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Technology Stocks : LINUX -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: g_m10 who wrote (854)	1/13/1999 6:09:00 AM
From: E. Charters	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2617

Well he is telling it like it is. Those are the grim facts about Linux. I installed a Linux system in 1995 and it had so many glitches and trouble that I uninstalled it and did not work with it again for over a year. That was from Yggdrasil, yggdrasil.com a company that is all but dormant it seems and does not answer its email. It was one of the pioneers of the Linux community and if you phone them they will tell you they have a new version coming out real soon now. They also pioneered the graphical install and a version that would run off the CD. In fact you can recompile the kernel in their system and check all dependencies on all programs as you do. But in spite of the newbie/developer advantages of Yggdrasil they came out too soon and their system was geared for later consultation, not a home user's cup of tea. They also published a hard copy install guide that was very complete and the Linux Bible, which if it were up to date would be on of the best Linux manuals around. The weakness of all the Linux Manuals is that they frequently assume you also have a Unix manual for all that other stuff they haven't time to talk about AND most are extremely poorly indexed (Linux Undercover, the Red Hat compendium is a case in point. The index would suit a book less than 1/3 its 2000 page size.. and their are many many cases of whole topics covered that get no mention on the index at all and topics covered in depth in 5 places that have only one mention) I would estimate to get proper manuals on Linux/Unix you would need to buy at least 10 books. I have about that many and frequently have to hop from book to book to find what is not clearly covered in one manual which looks pervasive! My recommendation is Slackware 3.6 cdrom.com , Debian debian.org , S.u.S.E. suse.com , Stampede stampede.org , or Linux ware, trans-am.com as they are the most figured out and bug free. It is true that Slackware is not easy to upgrade.. nay impossible to do a complete upgrade AND RPM binary software IS much easier to install but I find RedHat 5.0, and 5.1 are like a roach hotel when it comes to bugs.. the only saving grace in Red Hat is that it seems to be easier to get out of an X hangup by switching consoles with alt f2 .. something that has stymied me several times with Slackware. BUT is it proper to willy nilly upgrade each time a new verion comes out.? wuffoh you do dat? If a kernel is working properly it does not need an upgrade.. you can always patch it.. and why upgrade your whole system? If there is a feature, program or compiler that you need then you upgrade that.. most Linux upgrade are bug fixes to specific parts of the system.. you can handle that without upgrading.. you can add new window managers without upgrading.. a new X should not break your present software.. Upgrades every 3 months to Linux should be justified conceptually to the community.. IF you ask me the whole thing is to sell Red Hat.. I don't se paradigm shifts in this process that cry out for a guy to go out and get the new stuff from the ground up. It don't make sense.. EC<:-}

To: g_m10 who wrote (854)	1/13/1999 7:58:00 PM
From: Rusty Johnson	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 2617

Dell plans cut-down Linux server By NATHAN COCHRANE it.fairfax.com.au DELL looks set to release an officially supported cut-down server based on the freeware Linux operating system within the next three months to drive sales in the booming entry-level market, a senior company official said. Geoff Healey, Asia-Pacific servers director for Dell Computer, said Linux's free status made it an attractive proposition when competing against systems running proprietary systems that levied license fees, such as Microsoft's NT. ''The real competition is in the entry-level server,'' Healey said. ''Everyone's bringing out those servers. There's a huge market for PCs basically tipped on their side. The no license fee (for Linux) is attractive for us and our customers. ''A low cost Linux box would be a logical extension of our server plans.''