Which is your Favourite Linux?

Both those package managers still rely on the central server (either 3rd party or official) to work.

"Real" ports systems (such as FreeBSD ports) obtain the source files directly from the upstream vendor so you don't need to rely on a distro vendor to not screw up.

"Fake" ports systems (such as Arch pkgbuild) can just about make a package, but still need to get the dependencies from Arch's servers (which is pretty half-assed and useless IMO lol).

Since upstream vendors rarely provide binaries for *nix, a ports collection is the next best thing to the standalone packages for Windows and MacOSX.

Edit:
Being tied to an external server (online activation server) is the reason I left Windows in the first place... So you could say that I have a bit of a hangup ;)
 
kpedersen said:
"Real" ports systems (such as FreeBSD ports) obtain the source files directly from the upstream vendor so you don't need to rely on a distro vendor to not screw up.
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Slackware does not modify the upstream source from the vender, the source is provided as is (the source is put into the Slackware package format...that is the only modification). Slackware provides vanilla source code.
 
hitest said:
Slackware does not modify the upstream source from the vender, the source is provided as is (the source is put into the Slackware package format...that is the only modification). Slackware provides vanilla source code.
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This isn't quite what I meant.

Basically, when you add new software using Slackware's native package system, where does it download software from? It doesn't download it from upstream, it fetches it from slackware, one of it's mirrors or a third party site. If all of these go down (i.e in 5 years) then you are pretty much stuffed.
Afterall, I don't even think the Apple appstore will be around in 5 years.. It will have evolved into the next biggest gimmick.
 
You aren't forced to use the package managers, but I'm not sure why you wouldn't. At least, not for a desktop computer. I can see how something like Arch Linux would not be ideal for a server.

As for sites going down, yeah it happens. It's only an issue if Arch Linux itself no longer exists and there is nobody maintaining the repositories. Which could happen, in which case you'll be stuck doing everything manually or switching distributions.
 
kpedersen said:
This isn't quite what I meant.

Basically, when you add new software using Slackware's native package system, where does it download software from? It doesn't download it from upstream, it fetches it from slackware, one of it's mirrors or a third party site. If all of these go down (i.e in 5 years) then you are pretty much stuffed.
Click to expand...

Granted. But any distro can go belly up and you will be pretty much hosed if the mirrors go south. There are many mirrors for Slackware.
 
I'm gonna go ahead and chime in here real quick. I already said my favorite Linux distros, but this Package Manager stuff is something I have an interest in, so with the last page or so being almost all that, I read through them.

First, Slackware and BSD are actually pretty similar. In fact, if you pay for the actual FreeBSD and Slackware CD or DVD sets, the packaging is even almost identical.

Years ago when 6.0 was the newest RELEASE, I had been in college for Computer Science, and I had gotten my check from the school I was going to, to help pay for things I needed. Well, that particular year, I'd been on Honor Roll, and I got a pretty good sized check, and I decided I'd use a good chunk of it, to catch up on my BSD stuff, so I started looking around for what I wanted. I went to the FreeBSD Mall, and the Slackware store.

I ordered basically everything from the FreeBSD Mall; When I got a phone call for a Confirmation on some info, I remember the girl asking exactly what I ordered, and when I finished telling her, she was pretty shocked at how much money I'd spent. I basically ordered one of everything I could.

I got EVERY book they sold except for The Complete FreeBSD 3rd Edition because I already owned that one, and instead got the O'Reilly version, and then The FreeBSD Handbook, both the second Edition, and both books from third, "Teach Yourself FreeBSD in 24 hours", a FreeBSD 6.0 CD set, which I ended up getting two of those because a book came with the first disc of it as well, so I kept both of the CDs, and then I also got the FreeBSD Mouse pad, which, even though this was a while ago, is what I'm using right now, and the Stickers I got a bunch of, and the Case plates, and the Tee Shirt I'd wanted, and Boxers, everything. And of course; "20 Years of Berkeley Unix" on DVD!!!! (I HIGHLY HIGHLY HIGHLY Recommend ANYONE here, to order this. It's a talk by Marshall Kirk McKusick, who to me, is a Legend, and incredibly funny too. I have watched this thing probably 400 times or more, and I still love it, order it !! You can get it from his web site, but back then I saw it on the BSD Mall site).

That's not all I ordered, but it gives you an idea of how big of an order it was lol. I even spent the extra to over night it. Then, I went to the Slackware store, got the second Edition of Slackware Essentials, the 4 CD set of.... I can't remember if that was 10 or 10.2, but one of them; And then I got the Slackware basic tee shirt, Mouse Pad, a couple of the Case Plates, and, a few other things.

