[Klug-general] Shiny New Laptop

[MacGyveR]

On Thursday 20 Apr 2006 22:59, Alex A. Smith MCP wrote:
> George Prowse wrote:
> > On 20/04/06, *Karl Lattimer* <karl at nncc.info <mailto:karl at nncc.info>> 
wrote:
> >      > If you like everything to "just Work"(tm) then either use Windows
> >      > or Mandriva.
> >
> >     Ouch, please don't say that out loud.
> >
> >
> > Well there is "just Work" and "i want to make it work".
>
> There are many cases where this is true - this is why those distro's
> have a GUI installer. CLI is for those that *want* to know how their
> system works and to learn from the process.
>
> Click click click click click reboot - doesn't teach anyone anything.
>
> >      > On the other hand gentoo and it's "hardened" project is used
> >      > extensively for mission critical servers because of the ability to
> >      > streamline it's deployment to suit any job.
> >
> >     I don't agree that its ideal for this situation, I can imagine there
> >     being many issues surrounding it, every user of gentoo I know has had
> >     some horror stories related to it, which haven't happened to me.
> >
> >
> > The reason for Gentoo as a mission critical servers is because most are
> > set up (how the admin wants it not how another admin *expects* it to be)
> > and then left. Years in the future when things need updating you often
> > need to change the distro edition which is a mission, with gentoo all
> > you need to do is change the profile and emerge -uDv world
>
> Gentoo is my company's Distro of choice as it can be made to do exactly
> what we want it todo (full email server doing customers email hosting
> thats under 200mb? Like to see you do that with CentOS). Not to mention
> the fact that, unlike some Distros (CentOS again) as *you* compile it,
> it works best for your system (CentOS and 64Bit compared to Gentoo and
> 64Bit... Gentoo won hands down).
>
> We know exactly what is in our server, what we need to keep an eye on
> and what needs to be updated. When you have 1001 other useless app's
> that come installed with a prebuilt distro you don't have that.
>
> >     I don't think its hardened at all, i think its malleable, pliable,
> > and flexible. I see its reasoning, but seriously, I don't have that time
> > on my hands. You can't be both flexible and hardened, it simply doesn't
> > work, hardening of software or operating environment is a process of
> > reducing the system to a set of lowest common denominators where
> > something can go wrong, therefore reducing risk, stabalising by reducing
> >     complexity and making it easy to debug. I don't disagree that you can
> >     harden gentoo, but i don't think its hardened. CentOS, wbel, rhel are
> >     hardened, aswell as suse enterprise etc... these are what I call
> >     hardened environments as a company has put time effort and swathes of
> >     cash at making them that way, with some of the best OS developers in
> > the world.
> >
> >
> >  You misunderstand, "Hardened Gentoo" is a seperate form of gentoo made
> > specifically for enterprise environments. It is designed to work with
> > such things as SELinux, PAX and RSBAC. It creates a complete hardened
> > environment including kernel and toolchain, way in excess of CentOS,
> > wbel and SuSE have.
>
> CentOS et al are not strictly hardended as I belive the toolchain used
> to build them are not hardended (I could be wrong here) so if anything,
> Gentoo Hardended is far more secure than those.
>
> Don't get me wrong, I like gentoo - but we also use CentOS, Debian and
> FreeBSD - Each has something they are good at and thats what we use it
> for. Yes, even though I bashed CentOS up above I do like it.
>
> Oh, and the Gentoo User Community. Most active I have seen by far.
>
> The best tool for the job.
>
> Alas, I have rambled enough for one night,
>
> Alex
>
> ---
> Regards,
>
> Alex A. Smith MCP
> Wired Network Ltd. Managing Director
> t: 01634 452 208
> e: asmith at wired-network.com
> w: https://wired-network.com/
>
> View's in this email are those of the sender and in no way reflect those
> of Wired Network Ltd.
>
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> Kent at mailman.lug.org.uk
> https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/kent

*MacGyveR sticks his slackware oar in*

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