Boston Linux and Unix InstallFest XXX1 Saturday November 22, 2008

[Dan Ritter]

On Mon, Nov 17, 2008 at 10:24:38PM -0500, Bruce Borland wrote:
> What is a good Linux distribution?  In 2003 I purchased Red Hat Linux 9 
> because it was recommended as a version which was easy to load.  My 
> machine was purchased in 2000 (533 MHz CPU, 128 MB RAM, 10 GB hard 
> drive).  I hear that Red Hat 9 is obsolete, but I have never been able 
> to do much to modify or update it.  It seems that the easier the 
> distribution is made for the user, the less the user can have control of 
> the system.  (It reminds me of my experiences with Windows.)  I am also 
> concerned with newer products having more "bells and whistles" which 
> take up RAM and hard drive space and produce visual clutter and rarely 
> offer anything I could use.  I prefer simplicity in my products.
> 
> I would like to bring my machine in to the InstallFest, but I have no 
> other Linux distributions.  I also would like to learn more about 
> maintaining and updating a Linux OS.  Any suggestions?
> 
> >    * Fedora - http://fedora.redhat.com (Fedora 9)
> >    * Open SuSE - http://opensuse.org (OpenSuSE 11.0)
> >    * Ubuntu - http://www.ubuntu.com  (Intrepid Ibex 8.10)
> >    * Debian - http://www.debian.org/

If you want excellence in updating, I cannot recommend Debian
highly enough. In general, one only has to reboot a Debian
system when upgrading the kernel... even when moving to the
latest stable release.

-dsr-

-- 
http://tao.merseine.nu/~dsr/eula.html is hereby incorporated by reference.

You can't defend freedom by getting rid of it.