down for the count

[Brent Harding]

I was thinking of getting a prebuilt linux machine to run stuff on if I get
high speed access. Which kind are the best to get? I was thinking a dell,
but am not sure now. I hear redhat's OK, but debian really has a time with
compiling odd stuff not in .deb's either. It's different file locations are
such that many programs can't find what they need, and I'm not much at coding.
At 03:36 PM 9/30/00 -0400, you wrote:
>I just want to drop my 0.001 cent in here.
>The company I work for just bought one of the dells with
>linux preinstalled. it was redhat by the way.
>the first console does come up with x-windows,
>but you can change to another virtual console and get a
>text login.
>I had to configure it as a ppp server,
>and it wasn't an easy task. redhat isn't the most friendly
>linux distribution to work with.
>i agree with others here, stick with slackware.
>I run 4 machines with slackware at home,and hav never had
>a problem. whereas at work, I must use redhat,
>and seem to have problems installing any package
>that doesn't happen to come in an rpm package.
>and, i wasn't overly impressed with the dell machine either.
>it came as a desktop machine, and didn't seem to be very upgradable.
>although this may have been the fault of the i t person that ordered it.
>
>phil
>
>On Sat, Sep 30, 2000 at 02:27:12PM -0600, Charles Hallenbeck wrote:
>> 
>> On 2000-09-30 speakup at braille.uwo.ca said:
>>    >Hi
>>    >This is mearly my own personal experiences, but I think you'd be
>>    >better off with slackware. I have gotten debian to install, but
>>    >it's a somewhat tricky process. I tried it recently, though, and it
>>    >wouldn't boot correctly on the upgraded machine. I kept getting the
>>    >message init: respawning too fast, disabled for five minutes. I
>>    >don't know what this means, but slackware does not seem to do this.
>>    >I've always been able to install slackware flawlessly and am
>>    >happily running it perfectly. The good side of debian, assuming you
>>    >get it to work, is the package manager. It handles packages very
>>    >nicely indeed, certainly better than rpm or any other packager.
>>    >dependencies are taken care of for you automatically, and you can
>>    >upgrade the whol thing through the net with two commands. However,
>>    >I've found slackware to be more convenient, especially it's init
>>    >structure. I find the system V init-style scripts used by debian
>>    >and red hat annoying. Slackware has about four scripts, which you
>>    >edit manually. Debian's number varies depending on how many
>>    >packages you install, and then you need to worry about symlinks. I
>>    >hate the runlevel directories, there's symlinks all over the place.
>>    >Six directories to manage instead of one. I know debian has
>>    >update-rc.d, but it has failed me before. Slackware also has System
>>    >V init capability in version 7.0 and later, which is useful if you
>>    >install some commercial software that expects this init style, but
>>    >the main init is through four scripts, sometimes five. What I find
>>    >most annoying about debian, however, is the fact that you can't
>>    >edit /etc/mailcap manually. It just gets overwritten. You need to
>>    >go in and create a file in /usr/lib/mime/packages containing the
>>    >lines and then run update-mime. However, you can't name the file
>>    >anything, it needs to be the name of an already installed package.
>>    >This does not apply to any other distribution I know of. Of course
>>    >the problem with this is that if that package wants to place its
>>    >own version of a file there, it will and if your options are set
>>    >wrong, will do this without warning you. You may get asked, or you
>>    >may not. It depends. Jacob
>>    >On Sat, 30 Sep 2000, Charles Hallenbeck wrote:
>>    >> Hi Jacob...
>>    >> I am torn between upgrading to a current Slackware or switching
>>    >>to Debian. I  have not talked to Dell yet so I do not know what
>>    >>what distro they have  built in. I am really tired of messing with
>>    >>kludgy hardware and a solid  platform would be nice for a change.
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>> Jacob -
>> Those are helpful observations. I have only used Slackware in the past -
>> 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, and now 4.0, so I know its structure pretty well and may
just
>> stick with it. It is the awkwardness of upgrading that tempts me to switch.
>> Chuck.
>> 
>> 
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