🚀 go-pugleaf

> > * Don't use REDHAT, use SLACKWARE.
> 
> You *MUST* be joking, from an administration and upgrading point of
> view, Slackware is terrible.  RedHat is probably the easiest for a
> complete newbie to get going.  I, on the other hand strongly suggest
> that everyone on the planet convert to Debian :)

The main problem with distributions is that they create divergence.
Configuration files are in different directories, Tools have different
options (e.g. startx) or even different names, applications are
renamed etc.... 

So, don't post articles in a general news group like comp.windows.x
along the line of: ``I am running Pink-Cap-Linux 7.02 and all my
applications ignore any geometry specification I supply''.  
Go to the ``Pink-Cap'' mailing list instead and don't bother everybody
else.

Another drawback of ``distributions'' is that the ``packages'' lag
behind the original tar-ball by weeks or months.  Somtimes you won't
get them at all, you'll have to make a package yourself.  

However, when you get to the stage where you understand and make your
own packages, you are actually starting to get the full benefits of 
package management.  E.g. easier distribution to a network of machines. 

I personally run Linux on my machine -- not a distribution.  

I refuse to attach any significance to a ``distribution''.  GUI's and
package managers are fine if whoever designed them did their homework
and considered ALL possibilities.  In practice, that is impossible.
If you are the sysadmin on your machine, you'll sometimes have to open
the bonnet and fix or tune the engine -- you might as well get used to it.
A particular brand of shrink-wrap is not going to help.

Promoting package management as an _EASY_ way of setting up Linux for
newbies is IMO a fallacy and sooner or later back-fires.

For people who really need something EASY, there is a company in
Redmond who claim that their  system is so EASY to use you can stay
completely computer-illiterate and still produce something so
stunningly presented that the content won't matter at all.  
Just click here...  

-- 
Manfred Bartz <mbartz@werple.net.au>
  --- LINUX, live free or die ---