http://www.osnews.com/story/3156/Get_to_Know_the_Other_Linux_Distributions Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Tue, 10 Nov 2009 05:19:22 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Those list looks like my harddrive partition.
windows, freebsd, redhat, mandrake, suse, gentoo, slackware, vectorlinux, debain, and knoppix on cdrom.

Linux is try to beat Unix on the number of distributions too. Sun, 30 Mar 2003 08:21:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Sorry!¦I¦forgot¦that¦you¦can't¦post¦hyperlinks¦here.¦You¦can¦delete¦my ¦previous¦comment.

"¦SCO/Caldera¦used¦to¦be¦one¦of¦the¦most¦important¦players¦in¦the¦Linu x¦distro¦market¦a¦few¦years¦ago,¦but¦since¦Caldera¦acquired¦SCO,¦a¦lot ¦of¦things¦have¦changed¦in¦their¦strategies.¦Someone¦could¦argue¦that¦ they¦are¦not¦even¦"Linux-friendly"¦anymore.¦"

Hell,¦no.¦Take¦a¦look¦at¦http://www.pclinuxonline.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Forums...

Isn't¦it¦confusing¦that¦there¦is¦both¦an¦Arch¦Linux¦and¦an¦Ark¦Linux? Sun, 30 Mar 2003 08:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Yama, WHY do you post this here THIS WAY with no spaces? WHY do you abuse OSNews? This is not an appropriate behavior to a fellow news site.

Have you SEEN how your comment looks like with all these | symbols you put in your comment??? It looks terrible on any of my browsers here!! If you want to say something, say it, but don't use all these weird | symbols! Sun, 30 Mar 2003 08:34:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Yoper and Vector Linux had new releases very recently and they seem to be the strongest in this category, with the most potential.

I can understand Vector being in there but Yoper? I think you mean Yoper has the most potential to make as much money as possible with nothing to give back to the community. And one only has to refer to their forum post about how they were only aiming for businesses and that they don't need "geeks" or those with "no money."

(And yes I realize that Yoper pays OSnews to advertise). Sun, 30 Mar 2003 08:35:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Or in english a jackass. Sun, 30 Mar 2003 08:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Eugenia¦please¦calm¦down.¦You¦know¦me¦better¦than¦that.¦It¦was¦a¦total ¦accident,¦and¦I¦have¦no¦idea¦how¦it¦happened.¦Everything¦looked¦fine¦ when¦I¦typed¦it¦in¦Galeon¦1.2.9¦(with¦Mozilla¦1.3),¦but¦for¦some¦stran ge¦reason¦it¦looked¦garbled¦after¦I¦clicked¦"Submit".¦I¦am¦sorry¦if¦I¦ caused¦you¦any¦trouble. Sun, 30 Mar 2003 08:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Ok, thanks for clarifying (I sent you an email btw, before I read your explanation . I will have to mod down this as well (sorry cause it causes trouble to the layout of many browsers. Please use another browser and file a bug report to Galeon... Thx! Sun, 30 Mar 2003 08:41:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? > I can understand Vector being in there but Yoper?

Actually, Yoper is even more popular than Vector lately. Sun, 30 Mar 2003 08:47:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? The list of distros listed below are barely making more than 5% of the Linux market share by summing all of them (let alone the global OS market).

You've mentioned Gentoo in the article. By doing this, you've invalidated your own statement, as Gentoo alone has more than 5% of Linux marketshare. Sun, 30 Mar 2003 08:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? that I have no affiliation with 'yama' and regret that he is basically abusing my name. Sun, 30 Mar 2003 08:50:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? >And yes I realize that Yoper pays OSnews to advertise

So what? Do you think I will favor a distro (or company) just because they want to advertise with osnews? Hah! Fat chance.
Well, get the facts right because, *I* wrote the above article, *I* published it without getting an "ok" from anyone but *I am not* getting ANY money out of osnews. OSNews belongs to David Adams, it is not mine. He is the one taking care of advertising. I have nothing to do with ads on this site, I only maintain the code and the content. He pays the bills of the hosting and I keep the site running (for fun). That's our "deal" with David.
Therefore, your dubious remark there, is completely out of place, misleading and offending to me personally. Sun, 30 Mar 2003 08:53:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? >You've mentioned Gentoo in the article

