[SGVLUG] [Fwd: LINUX Distro]

[Dustin]

On Thu, 17 Nov 2005, Don Saxton wrote:

> I don't know distros. I use fedora.  I sent your mail to sgvlug but no 
> one has responded

OK, fine, I'll comment, though I don't see how anyone can offer much help 
until the requirements are better defined.

> >I been thinking about getting a cheap used x86 box to play with.
> >
> >I've also been thinking about installing a LINUX distro. So far these seem
> >to be the ones I'd be interested in.
> >
> >MEPIS Linux (Multimedia friendly) because I might want to be in the
> >multimedia/digital living room business 3 years down the road.
> >
> >Debian GNU/Linux (all around stable & Server Friendly) because I eventually
> >might want to set up a server eventually and Linux is cheaper than OSX.

> >Mandriva Linux formerly Mandrake (Best Installers & Hardware detection)
> >Because it seems like it might be the easiest with a partitioner etc.

Basically, this isn't about distros, it's about your goals.  If you want
to choose a distro on the basis of your future plans you *really* have to
choose what that plan actually is.  You've really offered three
strategies:

1. Aim for ease of administration and multimedia.  Proposed solution: 
MEPIS.

2. Aim for stability.  Proposed solution: Debian.

3. Aim for ease of installation and initial configuration.  Proposed
solution: Mandriva.

The proposed distros are reasonable for the strategies, based on
reputation (of them I've only run Debian).  However, for #1 I would 
probably prefer Fedora Core plus the Planet CCRMA packages.  That's a good 
choice at least for recording apps.  For #2, Debian is a favorite of mine 
for servers, but so is Slackware except for the little problem that I like 
to run things not in Slackware and don't feel like tracking security fixes 
by hand.  For #3, there are also things like Xandros community edition 
that are probably even simpler, but Mandrake (if Hearst wants me to call 
it something else they can pay a lawyer to send me a letter) is widely 
popular in that area.

I hope it's clear that answering the question isn't about distros, it's
about choosing one of those strategies.  I'm not clear how to help you
with that.  For example, a server and a multimedia appliance are as close
to mutually exclusive requirements as you're going to get, given that any
reasonable distro will do any job at a reasonable level if you know how
and you work at it.

If you absolutely must straddle the fence on this, I suspect you'll have
an easier time trying to coerce Debian Sid into a multimedia PC than you
will mangling MEPIS into a really server-oriented installation, because of
the depth of the Debian package pool.  But if you aren't willing to manage
Debian like a server in order to do so (i.e. you are willing to read, edit
config files by hand, and the like) then you shouldn't bother with Debian.
Also, while Debian is a *lot* easier to install than it used to be (there 
was no comparison between installing Woody and Sarge), it doesn't really
fit strategy 3 at all.

Consider one more strategy: figure out the person most likely to spend 
time helping you, and run whatever they run to maximize the help they can 
give.  Failing that, go with #3 and make your immediate effort as low as 
possible, because by the time you actually pursue either the multimedia 
angle or the server angle you'll have a lot more preferences of your own 
anyway.  It's easy to install a distro when and where you need it.

Dustin