Re: the best Linux for me

From: drewc (drewc_at_rift.com)
Date: 12/29/04 

Date: Wed, 29 Dec 2004 22:21:14 GMT

Christopher C. Stacy wrote:
> I've been running RedHat for years, but now I am
> going to switch to a different flavor Linux.
> I don't know which one I should pick.
>
> I get the impression that most people here are using Debian.
> Why is that?

I've ben using debian on my desktop for about 8 years, and it is IMO the
best development desktop available.

>
> All I know about Debian is "dselect", which seems rather nightmarish
> from the little bit that I used it. Incredibly tedious hand-picking
> hundreds and hundreds of packages from a hard-to-use VT100 interface
> Did I miss something? What's Debian's package / distro system called?
> And by the way, why do people hate rpms?

dselect is old and tedious to use.. i don't use a graphical package
manager at all... apt-cache and apt-get are all you need. For Example:

(this is on my destop which runs 'unstable').

postgres@merlin:~$ apt-cache search sbcl

cl-clx-sbcl - An X11 Common Lisp client library for SBCL
cl-irc - Common Lisp Internet Relay Chat Library
cl-modlisp - Common Lisp interface to the Apache mod-lisp module
cl-uffi - Universal Foreign Function Library for Common Lisp
sbcl - A development environment for Common Lisp

postgres@merlin:~$ apt-cache show sbcl

Package: sbcl
Priority: optional
Section: devel
Installed-Size: 51532
Maintainer: Kevin M. Rosenberg <kmr@debian.org>
Architecture: i386
Version: 1:0.8.17.20-1
Provides: lisp-compiler
Depends: libc6 (>= 2.3.2.ds1-4)
Pre-Depends: common-lisp-controller (>= 4.2)
Suggests: ilisp
Filename: pool/main/s/sbcl/sbcl_0.8.17.20-1_i386.deb
Size: 12907700
MD5sum: 2119534b78479937873efa30c7a3d374
Description: A development environment for Common Lisp
  SBCL is a development environment for the ANSI Common Lisp language.
  It provides a native-code compiler and an integrated debugger, as well
  as all the features in the ANSI specification.

[... snip ...]

drewc@merlin:~$ sudo apt-get install sbcl
Password:
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
The following packages will be upgraded:
   sbcl
1 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 485 not upgraded.
Need to get 12.9MB of archives.
After unpacking 594kB of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 http://mirror.cpsc.ucalgary.ca unstable/main sbcl 1:0.8.17.20-1
[12.9MB]
Fetched 12.9MB in 35s (364kB/s)

It upgraded SBCL to the latest version (as i already had a previous
version installed). You can also see how out of date my unstable install
is (i need to upgrade some 485 packages. this machine IS behind a
firewall, so i tend to only upgrade when out outward facing service has
a hole, or when i need a new package).

> And by the way, why do people hate rpms?

I don't use redhat for the same reasons i don't use windows or C++.
There are better solutions out there.

>
> I have "Woody" release CDs from a few years ago that I am going to install.
> I think I can just type some incantation and get all the updates to it.
> But there's a new "release" of Debian coming out someday.
> When it's time to switch to it from the "Woody" release, how would I
> go about doing that? Is it some massive starting-all-over exercise,
> or just type something at the net and come back the next morning?
> Is Gentoo better about that?

I use woody on my servers, with some modern packages from
backports.org... and i wouldn't have it any other way. On my desktop i
have always run unstable (sid), and rarely had a problem (not for years),

Debian uses a 3 phases release system : stable/testing/unstable.

Stable : is just that... stable. old, but reliable. Solid for a server,
but a little bit out of date for a desktop. When i deploy a lisp app on
stable i don't use the debian packages, but i use the sbcl binaries and
install any packages i need from source.

Testing : Testing is what will become the new release when the anal
release managers decide it can. It is more 'stable' then any other
distro i've used, and is your best bet if you want a modern yet reliable
system.

Unstable : Bleeding edge, latest releases. Can Hose Your Dystem
(although i have not managed to break it severely in years). I use this
on my desktop, and have been for years. There is no better GNU/Linux.

to upgrade, you simple point apt at the newer distro's repository and do
an apt-get dist-upgrade.

sometimes this works better then others. and yes, you will have to
download every package. usually takes a few hours here.

It's best to install testing directly using a netinstall then to install
stable and upgrade. although the latter is what i usually end up doing..
sometimes it takes a trick or to and a lot of "apt-get install
--fix-missing".

