“This is my opinion on the various distros that I have tried. I’m not a Linux expert at all. I have been using some flavor of Linux for about 2 years now, and have become proficient with Linux. Here are things that I noticed about some of the distro’s that I have tried”. Read the article at DesktopLinux.
What’s your Favorite Linux Distro?
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
redhat 8 and lycoris
Did this guy even try to run RealPlayer or Flash plugins on RH8? IIRC, Flash and RealPlayer worked fine for me. If he does have problems, they aren’t library issues. Stuff built for RH7.x and under will run on RH8. Where binary compatibility is broken is in running stuff built for RH8 on RH7.x.
OSNews does a great service hilighting the user experience at all levels for operating systems of all flavor both with original content and linkage to outside sources.
With that said, what was the authors intention? Condensed version: “I like Mandrake/suse/redhat but I could be wrong”
Calling the kettle black (first sentance, previous paragraph, first three words); the cons included “I could have put forth more effort…” (debian) and “I couldn’t ever get this to install…” (gentoo). Anecdotal and second-hand reviewing does not an article make.
“Anecdotal and second-hand reviewing” <- in no way suggesting that linking to outside articles is bad – directly aimed at the author re: qualifying so many of his statements with a “it might just be me but…”…
Xandros is the only distribution I’ve been able to complete an install of (I’ve tried 3 others). I’ve got a feeling I’d like Lycoris, and I may try it when they expand their hardware compatibility list.
A good distro, avoiding all this incredebily outdated and buggy code from gnu and kernel, and just leaving the pleasure to run the truly, open-source and interesting program.
The only default – if want to run it legally, but who cares ? – it’s not free. I mean free as beer, i am strictly not interested with the stupidity of r. stallman ( the gnu “man”, yeah, with gcc objects incompatible from one release to another… ). That said i support Simputer ( http://www.simputer.org ), because i prefer efficiency to insane chit-chat.
When i want to loose my time, i run Red Hat. A very good company, and a very good distro, as long as good may makes sense when speaking about linux…
The author of this ‘article’ has no business doing reviews! Two nitpicks:
“apt-get is not as easy to use as advertised.”
Um, how much easier does it get than “apt-get install <package_name>” Installing a package in debian takes about 5 seconds of user interaction, while installing a program in Windows (even something trivial like Winzip) takes a minimum of a few minutes: to find the program, download the installer, start the installer, click next through the EULA, accept the default installation directory, accept the default shortcut directory, and finally wait for the program to install. Emerge works the same way, except it requires one fewer word “emerge <package_name>” My little brother thinks portage is the coolest thing ever, and wishes he could do “emerge ut2003-demo” in Windows too.
He didn’t even get Gentoo installed, because of the long compile times. WTF? A source-based distro is supposed to have long compile times! That’s the whole point of using a source-based distro! It’s like buying a tractor and complaining that it’s a tractor, not a car!
First they lie : their distro have NOT better speed because you spend DAYS and days to compile it. RH 7.3 boot ( kudzu off, lpd off ) in 15s on my pII 450/512m, gentoo ( empty, just logger deamon ) in 17s…
25 minutes to compile the only kernel ! more than one hours, and plenty errors for vi !
Portage is off ( plenty of errors on the world file ) and solve nothing, particulary around the kernel / driver compilation. Anyway you have to adjust the dependancy MANUALLY in the world file if you want to be sure to have an update working REALLY. That said i have seen a post from a MODERATOR of Gentoo who dares, in 2003 !, to suggest update, and so recompile, the WHOLE system to be sure that every softwares are set to latest safe release…
This is not crazy, this is insane. In other terms it’s Linux world, that’s apart : it’s rock ;-)))
okay i normally use gentoo, and i love it, but lately its been broken, broken to hell, yeah mostly dependancy problems, and after i killed my install, (silly me) i decided i ought to get some work done, installed redhat 8.0 very nice, i like the unification of gtk and kde, all apps played nice the only gripe is it wouldnt work with my i8200 properly for the pcmcia (yenta socket instead of i82365) and changing to i82365 didnt work… so i recompiled the kernel (took forever to learn how, kept doing it the gentoo way) but alas… now i am back in winxp, waiting for my beloved gentoo to fix up there portage tree and then i’ll be back in my garden of eden, kudo’s to redhat for the great job with rh8, kudo’s to gentoo for the best distro, and kudo’s to OS news to allow me to rant this stuff…. and btw…
my girlfriend is jealous of gentoo, she thought it was another person when i talk about it to friends
heheheheheheh
cheers
Mark
I am sad that slackware 8.1 wasn’t mentioned in the article. This is probably one of the best out there.
Redhat 7.0, 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 8.0 downloaded versions —
[..]
Cons: Sometimes they are so far on the cutting edge of some packages that it creates problems. Very conservative as far as multimedia support. For example, in 8.0 there is no support for MP3, Real Player, Flash, and the downloaded versions of Real and Flash won’t work because Redhat uses a newer version of some libraries (or something like that). Not as many tools to help with configuration.
And this is exactly the problem why I sometimes detest Linux.
Don’t spout off like that. I’m sorry you’ve had a bad experience with Gentoo, but lot’s of people (just check their forums) have used it without many problems at all. The vast majority of the trouble posts on the forum are of the variety involve getting beta/alpha/CVS/as-the-developer-types-characters-into-his-editor releases of software to work. If you’re using the stable 1.2 release, everything should work just peachy. I’ve been using the 1.4 pre-release version since it was the 1.3 development version, and even then, the only problem I’ve run into was with the beta KDE packages, which took 10 minutes to fix. The beta GNOME packages, on the other hand, are working just great. Ditto the pre-release kernel, the hacked up NVIDIA drivers, the CVS Phoenix build, the development GIMP build, etc. As for speed, Gentoo is the fastest distro I’ve used, and I’ve been using Linux for a long time. Measuring startup time is totally stupid. Besides the fact that you’re not supposed to reboot Linux, you have the fact that Gentoo uses a totally different init script mechanism than Redhat (both of which are slow shell scripts anyway) so you’re comparing apples to turtles. As for portage not solving anything, that’s your opinion. A lot of Gentoo users would disagree. Portage is a lot like apt-get (the pinnacle of software installation technology) except with far more up-to-date package database, and an easy to edit package format. As for rebuilding the whole system, you should never have to. You *did* remember to make backups didn’t you? I make two: one right after building the base, and one after installing all my software. If you’re not the hacker/tweeker type, you probably wouldn’t do that, but then you shouldn’t be using Gentoo (yet) anyway.
