RedHat 8.0 vs. Mandrake 9.0?

[PowerMacG5]

I have been a Mandrake user since 8.2 (I know, a very long time) and I have had no big complaints that weren't fixable. I just started to use 9.0, and am okay with it. I noticed a huge memory leak, and traced it down to xfs. Is this a problem dye to the 2.4.19 kernel, ir just a Mandrake problem? What would you recommend, try reinstalling Mandrake, or go to RedHat? The comp is being used as a router/NAT/firewall/linux box/etc... Is RedHat 8.0 better than Mandrake 9.0? I know that RedHat 8.0 is using the 2.4.18 kernel, does it make a difference?

 

[Sunner]

xfs can mean one of two things(possibly more, though none I can think of now), XFS as in the SGI filesystem, and XFS as in the X Font Server.
Which one do you mean?

 

[PowerMacG5]

xfs, not XFS. I believe it is the filesystem because I am in CLI, not X-Windows (I boot it in runlevel 3). Do you think it is worth changing to RedHat, I have heard it is better, and more stable than Mandrake. And if so, which version, 7.2, 7.3, 8.0, etc....? Or, is there a different distro you recommend for what I am doing?

 

[PowerMacG5]

Is Suse a good distro for what I plan on doing?

 

[cleverhandle]

Um... a filesystem can't leak memory. It's not a program. What exactly are you seeing that shows a memory leak?

I think you'd be better off understanding where the problem is or isn't than switching distros hoping for out-of-the-box perfection.

 

[Sunner]

By the way, exactly what did you do to trace the memory leak?

 

[bromer]

Even though you're not in X the X Font server can be running.. you should check this (ps axf | grel xfs). I find it very odd that you would change distro just because of a memery leak, you should rather kill the source... the hunt will propperly be fun. If you should choose to go away from Mandrake then don't go to Redhat. Redhat havn't got anything to offer anyone whom will use their time for something other than finding packages on rpmfind.net. I can recommend gentoo or debian... or if you have the guts.. go for FreeBSD or NetBSD... *BSD rock

 

[HardwareAddicted]

I have this same question.....

EXCEPT..... For somwone who has no experience in Linux.... Red Hat 8 or Mandrake 9 ?

Any other distro's that come to mind... feel free to post those as an alternative.

Thx....

~ Mark

 

[bromer]

Originally posted by: HardwareAddicted
I have this same question.....

EXCEPT..... For somwone who has no experience in Linux.... Red Hat 8 or Mandrake 9 ?

Any other distro's that come to mind... feel free to post those as an alternative.

Thx....

~ Mark

Well.. many people say that Debian GNU/Linux is hard to start with, but my experince is that people will lern to use linux faster with Debian as they don't use so much time on location packages! Therefore I would recommend Debian. I have no experince with other that Redhat and Debian.

I do think that gentoo is worth a try, but I won't recommend it as I havn't tryed it. I have heard that Slackware is good

 

[Flatline]

SuSE is also a good choice for noobs. If you want the standard file hierarchy like Debian and other distros (MDK and RH both use a modified scheme) but still want to have RPM as your default package system, SuSE is a good choice (and 8.1 is pretty easy on the eyes, too)

 

[PG]

Red Hat 8 is very pretty with the new Bluecurve look, but it's missing lot of things that Mandrake has by default. Red Hat 8 has no mp3 playback and no DVD player. Xine in Mandrake won't play encrypted DVD's by default, but there are rpm's from PLF that will fix that very easily. See here I found some Xine rpm's that were supposed to work for Red Hat 8, but there were too many dependency issues and I just gave up.
I thought I also read that Red Hat has no disk partitioning tools, but I could be wrong.

 

[BatmanNate]

Originally posted by: PG
Red Hat 8 is very pretty with the new Bluecurve look, but it's missing lot of things that Mandrake has by default. Red Hat 8 has no mp3 playback and no DVD player. Xine in Mandrake won't play encrypted DVD's by default, but there are rpm's from PLF that will fix that very easily. See here I found some Xine rpm's that were supposed to work for Red Hat 8, but there were too many dependency issues and I just gave up.
I thought I also read that Red Hat has no disk partitioning tools, but I could be wrong.

XMMS?

 

[PowerMacG5]

If you had to recommend a good, stable, distro for a router; what would it be?

