thelinuxlink.net

Ok I am on a ranty mood now, so I will get to this point again, what is the freaking different on what distro do you use. For real, I havent understand why is running a distro even relevant.

When I get in a linux desktop I end up using the same apps, so what is the difference between it being a suse or a debian. Most of the 'administration packages' that this distros came with, are barely used. Is usually just configure once and go away.

At the end of the day the apps whenever this are gui like evolution or an apache server. I have yet to fit in my brain what is the difference between untar, make, make install in suse vs untar, make make install on debian.

Am I missing something here?

Jza wrote:When I get in a linux desktop I end up using the same apps, so what is the difference between it being a suse or a debian.

I this specific example I think there are quite a bit of difference, because for new users, SUSE can be eaisier to use by multitudes. I played with Debian Sarge with Backports last night and SUSE's KDE desktop seem a lot more polished and more "put together" or whatever.

Well, you've got source distros, and binary distros. There's Apt, Portage, Yum, YaST, the list goes on for package managers. At the end of the day, it really makes no difference what distro it is, it is all the same software. What it really comes down to is the way you administer your system. Personally, I think Apt and Portage make that task as trivial as possible.

Package quality and how those packages were compiled also varies from distro to distro. How the filesystem is setup does as well - /etc is a big one here. Some distros shovel crap in there with no real organization, while others have well organized /etc dirs. I'd say redhat has one of my least favorite /etc dirs, while debian has one of my favorites. Then there's sysv vs "bsd style" (which is a complete fallacy in most cases) inits. There's how devices are handled, like NICs - redhat or debian are great here - arch not so much (meaning, you can assign the interface a mac *in the config* in rh or deb, arch requires you to hack together udev rules for this. if you have multi-nic boxen, this is a pita, and what I'd consider hackish). Versions of packages, as well as what patches have been applied to them also vary wildly from distro to distro - debian and rh patch the living hell out of *everything* while slack and arch patch either nothing, or very very little.

So, no, I'd say just the opposite - the only things common among distros at all are the apps. The distros themselves are very, very different from each other. Get a job in a shop with multiple distros and some old-ass bsd/sco/whatever boxen, and you'll quickly learn that there are some distros you simply hate. Or perhaps you'd hate the old-ass bsd boxen. In any event - if you only ever use one distro, trying to configure another when the $hit hits the fan can be quite eye-opening.

There are 3 main areas when it comes to distros:

1. Installation
2. Administration
3. Package Management

Many of these things have converged, in particular now that many distros use commons bases. Plus, KDE and GNOME have started shipping with more and more admin software, which means that it becomes common over distros.

Tsuroerusu wrote:

Jza wrote:When I get in a linux desktop I end up using the same apps, so what is the difference between it being a suse or a debian.

I this specific example I think there are quite a bit of difference, because for new users, SUSE can be eaisier to use by multitudes. I played with Debian Sarge with Backports last night and SUSE's KDE desktop seem a lot more polished and more "put together" or whatever.

Feelings are very subject way to measure difference. And yes I agree about the Installation, Package manager, and overal administration. But at the end really there is no difference since desktop users dont even open the control panel (and they shouldnt).

Installation of the system/packages/administration such as networking, services, firewalling are really not desktop users tasks.

So for the user really there is no difference in the end and you end up with the same apps. OpenOffice.org/Firefox/Gimp/etc etc...

This is exactly why I dont see much of a point on doing distro hoping since well.. I really dont think there is any fundamental difference between them, once configured there is no point or fun on reconfigure it.

I sometimes dont see the point about arguing about distros (as opposed on arguing about desktop enviroments) since as opposed to distros, desktop enviroments do have a big impact on your applicaton selection and the way you work comes out.

Example, a work in gimp might be substantially different from one in Krita, and one in OOo from KWord. But what is the impact between installing something between yast or urpmi or aptget at the end you care abut the app running app and ultimately about the work you do with it. On the filesystem topic there might be some justification as it interrupt your 'command line experience' since browsing on your system becomes substatially different.

I guess it would be hateful to put distro-specific prefix on your firefox aplication to get to google.. for example.

