Re: Which distro for workstations?
On Sat, May 03, 2008 at 11:24:39AM -0700, Mike Bird wrote:
> Updating Testing workstations has proved to be much more
> time-consuming than expected.
> Unfortunately, we only have one workstation that can run
> Stable. Some need Testing and most need a combination
> We could (a) continue using Debian Testing, or (b) try
> Ubuntu (again), or (c) ... ?
>
> Any non-flaming thoughts as to which distro to use for
> workstations?
I'll assume that you mean that your workstations require a newer kernel
than that in Etch which is why you use testing.
What software do these workstations use? The reason I ask is that there
is a market segment (including reportedly Yahoo! internally) that runs
OpenBSD on workstations for the combined security and 6-month release
cycle. There aren't many security patches that come out in those 6
months for the base system (which itself is fairly complete) and many
security bugs in third-party apps (packages) which affect other distros
don't affect OBSD due to the changes to gcc which they made. If all you
need is a simple UNIX with X (OBSD comes with a simple wm) and you just
want to add a fancy wm and Firefox, then OBSD may be great for you.
If, however, these workstations are e.g. graphic-design workstations
that require a lot of third-party apps or non-free graphics drivers,
then OBSD either may not work at all, or be less easy to maintain than a
debian box, since fixes are source patches. You'd have to patch on one
box (or a dedicated build machine), make a new package, and then install
it on all the boxes. I've never needed to do it, but it is all almost
automated. Installing the packages is very much like apt-get.
Doug.
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