[techtalk] newbie questions

[Laurel Fan]

Excerpts from linuxchix: 12-Oct-99 [techtalk] newbie questions by
"Shelly L. Hokanson"@hom 
> 1 - can multiple distros of linux be dual-booted?  can't find that
> answer anywhere, though i'm sure it's a case of
> why-the-heck-would-ya-want-to-do-that...   i thought of it out of
> curiosity about the different distributions.... i have swappable hard
> drive bays and 3 machines to play with at home, but i've run out of hard
> drives (i've got win98, NT4, redhat 6.0, and mandrake 6.1)... wondering
> if i can dual boot any of the linux ones (not with windows).

Yes, you can.  Just stick them on different partitions and configure
LILO appropriately.  You can also dual boot multiple kernels on the same
install (You'd want to do this if you just compiled a new kernel and
want to be able to boot into the old one if it doesnt work, or if you
need 2 different things that only work on 2 different kernels).  People
do dual boot multiple distributions, for example, when they're
testing/working on an unstable version of a distro, and need the stable
one for when the unstable one breaks and they need to file a bug report.
(And also to try out a new/different distribution, though people usually
figure out which one they want to keep eventually :))  You can minimize
the wasted hd space by putting sharable stuff like /home on its own
partition and mounting it in every distro.

> 2- speaking of distros, any preferences? mandrake and redhat seem to be
> essentially the same, mandrake having more "fun" type stuff like cd
> burning utils installed at the getgo....   i've been told that caldera
> is good for business type installs, servers....  how about slackware?
> what's the pros and cons of each?

I like debian.  You can find information about debian at www.debian.org.
This is why I like debian:

1) The packaging system is the best I've seen for Linux.  I've been
running one of my computers for about a year and a half and it has never
broken such that it couldnt fix itself.  I have never had to force a
package or install from source.

2) Debian is a group of volunteers, not a company, so it will always be
serious about free software, and they spend their time working on the
distro instead of marketing.  Each maintainer is also personally
responsible for his/her packages.

3) Version upgrades are absolutely painless.  To upgrade from 2.0 to
2.1, all I had to do was "apt-get dist-upgrade" and then paste in a few
commands from the upgrade release notes.

4) 2500 official packages.  Official means it won't break or be broken
by any other official package, and if it does, you can complain and
someone will fix it.  (This also means that it's got all of the fun
stuff :))

5) It sticks to the Unix philosophy more than some other distros.  It
doesn't rely on flaky graphical configuration tools, the output of a
program can be the input of a program, etc.

6) Policy is determined by consensus and publically available.

7) Debian also distributes Hurd :)

Debian may not be for you if:

1) You don't want to use the command line.

2) You want to use a lot of software that is considered non-free by Debian.

3) You don't want to have to learn about linux to use it.

4) You don't want a packaging system.

> 3- and my final question for the day..... is there a magic place on the
> net to find references to hardware model numbers, etc? (something like a
> www.windrivers.com but for linux).... for example, i have a slew of
> network cards here - i've gotten a couple working in linux because
> they're well marked with make and model - but what about the ones that
> aren't marked? anyplace like windrivers that has pics, or just a
> comprehensive list of linux-compatible nics? i'm guessing anything
> that's *not* pnp will work.... am i on the right track here?

Well, I suppose if you could determine the make/model with windrivers,
you could go to the Ethernet or Hardware Compatibility HOWTOs to see if
it works in Linux. 

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