On Mon, Sep 15, 2008 at 7:47 PM, Bruce Labitt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> So I guess I'll save my home directory with all my stuff...
When you get around to reinstalling everything, I suggest creating a
separate partition or logical volume for /home. It makes changes of
this sort much easier. (Backups are easier, too.)
>I need to be able to render some complex 3d images using
> reasonable graphics card that has either OpenGL or proprietary support. At
> this point, I don't care if it uses the proprietary drivers. It needs to
> work, thats all.
The Nvidia proprietary drivers seem to be well-supported by all the
major x86 distros at this point, including 64-bit flavors. They come
with their own OpenGL implementation, which works with some stuff (but
not all stuff). If you buy last year's card, you can get something
half-decent for < $50 street.
OTOH, if you're going to a new distro, you can afford to shop around
for one which supports the ATI card you already have. That I can't
speak to. Hopefully others can.
> The distro should have a recent python, I guess that is 2.5.2?
Fedora, Ubuntu, or Debian "sid" ("unstable") would all supply that.
Others, too, I'm sure; I can only speak for what I have experience
with.
Fedora stops issuing updates 12 to 18 months after release. So you
end up on an upgrade treadmill with Fedora. I'm not a fan of that for
production systems. On the other hand, if you build that into your
design assumptions, maybe it's sustainable. Prolly depends on
personal preference and situation.
Debian is nice because they package just about everything known to
man. On the down side, the "stable" release cycle makes RHEL look
recklessly fast, and in the "testing"/"unstable" lines, maddening
breakages get introduced not infrequently. I ran "etch" for a time
when it was still "testing", and on multiple occasions it upgraded my
X server out of existence. Once it even popped up a message telling
me it was doing this, and that it probably wasn't what I wanted, and
that I'd have to reinstall X afterward.
You might want to check to see if Debian's current "stable" release
has everything you want, at the versions you want. If so, install
that, and be happy knowing that you have a platform that won't change
out from under you.
Ubuntu seems to combine the best of both worlds with their periodic
"LTS" releases. LTS stands for "Long Term Support". It looks like
every 12 to 24 months, they tag one of their regular releases as also
including LTS, meaning it will be supported for 3 to 5 years. So you
get something current today, you have the option of upgrading to more
current stuff if needed, or staying on the LTS release for a longer
period. It's all one release line, unlike Fedora/RHEL. On the down
side, Ubuntu hasn't actually been around long enough for the LTS
concept to be tested and proven, but it seems promising.
Your mileage may vary, of course. :-)
-- Ben
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