On Thu, Jan 12, 2006 at 11:34:40PM -0800, Jacob Meuser wrote:
> > I wasn't at all surprised by the result. As I was answering the questions,
> > it occurred to me that I was biasing the outcome by choosing the
> > characteristics of the distribution I'm already using.
>
> I tried it, since I don't currently really use Linux.
>
> gave me 6 "perfect matches":
>
> ubuntu
> mandriva
> suse
> debian
> fedora
> kubuntu
You chose the same options I did then with an "I don't care" about package
managers. =) In order to choose the anything-but-rpm path, you have to
select that and then discount the RPM dists. That leaves the Ubuntus and
Debian.
Apparently the Linux world is committed to the RPM, save for Debian and
its derivatives--of which only Knoppixlikes and Ubuntu actually matter.
Gentoo and Slackware don't count for the push to the desktop, and people
with lots of machines to maintain are going to respond "yeah right" to the
extra overhead on top of their current duties.
> hmmm, actually, I would probably use gentoo or slack if I "had to"
> use Linux.
>
> I definitely _would not_ use ubuntu or mandriva.
You're a BSD user. Masochism is a fact of life. Read email. Read
security websites 1-74. Read security newsgroups. Read security email
that just arrived. Laugh at Windows vulnerabilities. Read email again.
See rumor of exploit for some server you run. Investigate rumor. Read
security websites. #47 has reported a vulnerability. Two hours later #26
has a patch, but #66 doesn't know for sure that it fixes the problem. #30
issues a revised patch that does two hours after that. Meanwhile you've
been spinning your wheels all day waiting for the patch. Now you can
apply it, recompile, test it, deploy it, and return to the cycle. At the
end of the day you can still make fun of Windows admins who have to be
stuck with unpatched vulnerabilities for weeks at a time, but they at
least got some work done today. So you go home bitter and angry and
declare that software sucks, human beings suck, and you're going to go
play nethack, and you wonder whether or not you can turn off your mobile
for a few hours to be off the grid while you do.
It involves placing a lot of trust and control in the hands of another,
but a distribution like Ubuntu allows someone ELSE to become disgruntled
trying to manage most of this stuff. I just set up scripts to scan for
vulnerabilities in my NAT router (since it's the front door to my LAN) and
for essentials: ssh, postfix, and apache. These are big enough that I
need only scan a few websites, and I can do it with a small python script.
I have a life outside of being a server monkey, and even if I didn't,
server monkeying is annoyingly tedious IMO.
--
"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act,
but a habit."
-- Aristotle
_______________________________________________
EUGLUG mailing list
[email protected]
http://www.euglug.org/mailman/listinfo/euglug
