Re: XLEL: Best Dist?

["Scott C. Linnenbringer" <sl@eskimo.com>]

On Monday 06 January 2003 07:22 pm, Nate Reindl wrote:
> Quoting Brandon Joseph Adams <bja@illinois.dyndns.org>:
> > I saw that slackware and LFS were mentioned and I'm wondering how much
>
> IMHO, Slackware is decent.  LFS is a joke unless you plan to toy around and
> learn the meaty innards of Linux.  I don't think it was ever meant to be
> run as a production system.  And, even worse, it could take up to a month
> to get this box running LFS, just because of how slow it is...

True, but anyone who wants to use a 486SX in the first place probably does not 
want it as a production system. It'll be a mere toy, at that. As for ease of 
use, nothing, not even FreeBSD, is easier to use than Slackware. Enough said, 
Slackware is equal or easier to install than FreeBSD.

> Now, Steve will (most likely) push RedHat until his fingers bleed from
> typing too much.  Any newer versions of RedHat probably won't run nicely on
> this system without doing some serious tweaking and hacking, so...

I will not comment on Red Hat.

> Instead, use Debian.  They use older versions of software, sure, but the
> older versions they use are stable and help to maintain that wonderful
> harmony their distribution has.  If you really must, though, compile the
> new crap from source and tweak the defaults.

I use Debian, but it offers way too much for a small 486. As for software, 
that's totally untrue. Most software in sid (unstable) is the latest, and 
otherwise, software is late because the Debian folks want to do the gcc 3.2 
transition right (and there are other logical reasons, too.)

> > experience the person who will be setting it up has. If the person
> > dosen't mind a little extra effort in the beginning, FreeBSD
> > (www.freebsd.org and you can get ISOs at www.linuxiso.org) is a great
> > option for this system. Even the current version 4.7 has great support
>
> Blame me for being liberal, but I actually agree with this to some extent.

Bah. Slackware is just as easy to install as FreeBSD. In fact, it uses an 
ncurses based install system VERY similar to FreeBSD and Debian. If you're 
going to try Linux on a 486, Slackware is a very good option which won't 
bloat the system to the point of unusability.

> > for older hardware and the entire OS can be recompiled for the specific
> > hardware right after install with a single command. It has X and via
>
> GENERIC?  No thanks... I roll my own.

Me too. :)

> > the ports system (probably best on a low end machine so you can get
> > maximum performance) you can pick up XFCE 3.x which is a fast, functional
> > GTK+ based desktop similiar in look to CDE (www.xfce.org). I know FreeBSD

Slackware's package management system is very similar to ports. In fact, 
Slackware uses BSD-style init scripts and other similarities which make it a 
very viable option for a low end machine.

> Xfce flat-out rocks, especially when you hack up your own configs and make
> everything uniform and neat.  When you do that just right, your users
> (read: guinea pigs ;) don't have any confusion about anything and end up
> asking fewer questions and creating fewer annoyances.  Of course, there's
> that thing about making them switch from Outlook to Mutt, but that'll come
> with time :)

XFCE is neato, but even that is too high-end for a 486SX, in my humble 
opinion. Maybe fluxbox or blackbox, or, uh, good old twm.

> > isn't exactly linux and we're on a linux list but the userland is _very_
> > similiar to the point that probably 80% of the tools are the same
> > source.
>
> I'm actually kind of glad someone mentioned one of the bastard BSD systems,
> even though I'd advocate NetBSD more openly than FreeBSD since it uses more
> FSF/GNU tools by default...
>
> And, yes, the NetBSD developers finally got around to moving the i386 tree
> over to XFree 4.2, so stop griping.

OpenBSD is also nice, too. I don't use BSD because I have never had the 
desire, but I have used it and from what I have seen, it is neat, too.

Don't even entertain the thought of putting Red Hat on a 486SX.


-- 
Scott C. Linnenbringer
finger sl at eskimo.com


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