Yes, but I also put Gentoo in the first list, in the beginning of the article. Gentoo is the BIGGEST of the distros mentioned in the second part of the article. However, Gentoo does not have more than 5% of the Linux market. About 2-3% is more like it. And the rest 3% is all the other distros mentioned there, all together.
Gentoo got really big exactly a year ago exactly (maybe up to 4-5% indeed), but its popularity fell a lot after 6 months (around September). Sun, 30 Mar 2003 08:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Gentoo got really big exactly a year ago exactly (maybe up to 4-5% indeed), but its popularity fell a lot after 6 months (around September).

Fell off ? How ? Why ? Proof ? Sun, 30 Mar 2003 08:59:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I must say that I really like both Redhat and Libranet... There is a new version of Libranet coming out soon so people might take a look at it.

Libranet is basically a modified Debian distro. When you buy it you get:

1. An improved installer that is easier to use.

2. Email / Forum support. Libranet has very high quality support.

Although I like Libranet, I wouldn't recomend it for people who don't like to have to edit config files. You'll need to edit atleast a few files (sources.list comes to mind) in order to get it working how you like...

The only real downside of Libranet is that it doesn't feel as polished as other 'easier' distrobutions like Mandrake & Redhat Sun, 30 Mar 2003 09:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? If this comes out garbled like my previous posts, please delete it. Thanks, and sorry for the trouble.

" SCO/Caldera used to be one of the most important players in the Linux distro market a few years ago, but since Caldera acquired SCO, a lot of things have changed in their strategies. Someone could argue that they are not even "Linux-friendly" anymore. "

Hell no. See http://www.pclinuxonline.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Forums...

Isn't it confusing to have both an Arch Linux and an Ark Linux? Sun, 30 Mar 2003 09:03:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Because of long awaiting releases and also there was no real expanding of the distro. A year ago, Gentoo was indeed the "new jewel" of Linux. A few months ago, many of its users flee back to other distros with the release of RH 8 especially. Gentoo had a "big boom" with the media last year, but this didn't keep. For the last few months, we barely get any news around the web about Gentoo. And when there are no news to keep the hype going, there are no new users either to be gained. It is simple economics.

Gentoo might come back when 1.4 gets released, but the distro seem to have sit back a bit right now. It is the impression I get from visiting a lot of linux sites on the web, including Gentoo's own forums. Sun, 30 Mar 2003 09:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Connectiva is the leading distro for the latin-speaking Linux userbase.

Latin speaking? I thought Latin was dead. Apparently Connectiva is old schoolus.

I bet the Pope uses this distro :-) Sun, 30 Mar 2003 09:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? ...when they're all very alike.

Come on, let's face it, every linux distribution is just a repackaging of the same software (different versions maybe), together with some minor admin tools that are distro-specific.
Some do have a specific goal, but most of them are just, well, copying what has been done before.
If you make a comparison of the 3 BSD's (or four, if you count OS X too), you'll see that there's far more difference between the systems: they each have a completely different kernel, completely different important system components like a firewall and such.
Each of them has a clear goal: FreeBSD = speed&stability on i386, NetBSD = extreme portability, OpenBSD = security that'll make a paranoid look naive, OS X = userfriendly desktop UI, without sacrificing (much) of the power of UNIX.
I think that's more valuable than 'just another linux distro' which does nothing but confuse people new to *nix. Sun, 30 Mar 2003 09:29:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Good article! Trying the alternatives is always fun.

I really enjoy trying out different operating systems, though about 80% of the time I'm dissapointed. One distro that I really think has a lot of promise is Alt Linux (Not to be confused with Ark.)

Pro's:
-Uses Apt-Get by default so installation is debian-esquely simple.
-Keeps up to date on new packages, so the use of apt doesn't mean you have to run unstable to try the newest thing.
-Based off of Mandrake (8.2?), which means the install is very straightforward.
-It's Russian based, which is great for those who speak russian.

Con's:
-It's Russian based, and all the mailing lists and much of the documentation are in Russian, which sucks if you speak english.
-The menus arrangments are HORRIBLE, absolutely the worst i've ever seen.