PS> I find the reinstall thing hilarious. Linux is the only OS I’ve never had to reinstall to fix. On the other hand, I can’t count the number of Windows tech support calls I’ve made that ended along the lines of “reinstall Windows and call back.”
A just a last word for the bad part : the security before you have install the system, gentoo is just open to everything…
OK. The good part, it’s a formidable distro to learn Linux ( i have never tried LFS, i will do some day, but i think LFS is certainly more oriented “compilation” gcc and libray stuff ).
Another very good thing is certainly David Robbin itself, and the “spirit” of Gentoo. In particular, i am really impressed by their decision to switch to an alternative mode to install : pre-compiled standard tar.gz or full source. Impressed because this is surely not an easy decision to go away from the original idea of a distro. And a good idea because Gentoo is not viable with a 450mhz processor. I don’t think either it’s more viable with a 2ghz one. Just compiling few software is certainly the right way to go, anyway that’s what i am doing with RH, installing base system and in particular every libs, and get the main stuff via tar.gz. Compiling rare software ( i am sure that compiling over the i386 arch is not tested for the majority of software, and so you have plenty of problems if you do it, not to speak to the exotic optimization flags ).
>> “And this is exactly the problem why I sometimes detest Linux.”
Unfortunately the author of this article is totally wrong.
I’m running RH8 myself and the flash plugin runs happily using Phoenix.
I haven’t had any other library related problem either.
Don’t believe stuff told by people who don’t try things before writing about it.
And about this ‘library hell’.. have you ever used Windows?
(heck, they’re now just overwriting new libraries with old versions to prevent their shitty OS from working.. library hell on Windows….)
To Xavier: This is the trolliest-troll I’ve ever seen.
1) GNU and Linux are not outdated. If you’d ever actually read the code, you’d find that many OSS programs (especially the Linux kernel) are at the forefront of code design. The core subsystems in Linux are either bleeding edge new (the VM, scheduler, block I/O layer, logical volume manager, etc) or work too well to change. This might not percolate up into the UI, but it’s just plain wrong to call it outdated.
2) You might not agree with RMS. Yay for you. Go use Windows and be happy. I for one do, and I don’t need you to make retarded comments about Open Source. There is a difference between levying valid criticism about a belief (theological debate, for example) and just disparaging a belief (religious bigotry, for example). As for the GCC objects, WTF does that have to do with anything? GCC’s *C++* ABI is constantly in flux because GCC’s C++ support is constantly evolving, and it makes no sense freeze the ABI until the C++ support is complete. This compares well to Visual C++, where not only do you have to put up with binary compatibility kludges (the DLL mechansim, in particular, is full of anachronism) but where you don’t even get proper support for the C++ standard.
3) Since when is Win2K open source?
To Mario:
Binary compatibility isn’t really important in Linux, and that’s a good thing. There is far too much junk in Windows dedicated to keeping binary compatibility. Since almost all Linux software is provided in source form, this works out just peachy. Linux tends to be generally hostile to binary-only software, and personally I think that’s great. However, the issues with Real and Flash are RedHat’s fault, not Linux’s in general. It’s not so much that Redhat uses new libraries, but that they use *development* libraries.
but is Windows the standard by which you want to measure?
I haven’t had any other library related problem either.
Then I guess you haven’t been using Linux very long and/or you have not been installing Linux applications too often.
Ok Mario, library hell is THE problem of Linux ( and Portage CAN’t solve it just because it strictly not address it. Portage only address the top level of a software, and pray for the ebuild script will be well written. Of course, just after a new release of the software, the ebuild will be different and the problems arised, not to speak of Portage updates incompatible with it’s previous release ). I doub’t that apt or rpm are better regarding this. The main problems are the kernel itself and those 1960’s architectured tools of gnu ( or maybe 1950’s ? ).
I am sure that you can do this for every distro : just load at install EVERY library. I always spend more than an hour to choose one by one the lib during an install. RH propose a set of compatibility library, which seem to solve everything, at least until the 7.3 release. that’s NOT true with this f***g gcc 3.x, because the BINARY are not compatible at execution time with binary compiled with previous gcc release… Incredible, i have never seen such a stupidity since 25 years i am working in IT. Don’t bother, it’s just the Linux world, the antidote is very simple for the afficionado, just shout : it’s rock ! Unfortunatly, that is not sufficient for my old motherboard ;-)))
well, i dont mean this to become a gentoo topic, as it isnt specifically, but first… i say again, i love gentoo,
and i am not putting it down in ANY way, i say this with the greatest respect to daniel robins and the crew with gentoo development, there distro rocks, i love the concept behind it, it is fast, efficient, and a very very well thought out system, the scripts are easier than with redhat, everything is so well done, but i still believe the portage tree has had problems over the past few months,
i dont use many optimisations, mostly just Os instead of O3 or O2 as it compiles for smaller binaries, (laptop harddrives are rather slow, but i have a 1.8ghz processor) so processor efficiency comes second to the harddrive bottleneck if you know what i mean…
upon my last install, gnome did not work properly, it was a recognised problem in the forums.. (sorry no version numbers cause bout 2 weeks ago… and even kde worked but konq kept crashing….. maybe just me, anyways, i have used gentoo since 1.2 days, and i have loved it…
the reason my previous installed died, was a problem with reiser, not sure what happened though….
i love then gentoo kernel, but with rc9 i couldnt use, problems with USB and some other things with my chipset, so i had to revert to vanilla, which wasnt an enticing reason to stay with gentoo…
also note, i am one of those people to strive for the perfect desktop…. i dunno why, its just a habit of mine, hence re-installing everything at least twice a month,
lol, i cant help it…
something new comes out, i switch to the other….
