Like the other list regulars, I dislike flamewars. The unfortunate
consqeuence of this dislike is a caution that prevents any useful advice
from being offered. Since I don't use either distribution these days, I'm
not particularly partial to one or the other ... but perhaps I can suggest
some decision guidelines without offending partisans in either camp.
Preliminary question: how did you pare your choices down to Red Hat vs.
Slackware? On what basis did you eliminate Debian, Mandrake, Caldera, Corel,
Storm, SuSE, and all the others? Think about your reasons and see to what
extent they help you decide between the two choices that remain.
As you compare the two, consider these factors:
1. How up-to-date is each (in CD form)? They leapfrog each other, so this
varies from time to time. At this moment, I believe RH 6.1 is considerably
older than Slack 7.0, so I'd expect Slackware to have the more up-to-date
versions of things that matter, like the kernel itself, XFree86, bind, the
gnu compiler suite, the imap daemon, and anything that has been found to
have a security hole.
2. How easy are updates? Over time, you'll need to do regular security
updates and other bug-fix updates, as well as (possibly) move to newer
kernels and newer versions of XFree86. You really want a system that
supports easy online updates. My impression is that neither distribution is
very good at updating, at least in their cheap (GPL only) versions. I'd hope
the full-price RH provides a mechanism for good, online updates as part of
the included support ... that would be the best reason I could think of to
pay the $50+ RH wants for a full version.
3. How easy is it to add new packages from third-party sources? This really
asks how good the package manager is. Both are okay, neither excellent ...
and packages are commonly available in the format that each uses (.tgz for
Slack, .rpm for RH) -- if they aren't, an app called "alien" will do the
essential translations. The .rpm system is considerably more sophisticated
than the .tgz . Overall, the RH package manager is a good bit more
sophisticated.
4. How easy is each to install? If your equipment isn't weird, either will
be okay here. Slackware generally wins on old equipment -- installs better
on machines with limited RAM, weird old CD drives, etc. RH has a more
automated installer -- makes more decisions for you -- less work, but at the
price of less flexibility if things go wrong, and the most obscure error
messages I've encountered in the Linux world.
5. Why do you want to run Linux? If you are a CS student and want to use it
to learn how to configure systems, how kernels work, and other low-level
stuff, the greater visibility of that level in Slackware will probably
appeal to you. If you just want to use the system for ordinary everyday
tasks, RH, in its standard GUI-based workstation configuration, will
probably appeal to you more.
Overall .. the advice to try both is probably good, if you have the time and
degree of interest needed to do that. If not, think over the above
comments, as well as what others (particularly Lawson) have said, pick one,
and don't look back -- neither choice will be awful. But whichever you
choose, if you are running this host connected to the Internet, please pay
attention to system security ... none of the distributions is really doing a
thorough job there, and the world doesn't need more insecure systems on the
'net.
>----- Original Message -----
>From: EAMILLS <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>> i'm trying to choose between slackware and redhat. what are the
>> differences, pros and cons, and anything else I should now about these?
>> thanks in advance
------------------------------------"Never tell me the odds!"---
Ray Olszewski -- Han Solo
Palo Alto, CA [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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