DISTRO advise (was Re: [Nottingham] k3b install, yum, gcc and libs)

[Cam]

chris

> The Gentoo Surgestion was mine.....

Gentoo sounds great although I've never tried it. I do use RedHat and 
Fedora though...

> Since redhat was mentioned.... ill talk about RPM's
> Ok, they calculate dependency's for you. and thats it.
> they will not solve them fro you, its your job to go on the internet, 
> find it, then download it.

True, rpms are binary or source packages which know about dependencies.

> There ARE extensions to RPM's like YUM, which to a certain degree will 
> auto-download and install for you.
> however YUM is serverely limited... its only reealy good for updating 
> the packages that come with your distro.

That's not strictly true. For example Fedora doesn't come with many 
multimedia tools (eg. xmms). There are 3rd party repositories and by 
trivial configuration of yum you can install and upgrade 3rd party 
software. Most Fedora users do this without problems.

In choosing a distro, I'd suggest: choose one that you know other people 
use, so they can help if you get stuck; also choose one with an active 
community so problems will be found and fixed quickly. I like Fedora 
because it's fairly cutting edge, and it's mainstream enough that 
problems are found and fixed fairly quickly.

-Cam
-- 
camilo at mesias.co.uk                                                 <--