which linux? (not flame bait, thank you)

[John Smith]

On Tue, 04 Nov 2003 11:58:14 -0800
andi payn <andi_payn at speedymail.org> wrote:

> "Supra-Debians"
> ---------------
> There are a number of Debian-based distros that will install a complete
> system ready to go as a workstation, server, etc., but that can be
> administered from there just like any other Debian system.
> 
> For example (this is a while back, so it may be out of date), I used
> Libranet in teaching linux, because it installs a complete KDE
> workstation out-of-the-box, but whenever you want (or need) to play with
> something, it's just like a stock Debian box. 
> 
> But don't use Xandros--although it's Debian-based, it's heavily modified
> in peculiar ways.

And there's Knoppix.  David, you said you don't have a lot of time.  You can tinker with Knoppix a bit without installing anything or you can do a quick HD install to check things out more; it takes maybe 30 minutes, as I recall, but less than an hour, at any rate.  Also, there's a live cd for Slackware, but I don't think you can do a HD install with it.

> Gentoo
> ------
> 
> And, while it's nice to be able to build everything from source, it's
> sometimes nice to not have to. With RPM-based distros, you can build the
> SRPM when you want to, or install the binary RPM when you just want to
> check something out. (How fast can your box build the kernel, XFree86,
> KDE, Mozilla, ghostscript, etc.?)

As far as Gentoo goes, I've got to agree with Andi on this one.  I haven't done a test to get the numbers, but it seems like it even takes longer for programs to compile on Gentoo than on FreeBSD, or maybe it's just the knowledge that I have no other alternative that makes it seem longer.  Also, if I had to install something "in a pinch", I wouldn't grab the Gentoo CD.