Re: Linux on Laptop: Success!

[Bruce Smith <bruce@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> >I hope I don't step on any Red Hat toes, but I increasingly get the
> >impression that that Red Hat is setting their own way of doing things. For
> >instance, RHCE versus LPI certification. LPI, from what I can tell, is less
> >distribution specific and more straightforward Linux. RHCE is very Red Hat
> >centered. And that's OK. I just get the impression that the "Red Hat way"
> >of doing things is slowly coming about. But I guess that's true of any
> >distro. And that's one of the beautiful things about Linux...there's always
> >a choice! Try that approach with NetWare or NT...NOT!
> 
> I don't really understand the diffrence between something like LPI and my "Unix
> Administration Certificate".  99.44% percent of the time it's hard to tell my
> AIX box from my Linux box without typing "uname -a".  I think Linux should
> emphasise that it IS very much like Unix.

I agree, with the exception that HPUX is a lot more limited out of the box,
without downloading and installing a ton of GNU software.

> My gripe with Redhat is they seem to be slipping behind.  I learned last week
> that SuSe support Async I/O, USB, and Volume Management out of the box, so my
> applying something like seven patches to the kernel source (Linus' version, I

Not to mention that SuSE has ReiserFS (JFS) support out of the box.

> pitch RH's source RPMS) would be unneccessary if I had used a distribution
> authored by people raised on "Marshall Plan" milk instead of grits and crawfish.
> It's hard at this point to recommend RedHat for much,  even every home user can
> benefit from LVM, as they can forget forever about partitions and such
> non-sense.

I haven't used SuSE much since 6.0 (they are currently 6.4), but the only
fault I found with them back then is the software had a very non-english
flavor (since SuSE is based in Germany).  Maybe it has improved now?
Otherwise, SuSE is VERY GOOD STUFF (IMO).

I would have to do a lot of evaluating before I switched.  I'm worried 
about what problems I would encounter converting servers.  
Does SuSE post error and security updates as quick as Redhat?
Does SuSE's PHP have PostgreSQL & IMAP support compiled in?
(Personally I'd rather recompile a kernel than try to recompile PHP 
 with all the modules I need! :)
Just some of the questions I would have to answer first...


One other advantage I've noticed about Redhat, is almost all of the 
stock redhat CD's are available for download (except for the commercial 
software).  Main, powertools, source, documentation, are all downloadable.

OTOH, SuSE has a single CD "evaluation" version for download, and they
expect you to buy the distribution to get all the other CD's.  At least
I've never seen the other CD's for download anywhere.


I guess we'll have to create our own distribution to get it perfect ...
Anyone up for a BSware overhaul?   :{)

--------------------------------------------
Bruce Smith                bruce@armintl.com
System Administrator / Network Administrator
Armstrong International, Inc.
Three Rivers, Michigan  49093  USA
http://www.armstrong-intl.com/
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