If we have a considerable amount of non-Debian supplied and maintained packages, I would suggest looking into how difficult it is to add unsupported packages to Gentoo. If that is no less difficult than with the usual packages, we go with Debian anyways. If Gentoo is easier with mixing compiled vs. binary (or, in Gentoo's case, supported vs. unsupported) packages, I suggest we go with gentoo despite the server's one CPU.
I think package maintanance is the crucial factor here, pushing all other considerations to be almost moot.
Shachar
Shlomi Fish wrote:
OK. Since everybody agree that keeping the old RedHat 6.2 installation is
not a good way to manage the server, we should make a choice regarding the
replacement distribution.
Alex Landsberg made it clear that we are free to choose whatever Linux
distribution we want, as long as it is indeed Linux. Viable choices that I
see are:
1. The latest version of RedHat, while possibly running a 2.2.x kernel.
2. Mandrake 9.0 (which ships with a 2.2.x kernel).
3. Debian
4. Gentoo (?)
5. S.u.s.e
There are many other distributions around, but few people here have
a lot of experience with them, and I believe every one of us prefers one
from the list.
Now, let's start analyzing which one is better.
S.u.s.e is not completely free, as some parts of the core distribution are
proprietary. Whether it should make any difference depends on how much one
is idealogical in regard to free software. I also find it unconventional
in comparison to RH/MDK, but that may have changed after it got the LSB
certificate.
Gentoo is a source distribution with a very flexible packaging system.
I don't know how many people of the core iglu.org.il had any experience
working with it. Furthermore, we will need to compile everything from
source, and since it's a single-processor machine, we can render the
system unusable or temporarily exploitable for quite some time.
RedHat is a distribution that aims to be suitable for the desktop as well
as for the server. Its package updating service up2date requires
registration, and AFAIK is less flexible than the Mandrake or Debian
offerings. Generally speaking, Mandrake aims to be a RedHat-compatible
distribution with many improvements, so it is possible that it is
preferrable.
Mandrake is a nice system which I used and administrated for my own
personal use. It usually has some cute configuration bugs that are usually
easily resolved. It has urpmi as a package installation front-end which is
very nice, albeit its package pool is not kept up-to-date as much as
Debian. Getting a system to work on a server in a robust way will require
eliminating a lot of junk due to the fact that Mandrake target themselves
for the Desktop. vipe.technion.ac.il uses Mandrake (8.1 I believe) and is
relatively stable and robust. I also uses kernel 2.4.18.
One problem with it may be that in order to install security updates and
similar bug-fixes one needs to invoke MandrakeUpdate which is an X-windows
application. It itself uses some command-line programs internally, but I
did not see how to do the same thing from the command-line documented
somewhere. I suppose I can ask the vipe admins.
Debian is a distribution with a very sophisticated package management
system (short only of Gentoo) and a huge trio of packages pool. It is
still not LSB-compliant as RedHat and Mandrake are. Moreover, a new
version of the distribution comes out every three years or so, while other
distributions have semi-annual upgrades. Nonetheless, a Debian system can
be made up to date by upgrading to the testing distribution using apt.
My personal preference would be Mandrake, but I am willing to compromise
on Debian as well, if only to finish this war, and get us with a better,
more up-to-date system. Administrating Debian may prove to be a worthwhile
experience.
Regards,
Shlomi Fish
BTW, I once encountered newbie Linuxers who chose to install Debian
because it was a free distribution. I told them RedHat and Mandrake were
equally as free despite the fact that there was a company behind them.
(the FSF has nothing against commercial distributors of free software).
He was then surprised to here that it was perfectly OK to sell free
software, even for an insane amount of money.
I think there's a lot of hype in Debian about how free it is, and it hurts
the other free distributions, and even the proprietary Linux distributors
whose core system components are still open-source. It does not help too
much that Debian is the FSF endorsed distribution, and that it has a
distinction among "free" and "non-free" packages. If you ask me, it's just
free software bigotism.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Shlomi Fish [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Home Page: http://t2.technion.ac.il/~shlomif/
Home E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"Let's suppose you have a table with 2^n cups..."
"Wait a second - is n a natural number?"