lol
anyways…. all OS’s have there place… linux is my first preference, but i’m not blind to what else is out there, i mean, ask eugenia…. seriously… why would someone choose one distro or OS over another??? personal preference, on gui, system config, it works or it doesnt?, programs available…. but when it comes down to it… each to there own, dont bag people on what OS they use,
even apple have there place, who if they werent so expensive and use such outdated hardware, i’d consider buying…
cheers thanks again,
mark
Debian 3.0 (downloaded) hasn’t crashed on me yet; it’s the only text-install distro that I successfully managed to install (didn’t manage FreeBSD & Slackware; due to Xconfig problems) after reading “The Very Verbose Debian 3.0 Installation Walkthrough” by Clinton De Young. Debian is stable, apt-get is easy & practical, and takes the least space (you install what you specify). Tried to install Gentoo rc_1.4 three times; displays errors at the end of each try (after many hours of compiling), eventhough I followed instructions to details.
Suse (my first ever distro, version 7.3) is a great “polished” distro that has a very functional control panel/configurator (YaST2). I net-installed the latest version (8.1), which took less than 2 hours. Updating takes a while and results in few errors (like creating a second icon of same cdrom/dvd). Suse 8.1 lacks some finishing touches to make it a solid attractive distro.
RH 8.0 (downloaded) is a new breed of distro (I call it the next-level distro); it’s fine “polished”, simplified (you don’t get lost in lots unnecessary applications), updating the system is couple clicks (much easier than Windows), has great hardware support (only distro to configure my usb mouse flawlessly; Suse 8.1 configures but scrolling is nonfunctional), and video has 3D support (managed to play Quake3Arena, Tuxracer; Suse 8.1 has a nonfunctioning 3D support).
Surprisingly, I haven’t had any crashes (like in previous versions, mostly attributed to X crashes) in Suse 8.1 & RH 8.0, though Suse 8.1 displays a few errors.
Sigh. How can someone know so little?
1) Library hell is not a problem with Linux in general. It might be with RedHat, I don’t know, I haven’t used that since 6.x. I do know that in years of using Debian and Gentoo, I’ve never had a single library problem.
2) Agh. So much misinformation! Head hurting! The design of UNIX dates back to the mid 1970s. The design of the GNU programs dates to the mid 1980s. The initial implementation of the kernel dates to the early 1990s, and the implementation of all Linux software dates back between 1995 and yesterday. Of course the only thing age means is that it was designed right the first time and has withstood the test of time. What matters is actual quality. The Linux kernel is in most cases faster and more stable than the Windows kernel (even WinXP, though the stability gap has decreased) and handles load far better. G++ is a far better C++ compiler than Visual C++, because G++ actually supports standard C++ and Visual C++ doesn’t. Right now, GCC is working on the gravy (code optimization) and has gotten pretty good at that by now. Meanwhile, Microsoft is working on the real meat (standards complience) and thus the only good MS C++ compiler is the 7.1 beta.
3) GCC C executables have been compatible for a *long* time now. It’s only C++ where there is binary incompatibility. C++ programs are fairly rare on Linux, so if you’re seeing library incompatibility, it’s most likely not the fault of GCC.
4) Design doesn’t have much to do with anything. If anything, design would give Linux an advantage, because the Linux ELF format is more modern and flexible than the Windows PE format. The real issue is that Linux programs tend to break library interfaces more often, because they are newer and thus more “in flux” than Windows programs generally are. There is also the belief among Linux programmers that binary compatibility is less important than maintaining a clean interface design, which (if you’ve done any amount of Win32 programming) is something you can appreciate.
oh in regards to this library hell, windows doesnt have TOO much of a problem compared to linux, (though linux isnt even that bad)
but i ask you this, which OS has massive releases (kde, gnome mozilla, gcc? etc….. every few days/weeks,
where as windows, the only massive upgrade you do is, a) service pack (not that big) or…… a whole os upgrade… ie.. win2k, to winxp… or bigger, win9x to winxp.. (total kernel change not upgrade)
if you know what i mean…
thanks for the enlightening comments ray,
cheers..
Mark
To fix the frame of the speech, i have begin IT with DOS/VSE ( ibm ), and follow with finder ( apple ) CP/M ( digital research ? i don’t remember ) OS/VS1 OS/VS2 (the ancestor of MVS ) MVS and VM/CMS ( ibm ), VMS ( the now dead digital equipment ), AIX and SOLARIS ( i don’t present them 😉 ), some Burrough and Prime system, AS/400 ( ibm ), windows in it’s various released, and… this crazy piece of software : linux.
And just to fix your “problems” about what is, or not, a reboot, i had work on the begening of the 80’s with a system which was stopped 24 hours a year. You’ve read it. The system was MVS and the database ADABAS ( software ag, a German company ). And this crazy system was linked to every stuff in the factory, every truck incoming or outgoing passed to a scale which send the weight directly in the database, the same for every casting and so on. Running a system fully operationel during a year is not too hard, not really the same with a database, online reorg are not simple , especially with battery of thousand of disks. So the uptime Linux’s fan is certainly amuzing, but as you can see, 20 year outdated.
For the rest.
When i see a “system” just allowing in 2003 to use two, not more…, poor cpu, yes i can write this system is outdated.
When i see a “system” just allowing in 2003 to use more than 1G memory, not more than 4…, yes i can write this system is outdated.
When i see a “system” in 2003 not having any efficient multi-threading, yes i can write this system is outdated.
When i see a “system” in 2003 which obliged you to wait for a next release of the kernel to use a new driver, yes i can write this system is outdated.
When i see a “compiler” in 2003 which build binary incompatible with the previous one, yes i can write this compiler is outdated.
When i see those gnu “libray” loosed in an inextricable shambles just to give some “programming exploit” as less, sed, and those definitive unsable vi and emacs, yes i can write this system is outdated.
