[Smaug] UCSC Linux Install Bash!

[Peter Belew]

Hi -

On 2/23/06, cerise at armory.com <cerise at armory.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 23, 2006 at 05:35:31PM -0800, Meg McRoberts wrote:
> > Whoops -- I'm actually running Mandriva -- you'd think I could
> > get the name right!  ;-)
>
>    Mandriva, Mandrake.  Same difference ; )

 Actually there are two differences: The name change, due to a
copyright or trademark dispute, and the corporate merger with
Conectiva.

>
> > Has anyone played with Linspire?  I have a friend who likes to play
> > with different distros.  She tried this out soon after it first came
> > out, prepared to scoff at it, and was actually quite impressed -- she
> > had one piece of esoteric hardware and Linspire installed smoothly on
> > it when several other distros did not...  She said it was a very stripped-
> > down distro but had a very nice utility for downloading additional
> > features.
>
>    I played with it briefly.  I have a free copy of one of their CDs from when
> they were still Lindows.  It seemed OK, but I didn't play around with it much.
>    When I think of easy Linuces, I usually recommend Xandros.  Xandros is a
> commercial distro, though they have an open circulation edition.  It's built
> from Corel Linux which was built on Debian.
>    Shoot, it works on guide (a P-150 laptop), though starting X is a bit on
> the laggy side as one might expect.
>
> > Anyhow, that's why I asked what the purpose of this InstallFest is.  Are
> > you saying that it's only to look at non-commercial distros?
>
>    Most people don't like to hear that the bright shiny new OS that you just
> put on their system is commercial.  ; )
>    It's probably not a bad idea to stick to the free stuff, IMHO.

 I agree. One can get embroiled in support issues with the commercial
 versions. It costs money to keep updating Red Hat, for example,
 Fedora updates are free. And it's worth choosing a distro whose
 support mechanism is stable - not likely to be subject to corporate
 mergers and corporate changes of heart about Linux. No need
 to name names there!

 - Peter

>
> > I'd love to hear how the day goes -- I don't think I can make it, alas...
>
>    Yeah, Thursday's a tough day to make admittedly.  We typically held them on
> the weekend.  It's kind of a tradeoff between visibility and availability.
> Alternatively a tradeoff between visibility and having-a-life-outside-of-school.
>    I didn't notice when I first responded -- such is the hazard of enthusiasm.
> I'll see what I can do to get off of work, but no promises.  =/
>
> -Phil/CERisE
>
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