank Roberts - SOTL]

Hi All, and especially Pam, Tod and Richard who have given me such great 
advice.

Because several comments have been made concerning my running Mandrake 8.2 and 
not Mandrake 9.0 I am going to stick my neck way way out and describe my 
experience with distributions.

Note please folks these are my experiences my reasoning - not yours - so lets 
not have a war over this. If fact most like I will not even answer a posting 
consering this. But I say this biting tong in cheek some of these experiences 
could help some of the more experienced and more knowledgable programmers in 
the realm of seeing what the current situation is like from the point of a 
long term low level armature.

Here in West Central Florida the 5 top distributions in order are: Red Hat 
(RH), Mandrake (MD), SuSE, Debian, and Gentoo 
(http://www.gentoo.org/index.xml).

The first distribution we ( actually the computer club) on my old computer was 
SuSE 6.0. I found that I did not understand the configuration, could not edit 
the configuration files, and could not get it to connect to my ISP and that 
no amount of help (either SuSE or the computer club) could solve my ISP 
problems. Now SuSE may be a very fine distribution if you can do things their 
way but if you must configure your computer with a nonstandard very odd ball 
configuration do to the applications that you are executing then it is very 
confining. Thus for this reason I rank it a very poor 5 as for as engineering 
(electrical power systems) usage. 

In disgust I switched to RH 6.0. After installation I was on line 20 minutes 
after my first discussion with RH support. My old ISP was blocking non 
Windows systems. I changed ISP; problem solved.

A year or two later I built a box and I installed RH 7.0, 7.1, 7.3, and then 
8.0 personal. Bluntly, I do not like 8.0; infact to put it mildly I rank RH 
8.0 (not RH 7.X) way below SuSE. The problems are astronomical and I do mean 
problems and by problems I mean things that do not function correctly (as per 
Linux standards). That was on my desktop. Three months ago for business 
reasons I purchased an A20P Thinkpad to which I first attempted to install RH 
8.0. 

But before describing the RH 8.0 installation experience their came the 
partition issue. For a number of reasons all comming down to the basic issue 
that if it ain't MS Windows "electrical power equipment supply companies" 
will not supply programs that are required for me to condust business I need 
a dual boot box. I also need the data to be secure form my computer screw 
ups. All this means that I decided that the best approach would to split the 
HD into three sectors:MS Windows, Common Data, and Linux. To do this split I 
purchased Partition Magic 7.0. Here became a major issue PM 7.0 did not for 
me work correctly with Linux partitions. The final results being that I 
partitioned the MS Windows side with PM 7.0 and the Linux side with which 
ever Linux distribution I was attempting to install while the Common_Data 
partition was up for grabs. 

Without going through a two week trial and error experience the issue with 
Common_Data became "The Issue". First I set for fat32 but RH 8.0 and SuSE 8.2 
refused to acknowledge it existence. Then I tried fat but could not get it to 
go over 2032 MB. Then being discussed with RH 8.0 and SuSE 8.2 I bought 
Mandrake 8.2. More on the RH and SuSE issue in a moment. Anyway back to 
partitioning I installed the Mandrake 8.2 my partition problems as far as my 
operating system went away (doing expert installation). But! Now after 
installing Mandrake and adjusting my partitions RH 8.0 and SuSE 8.2 will not 
acknowledge the existing partition structure. The machine does is and is 
quite happy but RH and SuSE do not. That becomes latter.

Back to the installations. Well being a loyal RH addict I tried RH 8.0 on the 
new box. Think was that it would be easy to correct the RH setup. Not so but 
that was the thinking. Well first I could not get it to install. Now I have 
done over a hundred RH installation generally I must admit because I screw 
something up, haven't the fainest idea of how to fix it, and solve the 
problem by reinstalling the system. Point is I had gotten good at it. I could 
do an installation, take a shower, eat, and conclude it as fast as the CD 
would read the data and install it. 

Then I hit RH 8.0 on the Thinkpad. First I couldn't get it to work - and I 
mean basically work as a GUI installation. Here I mean the system after the 
installation not the installation process. Solve this by installing for 
command line (user level 3) not 5 (GUI). Started X and had GUI but what a 
shitty screen. Two points "Bluecurve" and the level of screen flicker 
rendered the screen unusable at times. Not all times but at times. Decided to 
try to install XF86 from SuSE which had a perfect screen in 2D. Problem 
appeared to be solved but not sure. Then I tried to switch to GUI start up 
direct with out going through command line. System would start and 
immediately crash. Solved that by removal of "Bluecurve Login" and using "KDE 
Login GUI". Then I tried to initiate KDE. That is when I finally gave up and 
went off to the old computer store. Note the sequence as described here is a 
wee bit more complex but this is close.

Well at the old computer store I had a choice of SuSE 8.2 or Mandrake 8.2. Now 
knowing that Mandrake 9.0 was out and knowing that Mandrake was similar to RH 
I chose SuSE. Bad choice for my usage. Installation went perfectly. Programs 
ran perfect. But! I ran head up against my old configuration problem. I could 
not get my strange configuration to stay on the SuSE system. I would change 
the configuration only to find upon reboot that the system restore had 
reconfigured the box again. Having no desires I wrote my $40 off as a lesson 
in what not to do and went and got the Mandrake 8.2 even though I had rather 
have had the Mandrake 9.0.

Now purchasing Mandrake 9.0 I put in the same category as attempting to buy 
cheap CD from some of the cheap CD places. Here maybe I am showing my bull 
headiness, stupidity, or maybe my knowledge of people but I never like to buy 
things from people I don't see. I just find it hard to do business that way. 
This means I don't like doing business where I have to call a company unless 
I personally know the person on the other end of the phone when I have the 
company's address and phone number. As far as sending my credit card number 
to a company with the hope that they will send me the product well not me 
folks. This becomes relevant in "I don't know how to order Mandrake with out 
doing this." Point is with no local supplier it was Mandrake 8.2.

Back to installation now with Mandrake. I installed MD 8.2 and immediately 
noted that it installed provided I chose 2D graphics and the "high intensity" 
driver for XF86config as chosen by MD 8.2 and 1020 x 780 resolution. No 
problems. Several minor issues. The screen flickers a little. So I decided to 
install XF86 and XF86 config from SuSE as I did to RH. No problem 2 simple 
instillations 2 hours and screen flicker problem solve. Ha Ha. SuSE8.2 and RH 
8.0 will not read the partition table from MD 8.2 so as far as SuSE and RH 
are concerned the drive is not partitioned. No was back to the MD 8.2 and I 
will update after I go on line.

On a more broad scale it will be noted that the three distributions discussed 
of the five listed all reflect commercial distributions. Each one has been 
modified from the standard. Two SuSE with YAST and RH with the Bluecurve have 
been modified to such an extent that they are not usable for my installation. 
This modification is something that I have great fears about with Mandrake 
9.0 in light of existing experience,

It will be noted that two distribution have not been discussed. Debian and 
Gentoo. Both are not commercial, both are only readily available over the 
internet with a high band width connection which I don't have. It could be 
pointed here that Debian is available from people like "Cheap Bites" but that 
has two complications. One being my concepts of money. The other brings in 
Gentoo sort of. Gentoo is a distribution which is really not a traditional 
distribution but one in which you choose what you want and how you want it. 
Which packages and how you want them installed.

As far as I am concerned I am not currently technically qualified to configure 
Debian or download Gentoo much less configure it but developing that 
competency is where I am headed as I find the situation, issues, and problems 
associated with SuSE, RH and Mandrake as acceptable as the one I encounter 
with MS Windows are.

Thanks

Frank