Slack's not really scary, but you will get your hands dirty. Frankly when I read your initial post I thought "Slack!" then I read the part about easy updating. ;-) I guess it all depends how much maintenance you want to be doing. Slack is certainly capable of doing easy updates, but you'll have to write the bash script that d/l's from FTP and calls the package manager and logs the result. :-) Or find the tool(s) that will do those things and compile, install, and configure them. :-)
The recommendation to use Debian (or, I might add, some Debian derivative like Progeny, etc.) makes sense in light of this, since apt-get is a wonder and Debian is noted for stability (usually, I think). :-P But, to reflect Kevin's feelings about Debian, I'm not fond of the install either. And that's coming from a Slackware guy (Slack uses a text menu-based install). :-P >Gentoo won't be as bad as you're thinking it will be. Just follow the >instructions at Gentoo's site. I installed Gentoo once (a long time ago, first release) and I have to say their documentation was absolutely great then, and I assume they've only gotten better. It was actually fun to install Gentoo and to play around with updating packages via emerge, etc.. It didn't work well for me, but that was because I was installing it on a slow and quirky laptop, so I didn't expect much. I will add that Slackware is great if you don't want to use X since most everything is done from the CLI anyways. :-P Oh look, I haven't helped you decide at all yet. :-P To feel like I'm actually contributing something to your decision-making process, Jarrod, I'll repeat the age-old sage advice: "Never mix testing, development, and production environments." If you want to learn something new, pick something you think you might enjoy. For that purpose, I would highly recommend Slackware and Gentoo. (Both distros also run HL under WINE nicely. FYI.) ;-) If you want something steady and reliable, pick something you know and trust. This is not as much a reflection on distros so much as the "Ooooh, now I get it" syndrome that inevitably happens while admin'ing something new. Just my 2 cents. Curtis. -----Original Message----- From: Kevin Anderson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, June 04, 2003 11:09 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: (clug-talk) recommendations for a web server Gentoo won't be as bad as you're thinking it will be. Just follow the instructions at Gentoo's site. Debian wouldn't be too bad either, but I hate the install, personally. Remember, you can always try one, and then change your mind afterwards. Kev. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jarrod Major" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2003 10:39 PM Subject: Re: (clug-talk) recommendations for a web server -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hey Everyone, Thanks to those that have responded thus far. It looks like I will be putting the PII to the task. I was leaning that way anyhow. I suspected that a 10-BaseT was fine as it is as the Red Interface on my IPCop box. Doubtful I will do many heavy uploads to the Server so internally shouldn't need the 10/100, I may throw it in anyhow. We'll see. Definitely, don't intend to put X on there, just one more thing to slow it down and tie up disk space. No sense in running a GUI on a server anyhow. Most of your comments agreed with this decision anyhow. I am still left with which Distro to choose. As I said I would like it to be easy to update so SuSE would be the way to go from my personal bias. However, it may be time to get my hands dirty so Slack has also been suggested to me. I would really like to give Gentoo a kick at the cat but so far it appears to scare me (that's saying a lot if I am considering Slack over Gentoo as I always thought Slackware was by far the scariest distro one could choose). En Garde was another suggestion but it seems more geared to corporate stuff than the average home power user. Which leads me to inquire if anyone is aware of any server-centric distros. Google nets the usual suspects. I really don't want to go with Red Hat, sorry guys. It's not my cup of tea. I have the utmost respect for Red Hat but I've been hearing too much bad press about their latest offerings to seriously consider it. Yup, definitely have a long road ahead... On Tuesday 03 June 2003 10:05 pm, you wrote: > Bogi said: > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > > Hash: SHA1 > > > > > > I just installes a lunar-linux on a pII 350 with 256M ram. it took 48h to > > compile the kernel, a bunch of utils and libs, X4, kde311 and fvwm, plus > > a couple of x applications for my wife. > > Ouch, although the killers are X and KDE, even on my P4 Desktop it took 12 > hours or so to compile X, KDE, and Gnome. KDE for one takes *forever* to > compile, Gnome is faster but that doesn't help me since I prefer KDE :) > > My PII-400 only took a few hours to install, although I didn't compile > anything that had to do with X and I had installed Gentoo many times > before so that probably helped. > > > Cheers, - -- Jarrod Major GPG Fingerprint: FA4A 1EA3 A0EE A842 07BB 804C 0090 14F6 BE6E DE3D Registered Linux User: #224211 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.2-rc1-SuSE (GNU/Linux) iQCVAwUBPt14EACQFPa+bt49AQJ5jQP/biMGnpWGcOMhTM5LIOTVvZp1Elk1rRg6 T3Ka4ik0op8cqL5gpp9XJy6wcTUiqFGf6IGBY0eHOu2Bp5XOEHhL0bYwE0x9iU0V RZmBveKT+N93K7GZeXQmf+5czK29S6qGBA9kxeZ04rN0owj2SUfepFBgAUmljCMl 3631Xj0rkfg= =/4jT -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
