[ic] OT: Redhat Alternatives?

[Doug Alcorn]

I'll bite.

"Russell Mann" <tech at khouse.org> writes:

> Which one(s) work well with IC/mysql/pgsql?  Which ones suck?  Are
> you just paying the fees and counting it as cost of doing business?

I think that Debian stable and Slackware are the two main
distributions that work with IC "out of the box".  The main issue is
the use of a multi-threaded perl.  you can search the archives to
catch up on the issue.

I used RedHat for a couple of years starting at or around the 4.3
release.  I switched to Debian because of the superior package
management.  I find that I have to fuss less installing packages on
Debian.  First, it handles dependencies very well.  Second, the
default configuration of the packages are good and usually "just
work".  Packages that require configuration by their very nature are
typically pretty easy to find where and how to configure them.  The
Interchange package that Racke has put together is an excellent
example of this.  In my opinion, it's layed out better than the
installation by source.

That having been said, it appears the next release of Debian will
include a multi-threaded perl.  So, I'm not exactly sure what to
advise you.  My personal take is to hope that the multi-threaded
issues will work themselves out before the next Debian stable
release.  Realistically, I don't know that they will.  I don't think
anyone is really working on the problem.

And then there's Slackware.  I used slack briefly before I started
with RedHat.  That was many, many moons ago.  The reason I switched to
RedHat was because slack didn't have any package management and RedHat
had some.  However, slack has a long reputation for stability and
sane-ness (unlike RedHat).  I suppose if I didn't have so much
invested in Debian I'd consider Slack as a good alternative.  However,
I'm not really at the point where I want to switch distros.

I can't remember if Mandrake ships with a multi-threaded perl or not.
I've never lived with Mandrake and can't really comment on it.  The
trick is to run 'perl -V | grep thread' to determin if it's using
threads or not.
-- 
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