Re: Distro Stats
When I read Kenny's post, I checked on CNET to see if they had any stats. However they do have a review of distros including Red Hat 7.1. http://linux.cnet.com/linux/0-2136876-7-6594227.html?tag=st.lx.1491268.prmo. 2136876-7-6594227 Be careful because that URL may be word wrapped. List Monkey wrote: Hi- My impression is that RedHat is by far #1 in North America. 18 months ago, I was happy about this because I thought they had a really good distro...now I am not so sure, afetr the 7.0 fiasco... For my own servers and workstations, I run a highly modified RH 6.2. They have a good set of installer scripts that are all GPL'd, and are quite easy to modify. On Mon, 23 Jul 2001, Kenneth E. Lussier wrote: Does anyone know where I can find stats on what Linux distributions are the most widely used, highest market share, number of downloads, etc.? I've been asked to make sure that when I use Linux that I use the best, most standards comlient distribution. TIA, Kenny ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug ** -- -- Gerald Feldman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Boston Computer Solutions and Consulting ICQ#156300 ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
Re: Distro Stats
We have sort of decided to use RH (x86) for serveral reasons. They are not ordered by priority. 1) It is a major distribution and it appears that it will be around for a while. 2) One can buy support for it if needed (we're not doing this yet). 3) There appears to be a lot of vendor support at this time. 4) It seems to be popular so other people besides me and my colleagues a likely to be familiar with it. 5) The kickstart feature makes large scale automated installations less painful. We did not base this on a objective analysis. It's more of an educated guess based on what our customers are asking for at this time (which harkens to vendor support since what are customers are really interested in is the tools and not the OS. For linux on sparc we go with debian as RH has dropped support for sparc. Personally, I like RH, however, my bias is more toward debian as the package management is slick and the sparc platform is supported. My main linux system at home is debian running on a sparc-20 and it does what I want, however, this configuration would not be for everybody -- oh well. -- __ | 0|___||. Andrew Gaunt *nix Sys. Admin,, etc. Lucent Technologies _| _| : : } [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www-cde.mv.lucent.com/~quantum -(O)-==-o\ [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.gaunt.org Joshua S. Freeman wrote: I don't have any data on this, but, anecdotally, I believe RH is the most widely implemented on this side of the world... SuSe might be more prevalent in Europe... another plus of RH for PHB types is that there is a publically traded, viable company backing it... The other possibility is talk to some local, reputable vendor like antarctic-it and ask what they mostly support... if they do a lot of Debian support, perhaps you could use debian and present them to your bosses as a going concern that offers support... just thinkin' out loud... in answer to the main question.. market share... I don't think I'm going out on a limb here saying that RH is the most widely used distro... cheers, J. On Mon, 23 Jul 2001, Kenneth E. Lussier wrote: A couple of people have pointed out that this e-mail may be interpreted by some as flamebait. So, before it get's started, I want to clarify what I ment... I'm not looking for which distro people think is best, or even which one really *IS* best, since it is a completely subjective judgement. What I am looking for is some sort of documentation to show management that breaks down the distributions and what they offer as far as standards, support, market share (which I tried to no avail to explain was useless data), etc. I can use Linux, but I have to have documentation to make them feel good about the choice of distribution. Kenny Kenneth E. Lussier wrote: Does anyone know where I can find stats on what Linux distributions are the most widely used, highest market share, number of downloads, etc.? I've been asked to make sure that when I use Linux that I use the best, most standards comlient distribution. TIA, Kenny -- --- Kenneth E. Lussier Geek by nature, Linux by choice PGP KeyID 0xD71DF198 Public key available @ http://pgp.mit.edu ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug ** -- --- Kenneth E. Lussier Geek by nature, Linux by choice PGP KeyID 0xD71DF198 Public key available @ http://pgp.mit.edu ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug ** -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+- Joshua S. Freeman | preferred email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] pgp public key: finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.threeofus.com -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+- ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug ** ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
Re: Distro Stats
