distributions

[cdr at sme.siemens.com (CD Rasmussen)]

Alright, Jim!  Now we're getting to the hard questions too.
Maybe we should break the list into Novice concerns and Expert
concerns.

Let's see, what are we up to here for topics to review?

1  How easy to install was it?

2  Would you recommend it to a novice?  To an expert?

3  How would you rate it compared to other distributions?
   Just a gut impression, would you install it over ___________ but
   not install it over ___________?
   
4  Does it allow for an easy upgrade to the next release, without losing
   a lot of configuration information (for news, mail, fvwm, dosemu, dip, etc.)?
   
5  Does the distribution have tracability - can I tell which package a given
   file came from, which disk the package came from, and what the home site
   is for the package?  (For example, on Slackware /var/adm/packages has files
   which let me trace file->package->disk.  However, I don't know how
   to find the home sites.)
   
6  Can packages be deleted as well as installed (without breaking other
   packages, even though they share some files)?
   
7  Is there a mechanism for managing incremental fixes, so a user can fix
   some things without reinstalling everything?  (See, for example, the
   collection of Slackware fixes maintained by Zenon Fortuna
   <zenon at netcom.com> at ftp.netcom.com:/pub/ze/zenon/linux/tmp .)
   
8  Does it *really* follow the FSSTND?  Can /usr be mounted read-only and/or
   shared by several machines?
   
9  Is it set up to run for long periods without attention from the
   sysadmin - are there mechanisms for periodically purging
   /var/{adm,log}/{messages,wtmp,utmp} and other steadily growing files,
   for deleting formatted man pages that have not been recently accessed
   (and for which roff source files are available), for deleting old files
   from /tmp, etc.?
   
10 Have the common security holes been plugged?  Does COPS give it a clean bill
   of health?