 

[dblevitan]

In terms of a desktop distribution, go Mandrake. Sure, it's not 100% stable and doesn't have the Bluecurve look of RedHat, but the it looks great and works. I currently have 3 computers running, among which is a laptop. Mandrake was able to pick up all the hardware on the laptop without a problem, and has tons of software. Plus PLF provides a lot of extra multimedia packages that really help. I've found RedHat 8 (which I tried) to not work as well and to be harder to use. Plus Mandrake does a really good job with KDE, while redhat concentrates more on Gnome, and since I prefer KDE, I tend to not like RedHat as a desktop distribution.
On the other hand, go with RedHat for a server (unless you want to deal with debian/gentoo/whatever). RedHat is solid, rarely crashes, and is more or less the standard. There are tons of RPMS for it, and personally I've had great success with it as a server.
For a router, it really depends on how much time you have and what you need. If you want to use an old computer, RedHat is easy to install and will work. Personally, my third computer is a router based on a VIA EPIA MB that is 100% silent. It does IPsec routing from one location to another (connects to my server), and boots off a CF memory card. I built my own system from Linux from Scratch, and have a pretty lean install (177 MB, although I never cleaned out alot of the junk from it). its currently been up for 37 days, so I'm pretty happy with it (never crashed before, just had to shut it down a couple of times), but it did take a long time to get everything working properly, so its your decision on whether you want to do this.
-David

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: KraziKid
If you had to recommend a good, stable, distro for a router; what would it be?

OpenBSD.

Not Linux, but close enough, and it has many benefits IMO.
Better manpages
Better packetfilter
Overall cleaner system
A very sound idea behind it, especially for a firewall/router type of box.

 

[dblevitan]

Originally posted by: Sunner
OpenBSD.

OpenBSD probably works well as well, but Linux can have very powerful routing as well. Iptables + iproute2 is quite powerful, and I've had no problems with it (and I'm doing some annoying routing).

 

[PowerMacG5]

The system is a newly built 1.3 GHz Duron. I built it for 400 dollars. It has a 1.3 GHz Duron, 256 MB PC133 SDRAM, WD800JB (for filserverer, ftp server). Its a new computer, so does anybody have a good distro for a new computer using last years hardware?

 

[dblevitan]

Originally posted by: KraziKid
The system is a newly built 1.3 GHz Duron. I built it for 400 dollars. It has a 1.3 GHz Duron, 256 MB PC133 SDRAM, WD800JB (for filserverer, ftp server). Its a new computer, so does anybody have a good distro for a new computer using last years hardware?

I will warn you that I have never tried Suse, Debian, Gentoo, or any distribution other than RedHat and Mandrake. Out of those two, RedHat is more stable, Mandrake is more user-friendly. If you don't mind learning how to configure everything yourself, and want good stability go with RedHat. Otherwise, go with Mandrake. Mandrake should be stable enough, but I've had problems in the past with it. Plus it has a lot of features you don't want on a server (like supermount). So unless you have no time/interest, go with RedHat.
-David

 

[PowerMacG5]

dblevitan, what version of RedHat? I tried 8.0, but hate the way they took certain things out of the kernel. I was planning on booting into runlevel 3 anyway. So user friendliness really doesn't matter to me. Which version of RedHat would you recommend? I tried 8.0, and 7.3, but they both have that bluecurve that really annoys me, and I noticed that both don't have certain things like ifconfig built in.

 

[dblevitan]

Originally posted by: KraziKid
dblevitan, what version of RedHat? I tried 8.0, but hate the way they took certain things out of the kernel. I was planning on booting into runlevel 3 anyway. So user friendliness really doesn't matter to me. Which version of RedHat would you recommend? I tried 8.0, and 7.3, but they both have that bluecurve that really annoys me, and I noticed that both don't have certain things like ifconfig built in.

7.3 has bluecurve? That's a surprise - I thought only 8.0 introduced it. In fact that was the major new feature I think. But in any case, RedHat kernels are generally pretty standard. The reason you can run ifconfig (which is not a kernel function, by the way), is because you're probably not logging in as root (or using su -). the distributions do not automatically put /sbin and /usr/sbin into the path of normal users (if you type in /sbin/ifconfig it should work).
Personally I still have RedHat 7.1 on my server - I'll be upgrading it in December, but I rarely use the default kernel anyway - doesn't include the features I need. You should consider rebuilding the kernel anyway so that you can include the features you need. Other than that, go with RH 8.0, it'll have the latest software, although point-0 releases are generally less stable. On the other hand, it does have gcc 3.2, so its probably a good idea to go with it.
-David

 

[PowerMacG5]

I tried ifconfig as root. The reason Mandrake 9.0 looked more attractive to me than RedHat was because it is running the 2.4.19 kernel vs. 2.4.18 and lower. It also as gcc 3.2 built in as well. I believe that 7.3 had bluecurve, or something fairly similar built in. Really annoyed me. But back on topic, do you think that Mandrake 9.0 is stable, or have you heard many problems with it? Also, whould I go with Redhat 7.2 or 7.1?

 

[dblevitan]

So far Mandrake 9 has been pretty stable on my laptop - no major problems, but it does have a tendency to mess up KDE if it crashes. RedHat 7.3 had the standard Gnome look, which is what Bluecurve looks like (to some extent). But I would definitely go with RH 8. It will have the latest software and be the most secure version. And I've heard that 8 is pretty good, although I haven't gotten much of a chance to play around with that. In case you're worried about bluecurve, you can easily disable it. I have no clue why ifconfig does not work - its the only way to set up network interfaces in linux (the ifup/ifdown scripts use it). But in any case, I'm definitely using RH 8 when I upgrade my server.
-David