[AG-TECH] Gentoo or Fedora

[Ivan R. Judson]

Here's my $0.02.

I would advocate people use debian, slackware or the redhat/fedora derived
solutions. Gentoo is nice, but it's not an end-user variant of linux.

At the time we had to decide what to support, Gentoo was (and is) the linux
we have local sysadmin support for, so it was a no brainer. Now we're
getting support for desktop debian installs, we're probably going to
consider moving node/desktop installs from Gentoo to debian. We'll continue
gentoo support, but we will only use it inhouse for servers -- because of a
schizophrenic support model we have (servers run by one group, desktops by
another). 

That bit of hairy detail being said, I would vote debian if anyone cares.

You should not consider this an official endorsement of debian over gentoo,
just the private musings of a madman with email.

--Ivan 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-ag-tech at mcs.anl.gov 
> [mailto:owner-ag-tech at mcs.anl.gov] On Behalf Of Gavin W. Burris aka 86
> Sent: Monday, October 18, 2004 8:50 AM
> To: Steve Smith
> Cc: Monika Rabarison; ag-tech at mcs.anl.gov
> Subject: Re: [AG-TECH] Gentoo or Fedora
> 
> I second the suggestion for Debian.  I just reinstalled my 
> room based node with my audio and video machines with Debian. 
>  Please feel free to send me questions.
> 
> I recommend you use the pre-rc2 netinst CD image:
> http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/
> http://cdimage.debian.org/pub/cdimage-testing/sid_d-i/i386/pre
-rc2/sarge-i386-netinst.iso
> 
> Cheers.
> 
> Steve Smith wrote (on Sat, 16 Oct 2004 at 15:32):
> > Monika Rabarison wrote:
> > > Hi all,
> > > 
> > > Thinking about upgrading the "good old" Linux capture 
> boxes to 2.3, 
> > > what would you guys suggest Gentoo or Fedora? Any pros and cons?
> > 
> > Another option is Debian (AG packages available at 
> > http://www.vislab.usyd.edu.au/debian).  The main pros are those of
> > Debian: ease of upgrade (no need to do re-installs), good security 
> > support, large number of supported packages.  The main con has 
> > traditionally been the difficulty of installation (this is 
> much better 
> > with the recent beta installers).  Also, the next stable 
> release isn't 
> > actually out yet, although it should be soon.
> > 
> > There are also packages available for Slackware, which has good 
> > support and a shorter release cycle if you prefer that.
> > 
> > Cheers,
> > Steve
> > 
> 
> --
> Gavin W. Burris aka 86
> Senior Systems Programmer
> Penn State Visualization Group
> http://viz.aset.psu.edu/ga5in
> 
>