On Tuesday 10 July 2001 02:01 pm, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
| Even if you don't choose SuSE, MAKE SURE YOU TRY IT! It is a
| different feel, but it's nice! That and the fact that the 7 CD's
| for Professional have a huge amount of CATALOGUED software... What
| do I mean by this? Do you remember the "Specify Selection" option
| W3.1 and LTP gave you when installing, allowing you to choose the
| apps to install? Well, imagine something like that which allows
| un-/installing entire software selections (notifying and/or
| automagically installing dependent packages). We're talking
| INTELLIGENCE programmed in!
|
| Other than that, it has a nice look and feel, like it was polished
| a bit.
a bit too much, imho. there is a definite authoritarian feel to the
thing that actually punishes anyone who knows anything about linux.
example: do fairly standard edits on /etc/inittab (stuff like
changing the default runlevel to 3), and suse *changes it back!*
now. i know of no way whereby the default runlevel could be changed
except on purpose, and it's not the kind of thing that some newbie,
logged in as root, would be likely to do by accident. ("hey, i know
what let's do! let's open this /etc directory and the files in it and
just go around and change the numbers that we find to other numbers
and see what happens!") so it can be pretty well assumed that if
/etc/inittab has changed, it was done with a reason in mind by
someone who wanted it that way. suse doesn't care. suse has decided
how it will be, und you vill like it.
then there's the matter of trying to sort out their xfree -- 3.3.6
and 4.03, both in the same big directory -- and their kde and gnome
(my solution has been to nuke all of it, grab the source for qt and
the latest cvs for kde, and build 'em; at least they do put kde in
/opt, though at this point it scarcely matters; then create all kinds
of goofy symlinks so that yast2, through which *everything* *must* be
done in suse, will run).
then there's the matter of all the -devel stuff, which is installed
in only the "install everything" option. i've had kde builds blow up
due to lack of ssl and motif and other stuff, even though those
things are installed. why? because suse obstinately refuses to
install the headers, splitting 'em off into -devel packages for
literally everything. it stands to reason that people who install
stuff like gcc might just be planning on compiling stuff, so whatever
options install gcc ought to install the things that gcc is likely to
employ. (this isn't just a suse thing, though suse makes it worse
than anyone else i've seen.)
there is just no need for any of this. you can make a distribution
newbie friendly without confounding those who have come to edit their
configuration files by hand.
i'm running 7.2 on two machines here, but had i it to do over, i'm by
no means certain that it would be my choice. (nor would mandrake,
which is my estimation a lounge singer doing barry manilow tunes
compared to red hat's actual barry manilow -- who i wouldn't go see,
either.)
it's as if everybody is trying to drive us to debian, which would be
a good idea anyway but for that distribution's politics and attitude.
(i'd have kept progeny on the machine, but progeny wants to use grub,
and i cannot abide grub, seeing no reason on god's green earth for
it.)
so. how is everyone this morning?
--
dep
there's more to history than what's in books;
that's why it took so long to happen.
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