And so on, and so on
But, but, you’re rigth when you have wrote that w2k is NOT open-sourced. It’s not, it’s just working, sorry for this little nuance ;-))) And the worst, it’s that even Linus Torvald himself begin to complied with the old charm of a working software, you certainly not ignore that Bitkeeper ( far from open-source, not to say definitively proprietary ) is now used to share the kernel code…
I think what is confused you is just the term of OS.
In general this mean : OPERATING System.
For Linux, it is meaning : Over-joking Stuff ;-)))
That’s not to say it doesn’t have its warts…
But I do like the fact that in this day and age of broadband, with RH I can create a single disk (bootnet.img) and I’m off to the races. I’m not sure if anyone else makes it that easy to get their distro. There’s something really cool about installing over the net…
I’ve always wanted to install Debian but have never gotten around to it. apt-get sounds great!
I also love FreeBSD – the ports collection is a thing of beauty! I did run it for awhile but a Desktop OS it’s not.
Cheers
>> “Then I guess you haven’t been using Linux very long and/or you have not been installing Linux applications too often.”
1) I was not talking about dependency hell, which you’re probably confused with
2) I have been using Linux since you were wearing diapers
3) I’m installing applications nearly every day (today: Phoenix 0.5
Ive always used RedHat. It was the first distro that actually worked for me and ‘generally’ they test thier distros pretty well. As well as the fact that there are many many pieces of software out there supplied as RedHat RPMS.
Ive had nothing but trouble with Mandrake. If they bothered to test thier software rather than releasing a new version every week then maybe things would work.
I do love FreeBSD however (yes i know its not Linux). It has a quality and consistent feel that no Linux distro has.
At home i play with RedHat and FreeBSD to keep my mind active:)
Check your dependencies….
./configure && make && make install …..
and away we go….
wheeee, optimized binaries for me….
“oh in regards to this library hell, windows doesnt have TOO much of a problem compared to linux, (though linux isnt even that bad)
”
Don’t believe this, i remember, on nt4, some installation with bad scheduling between msdtc and sql-server, result : everithing blocked, crash the system and redo from origin.
In w2k you can have those problems with msi / msxml 3->4 / ie.
Certainly less library problem than Linux, but far from zero.
“but i ask you this, which OS has massive releases (kde, gnome mozilla, gcc? etc….. every few days/weeks,
where as windows, the only massive upgrade you do is, a) service pack (not that big) or……”
Hard to answer :
1/ The volume. Don’t be afraid, if you stay tuned to windows update, and for security you have STRONG interest to do it, the volume is certainly the same for w2k and Linux. Using RH, less automatised in Gentoo, the simplicity is the same with w2k and Linux. Quality of the procedure for service pack and massive update are nearly the same too.
For the other software, “little” as Mozilla or “engine level” as Gnome / Kde, is also nearly the same.
2/ The quality. Not obvious. For w2k, it’s mainly correction patch. You may have feature enhancement, but there it is simple : you can upgrade, just click, or cannot, so you don’t need to click 😉 For Linux patch, same simplicity, but for enhancement the problems begin : lack of documentation, and if feasible : lack of script for automatic upgrade.
“a whole os upgrade… ie.. win2k, to winxp… or bigger, win9x to winxp.. (total kernel change not upgrade)
if you know what i mean…”
I have never tried a release updated in Linux ( i think here is a strong quality for Gentoo, Portage apart ), but for Windows this is too hard, flush and reinstall is the solution. You may consider it for big server but generally the way used is a kind of “semi-master disk” build. You stop everything and hard patch everything. Obviously this kind of procedure are inaccessible to a stand-alone user.
I hope you are reassured ;-)))
To comments about hardware that existed before I was born: So what? How does that relate to this discussion?
When i see a “system” just allowing in 2003 to use two, not more…, poor cpu, yes i can write this system is outdated.
>>>>>
Linux has been SMP since the 2.0 kernel in 1996. Great progress considering that the kernel was only 6 years old at the time! Linux today can scale great to 8 or 16 CPUs (suppports as many as you have), and the NUMA stuff that the kernel developers are working on now should be ready in time for the huge Itanium2 NUMA machines SGI is planning to build.
When i see a “system” just allowing in 2003 to use more than 1G memory, not more than 4…, yes i can write this system is outdated.
>>>>>>>>
What? Linux allows you to use up to 64GB of memory on x86 and as much memory as you have on 64-bit machines.
When i see a “system” in 2003 not having any efficient multi-threading, yes i can write this system is outdated.
>>>>>
Linux multithreading is very efficient, and has been for a long time. The enterprise-level multithreading going into Linux right now is mainly a scalability thing, for systems that have unusually high threading requirements and a standards conformance thing.
When i see a “system” in 2003 which obliged you to wait for a next release of the kernel to use a new driver, yes i can write this system is outdated.
>>>>>>>>
Which is why NVIDIA and the ALSA project make kernel drivers seperately available from the standard tree? The fact that drivers are released with the kernel is a function of the organization of the project, not any technical limitation. Linux is in such active development, all the drivers need to be in one place so changes in the core code can be propogated to the drivers. Technically, it can compile and load seperate drivers just fine.
When i see a “compiler” in 2003 which build binary incompatible with the previous one, yes i can write this compiler is outdated.
>>>>>>>>>>
Stop that! The GCC C ABI has been stable for years now. The C++ ABI has been change for reasons I’ve told you, and you have to note that even Intel has changed it’s C++ ABI to conform to new standards.
When i see those gnu “libray” loosed in an inextricable shambles just to give some “programming exploit” as less, sed, and those definitive unsable vi and emacs, yes i can write this system is outdated.
>>>>>>>>>
The GNU C library is fast, stable, and extremely standards complient. vi and emacs are legendary for their stability. Can you speak about *anything* specific?
And so on, and so on
>>>>
What, more things that you’ve made up?