List Monkey said: Hi- My impression is that RedHat is by far #1 in North America. 18 months ago, I was happy about this because I thought they had a really good distro...now I am not so sure, afetr the 7.0 fiasco... Which was on par with their 6.0 fiasco (and probably their 5.0 fiasco, but I went from 4.2 to 5.2, so don't know). Word I've always heard is avoid a RH .0 release. I can say that I've been pretty happy with both 6.2 and the 7.1 on my work laptop. For my own servers and workstations, I run a highly modified RH 6.2. They have a good set of installer scripts that are all GPL'd, and are quite easy to modify. My general advice to folks is to try several distributions, finding out which one works the way you do. All of them have strengths and weaknesses, but the most important criteria is that you can use it. Contrary to PHB belief, not everyone thinks the same way (heck, even companies don't all operate the same way). One of the strengths of Linux is that you don't have to do things the Linux way - you can choose the RH, Debian, SuSE, Mandrake, TurboLinux, Caldera, . . . (this advice also applies to Window Managers / Desktop Environments - the best one is the one that works for you). In terms of standards compliance, almost all of them have agreed to follow the LSB, so as long as you use LSB-compliant apps, you should be OK (well, when LSB-compliant apps start showing up, but hey, the standard was just released). jeff --- Jeffry Smith Technical Sales Consultant Mission Critical Linux [EMAIL PROTECTED] phone:603.930.9739 fax:978.446.9470 --- Thought for today: deep hack mode n. See hack mode. ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
RE: Distro Stats
It may seem obvious, but to me, the best computer related products are the ones I just find myself always going back to. I try out different products, different word processors, email clients, browsers, and distros. I don't know how many email clients I've used, for example, hoping to find the perfect one, but I just keep going back to PINE, because it always works, and does everything I need. I always go back to RedHat. I've tried several others, but I just find myself always going back to it. Corel tries too hard to be Windows... Slackware is just too crude (two comments there: I haven't used slackware in many years, so that may well have changed, and when I was first learning Linux Slackware's crudeness was perfect, since it forced you learn how the things really worked on a low level)... They all have their quirks (RedHat is no exception to that rule); but RedHat just seems to be the best balance of what I find myself needing in a distro. Perfect? Certainly not! Definitely good though. RedHat gets my vote. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Jerry Feldman Sent: Tuesday, July 24, 2001 6:40 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: List Monkey Subject: Re: Distro Stats When I read Kenny's post, I checked on CNET to see if they had any stats. However they do have a review of distros including Red Hat 7.1. http://linux.cnet.com/linux/0-2136876-7-6594227.html?tag=st.lx.1491268.p rmo. 2136876-7-6594227 Be careful because that URL may be word wrapped. List Monkey wrote: Hi- My impression is that RedHat is by far #1 in North America. 18 months ago, I was happy about this because I thought they had a really good distro...now I am not so sure, afetr the 7.0 fiasco... For my own servers and workstations, I run a highly modified RH 6.2. They have a good set of installer scripts that are all GPL'd, and are quite easy to modify. On Mon, 23 Jul 2001, Kenneth E. Lussier wrote: Does anyone know where I can find stats on what Linux distributions are the most widely used, highest market share, number of downloads, etc.? I've been asked to make sure that when I use Linux that I use the best, most standards comlient distribution. TIA, Kenny ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug ** -- -- Gerald Feldman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Boston Computer Solutions and Consulting ICQ#156300 ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug ** ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
Re: Distro Stats
Andrew Gaunt wrote: We have sort of decided to use RH (x86) for serveral reasons. I don't think I've ever heard it put quite that way... ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
Re: Distro Stats
I wish I could take credit for that bit of wit, but, it was just another typographical monkey+typewriter phenomenon. Michael O'Donnell wrote: Andrew Gaunt wrote: We have sort of decided to use RH (x86) for serveral reasons. I don't think I've ever heard it put quite that way... ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug ** -- __ | 0|___||. Andrew Gaunt *nix Sys. Admin,, etc. Lucent Technologies _| _| : : } [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www-cde.mv.lucent.com/~quantum -(O)-==-o\ [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.gaunt.org ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
Re: Distro strengths and weaknesses (was Re: Distro stats)
