New fodder for the Distro debate

[Matthew Carpenter]

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On my Linux list of choice (Linux-users at linux-sxs.org) we've been
discussing some of the distro options and their current state.

I'll preface this by stating that most of these people are
former-Caldera-ites who went through the "Great Caldera Diaspora" when
SCO took over or before (Caldera was never that great at pleasing the
user community if they didn't have large checkbooks).

Immediately most of us gravitated toward either Red Hat or SuSE (I
followed the latter path, having already tried Red Hat several times
with no love lost), Mandrake gained a few, and still others pursued the
plethora of other options.
The group has stuck together through it all, however, and we've gained
quite a bit of distro-agnostic perspective and expertise.  Verily this
is one of the most valuable Linux list I've seen, overflowing with some
of the big names and great talent in the industry.

Anyway, of late several new distros have surfaced in discussions, the
most discussed being Ubuntu Linux (http://www.ubuntulinux.org/).  Others
include MEPIS (http://www.mepis.org/), Sorcerer's
(http://www.sorcererslinux.org/), and of course Gentoo
(http://www.gentoo.org/).

All of these can be found at http://www.distrowatch.com/

Gentoo, with a devout following, at first looks like a well-documented,
packaged Linux-From-Scratch distro, because at first boot, the
documentation walks you through manually(primarily) building your Linux
system.  There are 4 basic levels of technical difficulty to choose
from, ranging from starting with nearly nothing to full binary build.
There is limited GUI or even ncurses interface, which actually can be
rather refreshing if time and attention are not lacking.  The
documentation quite clearly walks you through setting up partitions and
/etc/fstab and other text files you will need to know to be a
power-Linux-user.  In order to make the best decisions for compile-time
options and automation, Gentoo allows the setting of a "USE" parameter,
which you customize to indicate what software and options you wish to
use.  First timers should probably stick to the default, however.
Gentoo is a great way to learn Linux!  I was coaching someone through
taking the Linux plunge a while back.  I return from a 4-day weekend and
the newbie is running Gentoo on his AMD-64 system... Wow.  Configuring
your own kernel is optional, compiling it is not :)
While my first couple attempts at Gentoo have actually not been
pleasant, I have not discounted the loose nut behind the wheel.  I
torqued those USE parameters over to  "HyperDrive" (including everything
and the kitchen sink: Java, KDE, IMAP, and many others) placing me out
of the realm of "well-tested".  Any distribution you spend that much
time compiling and building is like a game of Command & Conquer.  The
longer you spend building the worse you feel when you lose :(
On the flip side, there have been several offers to help me the next
time.  I look forward to it.  My initial endeavors were attempted with
no help, which says a lot for Gentoo already.
* http://www.distrowatch.com/gentoo  (#8 at DistroWatch)

Sorcerer's Linux, is as its name suggests: another Source-based
distribution of Linux.  Sorcerer's looks a little less like LFS because
it uses a step-by-step text-menuing interface to walk you through
setting up and installing the base install.  Although there were a
couple quirks, this was relatively painless when followed from start to
finish without interruption.  While Sorcerer's menu-install is simpler
and arguably less daunting than Gentoo, its documentation is no where
near as comprehensive.  That doesn't mean it isn't good.  In fact, due
to the lessened knowledge requirement to use the menu-system, there is
less demand for breadth in documentation.  The documentation on the site
is a little confusing (not clearly marked which is for which version and
there is an MDI interface HTML doc and a couple single-page documents.
Once you pick one (hopefully the right one) the instructions are quite
clear and helpful.  Once the installation is complete, half the
documentation is remaining, covering how to install new software, how to
maintain a clean system, etc....  So far, aside from the limitation of
working in a VMWare session (I have real work to do as well) and
primarily working over an ISDN line, this distro seems relatively
stable.  I've had battery-outage and VMWare crash kill a rebuild of
installed packages (sorcery rebuild) but it seems to clean it up nicely.
~  Sorcerer does, as does Gentoo, leave you wondering just what packages
to install and in what order, but that could just be my inexperience or
ADD keeping that portion of the documentation from jumping out at me.
Configuring the kernel is *not* optional, nor is compiling.  All-in-all,
though, this distro, like Gentoo, shows a lot of promise.  I'm looking
forward to working more with it.  (Aakin Patel from the SANS04 list is
the master with this one).
* http://www.distrowatch.com/sorcerers  (#87 at DistroWatch)

