Brendan Dacre wrote: > > The main criterion is what I call "maximum parsimony". I do not want > bloated installs (one of my reasons for being disenchanted with > Windows). I only want to install on each machine the minimum needed > to serve the purpose of that machine and then to add/remove > (reasonably easily) packages I need (or don't as the case may be). At > least two (one server and one workstation) will be designated > "production" and I want them to always work, be stable and easily > maintainable (upgradeable and patchable).
The standard answer at this point is debian. I suspect I will be considered "odd" for saying so, but I've not had good experiences with debian and upgrading software. The more realistic answer is that any distribution that has a package management system will do this. > > > I am a programmer (of sorts) so I eventually want to learn how to > install and modify source distributions. I am also planning to do > some work on an open source project, so I will be targeting machines > for a number of purposes. To this end, it would be preferable for me > to be able to create my own distributions from a suitable base. I > won't have a lot of choice what hardware I use (much of it will be > old) and I may have to trash and rebuild some machines multiple > times. I will not necessarily have a bootable CDROM drive. When you say "create my own distributions", do you mean you want to install your own software, you want to make packages of random software (be it your own or someone else's) or that you really do want to start from scratch and build the whole thing yourself? If you really do want to start from scratch (and IMHO it's much more work than it's worth), try linuxfromscratch (http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/) In the other two cases, again, any packaged distribution will do that. You just need to add the packages to your CD and add those packages to the relevant "list" of packages. > > > I regard these things as base for all machines: > > Linux kernel supporting machine hardware > Base networking > C/C++ compiler to be able compile kernel/modules locally on machine > Printing > Web browsing > X windows on workstations, not servers > > I am not afraid of the command line and advocate scripting to automate > processes. However, graphical/browser interfaces sometimes make > things easier in certain circumstances. I am not sure whether what I > have said makes me sound like a "hacker", but I think that I am more a > "control freak". My objective is to control and customize my > environment. Ok, I recommend the following: use Debian on your servers. If you don't ask it to do extraordinary stuff (and I know I'm going to be rebutted there) it will work, it will be stable and secure and it will give you an easy way to upgrade your software. For your workstation machines, Mandrake is great. It's a really nice desktop OS. It also has a easy way to install and upgrade new software, and I just had a play with the new configurator tool that will be shipped with mandrake 9.0 and it's very smooth. If you're familiar with windows, Mandrake will give you an easy transition, whilist still giving you access to all the stuff that makes linux linux. If you use the stable releases you can just install it and everything will "just work" straight out of the box. Wait till mandrake 9.0 is released though (9.0 beta 2 is out now). If you really want ultimate control, you might want to look at Gentoo. I've not used it, but I've seen a machine running it and it will give you lots of control, and you can customise what is installed right down to the options given to the compiler that builds the software. So, Gentoo -- http://www.gentoo.org/ Mandrake -- http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/ Debian -- http://www.debian.org/ I'm afraid I can't recommend distributors in sydney. I normally just get someone with a fast net connection to download it and burn it to cd. HTH James. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group - http://slug.org.au/ More Info: http://lists.slug.org.au/listinfo/slug
