[Klug-general] Shiny New Laptop

[Karl Lattimer]

On Fri, 2006-04-21 at 16:05 +0100, Stuart Buckland wrote:
> On Fri, 2006-04-21 at 14:53 +0100, Karl Lattimer wrote:
> > 
> <snip>
> > 
> > Before you make sweeping statements about something you don't know much
> > about followed by a "Duhhhhhhh", make sure you're correct of your facts.
> > Fedora probably the most stable and well managed distribution out there.
> 
> On the flip side you also have to accept FC and more specifically RH
> have their flaws.  Unfortunately all the testing, packaging and
> bastardisation that makes RH a sensible choice for servers also leads to
> incompatibilities with non-RH supplied software.

This is true, but to go away from software which has been built and
tested through the process is to introduce instability into the system
which cannot always be replicated by others. Thus breaking the model. 

Of course, with fedora extras and rpmforge I doubt there is anything
which hasn't been built already, or at least anything useful that hasn't
been built!

> 
> > The fact that it is more server orientated than say SuSE or ubuntu means
> > that fewer desktop users use it, but it still has a solid base, the
> > oldest linux distribution!
> 
> Wow! I didn't realise RH was the oldest distro.  I honestly didn't know
> what was but if I had to guess I would have said slack.  I started using
> Linux with Slackware '96 which I think was around the RH4 days but my
> memory isn't that good anymore :)

To my knowledge it was, shortly followed by slack because of people
complaining about the first issue you mentioned. Then came SuSE,
mandrake, and turbo... I think in that order (can't be sure), the final
one of the original distribution debacle was caldera I believe, which
was bought out by SCO (EVIL EVIL SCO).


Redhat was also the first distribution to become a corporate entity, and
the first to float on the stock market and has been adopted by many
other service orientated companies because it is easy to maintain
because of the RPM package management.

AFAIK, redhat released their first distribution in 1992 and in 1993
became a company run out of a first floor apartment, which then flooded
and caused the tenant of the apartment to be evicted. At which point
they got their first _real_ office. This is around the same time
va-linux systems were starting out. 

Rpm alone isn't enough now, and with FC6 we're getting a new and
impressive feature. When installing the OS, you'll automatically update
(so any bugs since the distribution media was written will be dealt
with), and also have the option to add your own repositories in and
install groups of software which aren't compatible with the fedora
licensing scheme i.e. dvdcss, mp3. This means that customising
distributions and building kickstart discs is a real joy, this will
probably mean many custom fedora discs will come out with dvd/mp3 and
much more included on the disc.

I don't know how this will work out but it's going to be interesting to
see how its changed 

K,

> 
> Stu
>