[GRLUG] distros, DE's, etc.

[Roberto Villarreal]

Perhaps that should be another criteria you throw into the mix; what distros 
allow you to build the system *from the ground up* rather than having to tear 
them down, like you mention.  The two linux distros that I have real/current 
experience with are Debian and Gentoo.  Both of them are 'from the ground up' 
installs, so there was no "default" to tear down (though I'm sure both have 
the option for a 'default' install available).

As to "at that point, what's the difference", in my opinion, it is package 
availability and package management.  I like being able to hear about some 
new-fangled technology, open a shell and do an 'apt-cache search 
new-fangled_technology', and see that it is already there.  Then dependency 
resolution follows from that.  

Debian I sometimes have issues with, but it's my own fault for 
having "outsider" repositories and mixing unstable, testing, and stable all 
together.  But never once have I gotten into something I couldn't get out of 
without wiping the system.  Gentoo I've never gotten any issues, but on the 
other hand it doesn't have as current stuff as Debian (without messing with 
the masks and such).  And with RedHat... ugh (but this was back with RedHat 
6/7 and was a newbie... haven't used it since then).

Roberto


On Tuesday 16 May 2006 8:39 am, Topher wrote:
> This is mostly about how I choose a distro, with thoughts thrown in about
> Desktop Environments, etc.
>
> As mentioned, I run Enlightenment (DR16 to be specific).  I don't know of
> any mainstream distros that make it available in their package system (I
> haven't looked in a while though).  I also don't know of any mainstream
> distros that *prefer* to run something other than KDE or Gnome.  They're
> very intent on making a windows-like system.
>
> Since I don't get into that, *any* distro I use is going to get torn apart
> and re-configured the way I like it.  That nullifies most "default" and
> "out of the box" settings *except* for hardware detection.
>
> So what I look for in a distro is good hardware detection and having
> modern libraries and such, so that I can still install whatever I want,
> even if I have to compile it.
>
> That levels the playing field a lot.  Suse, Fedora, Mandriva, CentOS;
> they're all redhat originated, rpm based systems.  I'm going to turn off
> Gnome and KDE in all of them, get mp3 playback working in all of them,
> etc.  At that point, what's the difference?
>
> Topher
> Manager of Internet Services
> Cornerstone University Radio
>
> ------
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