I guess as more and more admin tools are included in KDE/Gnome and/or some gui software become more powerfull, distros will become less relevant. For example, Mandfiva is very easy to configure samba, while yast is a pain, but if everyone used linuxconf it would at least be a standard process on any distro.

This makes the question, how fruitful is to use the distro specific managing tools? Most linuxers hate it and use BASH instead, at least BASH is standard right?

I have used many dsitros in the past, debian, mandriva, suse, slax and try their different filesystems and I most say that the command line browsing experince does change. But as a user once KDE is running, or Gnome, it looks like the same old friendly linux i always use.[/b]

If you have enough time, you can configure any distro to look like any other distro. You can compile your own kernel, compilers, base utilities, etc. And you can obviously pick your own desktop environment, which is why I think saying "suse is gnome!" is meaningless; with a good package manager, installing your favorite windows manager should be a single command.

Speaking of package management, unfortunately this is an area where distros do matter since almost all package management systems are non-portable. (the only portable one I know of is pkgsrc from netbsd, and they are portability freaks).

2. Administration

I disagree. Apache is Apache, MySQL is MySQL, SSH is SSH, no matter the distro. Many distros will add fancy GUI tools, but those are merely interfaces to existing 3rd party utilities.

thetza wrote:

2. Administration

I disagree. Apache is Apache, MySQL is MySQL, SSH is SSH, no matter the distro. Many distros will add fancy GUI tools, but those are merely interfaces to existing 3rd party utilities.

I disagree here with you thought, simply because I have seen different configurations of apache. If you ever install apache from scratch and look a distro configuration of apache you will see that there is a big difeference. Frromt the comments to the options, also you will see there are different implementations of apache, one is very modular, the other is less based on the moduesyou willl see the prefork and mpm etc versions of it.


Maybe they are all from the appache tree but is no longer a vanilla implementation of apache. Same with samba, some will already includes the windbind and other modules.

In OOo some my add extra skinning, I think Mandriva 2006 had OOo 1.1.4 with a gnome skin, the vanilla installation doesnt have this. The suse OOo also dont have some wizards like dictionaries while they have their own language pack through their repository.

Once said that, away from configuration the performance is quite the same. I think linspire have a modified version of firefox and openoffice.org too. I think their firefox have a smart search of words on some smart tag.

thetza wrote:

2. Administration

I disagree. Apache is Apache, MySQL is MySQL, SSH is SSH, no matter the distro. Many distros will add fancy GUI tools, but those are merely interfaces to existing 3rd party utilities.

Erm, yeah - exactly my point. Distros add fancy GUI tools for administration, and these tend to be different from distro to distro.

Even if this is true, distros are not the only provider of this fancy admin gui toolkits. KDE for example has a UI to configure SAMBA and there was always LinuxConf as a distro-less admin tool and also webmin.

I wonder how many people really use this admin tools, even distro supporters usually recomend do the job from the commandline (a little too hardcore for my taste) specially when this gui toolkits have got so good.

However I have seen that distros even modifiy the configuration of this admin packages. One example is gettnig into the etc and opening the different script and .conf that already have a substantial configuration and most of the stuff comented but there as opposed of a cleaner (just what is being used) conf file.

So even command line experience change over the distro, however, is this still a big difference?

What makes a desktop distro from a server distro really nowadays. Most gui configs also take on the server management seriously.

Jza wrote:Even if this is true, distros are not the only provider of this fancy admin gui toolkits. KDE for example has a UI to configure SAMBA and there was always LinuxConf as a distro-less admin tool and also webmin.

Yup - I already said that:

mrBen wrote: Plus, KDE and GNOME have started shipping with more and more admin software, which means that it becomes common over distros.

Jza wrote:I wonder how many people really use this admin tools, even distro supporters usually recomend do the job from the commandline (a little too hardcore for my taste) specially when this gui toolkits have got so good.

Jings - you've missed the point of my answer. The question was about the differences between the distros, and my answer replied to that. Whether or not the admin tools are any good, or whether people use them, is irrelevant when it comes to the question of the differences.

The other important thing to note is that _because_ the gui admin tools vary between distros, it's often easier to give answers based on the command line, because the vast majority of command line config stays the same between distros. ifconfig always works, even if there are net configs in KDE Kontrol Center (or whatever it's called), the GNOME preferences things, YaST2, etc, etc.