All in all, I'd recommend this distro to those who HAVE to have the newest thing, but are annoyed by gentoo's compile times and love easy installations.

Brian Sun, 30 Mar 2003 09:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? My first distro (back when I was a complete n00b) was Connectiva, even though I don't speak spanish/portuguese their english installation worked fine and I didn't have any troubles setting it up. I'd recommend it to anyone looking to go away from the mainstream... that's if there is a "mainstream" in nix.

In response to ".ac.be" anonymous, I do agree there are way too many distros, and maybe some should look into pooling resources rather than compete. Sun, 30 Mar 2003 09:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I was glad to see Brian's comment about ALT's distros after accidently reading the article (I appreciate the attempt of the article to explore something besides the main well-known distros and give info about it; thanks).

It can be difficult to understand in a short period of time what unique features the "other" distros have. For example, in the visible part (user interface), ALT has much in common with Mandrake, but the inner part can hardly be said to be Mandrake-based.

Brian,

a mailing list for English-speaking ALT users have been founded recently:

http://www.altlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/community-en

You are always welcome with your comments, e.g. about the the menu arrangement.

By implementing complete Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian support, ALT is trying to bring correct i18n to the system, thus making adding the support for another language an easier task.

Ivan Z., an ALT member Sun, 30 Mar 2003 11:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Well, Eugenia, you forgot Rootlinux there. A while ago an enterview with the guys behind Crux and Root was published, but you said nothing about it this time. In my opinion, Rootlinux is the best distro I've tried. In fact I've been using 1.4-unstable, and I think it's pretty good (appart some minor problems that can be corrected - hey, 1.4 is an unstable version). It's small, extremely fast, simple to use and to install. It just has what one needs, not 1001 packages to do the same thing like other distros do. I've been trying to help developing it. I just wish John Ericksson was not developing it so silently. Sun, 30 Mar 2003 12:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Gentoo might come back when 1.4 gets released

That's cause the damn release don't really matter, and anyone can care less about what version of Gentoo is released (until 2.0 that is, if there are major changes).

It's a bleeding edge source distro, and it's always up to date, it's always new...

Maybe that's why it isn't growing exponentially... but heck, they can always take RH's naming scheme, and release each friggin RC as a version. Or... erm... Release 1.4 as, Gentoo X. Sun, 30 Mar 2003 13:01:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I've tried both Mandrake and Suse and were very happy with both of them...

The only on ot "the others" that I tried was ELx. I got into the install and it didn't reogonize my n and S bridge, which was ok... Then it got to my scsi card and it wasn't on the SCSI card list... I gave up...

MarkP Sun, 30 Mar 2003 13:54:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Remember, it was the first linux distro pentium oriented and they bring a new package format. I reached their site today and it seems that the project is reborn after being freezed.

Anybody knows the whole history ?


and what about the stormlinux 2K (debian desktop based) ? Sun, 30 Mar 2003 13:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I tried many of these different distros and stuck with Windows. However, I recently tried Lindows and have finally been able to easily install and use Linux full-time now.

Bye bye Bill.

Mark Sun, 30 Mar 2003 14:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? >>>> Connectiva is the leading distro for the Latin-speaking Linux userbase.

> Latin speaking? I thought Latin was dead. Apparently Connectiva is old schoolus.

Haha, verius funnius.

Of course, strictly speaking, Eugenia (and many Americans) is not wrong. Portuguese is a Latin language, as much as English is a Germanic language.

So USA is a Germanic speaking country. Congrats.

What would be not right is calling Brazilians, Portuguese and Italians by the "Hispanic" designation -- as it's often done.

Hispanic refers to Spain (and spanish-speaking countries, but this is stretching), and has its own charateristics (some even great: hispanic women are among the most beautiful on Earth) -- which we don't possess.

As a side note, Conectiva is a thought-up name, possibly meaning "something (female) making connections". *It has just one "n"*, probably because we never use "nn", nor "mm", nor "tt" in Portuguese. There's only "rr" and "ss".

