Re: [school-discuss] Which is the fastest Desktop distro for schools?

[Wm.G.McGrath <wgm@telus.net>]

On Sat, 13 Nov 2004 14:27:13 -0800
Lincoln Peters <sampln@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

: The last time I looked at Slackware, it didn't have a package
: management system nearly as good as Debian's.  Does Vector Linux
: improve on Slackware in that respect?
: 
: I think that good package management is important for a school
: environment, so that they can easily apply security patches and
: install new software when they need to.  Debian is excellent in
: that respect, and since Libranet is based on Debian, it should
: have that same benefit.

Well, there's two sides to that coin.

A 'good' pkgmgr can burn anyone who's not knowledgeable enough.
apt/dselect/dpkg have toasted me too often over the years. But, you
learn by your mistakes. Regardless of your choice, you have to learn
the pkgmgr well if you intend to use it. Good training for the admin
here is just as important as the choice of pkgmgr.

What's easy for a sysadmin is also easy for a student. Granted apt
requires a root password, but it won't be the first time a student
shoulder surfs an admins pwd. Making it 'easy' to install upgrades,
also makes it 'easy' for students to install a root kit for example.
Mounting important partitions ro may help somewhat though.

So a more difficult, or less well known pkgmgr may actually be a
better choice in a lab environment. Kids will be kids.

However, Vector Linux does offer a choice of package managers. There
is of course the traditional Slack pkgmgr for those who take the
position "No one breaks my system except me!" Then there is midnight
commander which can also install packages of various sorts - debs,
rpms etc. Also there is vecpkg, Vector Linux's own graphical
installer. Finally, there is xpkgtool a third party graphical
upgrade/installer for slackware from sourceforce. Take your pick!

Like I said, install and try both distros. There's only so much
that armchair theorizing can accomplish.

		hth,	

		b.

http://www.vectorlinux.com/mod.php?mod=userpage&menu=9&page_id=2
http://xpkgtool.sourceforge.net/