A good distribution...
Hi there,
I'm not sure if this is the correct place to write this, but I'd like to
make a few recommendations about the next "stable" release of the
distribution. Bascially, no distribution out there at the moment impresses
me greatly, and I expect all distribution makers are waiting for the
imminent Linux-2.0 to arrive before releasing their next effort.
Hopefully this competition will produce some fine efforts, and if anyone
can do it right, a GNU effort can. So here's a few points I'd very much
like to see in forthcoming distributions, in ORDER OF IMPORTANCE. Debian
may or may not have some of these implemented already.
1) All the known security holes PLUGGED, and a thorough review of whether
each package *NEEDS* suid bit or merely sgid to some special group. Note
the recent flurry of security alerts on the linux-alert list. Plugging
these by hand is a pain. Incidentally, keep an eye on the currently rapid
development of the shadow password package for linux.
2) Ability to pick *ONE* boot disk (with appropriate hardware drivers
compiled in), and boot from it, resulting in nice install menus with
OPTION TO INSTALL VIA FTP. (FreeBSD has this, and ftp is much more
reliable and common than NFS)
3) FSSTND compliance.
4) Pre-installed support for all the latest kernel features; quotas,
process accounting, kerneld etc.
5) MORE packages (at least all of the ones in Slackware and RedHat) and
UPDATES of existing packages
I'm more than willing to be more specific about my points above, and/or
argue their use. At least such dicussions would be more interesting than
current raging debates over the "colour-ls" package.
Cheers for listening,
-- Chris (a disgruntled Slackware user thinking of changing)
Reply to: