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(disclaimer: if you don't happen to be aware of it, I run exclusively Gentoo Linux on my computer and would run FreeBSD if I didn't consider it to be more suitable as a server than a desktop OS. My current computer has never ran any other OS than Gentoo (and Knoppix, for a while))
I'll be gone in 15 minutes so I'll be brief... more brief than I wanted to be...
They say Linux is free. They say Linux is easy to install. They also say it's easy to administrate, especially on distributed environments, that it has several user-friendly graphical user interfaces, that it can be upgraded online easily, that it's stable, that it's clean and elegant, that it has no DLL hell or such things that annoy Windows users (at least those who use older releases of the OS) and that it's well supported. If I forgot to mention anything here, please post about it.
I'll ignore the confusion between "Linux the kernel" and the inexistent "Linux the operating system" for the purposes of this post. I've always done so anyway. Now, all the things that I mentioned are promised by Linux evangelists, and all of them are delivered by Linux...
... but by no distribution of it.
There's not a single Linux distribution that has all the advantages that people are led to believe the operating system generally has. Few even come close. The most popular commercial distributions are plagued by bloat ("Why the hell do you need three CDs for installing an operating system?"), dependency hell (RPM.sucks.) which is basically a manifestation of the same design bug as DLL hell is and prices higher than that of Windows XP. Debian is hard to install, outdated in the stable branch and easily broken in the unstable branch (and it's still called more reliable than the commercial distros!). Slackware, Gentoo and other "expert" distros require extensive knowledge to operate, not to mention install.
Yes, if you want easy upgradeability, go with Debian. But you don't get what you were promised. If you want an easy install, use Mandrake. But you do not get what you were promised. If you want something that's well supported by bigh companies, use Red Hat. But you do not get what you were promised!
I'm still waiting for that One Perfect Distro... the distro that is free by default but offers commercial support for those who really want it. The distro that is easy to install, easy to administrate and keep up-to-date, and easy to use. The distro that is installed from one CD by default and can easily be extended by either more CDs or online package installs. The distro that is stable, secure and locked-down by default but always provides a quick access to enabling different services by an administrator when it's needed. The distro that lets geeks play around with it and doesn't break down, while giving newbies the choice to point'n'drool as much as they like. The distro that can be adapted for both desktop and server use. It doesn't matter if it follows some radically new design philosophy or if it has a new, FHS-incompatible filesystem or if it's a metadistribution instead of a distribution... all it would need to do is to deliver everything that Linux promises!
I'm not sure if it's possible to create that One Perfect Distro, and judging by people's attempts this far it seems rather unlikely - in fact, some of my demands (like being adaptable for both desktop and server use) were rather unrealistic... however, should someone one day design and implement all of it, Linux would finally stop sucking!
I'll be gone in 15 minutes so I'll be brief... more brief than I wanted to be...
They say Linux is free. They say Linux is easy to install. They also say it's easy to administrate, especially on distributed environments, that it has several user-friendly graphical user interfaces, that it can be upgraded online easily, that it's stable, that it's clean and elegant, that it has no DLL hell or such things that annoy Windows users (at least those who use older releases of the OS) and that it's well supported. If I forgot to mention anything here, please post about it.
I'll ignore the confusion between "Linux the kernel" and the inexistent "Linux the operating system" for the purposes of this post. I've always done so anyway. Now, all the things that I mentioned are promised by Linux evangelists, and all of them are delivered by Linux...
... but by no distribution of it.
There's not a single Linux distribution that has all the advantages that people are led to believe the operating system generally has. Few even come close. The most popular commercial distributions are plagued by bloat ("Why the hell do you need three CDs for installing an operating system?"), dependency hell (RPM.sucks.) which is basically a manifestation of the same design bug as DLL hell is and prices higher than that of Windows XP. Debian is hard to install, outdated in the stable branch and easily broken in the unstable branch (and it's still called more reliable than the commercial distros!). Slackware, Gentoo and other "expert" distros require extensive knowledge to operate, not to mention install.
Yes, if you want easy upgradeability, go with Debian. But you don't get what you were promised. If you want an easy install, use Mandrake. But you do not get what you were promised. If you want something that's well supported by bigh companies, use Red Hat. But you do not get what you were promised!
I'm still waiting for that One Perfect Distro... the distro that is free by default but offers commercial support for those who really want it. The distro that is easy to install, easy to administrate and keep up-to-date, and easy to use. The distro that is installed from one CD by default and can easily be extended by either more CDs or online package installs. The distro that is stable, secure and locked-down by default but always provides a quick access to enabling different services by an administrator when it's needed. The distro that lets geeks play around with it and doesn't break down, while giving newbies the choice to point'n'drool as much as they like. The distro that can be adapted for both desktop and server use. It doesn't matter if it follows some radically new design philosophy or if it has a new, FHS-incompatible filesystem or if it's a metadistribution instead of a distribution... all it would need to do is to deliver everything that Linux promises!
I'm not sure if it's possible to create that One Perfect Distro, and judging by people's attempts this far it seems rather unlikely - in fact, some of my demands (like being adaptable for both desktop and server use) were rather unrealistic... however, should someone one day design and implement all of it, Linux would finally stop sucking!
I changed that quickly
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