But, but, you’re rigth when you have wrote that w2k is NOT open-sourced. It’s not, it’s just working, sorry for this little nuance ;-))) And the worst, it’s that even Linus Torvald himself begin to complied with the old charm of a working software, you certainly not ignore that Bitkeeper ( far from open-source, not to say definitively proprietary ) is now used to share the kernel code…
>>>>>>>>>
Linus is a pragmatist, he’s willing to use BitKeeper because it’s a totally different piece of software from CVS or other alternatives. But Linux uses Linux himself, so I think he considers Linux usable enough. And I wonder what he’d think of your idea that Linux only supports 2 processors and 1GB of RAM…
cheers,
thanks…
but what i was trying to get accross is that with linux, most poeple here install every new releases of kde, or gnome etc… they compile or get the binaries and do an upgrade of so mamy packages….. what i am saying is, with windows, regardless of how simple… i am saying that you install windows… you install a program not likely you will have a dependancy problem (n/a for games directX
hehehe)
but you in linux we tend to update software ie, kde gnome etc, and are less likely to re-install the OS, things in linux are less unified, different distro’s etc… and also compiling a program may look for older libraries, or newer libraries, and it will not install or workproperly unless they are installed… sorry if this seems jumbled, hard for me to explain,
but to put simply
windows… very tight, unified, install a program it works,
linux… quite loose, not unified, install a program, and hope you satisfy dependancies..
this i suppose is what RPM’s wish to combat, and also the different packaging, but its impossible to cover every scenario, simply because linux is so personalised, its not proprietry therefore a company cant assume you will HAVE this file installed, they can only hope you do, and hope that its the version they need you to have, and hope that its in the place they expect it to be…
personally i would like to see an OS, and software where there is no shared libraries, at the massive expense of disk space, i think it would be a better system, as we now all have huge harddisks, and the technology for it is growing so fast, though i am sure i will once again be enlightened by one of you, and i hope you do,
🙂
cheers
Mark
just another thing and i’m sorry for being very offtopic,
but would my suggestion of programs to be independant of the OS be a good step towards hardware/os independance, ease of porting?
so the OS goes back to managing the hardware side of things, and it called upon by the programs being used…
in such a way,
so
HARDWARE <dealt with by> HARDWARE OS LAYER <dealt by with> OS MULTITASKING LEVEL <dealt with by> GUI & PROGRAMS
i have no founding on my idea, but nice to hear clarification,
cheers
lol, simplistic approach
🙂
Mark
How about DLL hell when installing simple things like video players? Good luck with make/make installing or RPM’ing anything based on avifile lib.
Works well in Peanut Linux though.
RH refuses to give even read only NTFS support. Who made this marketing nightmare? You can dual bot, but your data and fonts will be hidden from you?
I LOVE RH8.0, but the changes broke many apps. Without apps it isn’t much good. With the new GCC I have to be a programmer to fix/compile old apps. All GCC3 based distros are screwed for now.
IMHO, Peanut Linux with the horrible Enlightenment WM changed to something usable is the best distro ATM.
I’ve tried EVERY linux distro I have come across and Peanut is really one of the best all around distros for what I do on a daily basis. Too bad it doesn’t get more press.
RH8 has the best OS but least compatability.
Lindows is not bad at all. Add a root user(or not), install an apt GUI and go with it.
Lycoris has the best installer, but you had better only need what is on the CD. (If you find a decent mirror in the first place)
FreeBSD is what I would have run if DV had not been invented. Well worth the small setup hassle. Some day…
Debian and Gentoo kick butt if you are capable of writing your own OS or if someone else is your sysadmin.
Mandrake is a bloated used-to-be.
Slack who? I remember that one…nothing was ever set up for slack. Again, for apps, better be a programmer.
SUSE, too much STUFF covering a lack of working stuff. Much like Mandrake except you have to pay to find this out about SUSE.
Yoper. Great ideas, but you expect me to read a webpage before I install and then can’t echo “Type yoper to begin install” or simply run yoper at boot time? No dhcp option? Maybe eventually.
Maybe someday the app situation will be solved and it we be a matter of who has the best speed, stability and GUI.
Mutiny
>> “RH refuses to give even read only NTFS support. Who made this marketing nightmare? You can dual bot, but your data and fonts will be hidden from you? ”
RH doesn’t include unstable software..
Go here if you would like to have NTFS support on RH8 without recompiling the kernel: http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/info/redhat.html
I’m sorry, but if RH didn’t install unstable software, it would be called Debian stable.
RH includes plenty of unstable software and has even been known to compile the works with screwed up versions of GCC.
RH doesn’t include NTFS FS, a piece of software included in every other Linux distro I’ve tried. Something 90% of the market needs.
I agree that write support is fried, but read-only support is needed and seems to be stable.
Mutiny
It was pretty cool, it worked except I couldn’t figure out how to set up my printer. This was a long time ago, though… back when it came with KDE.
If I remember, the install process wasn’t that easy in terms of handholding, but the documentation did a pretty good job cause I was able to install it and I was a very much newbie at the time.
you will have 15 programs open and each program could make use of the same 10 libraries and so you have used 10 times the memory than you needed to.
what we need in Linux is to have all projects just use the LSB libs for their projects. then any LSB distro can run it. that is what the LSB is there for, but projects like KDE and GNOME are not falling in line.
it is a suprise, you would have thought that the distros would have resisted, it is the developers.; a project wants a new cool feature, LSB does not support it so they use a newer lib and that messes it all up.
one advantage that Mac and Windows has is that their libs are static and all programs are compiled against them.
install gcc2.95. it can coexist with GCC 3.x.
i see your point, but similar things happens in linux anyways, you have the 10 of the same libs, but different versions, so you need them all loaded up anyways (exageration) but you get my point, also i think stability would be increases, which in my opinion is a bigger + than the – of more ram needs, these libs also could probably be smaller and more efficient this way as well, as they are compiled for use with the particular program being used, so as are not general purpose, sporting 30 different features,
🙂
keep this up, i really really want feedback, constructive, critisism, etc, sorry for beeing off topic, maybe eugenia can post this for comment on the main site,
I really like Mac OS X… i know i know its not open source but… it works for people who don’t have a lot of time to learn everything just to do something decently. *ducks as the tomatoes fly*
Honestly. Here is an example, which maybe if Rayiner Hashem has some time between post-spanking Xavier back into reality he can help me with.
