Re: Distribution to use

[Roger Dingledine <arma@seul.org>]

In message <19981228215444.T849@tertius.net.au>, gossamer@tertius.net.au writes:
>Steven P Blunt wrote:
>> I've never actually used Debian, but I was thinking Slackware would make a
>> good distro because:
>> 1) None of the configuration utils require X.
>> 2) The base system can be installed from floppys (older Slackwares could
>> install the whole thing from floppys.
>
>Both of these are true of all distributions I know of, they're
>certainly true of Debian.

I would like to warn you guys not to get bogged down in issues
of picking a distribution. I've seen too many projects die because
of holy wars over distribs. But that said, some points:

* Any distrib you pick will do what you want, if you tweak it.
* Redhat is better than any other distrib at recognizing and working
  with weird hardware.
* BUT you will be doing a lot of the installs yourselves (?), so this
  is a much smaller issue than if the end-users were doing the installs
  on arbitrary hardware.

It boils down to:
Pick the distrib that you have the most good workers for. They'll know
the most about it and be happiest with it.

Of course, it's not that simple. If you don't pick Redhat or Debian,
eventually you'll get to the point where none of your new volunteers
have heard of the distrib you chose. (Not to mention the fact that a
package manager is fundamentally a good idea. Both rpm and dpkg are
fine.) If you pick Debian, you might get more help from the volunteer
sector (Debian people like to help people use their distrib, whereas
Redhat likes it when people use their distrib. Kind of a difference..)

I guess my overall point is that for the most part, you shouldn't base
your decision on technical considerations.

--Roger