Women in Technology

Article:		Is Linux Annoying?
Subject:		dumb
Date:		2003-09-12 05:57:03
From:		anonymous2
Response to: dumb
Sure sounds like a book of redhat..or any rpm based distro. Debian with apt and internet access is a joy to work with... nice config layout.. sensible and tidy.. plus stable as hell. I hate having to admin our few redhat boxes..but install debian everywhere I can.

Showing messages 1 through 6 of 6.

• some good, some bad
  2003-09-24 23:10:45  anonymous2 [View]
  
  
  I agree apt is wonderful to use, and that Debian's package management was generally very well thought out.
  
  I disagree about the implication that everything in Debian is better than in RedHat. I mean, what about pam_stack? _You_ try adding entries for LDAP to every file in pam.d/ and go get everything working... *fume*
  

• dumb
  2003-09-17 01:32:32  anonymous2 [View]
  
  
  I agree. Debian with apt is great! But the difference between distros is a big annoyance. If you find a solution to a problem it may often be distro specific. Usually its possible to figure out what's going on, but not always - and that's annoying _and_ frustrating. In fact, maybe the book should be called "Linux Frustrations" - I don't usually get annoyed because I know the answer is out there somewhere, but it can be very frustrating trying to solve a problem in a hurry...

• Debian annoyances
  2003-09-16 12:24:19  anonymous2 [View]
  
  
  The only Debian annoyance I can think of is X configuration. It's just about as painful as it gets.

• dumb
  2003-09-12 08:17:17  pdweinstein [View]
  
  
  While I chose to focus on RPM and Red Hat for this article, it shouldn’t been taken that this book will focus just on Red Hat’s Linux distributions or just on RPM.
  
  While its good to hear that you both seem to have found a distro and packaging system that works for you, I’m sure you can think of other Linux quirks that get your temperature rising.
  
  A quick example, a few people (let’s not argue numbers ;-) use Linux as a Desktop or Workstation. That means they run Xfree86, GNOME, KDE or maybe even Red Hat’s Bluecurve. Somehow I doubt everyone one of those users has never had an issue with one or several of these pieces.
  
  Moreover, if you stop to think about it, these issues are not limited to just Linux distributions either. One can run into trouble cutting and pasting between windows in X on OS X, FreeBSD, etc. So really, the opposite is true, this isn’t limited just to Red Hat Linux, but is open to Linux and Unix idiosyncrasies at large.
• dumb
  2003-11-29 16:39:13  anonymous2 [View]
  
  
  While I chose to focus on RPM and Red Hat for this article, it shouldn’t been taken that this book will focus just on Red Hat’s Linux distributions or just on RPM.
  
  One important thing to remember: one of the advantages of Linux is that There's More Than One Way To Do It. (Yes, that's Perl's motto, but it works for Linux as well.)
  
  You have general-purpose distros like Red Hat, SuSE and Mandrake, but you'll can always find a distro that best fits to your needs.
  
  Do you want an easy distribution? Try Lindows. It may be as insecure as Windows, because you can do everything as root - but it's really easy to use.
  
  If you want the greatest security, check EnGarde, Trustix, or even NSA's SE Linux.
  
  Don't have a CD-ROM? Tomsrtbt to the rescue! ("The most GNU/Linux on 1 floppy disk.")
  
  And, of course, if you want to avoid the RPM-hell, use Debian!
• dumb
  2003-09-12 08:26:42  pdweinstein [View]
  
  
  Hmm, seems I can blame some typos on cutting and pasting issues...on the other hand some seem to be human error... ;-)