| Linux distros who likes what?
Posted: 1/4/2007 11:53:07 AM | I admin a few of Redhat Enterprise Linux boxes for my job. It's ok I suppose, it took me about 3 hours to turn off all the unnecessary services (like cups, etc).
I use CentOS on a VM that I host my personal web site on. I don't really like it..but the company doesn't offer a slack image, so I'm kinda stuck with it. Again, lots of unnecessary services and such..
I run a Slack box at home as a file server/personal web server/FTP site/dev box. I've run slack since forever and it just feels comfortable to me. I wouldn't recommend Slack as a newbie distro, though...I generally point people to Gentoo (complete noobs) or Fedora Core (noob-ish but can at least get around the CLI). That's just my take. Slack is a GREAT distro, just not very user friendly installation wise and such. It also doesn't have all the whiz bang features that more "desktop oriented" distros like Gentoo has as far as hardware detection and such. | |
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| Linux distros who likes what?
Posted: 1/4/2007 9:37:55 PM | I admin a few of Redhat Enterprise Linux boxes for my job. It's ok I suppose, it took me about 3 hours to turn off all the unnecessary services (like cups, etc).
Why didn't you just use a post install kickstart script to do it? You could have put in on a nfs server and it would have handled all your boxes. | |
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| Linux distros who likes what?
Posted: 1/5/2007 2:05:16 AM |
it took me about 3 hours to turn off all the unnecessary services
It took you 3 hours to turn off some services? What were you smoke while you were don't that? Turning off services should take more than about 3 minutes. Here's a good start:
chkconfig --list |grep on
It that's too complicated, there's probably a GUI tool that'll do it too. | |
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| Linux distros who likes what?
Posted: 1/5/2007 8:04:25 AM |
It took you 3 hours to turn off some services? What were you smoke while you were don't that? Turning off services should take more than about 3 minutes. Here's a good start:
chkconfig --list |grep on
It that's too complicated, there's probably a GUI tool that'll do it too.
That's only about 1/10 of it. Then there's disabling/deleting the stuff in init.d, recompiling/optimizing the kernel, checking inetd.conf/inetd.d, removing packages and so on. Just turning them off in chkconfig is only 1/2 the battle. | |
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| Linux distros who likes what?
Posted: 1/5/2007 9:58:12 AM | That's only about 1/10 of it. Then there's disabling/deleting the stuff in init.d, recompiling/optimizing the kernel, checking inetd.conf/inetd.d, removing packages and so on. Just turning them off in chkconfig is only 1/2 the battle.
Slow down dude. All you need is to turn them off. You never, ever, ever need to recompile the kernel. The above command (chkconfig) changes the entries in the init.d directory by itself and you don't need to do anything additional. If you want those services to stop running as well (since they start upon booting) you give an additional:
/sbin/service (service name) stop
so you don't even need to reboot. If you want to uninstall the packages a simple
yum erase (package name)
will do that for you if you have the 'yum' package manager installed, or you can use 'up2date' or go straight to 'rpm'.
So you have been doing completely unnecessary things. All of the above do not take more than a minute combined. | |
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| Linux distros who likes what?
Posted: 1/6/2007 7:18:50 AM | I can easily think of a dozen reasons why someone should recompile the kernel. Especially in a Redhat distro, but the reason I do it is to enable needed and disable unneeded modules (and there are a TON of them in the Redhat kernel). For example: Do I really need the PCMCIA module on a server? Didn't think so. It probably doesn't make much difference in the end.. but hey, it makes me look busy and makes my (somewhat clueless) boss happy because there isn't anything running that doesn't need to be running.
Sure, you can just slap a distro on there and settle for what's installed, but then you might as well use Windows..because the beauty of Linux is you can set it up the way YOU want it, now isn't it. :)
For the record, my file server at home (slackware) runs stock everything. I just removed stuff I wasn't using, but have never recompiled the kernel..why? Because all it does is store mp3s for the most part. It's not like the web servers I admin at work that need to run as lean as possible.
And you're assuming I'm using Fedora, so that might be the difference. My boss insists we use RHEL because of the support availability (we never use). I am extremely familiar with the package management system in Redhat products since Redhat Linux 6.1..as well as Debian's Apt (since 2-ish IIRC), Slack's package management system (pkgtool/tgz) and I've even played around with Gentoo's emerge. I know how to install and uninstall software from a Linux system with or without package management. | |
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| Linux distros who likes what?
Posted: 1/6/2007 2:32:36 PM |
I can easily think of a dozen reasons why someone should recompile the kernel. Especially in a Redhat distro, but the reason I do it is to enable needed and disable unneeded modules (and there are a TON of them in the Redhat kernel). For example: Do I really need the PCMCIA module on a server?
