Re: root password recovery?

[--Damacus-- <damacus@bastion.cnsnet.net>]

On Sun, Mar 28, 1999 at 12:22:25PM -0600, Jay Link wrote:
> 
> And, speaking of the distribution "wars", once your installation of Linux
> is completed, don't you all agree that the programs themselves are 95% the
> same? So, Christ! By the time you customize your system, configure 
> everything, download newer versions of programs, alter the source to fit
> your needs, etc., don't you have your own distro by that point anyway? So
> who cares about this Red Hat -vs- Slackware stuff?

I feel somewhat similar about the above and still primarily run Slackware,
however, many valid points have been made regarding the Linux distro wars in
favor of RH.  One of the best things RH has going is it's package managment;
upgrading a system's base software and adding other apps takes much longer on
a Slack system than on a RH system.

With Slackware, one must find the source tarball (some things aren't found on
metalab) read the docs that come with it in regards to compilation/install,
etc, then set optimizations in the Makefile, etc etc, verify you don't need
any other libs/packages first, and then finally make the app and install the
binaries/docs.  This is done in the slackware tgz packages, HOWEVER, tgz
packages a pretty rare, and usually the latest ones are found with the latest
Slackware release, which gets dated after a while.  (In most cases, the latest
packages for Slackware are from before Oct 28, 1998 when 3.6 was released)

With RPMs in general, most packages are compiled with good defaults and
optimizations as above with slackware, HOWEVER, with RPMs, all dependancies
are checked.  RPMs are also widely accepted, being used by SuSE (a major
hard-hitter) and RH.  Most places will make a RPM before even thinking about a
Slack package.  RPMs are released OFTEN.  Latest binaries, good compilation,
installation in seconds.  That beats the hell out of the Slack method of
getting the latest software.

About Learning:
---
I think most distros are BAD CHOICES for learning except Slackware and
possibly Debian.  It seems most distros are aiming for major out-of-box ease
and point-n-click-hide-from-user.  This seems like evil for anyone except
maybe companies that need to get a foot in the door with Linux to use by
default.  If someone wants to really LEARN how to get around on a Linux/UNIX
system, learning to compile and handle software archives/tarballs is
necessary; that, manually configuring things without the help of a GUI, and
figuring out what in the hell they screwed up almost on their own ;-)  

I must say that Slackware forced knowledge on me that I would've not learned
until later had I used RedHat.  To make a (close in thought, but not in
reality) comparison, the users will start degrading from the fairly savvy DOS
users to the "Yay, Mah first 'puter" Win95/8 generation which didn't
understand much outside of the GUI (in most cases).

<////////RANT>  ;-)

--Mike

-- 
   Failure is not an option. It comes bundled with your Microsoft product.
			      -- Ferenc Mantfeld

		   Damacus ** damacus@bastion.cnsnet.net ** 
	NEW PGP public key as of 03/28/99; Please update your keyring. 
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		Administrator, Cimarron Network Services, Inc.

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