Distirbuitions

[Net Llama!]

On 12/31/02 21:33, Matthew Carpenter wrote:
> begin  Net Llama! <netllama at linux-sxs.org>
> (Tue, 31 Dec 2002 13:58:06 -0500 (EST))
> 
>> That's because i don't care about 90% of the precompiled packages that
>> come with a distro.  I build my own version of most things, and rarely
>> use any of the extras that come preinstalled.  What I want is a distro
>> that is easy to install, and easy to maintain, and Redhat fits the bill
>> for me. The KDE vs. Gnome wars are irrelevant to me, because i dont' use
>> either. That alone negates the desktop.
 >
> This is where I started disagreeing with you.  If you use a system as a
> Desktop OS (or more importantly, if you are going to recommend a Linux
> Desktop for general consumption), it is going to be largely based on the
> software included.  Most people don't have the "comfort level" and others
> don't have the time to build all their own software.  Someday I'd like to
> try Gentoo, but I haven't had the time yet...  I don't know how you make
> the time.  I rely on so many software packages to get my job done that it
> is very important for me to have a system that I can have standardized
> packages to do so.  Having done a lot of both Server and Workstation
> administration, I'm forced to think about a low-impact and low-maintenance
> install, as well as the importance of similar systems.  You admin a couple
> hundred workstations or servers and such things become dreadfully
> important.

True, but thankfully, i don't admin a few hundred boxes, rather about 
10-20.  On the servers, i tend to use what Redhat provides for 
standardization purposes, although even there i build custom kernels. 
On the desktops, i build most everything from source because i want full 
control over what runs on my boxes.   Sure, the 'average' desktop user 
won't know how to build stuff from source to start out, but i think 
anyone using linux can learn, its not that hard for most things.  My 
wife, who is a Mac/Windoze diehard is slowly learning her way around a 
bash prompt.  She uses xv to maintain the digital pictures we take, and 
she is insistant on using KDE-1.2 as her desktop of choice.  I'd 
actually breakdown and build her KDE-3.x if she wanted it, cause its 
still miles better than the crud out of M$.  She actually is starting to 
appreciate XFCE, but KDE is still much more 'user friendly' for her.

> I know exactly what you're talking about.  I had to skip COLW31 but found
> 311 quite decent, however since it was DOA I have been searching for a
> good distro, both for Server and Desktop.  Since I am finding SCO's
> version of UL a pretty good match for me, and it's based on SuSE, I gave
> SuSE another chance.  Red Hat has always had a lot of weird quirks which I
> have never quite got over, although I've not used it much since 7.2.  

What kinda redhat quirks?  I've always felt that SuSE had the quirks 
(like the rather unusual layout under /etc).

>> Yea, i know there are a few
>> Debian based distros with GUI installers out there, but i never washed
>> the bad taste out of my mouth, and i still dislike the entire
>> "GNU/Linux" zealotry that comes with Debian.  
> 
> :)  I liked David Bandel's description of removing the GNU from some files
> from the debian distro.

Yea, but that's window dressing, and doesn't change the fact that the 
zealouts are still out there running the show.  Dave Bandel is by no 
means your average linux user, so when he works his voodoo, its magic in 
the making.

>> I installed SuSE about a year ago, and
>> while the install was ok, managing it was also a nightmware with one of
>> the most non-traditional filesystem layouts i'd ever seen (and this was
>> compared to Redhat, Caldera & Debian).  
> 
> I also hated SuSE when I tried it in 7.1 (which was a HUGE improvement
> over 6.0 which was the last SuSE I tried).  The filesystem WAS obtuse...
> but since I found that UL, which is supposedly "LSB and FHS-compliant",
> had the same base I decided I'd better figure out how it works...

Redhat is also LSB & FHS compliant.  Granted the last SuSE i touched was 
their enterprise server release, and that was still horribly perverse in 
its layout.  If things have changed since then, i might not feel the 
same way.

> I have personally only done this a couple times, at times when I either
> felt the need to familiarize myself with what differences really equate to
> in distros, or when Caldera announced their own distro-scuttling.

By the time that occured, i was already using Redhat at work, so it was 
a natural progression for me.  Caldera just gave me a good reason to 
ditch them.

>> > > MPlayer is one of my favorite apps.  If you build it from source,
>> > > you can get some amazing performance improvements, not to mention a
>> > > very high degree of customization.
> 
> What makes MPlayer better than Xine?  Something that optimises for

I dont' think i ever said that MPlayer was better than Xine.  They are 
both full featured.  MPlayer is a techies dream app, with loads of 
arcane configuration options.  And it is the first open source movie 
player to support both Windoze-media-v9 and Quicktime/Sorrenson-v6. 
That support alone does make it more valuable to me than Xine.

> hardware at compile-time doesn't sound very robust or
> professional-quality.  It just sounds like they are unnecessarily limiting

We do it for the kernels we build.  You need to understand that alot of 
the hardware optomizations are based around your videocard, and to a 
degree your CPU (the whole MMX vs. 3dNow! thing).  Not all videocards 
support acceleration, and even those that do have other limitations, 
such as Xv support and the like.

> their software.  I like the run-time detection approach that Xine uses,
> although Xine is far from perfect...

Xine isn't anywhere near as optimized.  I spent time comparing the two, 
and there is a noticable performance difference playing the same movie 
between MPlayer & Xine.  On a fast box the difference isn't enough to 
impact viewing.

> Since I am mostly interested in DVD and VCD/ASF/AVI playback, Xine seems
> like a better match for me... although I do like the fact that you can
> view QT through MPlayer.
> Yes, I know you wrote the SxS's for Xine and MPlayer :)
> If MPlayer is built without DeCSS but DeCSS is found on the system at
> runtime, will it use it for DVD's?  Or will I have to go through and
> rebuild MPlayer to make it so?

You have to compile MPlayer with libdvdcss support in order for it to be 
capable of playing DVDs.  THe same is true for Xine.

>> The latest stable version of XFCE is 3.8.18.  Unless you haev that or
>> possibly 3.8.16, you're not getting a clear picture of what's available.
>> Also, the development version of XFCE, 4.x, is available from CVS, and
>> is prolly more stable than KDE's latest.
> SuSE 8.1 includes XFCE 3.8.16.  Did you run CDE or OS/2?  This looks a lot
> like those...

No, but i ran/run it on Solaris.  The default theme for XFCE is very 
CDE-like, but it doesn't take much tinkering with various themes to 
stray quite far from the CDE look (if you dislike it).

> Thanks for the dialog and Happy New Year.

Same here, back at ya!

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
L. Friedman                       	       netllama at linux-sxs.org
Linux Step-by-step & TyGeMo: 		    http://netllama.ipfox.com

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