> I do tend to agree with you, though. No matter how easy to install, if
> one can not maintain it, in the end it will not survive.
>
> Let's just hope Linux can be above back stabbing.
Agreed: But even without the albatross of upgradeability, installing
Linux on a marginal machine can still be iffy.
Here's the results of my experiences of the last two days, trying to
install Linux on a Thinkpad 365 (with CD's from Linux Central).
Only RedHat and Caldera were able to boot... even typing in the hard
drive geometry and floppy=thinkpad at the boot prompt, which has been
standard operating procedure on Thinkpads, Debian and Slackware would
only hang at the boot promp.
Both Caldera and Red Hat had no problem finding the network and modem
through a Xircom combo PCMCIA card. But Red Hat added the Ethernet
interface to the startup scripts, and brought up the eth0 interface
automatically on boot. Otoh, the /etc/sysconfig directory, which
contains all of the information, like hostname, network address, and
so forth, is non-standard. So... it still went all right.
Both Caldera and Red Hat installed fine from a NFS mounted CD-ROM.
Under Caldera, I had trouble firing up the X server, and PPP
completely trashed the kernel routing table. Trying to upgrade PPP
from the archive on sunsite.unc.edu resulted in trashing the kernel
source code that Caldera installed.... instant re-installation with
Red Hat. Not necessarily Caldera's fault, but starting over was
definitely the better option at that point.
Red Hat also installed and correctly configured the X server, which
fired up with no problem. Unfortunately, the FVWM interface that
comes standard with Red Hat is so incredibly cheesy, I'd rather be
looking at a Commodore 64 screen.
Caldera, otoh, includes KDE, which is beginning to approach CDE in
terms of slickness, and general configurability, not to mention
ease-of-use for end users....
Since they're both commercial systems, they should be using Motif as
the default WM... or in the GPL'd systems, Lesstiff, which isn't too
bad.
Caldera is distributed with Xemacs, Red Hat with GNU Emacs... I prefer
GNU, so that's a matter of preference.
The fact that programs are built _in situ_ on Linux still is one of
its strenghts, IMHO. I don't need GPF's five times a day.
So, on balance.... pick your poision. It seems that one still cannot
install Linux and have a system which shows off Linux to its
advantages without a significant amount of tweaking and prior system
administration experience.
Of course, it's still a relatively open market for VARs and
documenters, and the documentation, at least in the free
implementations, still leaves a lot to be desired.
Hope these experiences help someone else.
Robert Kiesling
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