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Other BSD and UNIX/UNIX-like Any other flavour of BSD or UNIX that does not have a section of its own.

View Poll Results: what linux distro do you use and/or like?
Redhat / Centos 24 15.19%
Suse 4 2.53%
Debian 35 22.15%
Slackware 30 18.99%
Gentoo 13 8.23%
Ubuntu 23 14.56%
Others 29 18.35%
Voters: 158. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 11th June 2008
roundkat roundkat is offline
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I have a mix at the house..

Desktop - Ubuntu-Hardy-64
Desktop2 - XP
Email /Samba - ClarkConnect (run 3 of these)
Protecting the LAN -- OpenBSD (run 3 of these)

Depending on your skill level..
I would suggest
-- Mepis - for very new users (great forum and most packages come from
Ubuntu repositories)
-- Ubuntu - the off shoots like Kubuntu and other xBuntus are not IMHO a bit behind curve..

Try out a few and then pick one.. or two ..

rk
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Old 11th June 2008
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Currently I mess with Gentoo at work. Some minor things are better like in *BSD, but since the system isn't split (system and programs), I'm really missing BSD :|
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Old 11th June 2008
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If I can't use BSD, it's CentOS. Why? Because it's YUMmy and very stable for server jobs. As for workstations, staying within the Red Hat bloodlines, I prefer Fedora.
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Old 11th June 2008
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Yum isn't all that strong of a package manager, but anyone is entitled to their opinion and have choices.
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Old 12th June 2008
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The real pitfall isn't the more or less addon yum, but rpm. Some more seasoned users already know the term 'rpm hell' back from the nineties and its true today. rpm v5 (see OpenPKG) is more advanced, but Red Hat sticks with v4. Maybe we will see the more advanced version in future.

There are better package management systems (faster, more dependable and more error-free) like apt-get/aptitude, pacman in ArchLinux or portage in Gentoo. And if you like KISS, then FreeBSD ports or pkgsrc is the best option available. Anything rpm-based isn't bad at all, but inferior to any other available system. So it isn't a matter of mere choice, it's a matter of efficiency. Of course, it's not a blow against Centos or any other distro using rpm, but in the end most peoples choices are based on the package management system. People are choosing Slackware because of the lack of dependencies, some are choosing Debian because of the mighty apt-get/aptitude and its full-blown configuration and so on.
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Old 12th June 2008
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One can manage rpms with the smart package manager, instead of yum. It works rather well, as a rule (though not always.)

Yum has greately improved rpm management from the 90's, but is still, in my humble opinion, slower than apt, even when using deltas, fastermirror and such.

Apt will also have problems with broken dependencies and the same type of cycle, can't do this because we need that, blah blah.

Pacman has really gotten fast--I don't follow the Arch list closely, but I vaguely remember them making some changes, and it became quite quick after that.
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Old 12th June 2008
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>Yum has greately improved rpm management from the 90's, but is still, in my humble opinion, slower than apt, even when using deltas, fastermirror and such.

You could have a look at Suse for example, there it is faster while using delta rpms for the downloads, but while installing it too. So there is room for advancement, but I don't see huge differences with yum.

There are even enough alternatives compared to yum, like smart package manager.

http://labix.org/smart
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Old 12th June 2008
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I know RPM hell. I experienced it four years. I haven't touched an RPM-based distribution since then.
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Old 12th June 2008
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Thanks for the cool info about apt-get. It may sound ironic, I will use yum to get apt and start learning it.
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Old 12th June 2008
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Had to laugh--today I went to upgrade and of course, 100 packages stop because of one theoretically missing rpm--which is installed. Sigh.

Sometimes, I think there's truth to the rumor that the RH developers and documenters work for MS.
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Old 12th June 2008
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roflmbo!!!

Well, I'm probably lucky since I've never used an RPM based system long enough to actually install an RPM, unless you count installing an occasional linux rpm through FreeBSD ports.


Just reading about the differences between rpm and dpkg a few years ago was enough to make me concentrate on Debians dpkg instead.
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Old 13th June 2008
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They'll all have issues from time to time, be it apt, rpm, or even our beloved ports and packges. It's just that I happened to get bitten today.

Yum has improved, there's a skipbroken (skip-broken? Whatever) plugin so that one can do the upgrade--I thought it was automatic, but I guess I was wrong.
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Old 13th June 2008
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I'm migrating my desktop over to FreeBSD. I need the ability to tinker. It drives me crazy, if I can't. I'd use Slackware, but I'm not going that route this time around.
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Old 13th June 2008
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Quote:
Originally Posted by scottro View Post
They'll all have issues from time to time, be it apt, rpm, or even our beloved ports and packges. It's just that I happened to get bitten today.

Yum has improved, there's a skipbroken (skip-broken? Whatever) plugin so that one can do the upgrade--I thought it was automatic, but I guess I was wrong.
Exactly but I have to agree the RPM is the most PITA of all which is why I'm glad YUM is an excellent alternative. The ports in BSD is still awesome. The reason why I'm sticking to CentOS/Redhat is my customers want to use that for server use. If they want me to use something else, I'm heading straight to *BSDland.
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Old 13th June 2008
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Quote:
Originally Posted by scottro View Post
They'll all have issues from time to time, be it apt, rpm, or even our beloved ports and packges. It's just that I happened to get bitten today.

Yum has improved, there's a skipbroken (skip-broken? Whatever) plugin so that one can do the upgrade--I thought it was automatic, but I guess I was wrong.
As I said, I don't wan't to blow some beloved distro away, there are just some package management systems which suck less ;-)
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Old 13th June 2008
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Ok, that was funny, at least to mutt users.

One doesn't find this very often with CentOS. One reason is because they do a great deal of QA before releasing anything, and tell you that if you customize the kernel or use a non-CentOS kernel and break it, you get to keep both pieces.

Also, they're more like a Debian stable--the packages will often be older, but are only released after rigorous testing. Not perfect of course, especially for those like myself who use 3rd party repos, non standard kernels and the like, but as has been said in this thread, it's pretty reliable.
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Old 13th June 2008
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I'd much rather take Fedora Core or CentOS or Red Hat over Debian. At least they offer a certain degree of freedom.
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Old 13th June 2008
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ninjatux View Post
I'd much rather take Fedora Core or CentOS or Red Hat over Debian. At least they offer a certain degree of freedom.
I'm confused by your statement. Can you elaborate?
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Old 13th June 2008
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Debian does what it's meant to very well, but I've always liked to fool around. When I was using Debian, I didn't find much to do. If you installed GDM, it was automatically added to the proper runlevel. Almost every single package was setup properly, requiring little to no user interaction and leaving little to no room for customization. Those are areas where Gentoo, Slackware, Arch, and FreeBSD simply rule. It's also an area where Fedora, Red Hat, and CentOS do better than Debian. That may have changed though, as I haven't touched Fedora in over two years.
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Old 13th June 2008
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Many people might call that a great feature ninjatux, although I do think you have a very good point.

One can always change things after it's installed, no?
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