I decided to try out RH 8.0 for a streaming mp3 server I wanted to setup in my apartment. The basic setup was that in addition to Apache with Mod_Mp3 it was going to run VSFTPd thru a SSH tunnel so that my friends could upload their mp3s on to the 160gb raid array. Of course we weren’t actually going to share our mp3s, there would be seperate streams for everyones files
Anyhow, I managed to the ftp server working (not to mention tunneling thru SSH – go Newbie!) and loaded up some of my mp3s. (Still havn’t figured out how to links to work the point outside of a chrooted jail though.) But thats beside the point, once I got a few mp3s up I wanted to make sure that 1) they worked and 2) that I could stream. I got stuck on 1. This is where I discovered RH 8.0 doesn’t come with an xmms that supports mp3s. But I understand why. What I didn’t understand is why xmms would seg fault everytime I executed it – except after I (not joking) added the kdelibararies and the other dependencies for the KDE media player kaboodle. So I fixed the xmms problem by installing another version of xmms right? Wrong. I now had two xmms programs installed and they didn’t like each other – and still decide to seg fault w/o kde stuff installed. But at least one of them can play an mp3 stream. (BTW in all fairness the Mod_Mp3 thing did work w/o a hitch.)
The reason why I say Mac OS X just works, for my purposes at least are:
– iTunes plays mp3s (cheap blow I know) – but I mean is I know what to expect from a program called iTunes since there aren’t 20000 versions of iTunes floating around.
– If I tunes didn’t play mp3s, I could easily add another application that does. Thanks to that whole .app folder thing that was stated to be very horrible from the dev. side of things.
– I first tried making the whole mp3 streaming server on my PowerBook. After making/installing Mod_Mp3 and configuring Apache with it, as well as setting up bsdftpd to use SSH, it took maybe a day to have it functioning. Its been 5days of spare time to try to get the one using RH 8.0 functional.
– Easier for idiots (read as me). Like I said above I still have no idea how to have a symbolic link point outside of someone’s chroot and for them to able to access it. In OS X all I really needed to do was change a few permissions in NetInfo around basically user/group permissions and it just kind of worked – despite my idiocy.
Vince
Sorry for the typos its late at night and I’m still stuck at school.
Also wanted to clarify some on the .app folders. I’m not saying that 5seconds of draging an .app folder onto the hard disk is any easier than the 5seconds it takes to type apt-get Program_Name at a CLI. I am saying that when I use an .app folder, I know where it is. Even the first time I install it.
I remember many times when I was trying out Lycoris builds 58-64, Mandrake 8.0,8.2,9.0 that once I’d get everything setup all nice and neat; I’d want to mess it up by installing things. The first time I installed LimeWire, after I figured out what ./ does, I lost it. Had no idea where LimeWire installed to. Luckily I was using a user account so there really aren’t many places it can go. Then there was the time I tried to install a new Java Runtime – I think I reformated the OS before I found out where one of those install tries went to. Another one was trying to see what TUX did. I couldn’t get the package to install from the CDs, or so I thought, because it failed to setup a menu link. So I decided to make/install my own TUX, let just leave that one at: newbies have really bad ideas when left to think for themselves.
Vince
🙂
that is why I added the parts about LSB compliance is importent….if Developers would just create LSB compliant programs it would not be a problem….this actualy might be a mistake on there part as ISVs who sell software will for sure be LSB comliant and there programs will just work with any LSB distro. people will buy it becasue it is easier. hell, just haveing a software industry behind linux will make program installation easier, you just pop in the CD and install it.
Debian Gnu/Linux is the perfect OS i have ever seen. it has good package management system call apt you can install any thing from the internet or from any source by typing apt-get install <package name> and also they are poting it in to meny computer processor architectures. read more about debian visit http://www.debian.org. they are testing in new kernels like HEARD/and BSD versions of free OS
I have to agree on this.
11 architectures, 2 types of kernels, modconf (front end to modprobe) ,apt-get (ye!), apt-cahce (useful when you don’t know the package name or what the package is), apt-build (downloads source, compiles it to your architecture and installs. nifty. but still bugs and things missing here and there.), and more.
also from the review.
“The apt-get is not as easy to use as advertised.” and “I could never get KDE or GNOME downloaded and installed.”
Ok. First off. Didn’t the install get to the tasksel program during the base-config after rebooting the system? if so you could of installed kde and gnome by selecting the “desktop enviroment”. This works either way with the 9 set cd or net-install.
Second, after installing kde and gnome you don’t _have_ to use apt-get strait from the command line. Kpackage can do this for you (i mention kpackage because threw the tasksel, installation of “desktop enviroment” programs it should/will install kpackage). It’ll let you do everything that apt-get and some things that apt-cache will let you do (such as get info on the package).
trakz
That all has to do with debian. I failed to place that anywhere. oh well.
Whay is it that an app usually needs the EXACT version of a lib in Linux?
Even if you have a newer lib, most of it is rewritten and now nothing works with the new lib.
Kernel modules I can understand.(but a driver standard would help get more commercial drivers)
I like shaving off excess bagage, but come on.
I’m looking for a real answer, not just ranting.
Mutiny
>> “Then I guess you haven’t been using Linux very long and/or you have not been installing Linux applications too often.”
1) I was not talking about dependency hell, which you’re probably confused with
2) I have been using Linux since you were wearing diapers
3) I’m installing applications nearly every day (today: Phoenix 0.5
1) That’s exactly what I have been talking about. I guess it’s ok to missunderstand someone, as long as it makes Linux look good.
2) You have been using Linux since 1968, and did not have any problems? I think trying to use an OS that doesn’t yet exist would constitute a rather big problem.
3) And I use Linux at work every work day. It was my choice, but that doesn’t mean I am blindly attached to it. I am free of cognitive dissonance in that respect.
