On Fri, Jan 25, 2002 at 02:34:22PM -0600, Rodd Ahrenstorff wrote:
> Specifically I would like to ask; what characteristics will a
> successful distro need to employ?
There are a number, but the more successful distributions have the
following:
* Ease of initial installation.
* Ease of upgrades.
* Availability of packaged software.
* Dependable response time to security updates.
* Sensible default settings.
* Sensible filesystem layout.
* Easily managed configuration files.
* Good documentation.
GUI v.s. CLI are usually not an issue when it comes down to it. The
question is really about how easy it is to install and maintain your
machine. If distro A installs a great default desktop but offers no
upgrade path, distro B may be chosen because it has a "good enough"
default desktop with a great means of upgrading the system later on.
There are a number of reasons why people use Debian over Redhat, or
Gentoo over Mandrake. Most of it comes down to personal choice and how
you value your time. As an administrator, I'm going to choose a
distribution that gives me the least amount of hands-on configuration,
that which is typical of GUI configurators.
I have been working with an interesting tool called cfengine, a very
high level language scripting tool. It's not nearly as powerful as
a programming language, such as python or Perl, but it's very portable
and quite useful for the standard jobs a sysadmin has to do. I'm
starting to value it even on a simple workstation, using it to clean up
what installers leave behind, or customizing default installations to
something a bit more useful. Do a google search on it or install it
with your favorite package manager. Then type 'info cfengine-tutorial'.
But I digress...
--
Chad Walstrom <chewie at wookimus.net> | a.k.a. ^chewie
http://www.wookimus.net/ | s.k.a. gunnarr
Get my public key, ICQ#, etc. $(mailx -s 'get info' chewie at wookimus.net)
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