MEPIS is my next toy, so there isn't much I can say about it.  The
install CD is a bootable distro so you get to "try-before-you-buy" in
the install sense.  MEPIS is one of the most popular Debian-based
distros I had never heard of until a couple months ago during a
technical Google-search.  Currently #5 in popularity on DistroWatch for
the last 6 months, after Mandrake, Fedora, SuSE and Debian.  There has
not been much traffic about this on Linux-users that I am aware of.  It
is a Desktop-distro which can be used as a server as well.  As a
Debian-distro, it reaps the benefits of many sources of software
packages.  YMMV
* http://distrowatch.com/mepis

And the Star-Child of the discussions (at least the one given rave
reviews), Ubuntu.  Ubuntu, an ancient African word meaning "humanity to
others" appears to be bringing "the spirit of Ubuntu to the software
world." (from http://www.ubuntulinux.org/).  Ubuntu is a Debian base
distro aimed at a medium hybrid of Desktop/Server software.  The aim is
at both needs using the same code-base, much like Caldera's OpenLinux,
RIP.
They have brought new meaning to the word "Free Software".  Supported by
Canonical Ltd., they have taken to fulfilling orders for CD's.  The
amazing part is that they are not even charging, even for shipping.
I'll let you reread that sentence again.  They are currently shipping
CD's without cost of any kind.  This may not last much longer, but it
has made quite an impact.  The login screen is enough to interest most
men (the girl in the red tank-top), a recent testimonial has sparked
interest in several like myself.  When my 18 CD's get here (Intel,
PowerPC, and Spark) I will be eager to try it out.  One note on Ubuntu's
site states that since CD's are cheaper than shipping, to order plenty
and distribute them to your friends.
The review of one gentleman from Linux-users includes his intention to
migrate several of his clients' Fedora servers to Ubuntu in the
relatively near future.  He has thus far been a Fedora-user, continuing
to become more disgruntled.
As Ubuntu is Debian-based, dependencies are supposedly not commonly an
issue.  As this and MEPIS will be my first stabs at a Debian-descendant
I cannot comment on this.  All I know is that many RH, Fedora, and SuSE
systems are being migrated to use APT, the package-tool for Debian, for
RPMs (the package format for RH, Fedora, Mandrake, SuSE, and other off
chutes).  One of my concerns for Ubuntu is its favoring Gnome over KDE.
~ While I attempt not to be religious about it, KDE tickles my fancy.  I
am told that KDE is probably available on other sources, which of course
are a part of avoiding dependency-he11.  There is a "Universe"
source-list which apparently provides a great deal of software available
~ unsupported.  When asked about the simplicity of package-management,
one user of Ubuntu responded "Synaptic is the gui package manager, and
it's very friendly, with a good search feature.  Warning: debian is very
addictive."  Debian is split into several distributions based on amount
of testing and named after ToyStory characters.  Ubuntu appears to have
only one release so far: Warty (short for "Warty the WartHog").
Although I do not know the details yet, the Alpha-version of the next
release is also available, named "Hoary".  I won't guess at the meaning
there.  According to one user, upgrading from one to the other was a
simple task, requiring about an hour over broadband.  The significant
part of this, for us RPM-users, is that it consisted of changing the
sources from "warty" to "hoary" and running an update (one line at the
command line, as documented on the site).  No CD-booting was required.
Ubuntu, although quite new, is committed to a 6-month release-cycle with
18 months of support for each version.  Ubuntu is also committed to
Free-Software, as in Free Beer *and* Free Lunch.
* http://distrowatch,com/ubuntu  (#9 on DistroWatch)

Of course, Fedora and SuSE were also discussed, myself providing my view
of the historical improvement of the distro, and Fedora mostly being
mumbled in frustrated tones.

*NOTE*
Please let me know if any of this is inaccurate or significantly
limited.  I would gladly make updates on any significant points of
interest here.  Please no flaming, no debating.  These are my
observations and interpretations.  If you disagree, enjoy the right to
have your own opinion.  I am more than interested in areas I've missed
or mistaken, if given in a respectful manner.  Yes, I understand that I
favored Ubuntu in this piece.  That was sort of the point.  I mentioned
the others just because they are worth looking into.  I've spent *far*
more time on Sorcerer's in the last few weeks than any other.

- --
Matthew Carpenter
matt at eisgr.com                          http://www.eisgr.com/

Enterprise Information Systems
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