There is something fundamental about modules that it seems you don't understand. The kernel will never use a module unless it is requested to do so. The PCMCIA module will just sit in the hard-disk area never ever ever to be utilized and loaded up in memory by the kernel, so you don't need to worry about your server's memory being wasted. That's the whole idea about modules. If you disable services you don't need to worry at all about the corresponding modules of the kernel.
If on the other hand you are telling me that once you disable a service you really really want that few KB of hard-disk space taken by the module released as well so you recompile the whole kernel without that module
around...well...I think your
it makes me look busy and makes my (somewhat clueless) boss happy
summarizes everthing... Notice that even in that case all you have to do is go to the kernel space usually in
/lib/modules/kernel-#####/
and physically just delete the specific module (provided other modules that you need do not depend on it). The kernel will never notice since it will never be requested.
So bottom line is it doesn't take a long time to administer a linux box. | |
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nause
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Joined: 11/13/2006
Msg: 109 | |
| Linux distros who likes what?
Posted: 1/6/2007 5:51:49 PM | There are two reasons for me to compile.
1) I want openvz compiled in
2) I want Reiser compiled in and ext3 as a module
I don't know the status now, but at one point the debian kernel wouldn't recognize anything over a gig of RAM, so you had to roll your own. I think that was only Sarge; I've been using Etch for it's 64 bit support so it's been a while. I didn't have to recompile to see 2 gigs on my last install. | |
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rowlie
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Joined: 5/18/2006
Msg: 110 | |
| Linux distros who likes what?
Posted: 1/7/2007 7:26:13 AM | Jeez! Command lines flying around all over the place. Most people coming here havn't a clue what it is about.
A prof IT chap I was talking to recently said to me, "Linux will never become something in general use, it's too diffficult for the public at large." While I am relatively noob, I like it,I am learning. I have got a rather nice looking system running here and it's cool and updates itself regularly. Now as we know the other OS is going to cost a lot soon, double Bill's income, and regularly disable computers that seem to have the dreaded pirated software.
I did manage to pick up the WGA Removal Tool before it got itself stopped by Bill's men.
Reiser is going to be no more soon I guess, languishing in jail still. | |
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| Linux distros who likes what?
Posted: 1/7/2007 11:48:12 AM |
"Linux will never become something in general use, it's too diffficult for the public at large."
not anymore, linux distros have realized this is their major problem to mainstream and have put great effort into that direction. Ubuntu is the best example, and frankly even in Fedora you can do anything without the command line it's just that the more you learn the more the command line becomes appealing. Once you master it, there are not limits to what you can do with your linux box... | |
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nause
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Joined: 11/13/2006
Msg: 112 | |
| Linux distros who likes what?
Posted: 1/7/2007 2:20:31 PM |
Reiser is going to be no more soon I guess, languishing in jail still.
It doubt it will go poof. My only concern is whoever buys it making it proprietary and closed. From what I understand Hans kept the exclusive copyright, so GPL'ing it after the sale probably won't happen. Let's hope RH or someone picks up Namesys. | |
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| Linux distros who likes what?
Posted: 1/7/2007 5:56:27 PM | Maybe some of the newer stuff is exclusive. But I found this in the Linux kernel source:
ReiserFS is hereby licensed under the GNU General
Public License version 2.
And after downloading and perusing the Reiser4 patches I find them to be GPL as well. While somebody may take the code private in future versions, what's been released under GPL will remain free (not as in  of course). Do you remember what happened with ssh? | |
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nause
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Joined: 11/13/2006
Msg: 114 | |
| Linux distros who likes what?
Posted: 1/7/2007 7:49:55 PM | Here's the first paragraph of the README:
Source code files that contain the phrase "licensing governed by reiserfs/README" are "governed files" throughout this file. Governed files are licensed under the GPL. The portions of them owned by Hans Reiser, or authorized to be licensed by him, have been in the past, and likely will be in the future, licensed to other parties under other licenses. If you add your code to governed files, and don't want it to be owned by Hans Reiser, put your copyright label on that code so the poor blight and his customers can keep things straight. All portions of governed files not labeled otherwise are owned by Hans Reiser, and by adding your code to it, widely distributing it toothers or sending us a patch, and leaving the sentence in stating that licensing is governed by the statement in this file, you accept this. It will be a kindness if you identify whether Hans Reiser is allowed to license code labeled as owned by you on your behalf other than under the GPL, because he wants to know if it is okay to do so and put a check in the mail to you (for non-trivial improvements) when he makes his next sale. He makes no guarantees as to the amount if any, though he feels motivated to motivate contributors, and you can surely discuss this with him before or after contributing. You have the right to decline to allow him to license your code contribution other than under the GPL.
