Clean install keeping home folder intact

[Eddie G. O'Connor Jr.]

On 08/23/2012 06:09 AM, Ian Malone wrote:
> On 23 August 2012 03:22, Eddie G. O'Connor Jr. <eoconnor25 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 08/22/2012 09:03 AM, Ian Malone wrote:
>>> On 22 August 2012 13:38, Tim <ignored_mailbox at yahoo.com.au> wrote:
>>>> There's CentOS, and there was (may still be) a long life version of
>>>> Ubuntu.  Where you install a particular release, and there isn't a
>>>> cut-off date for the creation of any updates.  So, you can do package
>>>> updates for years to come, without having to do a destroy and rebuild
>>>> total upgrade.
>>> CentOS or Scientific Linux are the obvious RPM based choices. As an
>>> alternative Open SUSE's evergreen project aims to extend support for
>>> nominated releases to 3 years (there was a similar effort for Fedora
>>> early on, but it's quite tough for a community-based effort, so not
>>> sure if SUSE will keep it up either). Then there are the paid-for
>>> enterprise options.
>>>
>> Wow....I'm just "blown away" by the depth, breadth, and EXTENT that Linux
>> goes!....this is like a kid in a candy store moment for me!..LoL!
>> Debian?.....gonna have to check that one out too......and
>> Scientific?.......now THAT sounds interesting....ESPECIALLY to a nerd like
>> me...LoL! Once again thanks to all of you....you're like my own personal
>> "Computer Expert Emergency Team"!......LoL!
>>
> You may want to check out:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_distributions
> http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8c/Gldt.svg
>
> Which has much more detail than I'm able to judge. The three main
> families are Debian, RedHat and Slackware, and are mainly
> distinguished by their traditional approaches to package management,
> though some derivative distributions have changed between them.
>
> Things I've learnt in the last five minutes I didn't know previously:
> * SUSE/OpenSUSE though RPM-based seem to have originated with Slackware.
> * Gentoo was preceded by something called Enoch.
> * There appear to be as many Ubuntu branches as any other family
> contains, but I think quite a lot of those look like spins rather than
> genuine distros.
> * Scientific Linux appears to be based directly on RHEL, I'd assumed
> it was based on CentOS.
> * There are far more distributions than I ever realised.
>
> To answer to your question about how you choose one (or even half a
> dozen), that list does seem to make it rather hard. However if they
> indicated number of users or developers for the different branches the
> picture would be rather different (also, it wouldn't exist because the
> data is pretty hard to collect). If I had to actively pick one for
> something (rather than just defaulting to Fedora because I know it
> well), I'd try a few of the more major ones out and then have a quick
> check to see if any of the derivatives of the most appropriate of
> those was better targeted to the application. Turnover/lifetime and
> where they position themselves relative to the cutting-edge is a big
> factor as is the suite of available packages for the smaller distros.
> Package management tools or GUI (or not) is generally another area
> where they try to set themselves apart. If going down a Gentoo route,
> its derivative Sabayon seems to be gathering attention.
>
> Somewhat related to all this is the question of desktop environments.
> While Fedora provides pretty good support for a number of desktops
> many of the other distros align themselves to a particular desktop
> (this is a major differentiator for the different Ubuntu flavours).
> Fedora itself has tried to be the Gnome cutting edge distribution for
> the past few releases.
>
WOW!....this is INTENSE!.....I'm going to have to get me a PC and give 
almost ALL of these different flavors a try!....thanks for all the info....


EGO II