Re: Let's have a vote!
On Tue, 16 Sep 2014 13:05:25 -0500
Nate Bargmann <n0nb@n0nb.us> wrote:
> * On 2014 16 Sep 12:51 -0500, st wrote:
> > Surely, I'd love to see the votes on 'What distribution currently
> > alive is a fair Unix-like GNU/Linux, stable as in "Debian Woody"',
> > though.
>
> Slackware, perhaps?
>
> Somehow I don't see Patrick embracing systemd, but I could be wrong.
> It has been years since I seriously looked at Slackware despite my
> starting out with it many years ago.
>
> - Nate
The problem I personally see with Slackware is that the Slackers
actually brag that their package manager doesn't figure out
dependencies. Wow, let's go back to 1998, with the software complexity
of 2014. Also, Slackware, like its buddy Arch, has a very complicated
install procedure. I love close to the metal, but not in such a way
that the slightest error in a multistep installation renders the box a
doorstop, until you reinstall.
Gentoo is not yet committed to going over to systemd, and its
installation is sane if slow (due to compiling everything), but one
problem I had with it was at the very end you compile a kernel, and if
that kernel doesn't boot, you just wasted a lot of time, or you have to
go in with a rescue CD and try to compile a kernel that *does* work and
get grub2 to recognize it.
Funtoo, from what I understand, is committed to *never* using systemd.
I haven't investigated it yet.
FreeBSD is, in my opinion, an attractive nuisience due to its package
manager of the month never matching ports. Its PC-BSD incarnation has
problems of its own, though it's better. I'm going to retry PC-BSD very
soon now --- I got a PC-BSD install CD from Fossetcon in Orlando last
week.
In my opinion OpenBSD is phenominal. If I can get it to run Debian or
Ubuntu in a qemu session, for those few programs I can't get to run in
OpenBSD, I'm on it like a squirrel on a tree. Be aware, though,
OpenBSD's filesystem is low performance, and takes forever creating and
deleting files. If your work involves making and deleting lots of little
files, you might not want OpenBSD.
And last but not least is the alternative of holding your nose and
using systemd. If I go that route, the first thing I'm going to do is
remove daemons from systemd's control and move them to Daemontools. As
a matter of fact, I've created a cron replacement in Python, which
tonight I'm going to daemonize using Daemontools. I'm getting a lot of
Daemontools practice, because no matter what my init, Daemontools
might end up being a better alternative for most of my daemons.
SteveT
Steve Litt * http://www.troubleshooters.com/
Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance
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