The devs can choose to use the work of other devs, since it is all gpl'ed.
Evolution and time will decide what paths are the best to follow... I feel linux is still in it's infancy, but still prodigical.
Evolution and time will decide what paths are the best to follow... I feel linux is still in it's infancy, but still prodigical.
Most of the time they do work together.
The best way to figure out a good idea from a bunch of people with different ideas is to try them out. Then the ones that fail are bad and the ones that survive are good. Well, most of the time.
It's like a evolution of ideas.
It's one of the reasons that Unix is still around today and all it's conteporary OSes from back in the day are, for the most part, dead. (in this case Unix is the actual Unix OS in a real sense. BSD, System V, and all points in between. Not the coporate copyrighted mandated Unix.)
And they work together in other important ways. Like by supporting places like FreeDesktop.org.
And it's not as fractured as it seems. You basicly have the Debian camp, Gentoo clan, Slackware linux is unix people, and the RPM users.
Debian keeps tab on the purity of different programs in terms of Linux-type GPL free software. They keep a standard that others look at. They also created the wonderfull Apt package managment tools which are wonderfull.
Then you have the RPM people and they generally work together. Redhat/Fedora, Suse, Mandrake, Connectiva (big in latin-language-speaking places). They all are descendants of Redhat's original stuff and are pretty close together.
Gentoo uses the newer portage package system and tries to be on the for-front of new software technology and performance.
And Slackware people are the exact same and oppisite of the Gentoo people at the same time. No-frills OS.
All other minor Distros, with a few exceptions, are based off of these OSes. They are basicly mostly tweaks with special setups for specific purposes. To specific for people like Fedora to cater to.
Anyways what is a good linux OS to one person is a crappy Linux OS to another.
A lot of people's ideas of what Linux should be involve mostly cloning Windows or Macs and just making it cost less. That would be a great OS for them.
That would be horrible for me.
For me a great OS has some nice multimedia tools and programs for stuff like that, a graphical way to interact with files, and basicly a front for command line activities that go on constantly.
A sort of Xterm++.
So why not have a bunch of different versions? As long as everybody gets along it turns out great in the long run.
You know, I believe thats the best description of slackware I've ever seen :0) Also explains why I keep fooling around with gentoo...
What about for a 400 mhz pentium and works for an aspiring programmer (Also a linux n00b, I have an old distro of slack, but its kind of broken)(And I get errors installing Mandrake 10, otherwise thats what I would use).
Schadenfroh
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- Mar 8, 2003
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The one running on the fastest hardware. Also SMTP allows one to efficiently run multiple instances of Seti, so you can actually get more work units done even if your MHz isn't as high.
DamnSmallLinux,puppy, and Feather are good places to start with linux. They are small enough to download with dial-up,small enough to be less confusing,they boot from cd,usb or hard drive, and they have very active developement and great community spirit.
In my opinion, a distro optimized for seti would be the fastest. I slim, cut down, no frills OS and seti as the only running application. As far as I know, gentoo or linux from scratch would be the only way to do this. I'm sure other distro's could be cut down to size and made in this sort of fashion, but that's sort of like buying an entire corvet for just the seats.
Every linux distro I've ever installed had like a .10 load when idling with X running. They all may install alot of stuff, but none of it takes any ammount of proc cycles. Its just wasted disc space if you want to run just seti.
I was very impressed with the way Mandrake10 installed so easily. No problem including my dual boot of
WinXP and WinMe in Grub. K3b was another bonus and so far this has to be my favorite downloaded distro.
WinXP and WinMe in Grub. K3b was another bonus and so far this has to be my favorite downloaded distro.
I still can't decide which distro to use after reading so much stuff
Like most other users here, I'll call myself a Windows "power" user, with some experience of using Unix in school.. so I do know some commands (t/csh bash emacs etc). I just want to learn some Linux!
I am inclined towards slackware but I'm afraid that it might be a lil bit too spartan for me, while mandrake and knoppix seems too n00bish too. While other distros.. I don't know since they don't get recommended as much as other distros
Where do I go from here? I have an empty 80GB drive waiting!
Edit: I'm a n00b so I've decided to try out Mandrake. Hope I don't wipe out my existing files system or something wish me luck!
Like most other users here, I'll call myself a Windows "power" user, with some experience of using Unix in school.. so I do know some commands (t/csh bash emacs etc). I just want to learn some Linux!
I am inclined towards slackware but I'm afraid that it might be a lil bit too spartan for me, while mandrake and knoppix seems too n00bish too. While other distros.. I don't know since they don't get recommended as much as other distros
Where do I go from here? I have an empty 80GB drive waiting!
Edit: I'm a n00b so I've decided to try out Mandrake. Hope I don't wipe out my existing files system or something
wish me luck!Slackware ROCKS!
First off, I hate KDE. I don't know why. It just looks kinda unprofessional and cheesy looking. Gnome looks more clean & polished, and Dropline Gnome (for Slackware) is great..VERY VERY easy to install.
But I will say that Slackware is probably not a good choice for people new to Linux or UNIX. A lot of configuration must be done by editing text files, rather than dialog boxes. But to be honest, it's good to learn how to work on such a low level..because when something goes terribly wrong, you're probably going to have to dig down into the text files to fix it.
For newbies, MEPIS (http://www.mepis.org/) is probably a great choice.
First off, I hate KDE. I don't know why. It just looks kinda unprofessional and cheesy looking. Gnome looks more clean & polished, and Dropline Gnome (for Slackware) is great..VERY VERY easy to install.
But I will say that Slackware is probably not a good choice for people new to Linux or UNIX. A lot of configuration must be done by editing text files, rather than dialog boxes. But to be honest, it's good to learn how to work on such a low level..because when something goes terribly wrong, you're probably going to have to dig down into the text files to fix it.
For newbies, MEPIS (http://www.mepis.org/) is probably a great choice.
Ok, I have been testing out SUSE 9.1 personal edition for server usage. I found that SAX and YAST2 are wonderful at configuring your hardware automatically and do it well. However, after running into an issue with not being able to get the VNC server running, I learned that it is very hard to get online help with SUSE. Almost all of the newsgroup posts are in german, and the forums are totally devoid of information when compared to gentoo's forums. I have used Red Hat 6.2 -> Fedora Core 2 and I can say that finding solutions to problems with the red hat series is much easier than it is for SUSE.
Linux is just a kernel, and the distro makers create the entire OS. These larger manufacturers make thier own special tools and init scripts that are heavily dependant on other proprietary stuff they have. Gentoo may be complicated and time consuming; but in my case it's just easier to use.
EDIT: I tried IRC for help, and my question got lost amongst the pre-teen babble on #suse
Linux is just a kernel, and the distro makers create the entire OS. These larger manufacturers make thier own special tools and init scripts that are heavily dependant on other proprietary stuff they have. Gentoo may be complicated and time consuming; but in my case it's just easier to use.
EDIT: I tried IRC for help, and my question got lost amongst the pre-teen babble on #suse
From what I've seen, most documentation on various distro sites is hand holding documentation that doesn't really help people in the long run...
Correct, but I've found gentoo's documentation to be updated and complete.
Fedora is as horrible as any other RPM distro, but it does have a large user base and an active community.
Fedora is as horrible as any other RPM distro, but it does have a large user base and an active community.
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