New distro question

[Jarod Wilson]

On Tue, 2008-04-08 at 13:24 -0400, Labitt, Bruce wrote:
> Umm, it is probably that I'm not used to it... ;)  I find it awkward
> compared to either FC6 (gnome) or suse (kde).  I can't put my finger on
> it yet.  I didn't install it, so even now, after futzing about with it,
> I'm not quite sure what is on it, and where.  The original "owner"
> doesn't care if I install something new on it.  Somehow this copy of
> Centos feels older than FC6.

If its CentOS 4 (or 3), then it *is* older than FC6. If its CentOS 5,
its slightly newer than FC6 was at release time, but slightly older than
FC6 when it went end-of-life. Just cat /etc/centos-release and/or look
at uname -r to tell. (2.6.18-foo = centos 5, 2.6.9-foo = centos 4,
2.4.21-foo = centos 3, iirc)

> As for stable - what I really meant to say, is NOT bleeding edge.  That
> is all.
> 
> I'll check out scientific linux out of curiosity.

Really only marginally different from CentOS of the same version level,
both are rebuilds of RHEL, though Scientific does do a bit more
customization for the (duh) scientific community. SL5 might be your best
fit though.

> How sensitive is ubuntu to hardware?  At home I couldn't install it on
> computer that I intended to run myth because it wouldn't recognize my
> hardware.  What is the advantage of a debian based distro compared to
> rpm based?  (Did I say that?  Keep it civil.  )

Hardware support depends more on the kernel and patches applied to it
than it does what the packaging system is. Different distros have
different policies on their kernels.

* CentOS maintains the same kernel base for the entire release lifespan.
Great for stability, but means a greater burden back-porting new
hardware support.

* Ubuntu follows the same general tack as CentOS, within a shorter
lifespan. i.e., the upcoming Ubuntu release is going to have a 2.6.24.x
kernel (iirc), and will for its entire lifespan, though they do
back-port a fair amount of stuff.

* Fedora's approach is to track the upstream kernel as closely as
possible. For example, Fedora 9 will have a 2.6.25 kernel at release
time, but will likely be up to at least 2.6.27 by the time it goes
end-of-life.

For all but the absolute newest hardware, the forthcoming Ubuntu and
Fedora releases are probably about on par with their hardware support.
CentOS/SL 5.1 lags behind a ways, and 5.2 will get closer, but will
still lag behind a bit...



-- 
Jarod Wilson
jarod at wilsonet.com