[PLUG] Mandriva verses what I use...

[drew wymore]

On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 7:03 AM, Michael Robinson
<plug_1 at robinson-west.com>wrote:

> I'm a heavy CentOS user.  The reality is, enterprise distributions
> of Linux like Slackware and CentOS tend be rock solid stable, but
> they aren't cutting edge.  I wonder for example if a newer version
> of Crossover Linux Standard will support the mathematical fonts I
> need in Microsoft Word 2003 better?  Can I run the newest version
> of Crossover Linux Standard on CentOS?  The answer is probably
> no.  The cutting edge Linux distributions are impressively stable,
> Fedora will work as a server system.  Thing is, cutting edge
> distributions are unstable from the standpoint that the features
> they support are not necessarily appropriate for prime time yet.
> I don't know much about Mandriva but it sounds like it is closer
> to Fedora than say CentOS or Slackware.  How often does Mandriva
> come out?  Yearly?  Semi annually?  Monthly?  The ideas that Enterprise
> distributions of Linux like Slackware and CentOS are the way to go are
> problematic from the standpoint that these distros clearly don't work
> as well for Desktop use as say Fedora, Ubuntu, Mint, and possibly also
> Mandriva.  For a desktop system one needs to run the latest version of
> wine and the latest drivers, neither of which are necessarily stable.
>
> I think anything shorter than a 1 year time period for a release doesn't
> make sense.  A 10 year time period is a long time release where the
> feature set is going to get quite ancient by the time the next release
> comes on line.  Linux needs to advance in certain areas and this can
> make enterprise distributions of Linux seem like poor choices compared
> to non enterprise distributions.  Thing is, there is a trade off that
> must be recognized between being advanced and being stable/reliable.
> If Linux supports what you need to do today, CentOS and Slackware might
> be the best choices for you.  If, however, you need the cutting edge
> mathematical font support in Word 2003 under Crossover Linux, then
> maybe Mandriva and a frequent update regimen is the way to go.
> Old 4.x versions of CentOS for example do not support the latest
> Dansguardian releases.  I'm not sure when iptables started supporting
> user based packet filtering.  Linux still needs to improve in some
> areas and generally speaking it is.
>
> A cutting edge Linux distribution can be a better choice on a server
> than a non cutting edge distribution depending on what the server has
> to do and how careful you are about avoiding the use of unstable
> features.
>
> Increasingly I need to think about switching from CentOS 5.x on my
> desktop to something else where Ubuntu hasn't seemed to be the right
> choice.
>
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Slackware isn't considered enterprise nor a server distro. You can find
updated packages and things that Patrick doesn't normally release as he just
does security updates once a release is in the wild.