[olug] SuSE or RHEL or Centos or Fedora or Xandros

[Michael Peterson Wireless]

SuSE 9.1 Pro

Overall:
Good desktop but missing some things out of the box.
Does provide newest MySQL packages.
Possible okay server ( many olug users have been able to get it to work
properly ).

My Results:
Major problems when I try to have it run with 2 NIC cards and run normal
services.
This might be 2.6 issues that hopefully get resolved.
Built-in firewall has issues with running 2 NIC cards.
Replaced with custom firewall used by other olug users and still had issues.
PHP/ MySQL does not work on reboot after working fine before reboot.
Cdrecord does not see IDE CDR/CDRW drive.

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RHEL ES 3 Update 2

Overall:
Good Server Setup
Good ISO Burner Setup using cdrecord
Uses older MySQL at present

My Results:
Runs 2.4.x kernel so does not have firewall and NIC issues like SuSE
Runs everything I want to run so far ( Apache, PHP, Perl (CGI), MySQL, POP,
IMAP, Sendmail, SSH, Samba, C (CGI) and SSL)
Runs solid.
Updates are easy to apply when update servers are available.

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Centos 3.1

Overall:
Good Server Setup
Uses older MySQL at present
Compiled from source clone to RHEL ES 3 Update 1

My Results:
Runs 2.4.x kernel so does not have firewall and NIC issues like SuSE
Runs everything I want to run so far ( Apache, PHP, Perl (CGI), MySQL, POP,
IMAP, Sendmail, SSH, Samba, C (CGI) and SSL)
Runs solid so far during setup stage.
Updates with yum.

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Fedora Core 1, Core 2, and Core 3 Test 1

Overall:
Good Server Setup
Uses older MySQL at present
Runs 2.6.x kernel

My Results:
Core 1 used in production for training since released.
Has worked great and been running for 
Uptime:  08:11:54  up 240 days, 19:15,  1 user,  load average: 0.54, 0.65,
0.36

Core 2 used in production for training starting last month.
Is working great and been running for
Uptime: 08:04:41 up 19 days, 22:44,  1 user,  load average: 0.09, 0.20, 0.12

Core 3 Test 1
Tested as desktop system.
Contains more apps I use and games than SuSE 9.1 Pro.

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Xandros Open Circulation Edition

Overall:
Good Desktop System.
Based on Debian
User 2.4.x kernel.
1 CD instead of 2 - 5 for most other distributions
Is at least one release behind current commercially available release.

My Results:
Installed when SuSE 9.1 Personal would not even get past install screen.
Good Auto Detection for a Debian based distribution.
Using as desktop for training lab, sometimes requires booting twice to
detect video properly.
Supports newer NICs than Slackware and Knoppix.
Easy to setup desktop.
Fastest Desktop Install but requires only single CD.
Contains Opera with Java support.
Solid desktop.