Re: Flavors of Linux

[Ralph Lange <Ralph.Lange@bessy.de>]

The main problem being that for many commercial tools that you might 
want to use (RDBs, debuggers, ...) RedHat (or one of the others) is the 
only supported Linux distribution. Some things may run on other 
flavours, others won't, and you will hardly get support on a different 
distribution.

BESSY is also slowly moving from HP-UX to Linux. We try to use Debian as 
the main platform for the desktop, server and control room machines, but 
we will have to stick with Suse (for Oracle) and RedHat (for Rational 
Purify) as well. So the move to Linux does not really simplify system 
administration. Which really hurts, but we don't see an easier solution.

Ralph


D. Peter Siddons wrote:

> My feeling with RedHat is that they are wannabe Microsofts, so they 
> are differentiating themselves from the rest as much as possible. I 
> prefer to stick with something more open. The move to 'Enterprise' 
> tells it all.
> Pete.
>
>
> Hammonds, John P. wrote:
>
> > At IPNS we have been using RedHat Linux as an EPICS client & as a boot
> > host to IOCs since ~1997-1998.  This covers versions going back to at
> > least RH 4.  This has gone very well for us except when major versions
> > change something drastic.  Generally this just required recompile.
> > Currently we are using RHEL 3.
> >
> > Looking towards version 4 we are experiencing some problems with X.
> > Redhat seems to be moving from XFree86 to X.org X-server.  This is
> > causing some problems for us with programs like medm.  We are still
> > looking for some of the solution to this.  I will try to post more on
> > this as we unravel things.
> >
> >
> > John Hammonds
> > Data Acquisition Systems Manager
> > Intense Pulsed Neutron Source
> > JPHammonds@anl.gov
> > (630)252-5317
> >
> >