> I bet the Pope uses this distro :-)

Maybe the Pope uses Windows -- for the Cathedral thing, y'know... ;-)

Also, Eugenia cannot cover an infinite amount of distros. There's no point in saying "You forgot this or that". A new Linux distro is born everyday. Sun, 30 Mar 2003 14:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I am surprised that we are not seeing more Linux distributions with an emphasis or focus on the server side. Why are so many distributions chasing the desktop? Microsoft will shortly be releasing Sever 2003 (as reported recently on OSNews). While arguments continue about Linux's desktop usability, Linux has proven itself as a solid server platform. I would like to see some of the usability and ease-of-use initiatives diverted to Linux as a dedicated server platform. Linux has a much better chance of competing with Microsoft in this sphere. There are many small businesses who would benefit from the tools available from a dedicated server distribution - why not grab them before Microsoft does? Sun, 30 Mar 2003 14:49:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Since August, I have had a project going to see which versions of Linux would be the best for Mom & Dad. It has taken me to many different places. I've tried every desktop oriented distro.

The easiest to install and use are Lindows and Lycoris. I've scratched potentially the most likely to succeed - Lindows. It is too expensive and I simply do not trust its leadership. Lycoris is wonderful, but is still in KDE 2.2.2. I admire them for taking their time and I don't see the need for frantic releases. But, Lycoris has been in KDE 2.2.2 for a long, long time now. And KDE 3.1 is so much better. I hope the take the plunge soon. Xandros is good too, especially its file manager, but they are still in KDE 2.

In the meantime, I got involved in other distros with a more corporate nature. Basically, this means SuSE, Red Hat and others. I really like SuSE 8.1 and can't wait to see 8.2. I feel the same about Red Hat 9 (which I can finally download tomorrow!). BlueCurve had a radical effect on me. It raised the bar. But, KDE 3.1 is mighty fine too. I've tried about thirty distros, including Knoppix, which is really cool.

But, it can get tiring. And that isn't fair to the good distros which seem pretty much the same as some others. Closer examination often disclose featutures not evident at surface level.

Also along the way, there are other things that have intrigued me, that have nothing to do with my original mission. For example, I would like to try Free BSD and I would like to use Apple's X11 beta on Darwin. Waaaah! I need more time!! :-)

But, if I get tired, I remember I would still just be using OS X and XP Pro (and Be ;-) and have no knowledge of anything else. That is unimaginable to me now. This forum has been my lifeline. Not being here has become unimaginable. Thanks so much David and Eugenia and all who take the time to make intelligent and worthwhile posts!!! Sun, 30 Mar 2003 14:59:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? About a year ago I called up D-Link to ask them to produce some linux drivers; they responded that linux isn't big anymore, since it hadn't received much media attention as of late. The words of the tech support clerk remind me of a certain osnews poster. I realize that you journalistic types don't believe in these little things called "facts", but might I suggest visiting www.distrowatch.com and looking at the top 10 list? How about visiting the second most popular channel on OPN(#gentoo) and asking for some statistics? Sun, 30 Mar 2003 15:34:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Actually, Eugenia, gentoo does get a lot of publicity. A small amount of their users are very vocal about throwing plugs all over slashdot, osnews, etc. and that does get new people...

...annoyed

I'm honestly not trying to flame here (I think gentoo is a good distro), but you can't say that gentoo isn't getting any new users because it isn't getting hyped up in formal reviews and such (it's getting hyped up everywhere else). Sun, 30 Mar 2003 16:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? >Well, Eugenia, you forgot Rootlinux there.

I didn't. I decided to not include it the list, as the project looks like dead. Even if the developer still works on it at home, he never updates his web site and the whole thing makes it look not worthwhile to be included in the list. If the developer was more forth coming with news, ROOT would be part of the list in the article. Sun, 30 Mar 2003 16:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Well, just look at the download site. It has been updated. If the author has not updated the main site, is because he thinks it's just not the right time to do it yet. He may well be waiting to get the gnome problems fixed an then release 1.4-Stable. If you look at the forum, you'll see that the community has been a bit active. People thought a while ago that Rootlinux was dead, but suddenly, updates came to light. If John Ericksson has not enough time to keep up with the updates, should he be concerned about updating a site before any real news (like a new stable version) came up? I would do the same, and I bet you would too. Look at the forum. :-). The users have been doing the "news work" for him. Sun, 30 Mar 2003 16:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? How about e-smith on servers. I cant say I've tried it, but if and when I build a server it looks like a good place to start. It seems to major on ease, perhaps at the expense of features. I run Gentoo on my desktop and can see no reason to change. But although I like the bleeding edge power on my desktop I'll probably want an easy to learn, install and forget server.

http://www.e-smith.org/

Mark Sun, 30 Mar 2003 17:49:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? A list of links? That's an article? I could have gotten that from Distrowatch.

