[aprssig] OT: Linux. Was: Windows XP Service Pack 3

[Curt, WE7U]

On Tue, 10 Jun 2008, Dave Baxter wrote:

> Some friends have having an interesting time with one of the Ubuntu
> versions.  (I don't know the exact flavor)  Updates seem to go on OK,
> but then many functions are found to be missing, or otherwise broken.
> 
> It's not a system I use (I was going to, but this "put me off"
> somewhat!) so I don't have any detail as to exactly what fails, but it
> takes some time and much fingers on keybord time to manualy stitch it
> all back together again, so I am told.

Rgr.  There are 100's of different Linux distributions these days,
each one having different features and focus.  One of the better
strategies if you don't want to be on the bleeding edge is to wait a
few months after a new version is released before installing, then
to install all of the latest patches for it when you do.

Some distributions (like CentOS) go after extreme reliability.
Distributions like these are sometimes a year or two behind in terms
of versions of software, but they just run and run.  I use CentOS
for some server machines.

OpenSuSE is what I run on my client machines.  It's good but has a
few warts here and there, usually short-lived.  I switched from
GraphicsMagick to ImageMagick yesterday on one machine to get
certain types of online maps working again in Xastir.

With OpenSuSE I run the Online Update once a week and get something
like 1-5 patches each time, so patches are coming out continuously.
That's what I look for in a well-maintained fairly bleeding-edge OS.
You can also set up automatic updates and let it do all the work to
keep itself up to date.

-- 
Curt, WE7U.				archer at eskimo dot com
http://www.eskimo.com/~archer
  Lotto:  A tax on people who are bad at math. - unknown
Windows:  Microsoft's tax on computer illiterates. - WE7U.
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