[dundee] Change of Distro - light blue touchpaper and retire

[Robert Ladyman]

I think I have finally had enough of OpenSuse, discouraged by things like 
refusing to fix Network manager's conflict with ppp and marking it as a 
"WONTFIX" [fx offstage: sounds of hysterical laughter]; removal of Webmin, 
Realplayer, kjobviewer; smashing /etc/* config files and/or magically 
generating them from some gui tool without telling you where THAT tool has its 
config files [fx offstage: sounds of crying, smashing of keyboard]; making it 
hard to derive a new distro; ignoring simple user requests to fix minor bugs; 
bizarre problems with HAL (also known as the Hardware Obstruction Layer) and 
putting the "F" into "fdi"; not even having the GIMP in the live-cd...grrr.

As I'm too lazy^H^H^H busy to do any research for myself (and seem to be a bit 
busy writing some gubbins about Squid for a bunch of sandal-wearing 
linuxistas) and it's been a bad day AND the gout is playing up again 
[ibuprofen and cocodamil for lunch, my favourite] perhaps some serious and 
ideally, not-so-serious suggestions from you all would help.

My URS for a new distro is:-

- Must not commit any of the above distro-crimes;
- Must be KDE-friendly (Gnome is gnot for me);
- Must not be Ubuntu-derived (so kiss my shiny plastic mouse, Azmodie et al);
- Must have reasonably good package management (i.e. not like Linux From 
Scratch*)...
- ...and that really means probably NOT rpm/hell package management;
- Should be able to reasonably easily derive new distros / modified distros 
from it;
- Should allow for installation of so-called 'restricted' or patent-encumbered 
software.
- Ideally, would be easily usable by she-who-must-be-obeyed / DFU's as well;
Should be upgradable in-place**;

Does this just leave Slackware and Gentoo? 
TayLix? TheLinuxSociety.iso? OldGitix? Suggestions, serious or otherwise 
welcome (only physically possible ones from you *buntu users, please).

[Sits back, sips coffee, awaits flames]


* For those who don't know, LFS has the ultimate techie package management 
solution. It hasn't got one.
** Yes, I too have suffered from the Mandrake/riva/OpenSuse "is this an 
upgrade, if so abandon all hope of it working" installation check-box which 
basically results in having to install the system twice. Tra la la.
-- 

Robert Ladyman
File-Away Limited, 32 Church Street, Newtyle
Perthshire, PH12 8TZ SCOTLAND
Registered in Scotland, Company Number SC222086
Tel: +44 (0) 1828 898 158
Mobile: +44 (0) 7732 771 649
http://www.file-away.co.uk