Re: New Distribution [LONG]

[Alan Mead <adm ipat com>]

Hey Mike,

I'll be interested in what others have to say about some of your specific 
points.  I think the LAST thing I need is another Linux distribution.

I would like a set of USER-SPACE packages all tweaked to run on, oh say Red 
Hat 6.x.  As I start to use Linux as a desktop environment, I find that 
there are often 3-4 or 6-10 or over a dozen apps for any one function (ICQ, 
X-based mail client, Word-processing, etc.)...  I don't need the "best", I 
need something that is good that doesn't seg fault right away on my 
setup.  Gathering working tools together into sets would be helpful; I 
think a appware distribution (or maybe several) has merit.  You could have 
different sets: games, kid's games, productivity, office, development (that 
might be a contentious set to produce), ...

I was going to add security, but I think bastille Linux is already there.

I have some specific comments below:

At 09:07 AM 7/3/00 , Michael J. McGillick wrote:
> - Minimal security is in place after an install.  Telnet, FTP, etc. are
> wide open if you happened to have installed those packages.

There is no way a distributor can make a distro that is secure (only you 
can).  I think an interactive approach like Bastille Linux is clearly far, 
far superior.

> - The "public" FTP is incredibly slow.

This is a hard money issue; how will your distro pay for a lot more 
bandwidth?  Higher prices?  How fast/slow are the mirrors?

> - Red Hat is not 100% FHS compliant.  I'm still checking on this one, but
> my understanding is that this is the case.

How is RH not compliant and what ill effects does this cause (that would 
make someone help you redo a distro from scratch)?  My understanding of the 
FSS was that it was pretty vague.

> - There is no telephone technical support.  I know that Red Hat physically
> has people in a "technical support" area, but anyone who has called for
> real technial support will understand what I mean.

Quite some time ago I used RH tech support and was satisfied...

> - Customizations and patches original sources.  I thought the idea of RPM
> was to have pristine sources and manage those.  Why are the kernel sources
> patched then with stuff from Red Hat that has yet to be approved by the
> group producing the kernel?  I've seen this with other packages, like
> Apache as well.

Am I misunderstanding you?  I personally appreciate having a "good" RPM 
already available.  I can always get the SRPM and decide for myself what 
patches I use.

> - Red Hat appears to be going the route of Microsoft.  RHCE, increasing
> price for the operating system, customizations to the OS that require Red
> Hat be installed or packages don't work, etc.

I don't see much under-handed and coercive tactics like our friends in 
Redmond use.

I think certification is a HUGE boon for Linux.  I know not everyone 
agrees... here is my reasoning:  Right now, it's easy to say that Linux 
isn't a real OS because no professional system administrators understand 
it.  I know it's crap, but that's what IT managers and others read and they 
don't know it's crap.  So when TCO is calculated, they figure in some 
exorbitant rate for the administration that makes Linux look bad.  And then 
on the other hand, hiring managers often cannot evaluate depth of Linux 
knowledge; I mean, anyone can install Linux on an old 486 and claim 
"administrative experience" but what have they actually learned?

Certification eases both these problems for Linux.  I prefer the LPI 
approach to any vendor- or trainer-specific certification, but I think any 
certification is a great idea.

-Alan