Benjamin Scott said: On Tue, 24 Jul 2001, Jeffry Smith wrote: now I am not so sure, afetr the 7.0 fiasco... Which was on par with their 6.0 fiasco ... I dunno, I've gone through both upgrades, and I think Red Hat has reached a new low with this whole 7.x business. Between the development snapshot of GCC, and not including kernel 2.2 in 7.1, I am *very* discouraged. And I used to be a big Red Hat fan. Holding steady at 6.2. Question: Why do you want to keep kernel 2.2? (Just curious, since you are into security, if there are issues with the 2.4 kernel.) Rich Cloutier SYSTEM SUPPORT SERVICES www.sysupport.com ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
LPRng or CUPS
Hi All, I'm using Redhat 7.1 which uses the LPRng print system. I was wondering if anyone besided me is having any problems with this package? Second, how many people in this group is using CUPS? Later- Wayne ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
Distro strengths and weaknesses (was Re: Distro stats)
Derek D. Martin writes: ... Laptops tend to have all of the latest and greatest hardware ... Funny. My laptop (ca. 1996) seems to still have mostly just the same vintage of hardware that I bought it with (I did upgrade the hard drive to much bigger, which plays havoc with the suspend to disk feature support in the BIOS), While several of my destops seem more up to date (they were purchaced within the last few years). [For the humor impared::^)] Bill ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
Re: LPRng or CUPS
Before giving up a spare machine, I had Mandrake 8 running with CUPS on it. Very easy to setup through their embedded HTML server and I believe responds to lp commands from remote systems. Worked great even over the LAN. The hardest part was playing with the printers to find the right one. (Canon BJC-620 isn't directly supported, had to play with the 610 printer defs to find the right one). A couple of test pages later it was up and running. I would recommend it for a quick and easy way to setup a printer. I had started setting up sharing on it via samba but gave the machine up before I finished. I don't know if there are any issues with it, I think their FAQ said they support it, don't quote me on that one though. Wayne wrote: Hi All, I'm using Redhat 7.1 which uses the LPRng print system. I was wondering if anyone besided me is having any problems with this package? Second, how many people in this group is using CUPS? Later- Wayne -- + |||| || || Todd Littlefield ||SPECTRUM Apps Group|| || Aprisma Mgmt. Tech.|| - Tactical Division || || [EMAIL PROTECTED] ||- C, C++, Perl || || (603) 334-2593 ||- HTML, CGI, Java || |||| || + ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
Re: Distro Stats
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I've been asked to make sure that when I use Linux that I use the best, most standards comlient distribution. Most standards compliant is a moving target, on both sides. The LSB (Linux Standard Base) and FHS (File Hierarchy Standard) are both changing slightly, even if mostly stable. Each new release of a distribution changes their compliance to these standards. For instance, Red Hat has said they will not support FHS 2.x at this time. In six months or so, if the other distributions support it, they will go along. As a wild guess, that means wait for release 8.0. Bob Sparks Linux mouth Disclaimer: These are my opinions, and nobody else's. I keep trying to give them to my employer, but ... ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
Re: Distro strengths and weaknesses (was Re: Distro stats)
Benjamin Scott wrote: On Tue, 24 Jul 2001, Derek D. Martin wrote: While I largely agree with this, I will point out that RH 7.1 is GREAT for most of the laptops I've come in contact with. Are you having any problem with LPRng. Whenever I try printing a doc or a web page my printer hangs after it print the first page of the document. I've been trying to print the doc for LPRng for three days now and as of yet I'm still trying. My printer is a HP LaserJet 1100. I've never had a problem setting this printer before. Then again, I think this is the first time Redhat used LPRng. Later. Wayne ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
Re: Distro strengths and weaknesses (was Re: Distro stats)
On Tue, 24 Jul 2001, Wayne wrote: Are you having any problem with LPRng. My experience with LPRng is limited. The RHL 7.1 users in our office are using it, obviously. Their printers were setup using the GUI admin interface included by RHS, and configured to print directly to HP JetDirect embedded print server units. Apparently, LPRng does not read /etc/printcap, but instead generates it. I saw some possible weirdness in 7.0 with network printing, but was unable to verify. My printer is a HP LaserJet 1100. What happens if you cat a multi-page text file directly to the raw port? For example, cat my-big-file.txt /dev/lp0 -- Ben Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] | The opinions expressed in this message are those of the author and do not | | necessarily represent the views or policy of any other person, entity or | | organization. All information is provided without warranty of any kind. | ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
Backing talk with action? (was: Re: News from the Mouth front)
