[nflug] At the risk of starting a religious flamewar, a question relating to the HP mini-note...

[Daniel V]

I used to prefer CentOS once upon a time. I would on occassion use Knoppix and DSL. I currently use "live cd/dvd" and virtual machines (vmware) of
Knoppix, Ubuntu, PCLinuxOS, and TinyMe, and let me tell you why I switched...

Back in the CentOS 4x days, I could just install and update and compile... then came CentOS5 and you had to install a compiler... and a lot of people don't like RH because of dependency issues. I also grew weary of having to update a Knoppix install one-package at a time, because if you do a regular update, it usually breaks (yes, I've tried doing my own custom Knoppix, and that's not only inconvenient, I've never had success with it).
Ubuntu, PCLinuxOS, and it's sibling TinyMe just work. This is not to say that CentOS doesn't work, it's just that it's not as easy to get set up just the way I like. I still like to use Knoppix occassionally, it's worthwhile keeping that in your toolbox.

I'm curious to try out the new Fedora 10, since it uses a new version of RPM, but I've been leery of Fedora ever since the days when they left out firewire support.

When I do boot up a live CD/DVD, I run the updater and see if I can update ntfs-3g, and other must-have programs. 

Daniel V.

--- On Sat, 9/13/08, Richard Hubbard <hubbardr at adelphia.net> wrote:

> From: Richard Hubbard <hubbardr at adelphia.net>
> Subject: [nflug] At the risk of starting a religious flamewar, a question relating to the HP mini-note...
> To: nflug at nflug.org
> Date: Saturday, September 13, 2008, 10:50 AM
> The OS it comes with is Suse-Enterprise.
> 
> I am not very familiar with this release of Linux. We used
> to have a Suse box at work, but I swapped it out for a Centos box,
> because I had to make a change, and it was quicker for me to go with a
> distribution I  was familiar with, than to learn the interface
> peculiarities of Suse. 
> 
> However, I'm contemplating getting the HP mini-note, and I'm guessing 
> that HP will have all the right drivers for the included hardware, so 
> that it will "just work". On the other hand, there's a lot written about
> Ubuntu/Redhat-Centos, so  there is enough documentation so that I can 
> install a different  distribution and hammer it into submission.
> On the other hand, is there a lot for me to learn with
> Suse, or was I a wimp regarding my FTP box?
> 
> // I'm personally liking the "just work" option, but I bow to those 
> wiser than I....
...