I’m dumping Slackware from the laptop today, and will probably do the same for my desktop PC sometime this week or next. In its place I’ll be installing either Fedora Core 5 or SuSE 10.
Why one of those? Because I want to start hammering on a system that I’ll be most likely to install at work. I’ve narrowed it down to Fedora and SuSE because they have directory service offerings that could ultimately replace Microsoft Active Directory in our environment. I’ve ruled out Ubuntu because, as far as I know, there’s no such offering except for building an LDAP directory from scratch (and I’m a geek, not a masochist). Fedora and SuSE are both PAMified, I know I can build a local YUM repository Fedora, and I’m pretty sure I can do the same or similar for SuSE.
I could build a more geek-centric distro like Gentoo at home (and I’m tempted), but a) I’d just as soon start learning the ins and outs of what I hand my teachers and b) if I do that I’ll spend a lot of time tweaking and playing rather than writing.
Why am I posting this here? Because, judging by my site stats, a number of you have followed me over from places like Lockergnome and kept visiting when I had the separate Geek Engine blog, and I’d love to have some more input. Post comments, send email, whatever you like. I’d like to hear your thoughts.
on Aug 28th, 2006 at 4:00 am
why wouldn’t you install Slackware at work?
on Aug 29th, 2006 at 6:43 am
I have, in server roles like web servers, an Intenet kiosk for the library, and soon, a file/print server for a CAD lab.
However, Slackware on the desktop requires a lot of massaging and maintenance that would become very time-consuming in such a large environment (300+ desktops, and compounding things is there are many brands and models with different hardware setups that I’d have to customize several times). It becomes especially problematic in certain cases, such as if a teacher were to bring in a digital camera, because it wouldn’t “just work”; the USB hotplug system isn’t set up for a camera out of the box. It would also require a lot of scripting to get automated updating accomplished, whereas the others already have tools in place.