At least you weren't spitting insults this time, and there wasn't enough English involved to get mixed up with. Sun, 30 Mar 2003 18:12:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I'm really getting tired of this tendency for people to group Gentoo in with Slackware and Debian. Slackware has withstood the test of time for the simple reason that it is unlike anything else. While Gentoo is source-based, it takes care of too many system intracacies to be considered anything like Slackware; some may consider this an advantageous point, I do not. Slackware, while it might take several days, or even weeks, to properly and securely tweak your system, provides unequaled and untainted access to the bones of a linux system. Great for learning and hacking on, and essential for system administration. Gentoo, while slick and well optimized, is not nearly as pure - in my mind - as Slackware. My poison is SLACK!

Sincerely,
Pararox

---
The above was in no way meant to flame; this site is about opions (be they weak or strong) and I have merely stated my HUMBLE OPINION Sun, 30 Mar 2003 19:38:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? The BSDs are another great set of OSes to try...

FreeBSD is incredible all-around, server or desktop

NetBSD runs on almost anything, and i mean anything

OpenBSD is considered by many to be the most secure OS ever created

And all of these support Linux binary-compatibility

so give 'em a try Sun, 30 Mar 2003 20:03:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? FreeBSD is incredible all-around, server or desktop
on i386's :-)
NetBSD runs on almost anything, and i mean anything
linux has, and does, run on bigger and smaller devices

OpenBSD is considered by many to be the most secure OS ever created no contention :-) but DOS has *NEVER* had a remote root vulnerability in what? 20+ years? :-)

that said, i love gentoo linux. o/ Sun, 30 Mar 2003 20:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Actually...FreeBSD runs on Sparc, IA64, and there is a PowerPC port

NetBSD runs on FAR more platforms than Linux does...and Linux is just a kernel, NetBSD is the whole thing

DOS doesn't have network connectivity

Just to clarify

-bytes256 Sun, 30 Mar 2003 20:38:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? ....from the source based category - Linux From Scratch!

Absolutely the best "distro" IMNSHO. I think I have learned more about how Linux really works from LFS than I have since I started using commercial distros way back in 97. Not to mention that if you can follow instructions, it's very easy to have an optimized system up in a very short time. Sun, 30 Mar 2003 20:41:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I haven't found a stable release of FreeBSD for Sparc64. I see 5.0-RELEASE, but that would be a far cry from stable.

If you have a link to Sparc64 ISO's for FreeBSD 4.7, I will be more than happy to retract my statement that you are incorrect. I don't want to run non stable software as a server. Sun, 30 Mar 2003 21:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I got some info on SourceMage from one of their developers who is looking to port their development tools to GNU/Hurd (Gentoo is working on a Hurd port, too....). Since I had a free partition on the notebook, I went ahead and downloaded their ISO, and tried them out.

"Casting" programs works almost as well as Gentoo's portage. They seem to do less with patches than gentoo does, however. Also neat, the "spells" to make programs for the distro, to me, are much easier to understand than ebuilds. It uses SysV init, which is always a big plus to me. In fact, that's the thing that annoys me the most about Gentoo -- the BSD init.

This is not to say that SourceMage is perfect. I had some problems with the install, mainly because I was trying to be too hands-on with it. It's much easier to install than Gentoo. Essentially, all you have to do is untar the system and build a kernel. There's no choice of cron or system logger -- you use the stock stuff. But the things they've chosen seem to work pretty well.

As for the other distros I use, I mainly run Debian (unstable on the desktop, stable on the servers), with a smattering of Gentoo (mostly on my G3), and occasionally RH or Mandrake (to see what's up with the new releases).

I also run NetBSD and FreeBSD from time to time. NetBSD, despite being BSD, I do enjoy using.