> One thing I want to do is have some software that's (I guess)
> not going to be managed from the Linux distro. In particular,
> I will often be wanting the latest version and sources for things
> like cmucl (and apache, postfix, and maybe a few random others.)

Debian leaves /usr/local alone .. completely. dpkg will not touch it. I
put all my custom software there and use it alongside packaged wares
without a problem.

>
> I guess there's some special support for cmucl or clisp under Debian?
> How well does Debian support Lispworks and Franz?
>
sbcl, cmucl and clisp are all apt-gettable. Debian uses the
common-lisp-controller so you can install a debian package (say cl-sql)
and it will operate in all your installed Lisp environements. Very cool.

> I'm going to use this machine as my main computer, so I will
> want junk like OpenOffice, Acrobat, samba, Firefox, etc.

yup. 'cept maybe acrobat (try non-free)

>
> Another requirement is that I be able to type some simple command
> to get all the latest security patches to all the distro-managed parts
> of the system.

you just add security.debian.org to your /etc/apt/sources.list, so an
apt-get upgrade, and voila, c'est tout.

Other than that, I just want the system to have lots
> of goodies, all the standard junk (including the other development
> environments like GCC, Qt,and J2EE), to be well supported.

Everything that is Free Software is available, and i dare say better
supported then any other distro i've used.

Java you'll have to get from Sun .. but i have it running and it works.

>
> I'm going to run GNOME, I guess. Isn't that what you're supposed to run?
> They all look the same to me.
>

i use Ion3 ... does not look like gnome. No rodent support needed (i
usually keep the rodent as far away as i can .. prefering the keyboard
for it's speed and carpal-tunnel friendliness).

> My machine is a low-end tower system without any fancy or exotic hardware.

my main desktop is an AMD k6-500 with a shiteload of RAM. I also use a
laptop (p-150. 32m) running stable as an X terminal. No problem running
here.

I recently installed Ubuntu on a friends AMD3200+ .. wow .. gnome can be
fast!

> I would, however, as a secondary concern, like a system that could also
> be easily deployed on servers with little LCD front panels, laptops,
> and maybe even embedded systems. I do have a server I would eventually
> like to put it on, with RAID disks and all that crap.

I also have stable on all my top of the line co-located servers :). I
don't know about LCD's, as the front panels of these boxes are halfway
across the world from here... but fancy RAID and all that junk applies.

>
> I looked over all the Linux distro home pages last night; that didn't help.
> The obvious candidates are:
>
> Fedora - maybe too bleeding edge? what special benefits?
> I always found RedHat very easy to install and use.

I stopped using redhat for anything about 6 years ago, so i can't be of
big help, but if you though fedora was easy, debain should seem like a
walk in the park (asuming some technical know-how here).

> Debian - is it flexible enough?

the most flexible GNU/Linux Distro there is. runs on more systems in
more ways then anything else i've used.

> is it just popular for political reasons?

If anything, it's popular in spite of the politics. The make the best
Linux Distro there is. They also happen to have strong values.
        
> how do packages and updates really work?

apt-get update;apt-get upgrade. never had a problem.

> Gentoo - don't know anything about it...someone I talked to recently
> was all hyped and excited about it (and also entirely incoherent).
> Gentoo home page makes it sound rather unfinished,
> and I don't understand what their point is.

http://funroll-loops.org/ . Gentoo is for Ricers. ;)

>
> Why do some people prefer GRUB and some prefer LILO?

Lilo is a little older and more cryptic. GRUB has superpowers. LILO is
fine for most, GRUB is when you need it.

> An idiot-proof partition editor is desirable.

cfdisk is not idiot-proof enough ? it even makes you type "Y-E-S" to
write your partition table, asking you "are you really really really
sure you want to do this".

If the politics of debian are not to your liking, try Ubuntu. It is a
real debian distro, with some added desktop features, and is more up to
date then testing. (it is built from testing and unstable .. like a good
desktop should be).

There is also Xandros or Linspire, both are debian based as well.

or knoppix .. heard god things about mepis too. They are all debian, and
can all be turned into eachother through creative use of apt...

Feel free to drop me a line with any debian/lisp related questions you
may have.

>
> Let the flaming begin!

well ... ok ... it is almost 4:20 here... where are those rolling
papers. ;)
</vancouver joke>

drewc