[Lilux-help] Distro is not as important as we all think

[Georges Toth]

> > excuse me?
> > i _fully_ disagree with your opinion.
>
> Are you sure? A distro is only a fraction of all the things you have to
> choose. You have to start sometime. You can always change the distro
> later. Really. You are a good example for this (you have used all sorts
> of distros). You can even dual boot different distros and share the swap
> partition, the /home partition (uid and gid must be the same) and the
> /usr/local partition (for the self compiled programs).

a fraction?
what is a distro? what makes up a distro?
- the package management
- init tools
- system management tools
did i forget anything?

those 3 points (and mayba more) are different from distro to distro
(if you leave clones out).
those three points are very important to me when choosing a distro.

i agree with you that if you don't care whats under the hood, etc, and just 
want to work, no matter how, and just let company X care about sec- probs 
etc.... it doesn't matter what distro you use and it matters more whether you 
choose xine or mplayer.
but if you care, or have to care, that's a big difference.


> > a distro is _VERY_ important.
> > not every distro is the same, not every distro feels the same or has the
> > same "features".
>
> As long as you are not *working*, this might make a big difference. As
> soon as the system is set up, people sometimes want also to do some
> *productive* things with their system. And then they may have chosen the
> best distro but still do not known if they should take mplayer or xine
> to watch movies for example.

see above...


> > i've been using over the years, all sorts of distros, and the one and
> > only i really feel comfortable with right now, is gentoo.
> > why? because it's source based, because it has IMO, the best package
> > manager and system of them all, because _"I"_ have the freedom to do
> > whatever i want,
>
> Sometimes, if you are a C programmer, you will not take the Gentoo
> package, but download the source right away from the project's homepage
> and modify things *yourself* for your needs. The Gentoo database will
> not know that this software is installed on your system (unless you
> package it yourself and take the pain to define the dependencies). The
> next time you install a Gentoo package that needs the software, it will
> install the package a second time without your patch.

sorry, but do you have any clue about gentoo ?
that might be right for rpm or deb or whatever, and the corresponding distros, 
but not for gentoo!
gentoo is source-based anyway. if you wanna tweak stuff, it's a matter of secs 
or max. mins, and you everything done, AND the system knows about your 
software.
with gentoo, we speak of ebuilds, not packages.
ebuilds define how the pkmng-tool configures,compiles and installs your 
software.
and to have deps right, that's easy....
you can as well have your ebuild included in portage, so others may profit of 
it as well.
i don't see you problem with this...


> That's the reason why I prefer distros without dependency checking. You
> have seen a nice text editor optimized for LaTeX files? But you don't
> need LaTeX, you want to use the editor anyway for other things? What if
> the package maintainer of the LaTeX editor has decided for you that
> there is a dependency, 'emerge editorxyz' will also install LaTeX,
> unless you break dependencies explicitly.

NO!!!!!!!
ever heard of the "USE" variable ?
as i said b4, your assumptions may be right for suse, rh, mandr, deb, 
whatever, but NOT!!!! for gentoo.


> Anyway, Gentoo does even not use the original software from the
> project's homepage, but specially patched versions.

NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
gentoo does mirror the software on many many servers. if the source-package is 
not found there, it downloads it from the author's page.
but it may as well only download it from the author's page.
what is the problem with that?
i still don't see any.
and that gentoo patches _EVERY_ software is just plain wrong.
they do apply patches to some software, to fix bugs, or whatever.
but those patches are generally patches from the mailinglist of that  project 
or so.


> That is not how *I* define freedom! Freedom means to be independent from
> the distro, and (all Gentoo users should listen now) from the network
> connection!

let me tell you this....before you judge about something and make assumptions 
about something you have obviously no clue about, TAKE THE TIME TO READ DOCS 
AND GET A CLUE ABOUT IT!


> I want to be able to recover from a disc crash at *any* time by
> reinstalling the distro from CD, reinstalling all patches and
> applications from my archive and by restoring my data from my latest
> backup. What if the Gentoo people have given up the distro yesterday?
> You will not able to reinstall your system. You do not have paid for it,
> there is no guarantee that the Gentoo service will last forever.

yes you will be able.
what if slackware will be discontinued?
did you pay for it?
who cares if you paid for something, when they give it up?
your arguments are pretty bad.
gentoo people have grp's or bins, and yes we do have recue and live cds as 
well.

read above...i don't wanna re-write everything...


> If Patrick Volkering gives up Slackware tomorrow, I will have plenty of
> time to migrate, because I have saved a copy of everything I downloaded
> and installed. I own my hardware and have everything under my control.

so do i.
and i bet i have more control over my distro than you have over yours


> What about servers? If you have servers, it is important to keep them
> all on the same patch level. If you install new patches, it is very wise
> to test them on a test platform for a few weeks (new packages *can*
> introduce problems). After the test, you have to install the tested
> packages, even if there are newer ones on the distros servers. 'emerge
> world' just doesn't cut it on servers! And our servers aren't even
> connected to the internet!

better inform yourself about what you write....


> But that is even the opposite of what you did. Didn't you find your
> favorite distro by *using* Linux instead of thinking before using??? Why
> do you recommend to the people a different learning curve than for
> yourself?

by think i include try.
maybe not try for years, but try.
sorry that i wasn't more explicit about that.


> I never said otherwise. I only said that it may not be as important as
> we all think.

that's your opinion.
not mine.



-- 
regards,
Georges Toth