Re: Problems with Redhat 9

> Maybe for a base system, but what if you need to build a user friendly
> workstation. If you want to compete with RH or Mandrake you will need the
> latest Gnome or KDE. I have not tried, but I hear that KDE3 is in testing and
> there is still no Gnome2 support in the base OS tree.

since I don't run Gnome or KDE; I don't know what their current status is;
but I work next to someone who has KDE 3.1.1-bleeding-edge on his laptop. I
think he gets it from the repository of one of the debian developers
(outside the main debian tree... but there's a lot of stuff in repositories
outside the main debian tree).
I have half-a-dozen or so 'external' repositories listed in my sources.list
file on any of my debian workstations (and not the same ones, either...
depends on what I'm doing with the box).

the nice thing is, they generally just work, with a minimum of hassle.
debian developers tend to be really good at keeping up to date with the
latest releases and working with the rest of the community (just like what
you want with the RH community project).

> There are some proprietary compilers (ie. IFC) that are distributed in RPM,
> backup client (Veritas) is only supported under RedHat (it may work, but it
> will be a hack, and the vendor only supports RedHat like systems). Even the
> Santricity RAID software is only RPM for RedHat...

ah... different environment from me. :)
I work with small buisness firewalls/fileservers/mailservers and servers at
a small ISP.
we do choose our hardware for its linux compatibility (Mylex SCSI RAID;
3ware IDE RAID); but we generally don't have to worry about big proprietary
software on linux (compilers, veritas, etc).

the only 3rd party RPMs I think we use are VMWare, BRU (backup software),
and powerchute (APC UPS control software). they all seem to install quite
happily on every different version of RH we use (6.2 and 7.3 at the moment).

some people here think futzing with the nVidia drivers is worth the hassle
of recompiling the stub driver for each new kernel; I personally would just
prefer to avoid the cards entirely.

> Once again, you /may/ be able to hack all of these to work, but why? There is
> a supported system.

but it's not an *ideal* supported system. :)
YMMV tho.

> But in actuality, I don't modify the desktop at all from a standard base
> RedHat install when I build a desktop. Although, it is not like I am in a
> business enviornment... :)

if you have clueful users who can do it themselves; then that's no big deal.
most of the customers I've seen who want linux on the desktop, want
something that's a lot simpler. Indeed, they want something that's even
simpler than Windows, and easier to secure.
(I'm thinking IceWM).

I think on the whole we agree with each other; we just have different
environments constraining our solutions.


Carl.
-- 
Systems Administrator
Real-Time Enterprises
www.real-time.com