From: "Andre John Cruz" > speaking of red hat 8...that piece of software is the most unstable linux > i've ever seen in my whole life. it has already hung up on me 5 times!!! to > think that the last time i was unix linux and the system just hung up on me > was 1998... :(
How sad. Apparently the fact that you are using Linux cannot guarantee that you can avoid crashes anymore. I'm not surprised though with the distro design philosophy that RH and Mandrake pursue. > i think i'll become a debian convert... :) I also highly recommend checking out Slackware 8.1... nice and clean on just 1 CD. Once you know its ins and outs you won't want to use anything else. It's about as close to core Linux as anyone can make a distro and yet still have enough friendly appeal. What you learn fiddling with Slackware won't be wasted when you switch to other distros (I can't think of a reason why I would want to though) because it tries to add as little distro-specific mechanism as possible. There's a bit of an adventure involved when configuring devices and you should really know how to build your own packages(*), but nothing any true geek (and I mean that in the best possible way) can't handle or enjoy. [(*) NOT scary at all. See my 2002-09-27 PLUG post 'A short and sweet Slackware package tutorial'.] The only crash I can recall using Slackware was some freak situation that occurred with fbcon and that probably had more to do with momentarily flaky hardware than anything. To be fair, Windows XP and 2K have virtually never crashed on me either (if you install uncertified Detonators you're really asking for it). They just slowly leak resources over days and you have to do a true reboot instead of just hibernating - something which you can't do under Linux anyway. Btw, I'm talking about desktop usage here, and not server. For the latter, I'd be more inclined to use FreeBSD 4.x rather than Linux and esp. not RH after what you just mentioned!!. [Segue to a discussion of what I'm currently doing with Linux...] What Linux is to me right now is an *excellent* OS to redeploy old DOS-based text apps(*). I'm planning to do exactly that for our office's Clipper programs - rewriting 'em in Python to use Firebird as backend DB and a text widget library I'm currently in the process of porting/redesigning to SLang from pycurses. The latter is a very interesting project, btw, as Python is just such a joy to use (a joy spoiled by my usage of the curses API earlier but redeemed a great deal by SLang). [(*) I'm sure I could get the app running on FreeBSD without much trouble either, but Linux facilities are friendlier and I don't see myself getting stability problems with this kind of client app or non 24/7 use of a DBMS server.] After my experience with using the Qt-based CLX, I say leave the GUI stuff to Windoze for now. Besides, since I figured out how to get a 160x65 pseudo (but FAST) text mode under fbcon, I very rarely enter X anymore anyway. Emacs lovers -calling Sacha- ... you should really try it out in this mode, your eyes and mousing hand will thank you for it :-) Long-live text mode! _ Philippine Linux Users Group. Web site and archives at http://plug.linux.org.ph To leave: send "unsubscribe" in the body to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fully Searchable Archives With Friendly Web Interface at http://marc.free.net.ph To subscribe to the Linux Newbies' List: send "subscribe" in the body to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
