first of all, let me thank all the people who have given me feedback on
this webpage. it has proven very useful. i will also like to thank william beebe for allowing me to
post his letter to redhat on this webpage. you can read his comments on
redhat here
i would also like to point out that when i first put this webpage
together, i made it clear that my comments on debian was from my
personal experience of using debian 1.3.5. obviously, debian has
improved tremendously with their 2.0 release. no longer are they behind
in packaged software for dselect. many say that debian packages now
surpass even redhat in packaged software. i don't doubt such a
claim.
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most well known. commercial support exists. lots of things can be done through the GUI (X Windows), which might be easier for the new users. lots of software and most come in RPM (redhat package manager) format. easy package installer and installation. | automates or tries to automate too many things. RPMs, some people don't like it. you can run it well without learning much about linux, which can be a pro or a con, depending on how you look at it. most of the system adminstrative stuff can be done in X windows which can be good and bad. if you can't get X running, you might have some troubles using it. i'm not sure about this, so can someone confirm this part for me. thanks. | i don't really like stuff like RPM and things like that ( although RPMs can be used by other linux distributions. check out http://www.rpm.org ). and although i am an apathetic lazy fool, i am still a control freak. thus i don't particularly like the way things are done in redhat. nonetheless i have to give credit to redhat, the company, for doing so much for the linux community. redhat . |
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GNU compliant. dselect. fairly easy install. politically correct (whatever that means in the linux world). and now with debian 2.0, it has A LOT of packaged software. making it very easy to upgrade and maintain. | dselect (some people abhor it). the install for debian is not well liked by everyone. some people hate the install (personally i have no problems with it). | i like it. i like dselect. i like how the installation works. i can get the base install up and running in about 10 mins. however, i've run into problems when it comes to detecting hardware. i don't think the install kernel detects as many different hardware devices as some of the other distributions (this was for debian 1.3.5). i really should be running debian but for some strange reason i am sticking with slackware 3.5. |
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considered one of the most solid distributions of linux. everything is left for you to configure to your own whims. a hacker's dream distribution. very light and fast. | its strength is also its weakness. almost everything is left to the user. not always friendly to the new user. it's also a pain to keep updating and maintaining it. and it is rather slow with coming up with the most recent version of some programs, eg. fdisk. | my personal choice. the one is running on my personal machine. i really like it because it forces me to learn more about linux. great for control freaks like me. someone remarked that this is the one linux distribution most closely resembling freeBSD. |
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the most popular distribution in germany. the install is very user friendly. yast, the program used for almost every adminstrative task, is easy to use too. | similar to redhat, people's biggest gripe about it is that everything is too automated or tries to be. yast - some people don't like it, just like some people hate dselect. supposedly, it is still using libc5 and bugfixes don't come out as fast as some people want them to. | i've used yast once and i was very impressed. but i'm happy with slackware so i doubt i'll be switching. from what i've seen of it, i am impressed by it. most of what i know of it are from people who run it and give me feedback. |
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caldera's stated intent is to be the linux for business.
because of their commercial stance, added value because of their deal
cutting with other companies. easy installation. some nice tools come with it. |
not enough customization options during the install. tries to do much configuration for you, which might irritate a lot of people. | none. these comments for caldera was submitted by gary singleton. you can reach him at gary@singleton.net or go check out his webpage http://gary.singleton.net |