I also play around with GNU/Hurd, which is much more promising than GNU/Linux distro du-jour. :-D Sun, 30 Mar 2003 21:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I would add College Linux to that list - a small Slackware-based distro just released their second version built on some very recent stuff, including KDE3.1.1
I'd also like to plug Libranet, for my money the best distro out there, period. It has all advantages of Debian with most problems that stop people from going with Debian removed: installation and configuration are dead easy, and the software versions right up to date. In fact Libranet 2.8 currently in second beta stage is compiled with gcc 3.2 - way ahead of other Debian-based distros.
And I would remove Yoper from this list. They don't need us - fine, we certainly don't need them. They added nothing to the overall development of Linux and any dozen of others will do exactly the same things Yoper claims, without the attitude, and for a fraction of their price. Sun, 30 Mar 2003 21:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Ohh, well for FreeBSD-STABLE branch, no there is no good Sparc support, however, NetBSD and OpenBSD do support such hardware.

And FreeBSD 5.0 is stabilizing very nicely. I would guess that 5.1 or 5.2 would become server-grade. In fact for some applications, I'd definitely consider using 5.0-RELENG as a server. Sun, 30 Mar 2003 22:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? >> Of course, strictly speaking, Eugenia (and many Americans) is not wrong. Portuguese is a Latin language, as much as English is a Germanic language

No, Portuguese isn't a 'Latin language', languages which distant descendants of Latin are not called 'Latin languages' they are called 'Romance languages' (in English). Additionally, AFAIK Conectiva (not Connectiva, BTW) only supports Spanish and Portuguese, not French, Italian nor any other Romance languages. Referring to Conectiva as a Linux distribution for the 'Latin speaking' totally wrong. Sun, 30 Mar 2003 22:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I would like to agree with the BSD people here. FreeBSD has been my choice for both desktop & server. It is fairly easy to configurate, and ports/pkg works 99% of the time. If it doesn't, it is not alot of tweaking that needs to be done to make it work. I do not think that the BSDs are ment to be used by total beginners. There is no standard configuration like RedHat/SuSe/Mandrake.

If I was completely new to the *nix scene, I would install some of the mainstream OSes, find out what parts I like in the different distros and write it all down. That way I could install FreeBSD with the packages on my list, reboot and use. Sun, 30 Mar 2003 22:49:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? How do you mesure market share ?
Is it different from the installed base ?

http://www.redflag-linux.com/ Mon, 31 Mar 2003 00:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Debian GNU/Linux runs on just as many (maybe more) processor families as NetBSD does. (the lists below are for things supported in the latest stable release)

Debian: i386, m68k, sparc, alpha, powerpc, arm, mips, mipsel, hppa, ia64, s390

NetBSD: arm, mips, alpha, m68k, superh, i386, powerpc, sparc, vax

NetBSD's ports page doesn't differentiate between mips and mipsel, so that may be supported for both. At any rate, Debian still wins 11-10

Ports page for Debian: http://www.debian.org/ports
Ports page for NetBSD: http://www.netbsd.org/Ports Mon, 31 Mar 2003 02:49:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? >> languages which distant descendants of Latin are not called 'Latin languages' they are called 'Romance languages' (in English).

Hmm, I seem to have seen this before... maybe I forgot -- thanks for the correction.

>> Conectiva only supports Spanish and Portuguese, not French, Italian nor any other Romance languages.

Indeed. Curiously, Romanian is also a Romance language. I can understand one word or two... somewhat funny. Mon, 31 Mar 2003 03:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? There is a difference between processor families and actual machines. There are several different buses, controller cards, and various other hardware that need to be supported.

There are several machines built from each of these processor families that I guarantee will not run Linux without some tweaking...however, every single machine listed on the NetBSD page, will run NetBSD...the whole thing...entire full-blown OS

The point is...your quick analysis may be misleading

That said I'm not a NetBSD expert, I haven't used it since 1.5 and that was only the i386 port, since i don't own any exotic hardware Mon, 31 Mar 2003 03:41:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Count the number of directories here (and subtract non-arch directories like 'source'):

ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-1.6/

Maybe you were counting NetBSD ports in hex?