I have been using Linux since 1996 – probably the time when you have been using diapers (or should I say “since”?). At the beginning the experience was much more rewarding than it is today. Even RedHat didn’t suck back then. I remember RedHat Linux 4.1 and 4.2. They worked OK. Then Redhat 5.0 was a disaster, 5.1 didn’t detect my hard disk’s geometry correctly etc. And a Linux zealot actually lied to me that RedHat 5.1 has a graphical installer – that’s when I started to see the first Linux hypsters trolling around. Then these hypsters began to be really annoying, and nowadays I see them spreading FUD about things like Caldera, UnitedLinux, Solaris (and any other Unix they don’t understand), POSIX, NetWare etc. etc. That’s a community I have a hard time identifying with.
It’s those 6 words I dread most when talking to a Linux guru. It’s like getting directions from a local who knows where you want to go but can’t seem to remember any relevant street names. “Just go down there – coupla blocks, past the chain link fence company, on the right, next to the blue dumpster, make a left after the light, blah, blah, blah…” Sometimes experts forget that not all of us remember every step of the way to do a certain task they themselves have done thousands of times.
I remember being on some board somewhere and I actually read someone mocking the Windows registry. I believe they called it an ‘abortion’. As I recall, the alternative to having a centralized repository for program settings, localizations, and library locations info was .ini text files (Windows 3.1). Funny thing is, I think that’s the state Linux is in right now. Buncha files thrown in there, almost willy-nilly. “Hmmm.. Should that go in the /etc or perhaps in the /user? Flip a coin.” Also, have fun trying to figure out how to find and delete what you don’t need if you want to uninstall said app.
Mock .dll hell if you will, but with Win2K I’ve rarely had issues with this anymore. Granted, server-side it’s nightmarish (don’t dare mix things like Exchange with SQL or ISA, or.. Uh… Actually don’t mix Exchange with ANYTHING!), but it does rule the desktop. Installing and uninstalling programs is pretty simple. This is the model desktop Linux distros strive to be most like (why else do they call it ‘Lindows’?)
I say, if Microsoft spends billions of dollars on research – why not hitch a ride? Surely not everything they do is evil and stupid. This wheel mouse I use from Logitech was innovated first by Microsoft. I remember wrinkling my nose at them when they first appeared, but now it seems I can’t live without one. I guess what I’m saying here is – drop your bias long enough to look for the good in everything.
One of the advantages to running Windows is being able to expect the way things work. Mac OS is this way to a greater degree. Linux people can argue this point from their own perpective perhaps, but for the end user what matters is simplicity – no matter what goes on in the background to provide it – no matter how inefficient. After all, we’re dealing in GHz now. If processors get any faster, KDE/Galleon will be almost USABLE
(it’s a JOKE, son)
Flexibility is terrific if you know what you’re doing enough to be able to customize it in the first place. This is why distros like Lycoris and Lindows are getting high marks – usability. They don’t give you 10 different programs to do the same thing. They standardize the tools they think work best for their distro and what’s more, they organize them well. Just as anyone is welcome to install something different if they don’t like them.
Please don’t misunderstand me, I’m a fan – really. My last ‘computer of conscience’ was the Commodore Amiga. I’m a sucker for underdogs, I guess. I haven’t been this excited about an OS since then, so I have reason to see Linux succeed both as a server os and as a desktop.
As the tech coordinator for an all-girls school, I’ve introduced open source programs like OpenOffice.org and 7-zip to this environment and standardized them here. And yes, this is all in anticipation of the day where we might just start converting some of our Windows desktops to Linux. I have a list of reasons why I can’t right now and although the list is getting shorter all the time, I can tell you that things like app/library management is something NO user administrator should have to worry about. The good news is, I think breakthroughs are coming.
In referring to my previous post…
Now that’s a term – “user administrator.”
Alright.. Guilty! In Linux at least, I do feel like a ‘user administrator.’ At least I know I suck. So happy to share that with you all.
I think I meant to say that no user OR administrator should have to worry about app/library management. Oops.
🙂
Debian is far and away the best Linux system I have used. The first two times I tried it I wasn’t very impressed, but it grew on me. In the past I’ve always used Redhat but as I learnt more, I always ran into limitations with getting software installed on various Redhat 5, 6, 7 installations. Once you know a little about Linux systems Debian really is so much easier and nicer to use.
The other point with Debian is that it doesn’t feel like a ‘distribution’ that you need to get a new version of every 6 months. Install it, and update it in place. I’ve never done a Redhat upgrade (instead of a fresh reinstall) but I have never felt good about getting a whole new distribution of mostly the same old software over and over again. I just love the way Debian feels and works!
Debian also seems to use the least disk space. Just install what you want (and the dependencies) and that’s it. If you’ve missed something, there’s no trouble – just apt-get it. Also, I find debian-user and debian-kde to be generally very helpful with many knowledgeable people posting to those lists.
So I would encourage everyone who has used Redhat, Mandrake, SUSE, etc. to give Debian a shot! (and possibly one or two more shots a bit later, until it hits you
I love gentoo/debian for home/work.
I tried Red Hat 8 last week, and it has very good configuration and management tools, and i love bluecurve. But Redhat 8 it’s full of bugs, i couldn’t even run the package manager and winamp (i had the latest updates). All of them are reported bugs. And if you run a localized version (spanish) of Redhat, translation sucks, and you get even more bugs (specially UTF8 related ones).
Red Hat 8.0 should have been a Beta version, it’s not ready for desktop nor server. Gentoo 1.4RC1 is still more stable than Redhat 8.0, for me.
Gentoo all the way. Ever since I had a taste of portage, nothing else will do the trick for me. Nothing feels right, Redhat is too fat, rpm infuriates me, slackware is too stable (read “boring”), I don’t want that on my desktop, I’d use it on a server for the home internet connection sharing or something like that. Debian seems fat AND boring, but I haven’t installed it in ages. Mandrake has never made it for more than two days on my machine. It looks good, but it lacks the… I dunno… linux magic maybe? Anyway, everything else seems interresting for all kinds of situations and people, but nothing suits my own needs like Gentoo does.
Forever !
