input needed on Debian

[Gary]

Hi Michael,

On Sat, 20 Dec 2003 09:08:58 -0600 UTC (12/20/2003, 9:08 AM -0600 UTC my
time), Michael Hipp wrote:

>> It's hard to describe, but I think I am in need of a change, and the
>> Debian based distro may be the answer.. Maybe I just have an 'itch.'

M> I know the feeling.

M> Course, when you've been kicked out of the house by daddy (Red Hat), 
M> then you don't have much choice but to look for another flop.

Exactly.. I am not going to pay $400-700 for a distro.. and I definitely
feel abandoned. Could I pass it on to a customer? Sure, but why? SUSE is a
great distro, currently using 8.2. There are just a few basic things they do
in the distro, that drive me crazy. I started with them in v 6.4. Went to
RH, because they drove me crazy back then, had a poor updater at that time,
etc.

In writing this, I guess I have clarified what I am looking for.

1. One central distro that I can hang my hat on, both for desktop usage for
   me at home on my LAN, and server usage. Servers - mail / DNS / Apache.

2. Ease of maintenance/updates for remote servers. These servers support
   mainly M$ and Netware LANS, and are used for Mail/IMAPs /DNS /Apache /
   sometimes FTP.. this is leading me towards some Debian distro. I don't
   even need a GUI on these remote servers, just have to get in them, check
   logs, and do update maintenance, occasionally add a new user, new virtual
   domain, etc.

3. A distro that supports VMWare..

Last night I was up to almost 2 a.m. looking at Libranet as suggested by
Ken. It seems to fit the bill on the above. The only thing I am unsure about
is how good it is for my server needs, how good it is as a server, as it
seems to be geared more for a desktop. I also need a good distro that has
good TCP/IP, can handle interrupts from crazy remote routers occasionally,
keep connections... some Syslink models come to mind that are occasionally
problematic. This is where I had to drop in FreeBSD, as I had some dropouts
with SUSE. The existing system usually provides DHCP via the router, and I
have to hard wire the MAC address to the mail/DNS server for example. Some
routers occasionally given me problems I guess during lease renews. I have
no problems with FreeBSD, but did have with SUSE.

--
Gary

Dain bramaged.