[Malvern] LXF Distro Review.

[Geoff Bagley]

I recently drew attention to a rather suspect article "The Ultimate Linux 
Distro"  ( LXF62 January 2005 )

The legitimate criteria " for what purpose",  "on what basis"  etc were 
queried,  so I took another look.   In my view the article is crap.

The results were (for the top ranking distros)

Mandrake  (First)
Red Hat     (Second)
SuSE          (Third)
Debian  (Joint fourth with  Yellow Dog)

The alleged criteria were  What installation system,  How easy to install,  
What configuration tools,  How well can system be configured for ease of use.

I think they  strayed away from these.

For example Debian was marked down for the age of the packages, and for its 
strong focus on absolute system stability.....   new releases are few and far 
between".  It was one of the hardest to install and to configure.

They did not seem to mind instability.  Mandrake was rated number one in 
spite of  being  " unstable,  immature,  and unlikely  to ever change".
It was " so, so addictively easy to use ".

Red Hat had "more features than anywhere else".   Presumably that includes 
RPM-hell.

SuSE had  "muddled configuration tools,  and a costly six-month life-cycle".

Now that I get the rival Linux Magazine,  I shall review whether I continue 
taking LXF.   The technical standard of LXM is better.

Geoff.