I couldn't over night this one, so I got second day shipping.

Now, about 12 hours or so later, I noticed a package on the Porch. I could see it was from the "FreeBSD Mall" so I grabbed it and brought it in, and it was HUGE. I knew I'd ordered a lot, but I didn't know it was THAT much.

Then I opened it up and it made sense; Inside was all the stuff I'd ordered from the FreeBSD Mall, AND everything from the Slackware store! All in the same box. Then it hit me; I'd already realized that the Official CD-ROM Sets from FreeBSD and Slackware looked A LOT alike, but then I checked my first edition of Slackware Essentials; Sure enough, there was a BSDi logo on the back of the book.

So, long story short, if you order stuff from both stores, you're probably going to get it at the same time, in the same box. I was told by someone who works for the FreeBSD Mall that they actually do in fact do the Slackware store, as they like Pat, and Slackware.

I also got Free Sticker from BSDMall once because another order was having problems and got VERY delayed. I was NOT rude to them about it, I was understanding, but DID tell them that I wasn't exactly happy about it, and because I made my point in a more laid back not freaked out way I ended up with like a BUNCH of FreeBSD and generic "BSD" stickers which literally cover my Laptop.

Actually, BSDMall, MAY be where I got the DVD of Kirk. Either way it's great so buy that!

And also, if you don't know since I'm on the topic; If you go to Kirk's Web site, and check out the stuff you can buy, not only can you get the DVD, but, you can get the CSRG CD set! THAT is what I'm currently aiming at. I REALLY want it. I mean the Historical aspect alone is cool.

Anyway, Slackware and BSD seem pretty close for the most part, and again, because Slackware doesn't do their mods like a lot of other distros do, you really aren't screwed as on person said, if Slackware went under. I mean you could just as easily build the Packages yourself, and do it all yourself, as they aren't modified anyway.

Personally I've used quite a few Package Managers, and the ones I liked best for all around installation, and removing, were FreeBSD's, SuSE Linux (Using Yast, or YAst2 if you have X loaded) and Debian of course.
 
Bellum said:
You aren't forced to use the package managers, but I'm not sure why you wouldn't.
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In most linux based distros you pretty much *are* forced to use a package manager. For all but the most simple of applications you do not want to be spending days learning how to compile the software. Also, if you look at all the patches in the Arch AUR, the FreeBSD ports or in the RHEL5 SRPM system, you really don't want to be compiling from source because without these patches you may leave the software open to things like memory leaks or build issues.

The reason not to use package managers is just one big one. What happens when the package server goes down?

The distfile system that FreeBSD (ports) uses ensures that no central package server is used. Meaning that nothing could ever go down.

Microsoft Windows users don't need to download every bit of software they use from Microsoft's servers so why should linux users be any different. It is hardly freedom.
 
The biggest problem with Linux packaging is that there's usually a lot of patching and prodding done by the package people.

For example, CentOS ships with OpenSSH 4.3p2 (From 2005, IIRC). It backports some fixes and even some features. It's not entirely clear *which* features it exactly backports or if they are done correctly. The end result is that you've got some sort of woefully outdated FrankenSSH.
In any case, it seems like a whole lot of wasted effort to me. It also makes stuff damn inconsistent across distributions and OS's.
 
Just for sake of argument (As no one is really playing bad guy it seems) since you DO have the source anyway, in theory, you could keep it going yourself if you really wanted. I mean if McDonald's goes out of Business, which has about the same chance and Novell going down, I could still make a Big Mac for myself if I had the Ingredients, and Source Code is nothing more than an Ingredient list for Software much like "This type of dough, made this way at this temp" and "this meat seasoned this way and cooked this way at this temp" would let me keep making or even selling Big Macs if McDonald's ever went down.

I mean, I DO agree that quite a few ways you deal with installation and management of software on a lot of Linux distros is outright stupid, but, not all are like that. And, of course, there's also ease of admin work like how when you do upgrades and patches on Linux VS BSD, it's REALLY different. I don't always love the BSD way with Ports, as I'm more of a Packages kind of person (I don't want to Compile anything if I don't have to, and would like Packages more which is why I use them).

Just a thought.
 
