Rev for Linux (was Re: iPadding around?)

Richmond Mathewson richmondmathewson at gmail.com
Tue Feb 2 14:47:31 EST 2010


On 02/02/2010 21:21, Peter Alcibiades wrote:
> There's a nice Slackware based educational distribution from Zenwalk.  Very
> worth a look.  The Slack base makes it stable and fast.  It is Xfce based
> rather than Gnome.
>
> The other one to consider is Skolelinux, aka Debian-EDU.  This is Debian
> Stable based.  People don't realize that the main benefit of Debian is that
> its a rolling distro, and so super easy to keep up to date.

I'm going to have a conniption fit (hey, do any Americans out there 
actually know what 'conniption'
means? I don't) because my PC hasn't been updated since this morning.

>   The way it
> works is, the distribution starts out in Experimental, then moves on a two
> year or so cycle through Unstable, Testing to Stable.  At which point it
> really is Stable.
>
> You can find links and reviews on Distrowatch.
>    

http://distrowatch.com/

> What you are getting from Ubuntu is a 6 month release cycle of a collection
> of bits out of Debian Experimental.  This largely negates the benefits of
> being an apt distribution in terms of upgrade ease, and it also negates the
> potential benefits for stability of being Debian based.  As the cries of
> grief and rage, which are heard regularly every six months from the
> upgraders, go to show!
>    

Only if you are obsessed with continual upgrades . . .  :)

My current machines in my school have been running on Ubuntu 5.10 since 
. . . err
October 2005 (!!!!!) without any internet connexion, upgrade or hitch 
doing what
I want them to do.

Actually, having played around with more Linux distros than I can count 
on my fingers and toes
together my conclusions are fairly crude for people in my position:

Stick to Debian derivatives and after that it really is nothing more 
than a matter of taste.
I like GNU and XFCE; KDE is too Windowzy for my liking; however I do run 
some KDE apps
via Gnome - doesn't really seem problematic. RunRev 4 and Metacard 4 
both run superbly
on all 3 window managers; and, I would suppose, on Fluxbox, 
Enlightenment and so on.

I chose Ubuntu because it was the first Debian derivative I came upon 
that seemed well
documented and easy to install; but, hey, I'm the chap who when he 
arrived in the USA in
1993 had to buy a computer and, having only previous experience of 
main-frames, BBCs
and Archimedes, picked a Macintosh over a Windows because his maternal 
grandfather's
name was McIntosh (well, not a bad choice, in the end), so don't expect 
complete logic
from me.

> You want six month release cycles (but why would you?) go to Mandriva.

Why bother with release cycles or upgrades?  Find a system you like and 
be done with it.

The only reason for eternal upgared is if you are developing for an 
eternally upgrading market.

>   You
> will sacrifice stability, but you do get something, ease of use combined
> with being bang up to date.  You want boring practical useful and stable,
> and never having to think about upgrades again, go to Debian Stable.
>
> I wouldn't put Ubuntu on any machine I was going to have to support.
>    

Funny that, as I support and maintain Ubuntu on a fair number of lawyers'
and architects' machines round and about in Plovdiv - a monthly visit; a 
cup of
coffee, an hour's "fiddle" with the machine;

sudo apt-get update

set any updates running and tell them to leave the machine alone until
'tomorrow'

Bob's your uncle!




More information about the use-livecode mailing list