Steffen Kluge wrote:
On 24/02/2007, at 3:07 AM, Mike McCarty wrote:
Firstly, I replaced my firewall and Internet exposed servers with OpenBSD boxes a couple of years ago. The OpenBSD camp are stuck- up and hostile bunch, but with the sheer number of security patches my Linux boxes required on a regular basis I just didn't feel comfortable anymore to put them in the first line.
You can make this same criticism for any of the *NIX like OS groups, though things are improving. *NIX with its cryptic, often only two letter commands, and command switches no two of which look similar to each other, *breeds* guru mentality.
What same criticism? That Linux isn't security-centered enough? Well,
Sorry I wasn't clear. The criticism I meant was "stuck-up and hostile".
that clearly doesn't apply to *some* Unixes, such as OpenBSD. Two- letter commands don't affect security, and neither does guru mentality.
Two-letter command attract those with "guru mentality".
In short, fiddling with an OS is not a hobby for you, nor for many. Linux, in general, is for fiddlers and those for whom such fiddling is a hobby.
Well, it used to be a hobby of mine, but it becoming less and less so. Apart from that, the Linux community is making far too many claims of real-world usefulness to withdraw behind the excuse of being "merely experimental" everytime someone points out a shortcoming. This isn't the early 1990's anymore.
Yes, I'm rather put off by that, myself. When someone points out that Linux distros lack any real QA, and the user interface is still "not there", then the side of the mouth is "Linux is still in development, it's experimental, or you need to learn how to use man and apropos", but then it sure seems like many want it to compete with Widows and MacOS and complain that Dell doesn't ship their laptops with some distro on it. BTW, "Linux" is not "a thing". Everyone who likes it has his favorite distro.
[snip]
If installing and fiddling is not your "thing", then Fedora is not for you.
I know the mantra. I've been chanting it myself. On the other hand, if all the fiddling never yields any meaningful results or progress then it isn't much more than pissing against the wind. I have the impression that this was one of ESR's gripes with Fredora.
I won't presume in that direction. But I disagree with the sentiment. FC is "upstream" for RHEL.
My girlfriend, at my suggestion, is running Debian, and it works well enough, and is stable enough.
My wife and one of my sons used to run Fedora, without any stability problems, too. But it was a very time-consuming affair for me, they couldn't do much themselves, only what I've set up or made working for them.
I meant that the distro is stable. It changes infrequently, and has a good support mail list.
Debian is easier to configure than FC, in my experience.
Those of us who live and breathe Unix tend to lose touch with what user-friendliness means for computer illiterates. Give me the command line anyday, I much prefer it to any incarnation of "file managers". However, the command line doesn't mean squat to my family. The have to put up with the ghastliness of GUI file managers.
Well, we're both on the same page here.
Of course, Apple have an unfair advantage, they make their own hardware...
Well, they *market* their own hardware.
In fairness, they design and engineer it, and have it made in China.
What I meant.
Linux has one really big flaw in one sense...
It has no rudder at all. Linux is not a product. Some distros attempt to be somewhat a product. Fedora makes no bones about it: Fedora Core is NOT A PRODUCT, IT IS A PROJECT.
Projects have rudders, too. Or at least, they should (it's called project management). And they should have long terms goals and strategies. And they should communicate those.
FC has pretty clearly define objectives, I think.
Mike