Hi,

I do not have Favorite Linux, just the habit of using Debian, Red Hat and VMware at work.
When I install a new Red Hat server at a client office, I use graphical interface but selects none of the options and verify to deselect all preselected ones. I prefer add myself what is needed after first reboot. Deployment is easy using Red Hat kickstart and pretty configurable (pre and post scripts). PXE is also available for most Unices.
Sometimes a new package I want to install needs more than 20 dependent packages, and I have to check it by hand and old systems, but that's not too hard to do, just annoying.
I don't like install any server with X11, I prefer install minimal requirements to run remote graphical applications through SSH, such as Red Hat cluster interface (XML configuration becomes a bit hard to manipulate with vi).
About VMware based on Red Hat, I use command line for advanced configuration tasks for network (like remapping ethernet card to reorder themwhen you make an upgrade) or SAN.
Both Debian and Red Hat made improvements to manage packages, but when you want to had recent and/or custom services, it's often made by compilation tasks.

For personnal use, it's FreeBSD on my desktop, a sandbox server and a hosted server. It was FreeBSD on my laptop Thinkpad T60 but for several reasons (like flash port not working well and proprietary VPN client runing only on windows), I tried MAC OS X for a while and failed back to Windows, version 7. Perhaps I'll give another try with FreeBSD.
 
I guess my favorite would have to be red hat. I am partly biased because I was part of the conceptualizing team who build a good base for that release. Though Fedora is also a good contender for that crown.

I think each one has their own favorite but they all generally work good.
 
Red Hat - has unacceptable technical support which lets tickets languish for months or even years with no resolution.
Click to expand...

This is also my experience. I submitted a ticket once, granted, it was without patch, but I described the problem clearly and described what should be done to resolve it.
No reply what-so-ever. Not even a confirmation or mark as "invalid".
 
kpedersen said:
All Linux OSes completely tie the user down to the distro's package server, which is probably due to large company influences such as RedHat who want to "be in control" of their users and customers. For this reason, Linux pisses me off.
Click to expand...

I don't like it either, but I don't see FreeBSD as something considerably better. As far as I know, it still uses a centralized server maintained by distro-related people to fetch ports from.
I've been thinking about writing a truly decentralized package system that would store software in a decentralized database (i.e. Kademlia for files + DHT for metadata), where anybody could just add anything w/no formalities and anybody, not only a distro, could act as an authority signing packages they consider trustworthy.
 
Carpetsmoker said:
The biggest problem with Linux packaging is that there's usually a lot of patching and prodding done by the package people.
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Slackware does a very good job of delivering unmodified vanilla packages to users. Slackware is and always will be my favourite version of Linux.
 
gpatrick said:
Linux is really nothing more than a bad joke perpetuated upon the IT world, given steam by clueless senior management who believe that "it's less expensive" bullsh!t. It's cheap, not less expensive.

Give me an entire operating system any day, whether it is BSD, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, because then you don't have to deal with the inconsistencies of something bolted together piecemeal and expecting it to work even remotely well.
Click to expand...

gpatrick, it sounds like you or the company you work for is doing it wrong, in all possible ways.

Keeping a system up and going has more to do with planning, education, testing and change control than the actual technical parts chosen (operating system and so on).

The company I work for uses Red Hat, CentOS, AIX, Solaris, HP-UX, Windows and a few other platforms. We manage to keep them all running, with the occasional service disruption now and then. Granted, various platforms require different amounts of "attending time", but all are serviceable as production platforms. The company I work for is a large IT company in Norway, so I guess it is what Americans would call "small and medium business".

And why do you continue to buy crap hardware? You're only hurting yourself.
 
drhowarddrfine said:
Doesn't Linux have their own forums? Why is this thread going on for so long?
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Yes. This thread is rather extensive. However, this forum is the Off-Topic Forum where it is perfectly proper to discuss non-FreeBSD topics of interest.
 
drhowarddrfine said:
Doesn't Linux have their own forums?[sic]
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There is of course LinuxQuestions. And most distributions seem to have their own forums, too. The quality varies considerably, as far as I can see.

The biggest problem with LinuxQuestions in my opinion is that, no matter how clearly you state that you're using distribution A, people still feel compelled to post answers that only apply to distribution B - very annoying.

drhowarddrfine said:
Why is this thread going on for so long?
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Because people keep contributing to it. Does it bother you and, if so, dare I inquire why?

Fonz
 
fonz said:
Does it bother you and, if so, dare I inquire why?
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Three reasons. 1)
fonz said:
most distributions seem to have their own forums
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2) I see this exact same question on virtually very forum I go to.
3) What purpose does it serve to answer the same question for now three years but to repeat the same answer over and over without going off topic which it does at times?
 
drhowarddrfine said:
What purpose does it serve to answer the same question for now three years but to repeat the same answer over and over without going off topic which it does at times?
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I see your point. This thread has probably long outlived its purpose. But having said that, it's just one thread in the off-topic forum. If you don't care for it, isn't it easier to just ignore it?

Fonz
 
It's a nice magnet that keeps pointless Linux talk out of all the other threads, really.
 
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