[UFO Chicago] Re: Brian's Conversion from FreeBSD to Debian andQuestions on X

[Jesse Becker]

--- "Christopher D. Heer" <cheer at dls.net> wrote:
> So I'm looking to migrate my in-home server to Linux as a

Welcome to the world of the sane. :-)

> 1) From a purely "what-will-it-run" standpoint, does it
> matter much which distro I choose?  Putting aside package

> management for the moment (I've been reading those 
> comments here with great interest)...choosing a specific
> distro shouldn't limit me in terms of 
> application/util/tool selection, should it?

The answer to this is "yes" and "no" (sorry).  

The "no it won't matter" answer:  Some distributions are
aimed squarely at the "make it run" crowd.  An *incomplete*
list of the big players that I would consider:  Red Hat
Enterprise, SuSE (enterprise), Debain stable.  (If I left
out $favorite_distro, tough <grin>).  These distributions
are designed for the commercial world, where usually the
admins do not want to ride the cutting edge of software
revisions, but instead want a program that has been well
tested for stability, performance, and security.

The "yes it will matter answer":  The downside to this
stability is that the versions of software shipped tend to
lag behind (sometimes *far* behind) the "current" version. 
For example, I run a number of Red Hat boxes at work.  The
current version of Apache that ships with RHEL4 is 2.0.52. 
If you check apache.org, you will see that there not only
is there a 2.0.58 release out, but also a 2.2.2 release as
well.

A *VERY* important note about version numbers:  the large
distribution vendors--such as Red Hat ans SuSE--will
backport security fixes to their chosen shipping version. 
That 2.0.52 apache release has had 22 iterations of minor
fixes to the package.  Looking over the change log, almost
all of the iterations have been security related in some
fashion.

> 2) Does it matter what window manager I run?  The two I

No, it does not.  Personally, I prefer "smaller" window
managers, and Fluxbox (similar to blackbox and openbox).  I
find that KDE and Gnome are large, bloated, slow, and offer
few benefits over running a smaller, faster window manager.
It is very important to note that you can run KDE/Gnome
programs with "running KDE" or "running Gnome" (I use k3b
on a regular basis, for example).

> disadvantages of either is, or whether it's just a matter
> of taste.

It's a matter of taste.  There's a bit of historical
baggage, as well.  Red Hat has poured a ton of money into
Gnome development, and typically supports it better than
KDE.  The old "Mandrake" distribution (now "Mandriva")
started out as "Redhat optimized for Pentium chips (as
opposed to i386), with KDE instead of Gnome."


> 3) Are there any good resources for learning general *nix
> file system structures?  The last time I played with a 

Do you mean different filesytesms (ext3, xfs, jfs, reiser,
etc), or "where things are?"  In either case, this list is
probably as good a place to ask as anywhere.  In the case
of the later, here's a crash course in locations:
  /home -- where "user data" lives (e.g. email, pictures,
code, etc)
  /etc -- system wide configruation stuff
  /tmp -- system scratch space
  /var -- system runtime data (not programs)
  /bin, /sbin -- "system" programs critical basic
functionality
  /usr -- All the other junk (less critical programs,
documentation, libraries, etc)


> Not looking for handholding -- if I don't learn it myself
> I'll never understand it -- just some pointers or tips to


Ask away.  Also, the #unixhelp channel on efnet is pretty
good if you ask reasonable questions.  I'm one of the few
Ops that isn't squarely in the BSD camp though.  (I've
found the various #linuxhelp channels to be a waste of
time).



Jesse Becker
GPG-fingerprint:  BD00 7AA4 4483 AFCC 82D0  2720 0083 0931 9A2B 06A2

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