[cumbria_lug] New distro advice

[Trevor Pearson]

>On Sat, 14 Feb 2004, Roger Cope wrote:
>>
>> I want core 2 because it is supposed to provide better kernel
>> performance than core 1 and my server is currently only just
>> acceptable under RedHat 9
>
>Well, firstly, it's not the distro that's providing "better kernel
>performance". You can achieve that with any distro and a 2.6.2 tarball
>(and likely have better stability without the zillions of unproven
>patches rolled in).
I think Roger means 'the Kernel supplied with core 2 is better than the 
Kernel supplied with core 1, and not everyone either wants or is able to
update a Kernel from a tarball.  This was discussed at the meeting and 
the
next meeting topic may well be How to install and configure software on 
Linux as per discussion. We will cover packages, tarballs and 
dependencies but I doubt if I would go so far as to include Kernel.


>
>Secondly, FC on a _server_? Unless there's some very specific Red
>Hat-only config tool or feature you absolutely cannot live without,
>it's not the best choice for a number of reasons. Most crucially, it's
>not officially supported by RH, so security updates won't always be
>made available as quickly as possible (been OK so far though). Then
>there's the 5 - 7 months of "support", after which the distro is
>EOLed; that's not much use for production servers and Debian's 2+ year
>cycle is far more appropriate.
>
For a 'home or small office' where funds are tight and paid-for-support 
is out of the question and where the local skill set is limited to say 
one person
then FC with 'x' disabled (in run level 3 for example) could make sense.
I have done a 'server' install on the big tower P.C. I got of Steve and 
so
far I like it.  Since my day-job involves looking after 20+ servers 
running
everything from NT4 to Solaris and HP-UX I will let you know what I 
think of
FC on a server.  I may not keep FC on it but it is worth a trial.

We installed and ran SME Server last Friday and I was impressed with 
that too so I could well end up running that.

Steve how's it going with slackware ?

>> In the meantime, I have just realised that the black box that I have
>> been using as a doorstop is actually a working laptop, which gives
>> me a spare machine to put Fedora Core 1 on.
>
>Hope that laptop has a decent spec then! I've still got mixed feelings
>about FC 1. It's polished, that's for sure, but then again so is
>WinXP. However, it's by far the slowest and most bloated Linux distro
>I've encountered in six years of Linux use -- there's been absolutely
>no effort to maintain Linux's image as a fast, compact and svelte OS.
>
I have installed FC1 on my main workstation. Linux's reputation is
for amongst other things reliability and security both of which are as 
important if not more important than speed.  With the mydoom virus
currently being reported as the most costly virus ever the Linux 
community
needs to be smugly saying not on our O.S.  I wonder if the TCO (Total 
Cost of Ownership) that MS tout includes a figure for 'cost of virus's 
per year' ?

>This is becoming a big hindrance to Linux desktop adoption. Looking
>around mailing lists and Web forums, it's not uncommon to see messages
>from newcomers who are complaining about Linux being "slow" and
>"sluggish". Of course, others reply pointing out that Linux per se
>isn't slow; it's other components. But this is the image it has.

The lack of big name games coupled with unfamiliar programs  is also
a factor, People don't abandon MS even after the fifth time they
re-install or the n'th time it crashes/blue screens or stops responding
nor does it seem to be a response many are willing to give, Well maybee
Linux doesn't run as fast as Win 95 did but it doesn't do all the 
horrible nasty stuff over and over and over again either ? we could fix 
both problems though !

>
>The trade-off is performance vs usability -- everyone agrees on that.
>But take the graphical bootup of FC1: it's meant to give a better
>impression of Linux by insulating users from the cryptic boot
>messages. That's cool! But... Starting up X (why not a quick VGA
>splash?) adds a considerable amount to the already poor boot time.
>
>The end result could be a _WORSE_ initial impression!
>
>A few people in the know understand this, and can see where it's
>heading, but most developers assume that it's not a problem. Well, if
>the modern user-friendly Linux distros booted and ran much faster than
>Windows, its desktop uptake would increase dramatically. But it's
>getting slower and slower, and more bloated, and we have a problem
>here. Microsoft will be doing its best to improve performance (or user
>perception of it) in Longhorn; desktop Linux could look abysmal then.
>
I would still advocate fighting on Linux strengths and highlighting the
weaknesses of the opposition but I agree speed is important too


>One of the main problems is that developers, being geeks to start
>with, typically have fast boxes. They don't consider that there are
>hundreds of millions of ~500 MHz ~64MB RAM boxes out there, still
>running NT4 or Win98. They'd be great to target: "You can either
>upgrade your hardware for WinXP, or spend nothing and use Linux!".
>
I have just 'acquired' a p150 with 16Mb of ram and 2Gb of HD space (from 
Mark at SRI, cheers) now I suspect XP is not going to be an option, 
Linux will run on the box and I will be able to use it too. Beat that 
with
Longhorn ?


>Except, of course, running GNOME/KDE, Mozilla and OpenOffice.org on
>those is out of the question. Even with 128MB it's poor (RH recommend
>256 for FC). How did we get into this position? When did desktop Linux
>become all about chasing Moore's Law, ignoring the potential for large
>scale migrations, ignoring 3rd world countries, and just
>overengineering as much as possible?
Given 512Mb is now circa £50 and hardware costs are still falling, the 
cost
of a min-spec p.c. to run FC is about £400 from the likes of Novatech 
compare with the inflated price for a box down at comet £1000ish.
>
>Yes, you can hack one of the mainstream distros to run IceWM, AbiWord
>et al. but it's not pretty and not ideal. Debian and Slackware are
>superb for older machines, but they're hard to install and use. When
>someone wants to install Linux on an old 200 MHz, 32MB box, what do we
>tell them? I've yet to find a decent answer, and that's a bad sign!
We had a major installathon last Friday and had everything from 
Slackware (which gained at least two new supporters) and SME Server to 
Sun's Java Desktop on the desktop.  Sun are aiming directly at the 
corporate market
with a windowsalike product which if successful would mean a lot of 
back-end Linux servers too and even more credibility for Linux in the 
business world.
Decent Answer :-
Tell your friend to get to his friendly local LUG where nice people will 
for free help install and get him up and running with Linux. Tell him to 
get himself on their mailing list their great people who are willing to 
help
and will explain the joy of installation to you.  Linux is a community
not just code and that is a massive advantage that even the mighty 
Microsoft cannot match ! Where's my soapbox ?


>
>But it's hard to go back. Packing in redundant functionality and
>features, pointless overabstraction, sloppy coding -- it's all putting
>us in a bit of a hole. GNOME is by far the worst in terms of
>overengineering; there's no thought of efficiency and elegance in the
>design, just whimsical decisions and features du jour. Yeah, a config
>system really should eat up 20 megs of RAM... (Sheesh.)
>
Sounds more like MS. I am beginning to feel there is too much MS like
in the free software world lets all start using VI again !

>In closing, we could find ourselves in trouble when Longhorn ships
>unless changes are made. The KDE team is working on improving
>performance and memory overhead, so it's a start.
>
>M
>

Hmmm, perhaps but there is also the licensing issue I don't know what
the terms are going to be for longhorn but I do know I prefer the GPL on
moral grounds and on practical, technical grounds. I guess Longhorn 
isn't
going to be GPL'ed. And I guess it will come with a price tag bigger 
than
the cost of three CD's. So IMHO on Cost-Benefit analysis it's always 
going to be Linux slow, sloppy overengineered and potentially 45p.
-- 
Trevor 'Sings of c' Pearson