PS 1.6 is a stable release. Mon, 31 Mar 2003 05:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? two more strong niche distros:

smoothwall.org have a dedicated firewall/router distro (there are several out there, but this one was the best fit for me)

trustix.org have what looks to be a very nice, small and clean server distro with an emphasis on security.

note that neither of these include X, and are in fact designed to be run headless. Mon, 31 Mar 2003 05:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Answering the question "How about e-smith on servers?":

I have been using e-smith (www.e-smith.org) for more than a year and a half now. To date, it has been extremely reliable and quite easy to administrate remotely. The user base is relatively small but extremely dedicated, a lot of add-in packages are available, and the forum and official support is both friendly and knowledgeable. It's a winning package.

Responding to the recommendation of smoothwall:

Technically it has many merits. Sadly, the individual who oversees the distro is publicly bitter about the money he has spent on the project, and openly hostile to users that he feels are idiots, deadbeats or both.

In fact, after a sudden, unprovoked personal attack on the support mailing list (triggered by a two-paragraph post that he felt was "too bloody long") another member of the list sent me a note. The note contained validation that the overseer's response was unjustified, a statement that the overseer was known for abusing people in this fashion on a regular basis, and a recommendation to replace smoothwall with e-smith, which the list member personally used on most of his servers. I did so, and never looked back. Mon, 31 Mar 2003 06:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I have used Peanut Linux since 8.2 and I have to say that it is by far the most stable of all I have tried, and those include Mandrake 6.2 to present, RedHat 6.0 to present, Lycrios since the start, etc. ALL distros have there + _ -, but for me, Peanut will always be on my HDD. This is a great site, everybody keep there heads and let's have some FUN with these great OS's! Mon, 31 Mar 2003 07:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Regarding Peanut Linux I sent them $29.95 back in August
(check cleared August 24th) for a CD and never recieved a damn thing. Numerous emails have gone unaswered. Mon, 31 Mar 2003 16:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? It's Conectiva folks, not Connectiva (that's a common mistake for english-speaking writers). Version 9 should be released by the end of April. Mon, 31 Mar 2003 17:06:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? You ask what is Topologi Linux? It is a linux based on Slackware.

It runs on exsisting windows dos/fat/NTFS. This means no drive partitioning.

It also runs very fast. On my box it runs as fast as RH8.
It defently runs faster then all those other windows (WinLinux, Phat) partition Linux distrobutions.

Soo, I would have included it in the Special Purpose Linux.

Good article!
Just my 2 cents,
paul Mon, 31 Mar 2003 17:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Conectiva is a great distro. it uses apt for rpm out of the box and the distro lends a lot of support to its apt repositories and mirrors. apt is well integrated into the distro so no headeaches trying to get it to compile and work. its a sinch to set up a repository and save time/bandwidth for your organization. Conectiva also installs a complete server or desktop workstation off of one cd. there are 4 cd's available for conectiva 8 but you only need teh first one to install apache/php/kde/gnome/postfix/proftpd/cyrus/ and more. the install is a bit slow (packages are very tightly compressed) but hey, you only need one cd and you can "set it and forget it". i'm running kde 3.1.1 for weeks now (got it pre-compiled off an apt repository the day it was released). all i had to do is type:
apt-get update
apt-get upgrade

bam.

debian has this too, just that the installer wanst working well for me. Mon, 31 Mar 2003 18:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? These "other Distros" cater to the low end users. By that I mean they tell people they can run "their" distro on old hardware like a Pentium 1 or even a 486 as long as they have plenty of memory. You see messages posted all over thier boards of folks complaining how "slow KDE 3.1 runs" etc. The user generally gets a response telling to stop using KDE or upgrade their hardware. Mon, 31 Mar 2003 20:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? No, Portuguese isn't a 'Latin language', languages which distant descendants of Latin are not called 'Latin languages' they are called 'Romance languages' (in English). Additionally, AFAIK Conectiva (not Connectiva, BTW) only supports Spanish and Portuguese, not French, Italian nor any other Romance languages. Referring to Conectiva as a Linux distribution for the 'Latin speaking' totally wrong.

Unfortunately AFAIK there is no such language called Spanish, there are a number of languages in Spain: Castillian (AKA Spanish), Galician (wich resembles Portuguese) and Catalan, wich are indo-european languages, and there is also Basque wich is not an indo-european language. Mon, 31 Mar 2003 22:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments