[wplug] comparing distros (was: iso small distros)

[mdanish at andrew.cmu.edu]

On Sun, Dec 09, 2001 at 10:25:08AM -0800, Elwin Green wrote:
> 
> Greetings, all - 
> 
> First, thanks for the responses to my previous post. I've decided to go with
> debian for now, because I really liked the documentation given at their
> website. 
> 
> However, I want to emphasize that that was my ONLY reason for choosing
> debian over slackware in this instance. Otherwise, I know next to nothing
> about the differences between them. Which leads to my next question: can
> anyone point me to an aricle, website, or book that offers detailed
> comparisons between distros? 
Hrm, plenty of flamewars =)

> 
> The key word there is "detailed". All that I've read so far comes down to
> statements like "distro x is easier to install," or "distro y is better for
> the enterprise." I'm looking for something that would say, "distro x uses
> runlevel 4 for a graphical login, and distro y uses runlevel 5," or "distro
> x and distro y both place xFree's config file in location abc, and distro z
> places it in location def." Or for that matter - something that would tell
> me the functional difference, if any,  between a deb and an rpm (and not
> just tell me that one format is debian's and the other is red hat's). 
If it's information like this, I suggest consulting the various distributions'
documentation and analyzing it yourself.  I can tell you right away that you
will find information about things like "where is such-and-such file" and
"this is how packages lay things out" for Debian in the Debian Policy Manual
and related documentation (mini-policy guides, etc), http://debian.org/devel.
Redhat must have something similar, I imagine, as do other distributions,
to one extent or another.

I know a good site comparing package formats:
http://www.kitenet.net/~joey/pkg-comp/

But your best tool is going to be Google, and the documentation of the
distribution in question, I imagine.  Or simply install them all, which is
what I did several years ago, when I had gotten my new laptop.  I got the
cheapbytes mondo pack of Linux and BSD and went through every CD.


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;; Matthew Danish                         email: mdanish at andrew.cmu.edu ;;
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