After I said what I thought about the dependancy problems in Linux, I must say that I, too, have a “preferred distro”: it’s Slackware. Started with Slackware, tried OpenLinux 1.1 (liked it, too), tried RedHat 4.1 (liked it, so so), 5.0, 5.1 (didn’t like it), Debian (I think it was 2.1 – so so), OpenLinux 1.3 (liked it, but less than 1.1), 2.2, 2.3 (more and more userfriendly, less manageable as far as I’m concerned), Suse Linux 6.0, 6.1 (so so, but felt better than RH 5.0/5.1), then later tried RH 6.0/6.1 (very disappointing) and 7.2 (got a bi better).
In the meantime, I followed Slackware through all the versions, starting with 3.4. It never disapointed me, it just faitfully did what it had to do, and it was always clear which config file does what, no convoluted acrobacies, no broken management tools. And even the package manager is minimalistic but really workig fine. It doesn’t try to be too smart, it doesn’t screw up your system. YOu must know what you’re doing, with Slackware, though. Which I do.
Apps shouldn’t link to exact library versions, they should link to symbol library names. However, lots of apps just aren’t well behaved. RedHat, in particular, is just abuses standard naming conventions to no end. On my Gentoo system, I can download random Debian apps (and using alien) run them just fine. I’ve never been able to do that with RedHat without making a bunch of symlinks. As for why they break compatibility, ask the developers. It’s important to note that usually, upwards compatibility is broken, not backwords. So glibc 2.3 will run all apps compiled for glibc 2.2, but not vice versa. If you’ve got apps compiled with new versions of a library, you should generally have that library along with your old ones. Windows does the same thing, but since you’re pretty much forced to keep stuff up to date (Windows Update) you probably don’t notice as much as say with RedHat, which sucks for keeping a live system up to date. This is also probably why Gentoo and Debian users, who can just run apt-get update or emerge rsync every night don’t notice library hell as much.
Why is it that people who don’t like Linux always have to throw tantrums in forums such as this. I think the topic at hand was, “What is your favorite Linux distro”, NOT, (said with a whiney lisp) “If you guys don’t stop liking Linux right now, I’m going to hold my breath and run away and never come back ever!!!”
I think it’s funny how many people have a football team type mentality regarding Windows and Linux. I admittedly don’t like sports, so perhaps that’s why I don’t understand this clean sliced penchant to love one team and hate the other. To build up and defend one OS and pull down and attack another.
I like Linux. Debian and Slackware are my two favorite distros and my computing environments of choice. However, I also like *BSD, OS X, and Windows; although to a lesser degree. I use Linux probably 80% of the time, but I also use other operating systems depending on my mood and my current needs. They all have something to offer. OpenBSD makes a great low maintenance server, Debian and Slackware make great servers and great desktops, OS X is a great desktop, and Windows is good to play games on and to run defrag programs on.
I’ll shut up now, but I just had to say how funny I find Xavier and Mario’s attitudes here today. It’s like, “No da**it! I am a fan of this black T-shirt and I’ll be da*ned if I’m going to wear any of the other clothes available to me! I’m going to shun those other clothes and give them the stink eye in public settings at every opportunity!”
Oh, one more thing. Thanks to all the people who have pointed out the misinformation, lies, ignorance, or whatever anti-linux nonsense it was that has been spread around like oh so much crap today. You guys did good.
Actually, I noticed that in the end, all the Linux people concluded that there is, indeed, a problem with dependancies in Linux.
And the reason why I even mentioned it, was that it was in the article.
Talking about crap, I think your post is really a pile of it.
iconoclast, you’re your own worst enemy, I guess. In the same post, you say:
I think it’s funny how many people have a football team type mentality regarding Windows and Linux.
and then you go cheerleading for your team:
Thanks to all the people who have pointed out the misinformation, lies, ignorance, or whatever anti-linux nonsense it was that has been spread around like oh so much crap today. You guys did good.
“No da**it! I am a fan of this black T-shirt and I’ll be da*ned…”
It’s alright to say darn on this forum.. I think.
iconoclast, you start your post like someone who is annoyed by the “US and THEM” attitude, but then you say I’ll shut up now, but I just had to say how funny I find Xavier and Mario’s attitudes here today.
See, you went immediately to count your allies and your enemies. “Who are my allies? Oh, you did good, boys. Who are my enemies? mario and xavier.”
I didn’t even notice I had an ally named Xavier. I just say things as they are, don’t try to justify my own decision (to diminish the cognitive dissonance) or to group up with my “team”. I’m not looking for “US vs. THEM”, but am not even particularly irritated by such attitude. What irritates me usually are people who are a gross contradiction to themselves and don’t even see that.
I never put you and Xavier in a THEM group or a team or anything. I think your complaints about Linux’s library hell are very hyperbolic, which is why I added your name to the list of people who’s complaining was a bit much.
I have been using Debian since before potato, and I have used Slackware off and on since their very first release (whatever it was called). Have I run into some library conflicts? A few, but nothing compared to what I have personally run into with Windows, and the problems were fairly easy to get around. Also, the nice thing about Linux is that you can install vast amounts of software; all that very greatly in age. Therefore, library conflicts are to be expected. However, if you choose a well put together distro like Debian, and stick within the Debian realm, you will most likely NEVER run into a library conflict. At least I never have.
So, I found your complaints to be a bit exaggerated. So what.
In parting, I would also like to point out that I am not cheering for MY TEAM, but rather am cheering for those who’s posts adroitly corrected the misinformation (albiet spread much more by Xavier than you) posted here about Linux. If I have a TEAM at all, it is truth and correctness, not other posters on this site. The mentality that I was referring to was the Windows vs. Linux one, and the thing I thought was funny is that SOME people don’t seem to be able to utilize both systems for what they are good at, but must love one and ridicule the other, and I have never been contradictory in any way to that viewpoint. I’m sorry that you misread my post.
Sorry Mario, I forgot to put my name in the Your Name field. The above post is obviously mine.
My Linux distribution of choice can be written as an ISO from /dev/null.
Lick-horse is coming close for those who just wanna be an end user. GUI mode configuration tools mostly work and it passed my “Install a random RPM” test. Not only that, but WINE actually made IE 5 usable on an Intel 810 board. Nifty.
I’m curious why he didn’t even try Slackware. I love it, your father loves, you aunt nedda watches it on the vcr.