Re: Which Linux distro

[Bastien Nocera <hadess hadess net>]

On Thu, 2006-03-16 at 22:20 +0000, David Lodge wrote:
> As I stated in another email, with the arrival of my kicking bottom new  
> games machine, I don't really have a reason to run 2 Windows boxen anymore.
> 
> So I want to retire my old and knackered SuSE 9.1 box (the hardware is  
> about 5 years old and can be used to keep my coffee warm) and rebuild my  
> current desktop to some flavour of Linux.
> 
> Have any of you guys got opinions on the current distros? I want to use it  
> for a variety of things; including translations, mucking around with Gnome  
> 2.14 and the odd development of Gnome apps.
> 
> The essentials:
> 1) Easy package management (a yum alike would be fine)

Any Debian or RPM based distro will do that.

> 2) Minimal dependency hell

More below.

> 3) Wireless support (I don't want to have to compile the drivers every  
> time I upgrade the kernel)

That also means decently supported wireless card on your side. The
hardest part is the firmware. As long as you have those at hand (I have
RPMs and tarballs of my desktop and laptop's wireless cards on a USB key
drive, along with the WEP key for my networks), and your card is
supported by Linux upstream (or you're lucky enough that the kernel for
this distro includes the driver), then it's a doodle.

> 4) Sensible file system format (Gnome is not part of the OS and belongs in  
> /opt not /usr godsdammit!)

Haaaa. We can see you used a SUSE system ;)
OK, so what's part of the OS for you then? For me, GNOME is part of the
OS. I guess that for some people, X isn't part of the OS, why is it
is /usr now (recent X.org versions use that)? Perl isn't part of the OS
either, why is it in /usr. Same for python, what about the C compiler,
it's not needed day-to-day for a normal user. I guess I could carry
on...

> 5) No crap packages (e.g. isdn, ppp ad nauseam)

Well, most distros will have those crap packages. Because they're needed
by some people other than you. I always remove the Japanese and Chinese
input daemons, the ISDN packages, the ADSL packages, etc. from my
systems, but what if I needed those after installation? It's easy enough
to remove them anyway.

> I've got a lot of experience with Fedora, but it fails 4 of the 5 tests.  
> I've tried Ubuntu, but it has in built package dependency hell. I'm an old  
> SuSE user but really hate YaST and I haven't tried it since Novell bought  
> the company?

Let's go back to the package dependency hell then. Do you download
binary packages from random source ("I found this package for the newest
version of PLD on rpmfind.net and it won't install on my latest
Fedora")? Do you track the latest versions of some packages that drag in
dependencies?
It's obvious that if you tried to roll your own D-Bus and HAL on an old
machine, then, yes, it would be pain. Any distro would be. The only
difference would be using a source based distro, and the fact that you
wouldn't realise that you broke everything when installing a newer
version.

If you need newer stuff, simply upgrade the distro. Easy as that.

A recent Ubuntu or Fedora will do you just fine. And if you're going to
use Fedora, use the Fedora Extras and Livna to grab the extra apps you
want, and the 3rd-party crap needed like MP3 playback, funky video card
drivers, and wireless cards firmware. Can't comment on NLD, or whatever
it's called nowadays, haven't installed one in 6 years.

Cheers

-- 
Bastien Nocera <hadess hadess net>