Bill Lewis Posted February 27, 2006 Report Share Posted February 27, 2006 Old topic, new Mandriva user, Here's my $.02, Been using redhat distros since '94. My MOis, install, grep /etc for all "redhat" instances and remove, build stripped down kernel and boot floppy, then have smug feeling that I'm on my own distro. Install were always a breeze, CD's always have the same handy stuff that I use day to day. In the last month I have tried Ubuntu(Breezy Badger), SuSe 10.0 and Mandriva PowerPack on both a desktop(IBM Netvista) and laptop(Thinkpad T43). All three distros intalled easily on both. My impressions are: Ubuntu, worst of the 3 distros, not worth the price or effort. Only one of the installs that didn't get the wireless working on the laptop. Also, I couldn't use any of the gnome administration tools because it would never accept the root password. WTF ! The biggest drawback is that you have to adapt to the Debian way of doing things which is a quite a bit different than other distros I'm used to. Not that the Debian way is bad, but in the case of Ubuntu, the distro didn't come with much in the way of packages and I really didn't have the patience to have to try to download package after package to get things working which worked after install on the other distros. The most flagrant example of this was when I went to build a kernel. Doing a simple "make xconfig" spewed out all sorts of errors about things missing. That's when I figured enough was enough. SuSe, lowly second of the 3 distros, OK onlyif you're a newbie and don't want, or need, to "have it your way". You need to be root to do anything, their configuration scripts are a bizarre collection of garbage meant to obfuscate the way you would normally configure anything on a linux box. They have totally botched basic things like file permissions, pppd, etc. to the point where if you want to do it your way you will need to spent an enormous amount of time de-f**king their scripts. Their installation support is non-existent. I tried opening several email tickets and they all came back with "not covered under the terms" bullshit. So I figure f**k them, I'm on an anti-Suse crusade from here on. Mandriva, best of the 3 distros. They totally messed up the pty configuration but that probably affects .01% of the people that use it(me being one of them). Upside is that I got the direction I needed to fix it on this site. Other little annoyance is that the distro doesn't come with an ftp daemon, and some things didn't install by default(i.e. xterm). These are easily fixed. Everything else is very familiar to this old-school linux user so I definitely give Mandriva the nod of the 3 distros that I've been evaluating. Hope this is of some help. BTW: excuse my profanity in the above but those SuSe morons don't deserve any better :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Artificial Intelligence Posted March 1, 2006 Report Share Posted March 1, 2006 The biggest drawback is that you have to adapt to the Debian way of doing things which is a quite a bit different than other distros I'm used to. My question is (I'm assuming you ran ubuntu(gnome) and not kubuntu(kde)) why did you use adept instead of synaptic? Ubuntu comes with with synaptic by default which are far superior versus adept which is still relative new. Ubuntu, worst of the 3 distros, not worth the price or effort. Only one of the installs that didn't get the wireless working on the laptop. About the wireless as you should know every distro have some hardware it can't detect/setup. I know many that have their wireless setup and working perfectly in ubuntu and vice versa. All depend which brand etc. Same goes to all the other distros. Also, I couldn't use any of the gnome administration tools because it would never accept the root password. It's possible to enable root account on ubuntu, but ubuntu uses sudo(superuser do) so when it asks for password it asks for the password you made with your first user. eg. want a sdl-dev package sudo apt-get install sdl1.2-dev enter password Not that the Debian way is bad, but in the case of Ubuntu, the distro didn't come with much in the way of packages and I really didn't have the patience to have to try to download package after package to get things working which worked after install on the other distros. Ubuntu is good if you have a good internet connection or if you don't want to burn +6 CDs everytime. What you may have missed is that Ubuntu is a completly free (as in beer and in speech) which is why it don't have any non-gpl in the repo. If you want non-gpl there's plenty of sources to add to the repo. The most flagrant example of this was when I went to build a kernel. Doing a simple "make xconfig" spewed out all sorts of errors about things missing. That's when I figured enough was enough. You might have done something wrong then. I've both build and patches kernel on ubuntu without any problems. Forgive my ignorance but it sounds like you only gave ubuntu a half-hearted try. As you said you've been on a .rpm based ditro(s) very long and on debian based distro things are done a bit diffrent. There's plenty of documentation out there... .:=The AI Dude=:. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arctic Posted March 1, 2006 Report Share Posted March 1, 2006 The biggest drawback is that you have to adapt to the Debian way of doing things which is a quite a bit different than other distros I'm used to. My question is (I'm assuming you ran ubuntu(gnome) and not kubuntu(kde)) why did you use adept instead of synaptic? Ubuntu comes with with synaptic by default which are far superior versus adept which is still relative new. AI, adapting is not using "adept" but learning/getting familiar with new things. ;) One thing I dislike about Ubuntus current release is that I can't use accented letters (I get e.g. 'e instead of é) unless I enter the correct number-code. But that ain't acceptable for me. I hope that they fix this bug in their next release. But till then, I tend to keep my hand off from ubuntu. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Artificial Intelligence Posted March 1, 2006 Report Share Posted March 1, 2006 (edited) Hehehe, my fault ;)...my english must have glitch somewhere lol Edited March 1, 2006 by Artificial Intelligence Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pmpatrick Posted March 1, 2006 Report Share Posted March 1, 2006 I agree with a lot of Bill's comments. For someone coming from an RH/Fedora background, Debian is significantly different - init scripts are different, run level configuration is different, module loading is different, and networking configuration is different, among other things. If you are used to doing things the RH way with a high level of hand configuration, going Debian requires a significant adjustment. Throw on top of that the Ubuntu idiosyncracies which are really aimed at easing new users into linix(sudo for one), I can understand his frustration. We are all creatures of habit and dislike change. I can also understand his affinity for mandriva; its underlying configuration is very similar to RH, probably more so than any other distro out there that is not a direct RH clone like Centos. