what makes one linux different from the next?

[SinNisTeR]

what the difference between mandrake and slack? why do people say that mandrake is for n00bs? some one please splain dis to me. =)

 

[n0cmonkey]

Slackware's development is slower and considered much more stable. They arent bleeding edge. Mandrake on the other hand is bleeding edge, all the newest thingies, and seems to have all the simple gooey tools to do plenty of admin type things for you. Slackware on the other hand requires you to setup most of the system yourself.

 

[SinNisTeR]

since it has all the gui things to help, that makes it newb right? =P call me a newb if i like things simple and working! =D ahahahahah =\ wait a minute, scratch that..

 

[Tiger]

Linux is Linux.
Some distro's have taken it upon themselves to try and appeal to the masses, re desktop market, while others are just as happy remaining a predominantly geek OS.
Mandrake has risen to the challenge, taking on the #1 nightmare, initial install and config.
I've played with Slack, Debian, RH and Mandrake.
If I'm running a server it'll be Slack or Deb, desktop RH or Mandrake.
The thing to remember is that at their cores they are all Linux.

 

[TheWart]

At the risk of saying this many times a day, i suggest you check out Gentoo Linux

It is the fastest distro IMO, and has a much better way of organizing programs (uses BSD style ports) than either Slack or Debian or Redhat. Be warned, only get into it if you want to learn linux and have fun!

 

[n0cmonkey]

<< At the risk of saying this many times a day, i suggest you check out Gentoo Linux

It is the fastest distro IMO, and has a much better way of organizing programs (uses BSD style ports) than either Slack or Debian or Redhat. Be warned, only get into it if you want to learn linux and have fun! >>



Explain the word "much." I use both the BSD style ports and Debian's apt-get, and Im curious why you consider BSD's ports "much better."

 

[NorthenLove]

<< what the difference between mandrake and slack? why do people say that mandrake is for n00bs? some one please splain dis to me. =) >>



Some have their own custom GUI tools and certian configurations. Like in SuSe they have Yast2 and Mandrake has Mandrake Control Center, etc. While others have just the basic default Linux tools and are more geared towards experince users who want more control over their OS. Also most Linux distros though are usually based off either Debian, or RedHat when it comes to their overall structure and design.

 

[thornc]

<< what the difference between mandrake and slack? why do people say that mandrake is for n00bs? some one please splain dis to me. =) >>


This is an easy one...

Mandrake uses SystemV init, rpm packager and has what many call GUI tools to do the configuration job!
Slackware uses BSD init, tgz packages and everything is configured through text files...

Also slackware development is proceding normally and I don't understand what one calls bleeding edge just take a look
at slack's current and see for your self everything new thing is there. And it seems they are ready to release a new version!
I'll agree that the tools that Mandrake uses are new but SuSe has been using similar stuff for ages...

Other than that, the differences are small, just stuff like what goes where and such. And this will be solved with LSB.

edit: correct link...damn scripts that don't like ftp://

 

[cleverhandle]

<< Also slackware development is proceding normally and I don't understand what one calls bleeding edge just take a look
at slack's current and see for your self everything new thing is there. >>



But, to be fair, it should be pointed out that with Slackware's low-tech .tgz packages, keeping current is kind of an all-or-nothing proposition. If you download a "current" package that was compiled against newer libraries than you have installed in your system, the package may or may not work, and pkgtool won't tell you. Same with the packages at linuxpackages.net. With .rpm's on the other hand, the system will warn you that dependencies are unmet. Example: last week I tried installing GNOME 1.4 from linuxpackages on top of an otherwise stock Slack 8 installation, and GNOME ended up horribly broken. Even though everything from the gtk series was new, I'm guessing it was compiled against glibc 2.2.5 or X 4.2, which I didn't have. So if you've got a fast connection, and can download whatever you need easily, it's not too hard to stay "bleeding edge" with Slack. But just plugging in a few new packages is hit-or-miss.

 

[Nothinman]

Debian and Slack are probably the 'most different' from the rest.

Debian has very strict guidelines for everything from file placement to package versioning, this results in a very easy to follow standardized distribution. It's stable tree is as stable as they come, but somewhat out dated. It's unstable tree is more stable than some/most other distributions releases and still has 'cutting edge' new software.

Once you get Debian running, all other distributions seem weak =)