How many Linux distros does it take to find the right one?

[pseydtonne]

I have tried Red Hat, RHEL, CentOS, Debian, SuSE, Gentoo, Slackware, Knoppix, Damn Small Linux, Tom's Root & Boot Linux, Trinux and Ubuntu. This means I've run or installed more Linux distributions than I've had girlfriends. Just putting it that way flushes out a bunch of comparisons:

• I go into each relationship thinking the other person knows more about the mechanics of a relationship than I do;
• I often try to change myself to suit the suitor and wind up putting myself through contortions;
• I learn a lot about the process of dealing with the other person/distro but I feel less and less that I'm ever going to get what I want.

About there the similarities end, and thank goodness for that. Humans are not operating systems. Also, computers put up with far less b.s. than humans do: if you don't speak a language the computer gets, you get niente.

I'm in a new relationship and it's going well. It lacks the screaming need to fuss over the other person, which chills me. I have a good sense of fitting with this person while knowing that both of us work our asses off so we get time as we can while still having plenty of other things to do.

Thus I've had time to learn Perl and get back to setting up a good server or two. This led me to CentOS (the free version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux) and then Ubuntu (the desktop-friendly version of Debian). I'm finding that I get less and less fussy about people as I get older but much more fussy about what I want a computer to do. Here is a short list of What I Want a Unix/Linux Box To Do:

1. Come as close to POSIX compliance and community Unix practices as possible. Ubuntu fails this because init runlevel 2 is giving me XWindows whereas it shouldn't even give me networking. You tend to set up servers at init 3 (for console-based networking) and workstations at init 5.
2. Give me vi and jed for text editing. Gentoo assumes you hate vi and starts you with nano, the knockoff of pine's default editor. Ubuntu does the same. I was raised on emacs, moved to vi out of need and stayed out of masochism.
3. Don't make me compile frickin' everything. If I'm using a learning distro such as Linux From Scratch, then building everything makes sense. At first I liked the idea that I could optimize Gentoo minutely. Then I got tired of compiling everything only to find I'd left something out. Bah. Too much work. I'm perfectly happy to use a binary so that I can get back to collecting pr0n.
4. I would prefer to use a package-based system. Dependency checking is something a computer can do very well. Let's put the computer to work and not make my OCD serve the task.
5. Gimme a 2.6 kernel by default. It's 2006 and we're about two years into the 2.6 kernel. Why doesn't Slackware get that? "If you're willing to go experimental...". I remember Debian was sitting on a 2.2 kernel for a long time which meant all sorts of conveniences (ACPI, USB drives, CD burners...) didn't work.
6. Don't force me into a bloated window manager. I prefer Fluxbox, with XFCE second. I like to save my RAM for crunching things.
7. Don't try to stick me with Lilo, either. Lilo is the bootstrap system where you have to compile a setup. This means you have a big problem if you don't get it working automatically.

All of those points hint at the concepts I like to have in a distro: that configuration be amendable by text scripts on the fly, that I can still have modern equipment intermingle with old, that sanity may prevail.

Maybe it's time for me to switch to BSD. I've gotten very knowledgeable in the five years I've been working with Linux. Maybe my needs are just too weird.

-just got some good news from customers to round out my Friday, Dante

Comments

[adaptively.livejournal.com]

Dude, definitely look into FreeBSD...it runs Blackbox and Fluxbox beautifully, the ports system is nigh identical to Debian's apt-get (except that it's less prone to failure), and, well, I did everything on my BSD boxen in vi for years.

I've got discs if you need 'em. :D

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

"'Ubuntu'. An African word for 'can't install Debian'."

Note that I'm not proposing either....

[suppressingfire.livejournal.com]

What's the big deal with run levels? Do you really run telinit to do anything other than switch to and from single user mode?

[pseydtonne.livejournal.com]

I prefer o start my boxes at init 3, then turn on X when I need it. My servers don't need to be running X. This desktop? Sure. However, it's more important that sshd be running and that I can crunch CDs into MP3s fast.