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scarecrow Posted March 1, 2006 Report Share Posted March 1, 2006 Is there such a bug in Ubuntu? One of the first things I had done while toying with it was running dpkg -reconfigure locales And setting my preferences ( en_us.UTF8 for the system, el_GR.UTF8 for metrics and a few other things). But I did not have any problems with accented chars- maybe that bug is new. Anyway, I'm still firm on my preferences: Arch Linux is my distro of choice, and if I had to pick a Debian clone, it would surely be Sid/Kanotix, which is preferrable to (K)Ubuntu in any way I could imagine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arctic Posted March 1, 2006 Report Share Posted March 1, 2006 Is there such a bug in Ubuntu?Yupp. There are repeated entries of locale problems with Ubuntu in the bugtracker. Sad thing ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted March 2, 2006 Report Share Posted March 2, 2006 I agree with a lot of Bill's comments. For someone coming from an RH/Fedora background, Debian is significantly different - init scripts are different, run level configuration is different, module loading is different, and networking configuration is different, among other things. If you are used to doing things the RH way with a high level of hand configuration, going Debian requires a significant adjustment. Throw on top of that the Ubuntu idiosyncracies which are really aimed at easing new users into linix(sudo for one), I can understand his frustration. We are all creatures of habit and dislike change. I can also understand his affinity for mandriva; its underlying configuration is very similar to RH, probably more so than any other distro out there that is not a direct RH clone like Centos.Well, I don't know...I can't help but focus on If you are used to doing things the RH way with a high level of hand configuration, going Debian requires a significant adjustment. ...if that's the case, there's no such thing as 'significant adjustment' whether suse, debian, lfs, ubuntu etc.. If you know the coreutils and basic search commands, you can run any linux from day one with ease. Linux is Linux. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polemicz Posted March 2, 2006 Report Share Posted March 2, 2006 I think there is a lot of bad press with Debian. I don't think it's all valid anymore. For a simple desktop that installer picks up and configures most everything without a problem. I write this from Etch on which I have KDE 3.5.1, etc. It has been very stable and my main "configuration" issue has been running my scanner as a regular user. Ubuntu configuration is Debian configuration and both sorely lack the tools of Mandriva. For my money Suse was too too idiosyncratic and if you tried to configure outside of Yast tough nuggies. I could never get the hang of Red Hat and being a KDE user couldn't deal with their botched KDE set-up (is KDE now working well in the current Fedoras?). The nice thing about Debian is that once you get things set up you are set up. I also think that as Linux installers get better and configuration tools are improved there will be less and less difference between the "ease of use" in distros. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pmpatrick Posted March 2, 2006 Report Share Posted March 2, 2006 If you know the coreutils and basic search commands, you can run any linux from day one with ease. Linux is Linux. I agree in principle, i.e. in principle you can turn ubuntu into RH if you really want to. It's all open source. But debian does do things differently. If you need to dig into the text config files or init scripts those differences are a pain if your used to RH style configuration. Unless you're psychic you are not going to find those things and configure with ease without doing some research and putting forth the effort to learn the debian way of doing things. There's nothing wrong with the debian way; it's just different enough to require some adjustment that can be annoying. What you can configure almost automatically in RH you have to stop, think, search and research in debian till you learn it. Bill says he's been running RH since '94. I susepct he is familiar with the coreutils and basic search commands. Yet he found the ubuntu/debian experience frustrating I suspect primarily because he is so used to the RH way of setting things up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arctic Posted March 2, 2006 Report Share Posted March 2, 2006 I agree that it needs some time to adjust from using RH to using Debian and vice versa. My problem with Debian also was that some files (e.g. for networking) could not be found where I expected to find them in Debians filestructure. Even the names were different from the RedHat/Fedora way. You definitely need to invest some weeks before you really comfy with Debians config files if you were a longtime RH user (and vice versa). The basic commands used are still the same though, so it should basically not be too problematic to switch distros... PS: Still no real fix for the accents in Ubuntu except hacking my keyboard-layout. But even that ain't as nice as the default accented letter use in my fedora and Mdv boxes... :sad: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Artificial Intelligence Posted March 2, 2006 Report Share Posted March 2, 2006 If I someday went back to a .rpm distro I think I'll be in the same shoes, as Bill Lewis as he had with .deb I'll admit that lol ;) But I don't think it's a valid point to use when diss'ing a distro in my opinion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arctic Posted March 2, 2006 Report Share Posted March 2, 2006 Sure the rpm vs. deb system layout should not be something for dissing distros. It should only be taken into account for "transition problems" that might occur. However, no obstacle for not using a distro... BTW. I just found out that Ubuntu works 100% with the firmware of my HP laserpinter.... :) Now if the locale thing would be fixed, I would be in heaven and willing to ditch my other distros... AI, can't you push them for fixing the locales? :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Artificial Intelligence Posted March 2, 2006 Report Share Posted March 2, 2006 (edited) If you're smart you'll install dapper, if it don't work report the bug to make sure it fixed when dapper is released ;) Edited March 2, 2006 by Artificial Intelligence Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arctic Posted March 2, 2006 Report Share Posted March 2, 2006 I had dapper running until one dist-upgrade borked up my system and I reverted it to 5.10. (I guess it was my fault rather than ubuntus... launched the upgrade from a chroot environment..ooopsi.). But there are enough guys complaining about broken locales in 5.10 and 6.04 (devel) in the forums and the mailing lists already, so my voice ain't overly important there right now, I guess. And I am too lazy for dist-upgrading again... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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