Re: [vox-tech] What's in RedHat 8.0

[Peter Jay Salzman <pMAPS@dirac.org>]

begin Rod Roark <rod@sunsetsystems.com> 
> On Friday 04 October 2002 10:50 am, Peter Jay Salzman wrote:
> > i'm finding myself disagreeing with rod.  a dangerous pursuit.  :)
> 
> That's OK.  My wife does that too.  ;-)
> 
> > if you're new to gnu/linux... if you're kind of new to unix...
> >
> > i would _definitely_ without a doubt stay away from debian and gentoo.
> > cut your teeth elsewhere.  install redhat, mandrake or suse.  no doubt
> > in my mind whatsoever.
> 
> Consider the objective.  Red Hat and Mandrake will give you 
> an easy experience and a working system, but if your goal is
> to learn about Linux and friends, you won't be very far
> along.
 
i think that's where he's coming from, though.

but the other thing is, i don't think anyone could accuse me of being a
newbie linux user anymore.  not even a casual user.   i have humble
beginnings with redhat until i accidentally rm -rf'd my entire system.

btw, did i ever tell you that the first howto i ever read from cover to
cover is the ext2 undeletion howto?   :)   i came close to 100% recovery
rate for my entire system.  took me 3 days though.

after that, installed suse.

i've only been using debian for about a year now i think.  maybe year
and a half?

anyway, i didn't come from a microsoft background, but this guy is.  i
think dropping him into deep water to begin with would just be
discouraging, especially if he doesn't have a skillset yet.  he'll have
to bite, claw, scratch and spend an unbelievable amount of time for
every little problem.

let him enjoy linux first.  it's not as if redhat makes things brain
dead.   after a while, he'll begin to get curious to learn more and will
hear people talk about debian.  if he wants to move on, he will.  and if
not, so be it.

but i think redhat is excellent for people who want to learn linux but
actually have a life outside of computers that takes a significant chunk
of their time.


> > 1. you're supporting a company.  if nobody bought linux, most of the
> > distributions would shrivel up and die.  and where would that leave us?
> > mandrake nearly declared bankruptcy this year, and they're one of the
> > most popular distros!  these companies have employees to pay, business
> > expenditures to pay.  no matter how much i make fun of redhat and
> > mandrake, i would just die if they folded.  lokisoftware going under
> > cast a dark cloud over me for months when they called quits....
> 
> I guess this doesn't worry me as much as it does you.  Red 
> Hat and other for-profit companies do contribute to open 
> source projects, but they are not the core.  Ultimately they 
> are just trying to make a buck, and if they fail it's only
> their fault and the foundation will remain.  I would be 
> disappointed, but it's not our job to prop them up.
 
linux is like the stock market.  having a company like redhat go out of
business would cast a shadow on this whole "open source" thing.

it would certainly go a long way to discredit the open source business
model.

it would just be very bad in general.   btw, redhat sponsors gdb and gcc
development.

pete

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