That's from the 2.6.17 src. Seems to be a Spaghetti GPL. lol | |
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| Linux distros who likes what?
Posted: 1/7/2007 8:15:32 PM |
Seems to be a Spaghetti GPL
That'll teach me to try to read a patch file to get the license info  But it still looks like reiserfs won't vanish if namesys being sold results in it being taken private; it'll just fork (if anyone is still interested). Considering Hans' less than convivial way of dealing with kernel developers it might even do better without his evangelism. Perhaps some of his better ideas will even make it into other file systems. | |
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jas81x
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Joined: 1/4/2007
Msg: 117 | |
| Linux distros who likes what?
Posted: 1/8/2007 3:04:44 AM | | Ive been using Mandriva 2007 since it came out. Liked it so much ive now ditched windows pritty much alltogether and am sticking with Linux. Have tried other distros in the past such as SUSE but as nice as they were, they didnt like my hardware and seemed to have too many bugs. | |
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| Linux distros who likes what?
Posted: 1/9/2007 3:47:40 PM | I really like SuSE 10.2. It has a menu somewhat like Vista.
The only drawback is SuSE's approach to multi-media.
PCLinuxOS is really slick for a straight laptop or desktop system.
Check out my modded cases at www.moddedcomputers.com
This is just my personal hobby/obsession.
~Mike~ | |
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| Linux distros who likes what?
Posted: 1/9/2007 10:17:16 PM | I really want to get to know Linux better... I have tried (K)ubuntu, SUSE, Knoppix Live, Redhat, Mandrake and Debian (Sarge/Stable). Of all those, I could only get Debian Sarge to install and all the others crash during install (something with USB), but it was so unstable that even clicking the wrong menu would cause it to crash. Linux hates me and my computer. But I did get Ubuntu to install on a very old P4 (433MHz), But with no networking I only got to play with the GUI.  If I ever get a new comp I plan to install Ubuntu in a dual boot config. So I guess Ubuntu is my fav. | |
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| Linux distros who likes what?
Posted: 2/8/2007 5:02:47 PM | This Linux stuff is just too durned hard to use. Why just yesterday, I took an old laptop (IBM 760ED) with a four year old version of Debian Testing on it and brought it up to date with Etch (current Testing) and Xorg worked the first time. It's painful, I tell ya!
The year over year improvement continues to amaze me. The majority of software is install and run these days. Sure, there are some problem areas generally related to this hardware or that, but that seems to happen in the nether world as well.
What most people want to assume is that a given Linux distribution is a drop-in replacement for Windows, which it absolutely is not. It has its own paradigm and even though many desktop tasks are similar, the respective approaches to solving problems differ greatly. I find the Windows desktop to be unnecessarily limiting compared to KDE, but some folks seem to find the expanded limits uncomfortable.
Different strokes and all that. The nice thing is that Linux and Free Software isn't going away any time soon.  | |
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| Linux distros who likes what?
Posted: 2/8/2007 5:07:10 PM |
This Linux stuff is just too durned hard to use.
I put a 14 year old girl in front on linux a couple of years ago. I showed her where a few things were and that was it. Unfortunately I spent way too much time after that fighting her for use of my computer | |
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| Linux distros who likes what?
Posted: 2/8/2007 9:07:28 PM | | I use Suse mostly. The main reason being that it was the first distribution that installed completely correctly on my hardware. Previously tried Redhat and Mandrake but had problems. Knopix is also useful as a stand alone (run from DVD). Good for testing new systems. | |
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| Linux distros who likes what?
Posted: 2/14/2007 2:28:34 PM | I have been using Gentoo for about 3-4 years.
Before that, I used Debian for about 3-4 years as well. | |
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| Linux distros who likes what?
Posted: 2/14/2007 9:16:38 PM | I recently gave away an old PC (500mhz, 320m) to a family that's never had a PC before. I had no Windows license to include.
I was looking for the easiest distro -- I wanted a simple, almost appliance-like way to do simple web surfing, email, WP, maybe a spreadsheet later. I tried Ubuntu and was floored that it refused to install (box is a stock, mainstream Dell). I eventually went with Sabayon. Desktop Linux has come a long way -- a 12YO or a 70YO who's used to Windows won't have much trouble with Sabayon.
I personally use Fedora (as a desktop), and Fedora, Debian, and Slackware on servers. I mostly do admin stuff -- the distro doesn't matter as much as the stuff I run on top on Linux: Apache, Postfix, MySQL, etc. Once you get past differences like init, most Linux variants are very close when viewed from a term window. :) | |
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