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Re: Best linux Distro 2011



On 8/10/2011 1:51 PM, Hans-J. Ullrich wrote:

You make some valid, neutral points here, and I have no argument up to
this point.

> 4. FreeBSD (and I thought long of it), just lost, as packages and updates must 
> be compiled on the system itself. That was no problem for me, but things hnad 
> to go fast, and I was the only one, who was able to compile things. The other 
> mebers of my team were Microsoft-Mouse-Pusher or noobs.

The FreeBSD Ports system isn't the only means to install software.
Alongside the Ports system is the pkg_* system for installing pre-built
packages, these version numbers are almost always in-line w/ ports so
there is little issue and you can safely mix-match in most cases, so
long as you pay attention.


> 5. The winner was Debian. Why? Easy to tell: The packaging thing was running 
> perfectly, I could automate a lot of things (cron-apt for example), protection 
> was good with a little more work, and, very important, I could use webmin (in 
> a restricted form) for our noob-admins and also some usermin-modules for my 
> customers (also very restricted form). All other things could be configured to 
> my needs, thanks to the scripts, debian is bringing by default. 
> 
> And, not to forget: debian is running on the most different hardware, on intel 
> machines, solaris, risc whatever. I choose after this advice: Choose a 
> distribution, and learn it. But learn it well! It was also the well 
> documentation and manuals, which made my decision easy (although the docu of 
> FreeBSD is very well, too!)

I beg your pardon, but the FreeBSD handbook beats any linux distro's
documentation hands down. You can 'man <insert anything> and get a well
documented man page on that topic, I can't "man wl" in Debian.

Don't get my wrong, I like Debian a lot, I've been using it since 6 was
released and so far, it suites my needs, I even choose it for the VPS I
just got. I'm also a FreeBSD fan (used it since the early 5.x days)

FreeBSD can also run on these platforms. Although, Solaris is a
UNIX-based OS, not a platform, are you talking about SUN Systems? Check
out [2] and [3] for FreeBSD's Architecture support policy and a link to
download the current supported branches (8.2 and 7.4) across multiple
architectures. There are other niche-releases of FreeBSD released by
developers on the side, such as NanoBSD, which is used as the
base-platform for pfSense.

> 
> And not forget its freedom: There is no coorporation behind it, which si 
> controlling everything (like i.e. SuSE or RedHat!!)

Last I heard, while RedHat does own the rights to Fedora, it is
primarily a community-driven bleeding-edge OS designed to provide RHEL
an up to date, stable environment. I dunno about SuSE, never used it
much. Fedora, while bleeding edge, isn't all that bad if one takes your
own advice and learns it well.

> 
> If I would have to choose today again, I would again vote for Debian, 
> especially for noobs. It is easy to install, well to learn, is still pure 
> linux (like slackware), and has a fine community.

Slackware is more pure in my option, only because the developer aims to
provide a *vanilla* environment that is free from developer influence.
The Debian way of doing something won't fly in Slackware, but the
vanilla/neutral way of doing something in Slackware will work in almost
any other modern *Nix OS

> 
> Many may ask, and Ubuntu? Aaah, f...k off! I do not like, what Ubuntu does. It 
> is mostly preconfigured, and people do not learn anything. And it lacks with 
> configuration. I remember, I should change postfix from English to German. No 
> problem in Debian! Just install German locales and configure postfix. And 
> Ubuntu? There are no German locales in its repository! Ah, get lost!
> It is an American Distro!
> 
> Ok, this was just my personal point. I love Debian, fes problems with it and 
> bugs are fixed soooo fast! 

Bugs are fixed quite fast in FreeBSD too, spend time on -ports,
-hackers, -bugs or -security and you'll see, sometimes, they are fixed
within minutes of being discovered. Bugs found in in BASE can take a bit
longer because there is a testing procedure to ensure that new bugs
aren't introduced into the base system by mistake with the fix.

This is also my opinion, but I think it's an opinion founded slightly
more in fact. Take a look at the mailing lists[1] For FreeBSD, join a
few and you'll see how well taken care of and robust FreeBSD really is.
Ultimately, it comes down to what will work best in your environment and
I'm sure we're all happy that you found one. It just seems like your
analysis of FreeBSD was a bit short-minded.

[1]http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo
[2]http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/articles/committers-guide/archs.html
[3]http://www.freebsd.org/where.html

Yes, I'm a FreeBSD fan, I'm also a Debian fan, which is why I sit on
this mailing list. I'm also a long-time fan of Slackware, although I
haven't used it in many years. So be kind, don't flame me :D

-- 
> Chris Brennan
> --
> A: Yes.
> >Q: Are you sure?
> >>A: Because it reverses the logical flow of conversation.
> >>>Q: Why is top posting frowned upon?
> http://xkcd.com/84/ | http://xkcd.com/149/ | http://xkcd.com/549/
> GPG: D5B20C0C (6741 8EE4 6C7D 11FB 8DA8  9E4A EECD 9A84 D5B2 0C0C)
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