Ok, we talk about the benefits of open source and want to get sites in the governmental sector, is anyone willing to back talk with action? Specifically, I would like to know if there would be anyone who would be willing to commit to spend a few volunteer hours helping to configure and administer a Linux box running a list server, or even better some cutting edge open source groupware apps? This would be for a public-sector non-profit/quasi-governmental organization with no money to speak of (hence the volunteer status, at least for this effort). I'm sorry but I don't feel I can go into more detail right now, this is a chicken-and-egg situation where I'm trying to make sure the project is feasible before I present a proposal, but until the proposal is accepted the details are negotiable. Replies can be directly to me, or to the list, as you feel appropriate. THANKS! --Bruce McCulley [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...snip...] I took about 90 copies of a paper on using open source for nonprofit human services providers, and my Linux in Business and Government paper. [...snip...] Bob Sparks Linux mouth ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
Re: Distro strengths and weaknesses (was Re: Distro stats)
Wayne wrote: Are you having any problem with LPRng. Whenever I try printing a doc or a web page my printer hangs after it print the first page of the document. I've been trying to print the doc for LPRng for three days now and as of yet I'm still trying. My printer is a HP LaserJet 1100. I've never had a problem setting this printer before. Then again, I think this is the first time Redhat used LPRng. Later. Wayne What kind of document is it? If you'd post the entry in printcap for the printer you're using, that might help as well. I believe there are two or three queues typically accessible via LPD on most HP printers, one for ansi, another for PostScript. I forget their names... More info will be necessary. One thing I will tell you - I just tried setting up a queue for an 1100 for the first time on our OpenVMS cluster using the DCPS printer driver. DCPS usually has no problems communicating with any kind of HP printer, but I just -could not- make it work with the 1100. Not sure if it was the silly little tcp/ip dongle-usb connector hanging off of the printer or what. We spent a week thrashing on it and then told the user to get another printer - perhaps a 4000 series. That was the first time I've ever had to do that with an HP printer. (Well, a PostScript-capable HP printer, anyhow). It usually takes me a day at most to make DCPS work with a new HP model we've never printed to before. Usually more like a half-hour. Not sure if that has anything to do with your problems, but we were getting similar wierdo problems with some jobs going thru fine, some jobs hanging after a couple ten or hundred Kb. -Perhaps- the same thing you're seeing(?), although we comm to the printers via raw socket- port 9100, rather than LPD like you're doing. ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug ** -- Bob Kenney ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
Kernel 2.4 (was: Distro strengths and weaknesses)
On Tue, 24 Jul 2001, Rich C wrote: Question: Why do you want to keep kernel 2.2? (Just curious, since you are into security, if there are issues with the 2.4 kernel.) Security plays a factor too, since 2.4 is largely unproven in that arena, but that is actually a secondary concern for me. The main fear I have of 2.4 comes from the virtual memory manager (or VM, as the kernel hackers call it). It has some serious issues, especially with regards to disk swapping. From what I've been reading, it is something you can live with on a workstation, but I wouldn't want to trust a mission critical system to it. -- Ben Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] | The opinions expressed in this message are those of the author and do not | | necessarily represent the views or policy of any other person, entity or | | organization. All information is provided without warranty of any kind. | ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
Re: Distro strengths and weaknesses (was Re: Distro stats)
On Tue, 24 Jul 2001, Derek D. Martin wrote: While I largely agree with this, I will point out that RH 7.1 is GREAT for most of the laptops I've come in contact with. For that matter, is is probably fine for most desktop systems, too. At worst, it is still better than Windows, and free, too. We've got several desktop systems in the office running RHL 7.1, with minimal problems. I just wouldn't want to trust a server to it. You don't want your server crashing every couple of months because of swap starvation or some stupid thing. (We've also had weird problems with RHL 7.x not being able to bring down a PPP modem link programatically, which happens to affect several of our smaller customers.) Just make sure you stay on top of the updates... That applies universally. :-) -- Ben Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] | The opinions expressed in this message are those of the author and do not | | necessarily represent the views or policy of any other person, entity or | | organization. All information is provided without warranty of any kind. | ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **