Distro comparison

[bconway at alum.wpi.edu (Brian J. Conway)]

I've used both Mandrake and FreeBSD extensively, so I can give my two
cents on those.  Comments are inline.

I don't think Mandrake has that much in common with RedHat anymore.  The
installer is very different (and I really like it), and it's much more
KDE-centric than RedHat.

> Mandrake is as close to being Red Hat as you can get without actually
> being Red Hat.  However, it seems that (1) They are financially
> unstable, and have either filed chapter 11 or will do so soon, and (2)
> they followed Red 

True, but doesn't that describe all Linux distributions? ;-)  Seriously,
it's my understanding that things are on the upswing, but I haven't paid
much attention to it recently.  I don't think they'll be going away
anytime soon.

> Hat's lead by *MANGLING* the default look and feel of both KDE and
> Gnome, which pisses me off to no end.  I have not seen the replaced
> graphics so I can't comment on how good or bad they are (Red Hat's are
> awful), but the fact that they did it bothers me.

I think Mandrake has tried to steer away from the childish icons and
themes they've been known for in the past, but it's still very customized.

> Questions:
> - Can most Red Hat RPM's be loaded onto a Mandrake box without
>   complications?

Perhaps, but I've never found an RPM that I've needed that I couldn't find
in Mandrake form, be it included with the distribution or a source RPM
that I couldn't recompile out of Cooker (Mandrake's development branch).

> - Is there a mechanism like up2date to keep my box current?

MandrakeUpdate is an excellent GUI frontend for urpmi (Mandrake's
incarnation of apt and the like).  I've only used MandrakeUpdate
interactively for security updates, but it can be automated with urpmi.

> - How are the tweaked graphics for KDE?  My main complaint about the Red
>   Hat ones are that they became very stylized and very much like each
>   other, so they became less identifiable as to their function.  It's a
>   very"user-friendly consumerish teenage girlish" look.

As I use neither KDE nor Gnome, I couldn't tell you how tweaked they are,
but I'm sure they are to some extent.  Mandrake's site has an in-depth
look at 9.2, full of screenshots.  I'd start there.

> - What do you all think of the chances for the company long-term?

I don't see them going away.  If things were to get bad enough, it could
fall back on some developers as a non-profit, but I think they'll pull
through.  Mandrake seems to be doing a good business with their
MandrakeClub donation program, and I've seen their names in a few deals
recently.
 
> FreeBSD would be the greatest departure from Red Hat.  It would also
> offer a cleaner kernel and possibly more efficient operation.  The ports
> system seems better than RPM's because I hate binary databases for
> system configuration.  I wish I knew more about FreeBSD, but what I've
> read about it I like.
> Questions:
> - Are ports for new versions of software generally available soon after
>   release?

As mentioned earlier, it depends on the maintainer of the port, but I've
always found what I'm looking for soon after release.

> - How different is it to maintain than Linux?

Very.  It's nothing that's too challenging, but the BSD-style
configurations and start-up scripts are different.

> - Is all the talk about extra security and stability a bunch of crap?  I
>   know it certainly used to be true, but is it still true?

Not so much so anymore.  I'd still choose FreeBSD for a server, firewall,
or NAT box, but the worlds of difference that used to exist for
reliability and scalability aren't really there anymore.

That being said, I prefer FreeBSD for server and home-brew firewall usage,
and Mandrake on the desktop.  If you're looking for a combination of both,
I think you'd have a lot easier time using Mandrake set up with your
server duties, while jumping headfirst in FreeBSD and dealing with all the
system differences and then the usual desktop setup nonsense is going to
be a lot.  There's not much in the way of easy X or font configuration
utilities other than those included with XFree86, but then again, if you
don't want the ridiculous customization that's put into KDE and Gnome by
most Linux distributions these days, maybe it is the answer your looking
for.  Perhaps you'd do well to fire up FreeBSD on a spare machine,
partition, or VMware session and get the hang of it?  My $0.02.

Brian J. Conway
bconway at alum.wpi.edu

"LINUX is obsolete"
     - Andrew S. Tanenbaum, creator of Minix - Jan 29, 1992