Ubuntu CD's for Free

[David Bandel]

On Wed, 8 Dec 2004 20:24:29 -0500, Kurt Wall <kwall at kurtwerks.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 08, 2004 at 10:49:47AM -0500, A. Khattri took 76 lines to write:
[snip]
> 
> No, nor do I think that's what he meant. David's a Debian user (which fact
> those of that know him find odd); I know he's not allergic to source.
> I also know he's allergic to installing the latest untested programs Full
> o' Untested Feature Goodness (C) just because it's the latest version.
> 

Yep.  Linux is all about choice.  I choose to ignore the GNU/rms
religious bigots and use what is for me the best distro.  I can define
that as:
1.  Fast and easy to install (95% of all distros fit this)
2.  Software I need/want (Deb testing has over 17,000 packages)
3.  Quick and easy to keep up-to-date (here I think dselect/apt-get
has it all over the rest, has for years)
4.  Software that's been tested, but is not too old.
5.  Allows me to configure the way I want and doesn't trounce my
configs (two thumbs up here to dselect -- if it notes I've
hand-config'd something, it asks or leaves it alone).  And with dozens
(literally) of client sendmail servers running 24x7 and none set up
exactly the same, I need to be able to do the configuration my way.

Me allergic to source?  I know you've never heard of Chiriqui Linux,
but that's a distro I put together years ago based on LFS (Linux From
Scratch) as a bootable CD-ROM distro already configured to run a set
of wireless repeaters.  Worked very well.  But I found it a wee bit
too maintenance intensive to maintain beyond a certain point.  Just
too many CDs to burn monthly to update the systems.  I am now playing
with flash ROM drives to do the same thing and have a couple of
firewall products (one totally plug and play, a bridge/firewall that
needs no IP to shut out the world).

[snip]
> 
> Clearly, we could have religious war about which distro is the studliest,
> bestest, fastest, coolest, *est. Indeed, we have them from time to time.
> I'm simply a creature of habit and stick with what I know to work and
> with what I'm most comfortable. For me, that's Red Hat. Llama wears a
> crimson bonnet; you and Collins like Gentoo. For a long time, a lot of
> people on this list were Caldera fans, until Caldera became one.

After Debian, I prefer Slack.  Talk about opposite ends of the
spectrum, especially in the area of boot scripts.  I don't have time
to play with systems, I want them to work.  Bad enough I just had to
reach out to all my firewalls out there and update the scripts to slam
shut port 42 tcp/udp (thanx to that POS Micro$oft).  I have no desire
(or time) to waste once a system is configured.  It just needs to run.
 Next task is to go back and change all the VPNs using port 5000 to
1192(?) that IANA just assigned (sigh).

I'm sure we all have our reasons for what we're running.  None will
convince others to change.  I try others from time to time, but avoid
RPM-based stuff.  It tends to clobber configs and isn't as easy for me
to use (that coming from someone who used to contribute RPMs to
Caldera).

Time to just enjoy what we're running and be thankful we have choices
(like do I run tcpdump, tcpick, or ethereal to sniff clear-text
passwords tonite?).

Ciao,

David A. Bandel
-- 
Focus on the dream, not the competition.
            - Nemesis Air Racing Team motto