George (i.e., Joe Linux) is probably the only person on the island who
has tried essentially every Linux distro on earth. I know he has at
least tried Mandrake 8.2, Red Hat 7.3, SuSE 8 (by me on his behalf),
Caldera 3.1.1, Lycoris (previously called Redmond Linux), Xandros, ELX
(from India), TurboLinux, Vector Linux 2.5 (which he was heavily
involved in the development), Slackware, and perhaps a few others that I
am not aware of. His experience in desktop Linux is truly invaluable
(but unfortunately not much appreciated here).
I don't think a Linux server guru will use a stock Linux distro without
some customization. Why should we expect a Linux desktop user will be
satisfied with a stock Linux distro.
For desktops, the main criteria are ease of installation (which includes
hardware detection), stability, whether they can be easily customized to
your liking, and whether they will run your programs.
I used to like SuSE 7.3 a lot, but, as influenced by George, I am now
firmly in the Mandrake 8.2 camp. I have not tried Red Hat 7.3 yet, but
I heard it has problems with Win4Lin 4.0. I am sure this problem will
be solved sooner or later. However, as George told me, Red Hat 7.3 does
not seem accommodate IceWM, plus so far I am quite pleased with Mandrake
8.2, I don't see any need to play with Red Hat 7.3.
IceWM (with customization) is a very important part of business Linux
desktops equation. In order to entice Windows users to the Linux camp,
you would want your desktop to take as little time as possible to load,
and it should be absolutely stable.
Peace
wayne
R. Scott Belford wrote:
Edward,
You are more man than most. Mandrake and Red Hat have come a long way
since the versions you have . So has Turbolinux, and I imagine you
have an earlier version of Caldera there with you. These are all the
versions where I started piddling with Linux. I loved to and still
love to play with installing different distro's, so I respect your
endeavor. If you can make it to the Installfest, I am sure some of us
can share some more recent CD's with you (if you have no burner) so
that your experience can be with the "best" these distributors have to
offer. You may learn less since each distro has gotten happier,
easier, and more friendly, but that's okay. Throw Suse in the mix. I
have not tried it in years, but several list members use it and seem
to like it alot.
have fun
scott
On Sunday, May 26, 2002, at 11:26 AM, Edward Haddock wrote:
Joe,
I will look into it. I currently have a copy of Mandrake 7.0, Red Hat
6.1,
Caldera, Turbolinux 4.0 and Storm Linux. I am just going through and
installing each to see how they work. Mostly, I am looking at
learning and
being able to use Linux at a level that I can DOS/Windows. I am also
planning on FreeBSD at some point .............
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