[techtalk] SuSE -> Mandrake?

[Linda Walsh]

> I haven't heard of one.  The LSB has one in the works, but nothing yet.  Besides, SuSE is a member of the LSB.
> 
> As far as I can tell, SuSE doesn't have any file system quirks (I compile a lot of software myself, and I have yet to have a package that complains about anything.  All the standard include/ and lib/ directories are there, and included in the include paths for GCC, and ld.so.conf).
---
See: ftp://ftp.xopen.org/pub/lsb/test/LSB-FHS-TS_SPEC_V1.01c

SuSE is non-compliant in several cases.  MDK was compliant in all the
cases SuSE wasn't.

>   Mandrake, again just my opinion, is the Microsoft of Linux. Yeah they've
> got 'pretty'graphical config utils, but they release products that are
> almost completely broken. Bad sym links, incorrect dep's, services not
> ready to run 'out of the box' etc. Plus their supposed compatibility with
> RH is just that, supposed. I would recomend RH, Debian, Caldera before I
> would Mandrake. Even Slack which is still the hackers linux.
---
	I've installed Mandrake 7.0 and haven't noticed any problems.  All
services except "supermount' worked out of the box -- it failed due to
lack of kernel support.  

	I'm coming from an IRIX point of view, and before that SunOS, so
I'm used to the run state info being in an /etc dir instead of the
system binary dir.  The chkconfig idea is lifted directly from IRIX --
so again, familiarity.  How does one easily turn services on/off?  Running
Vi on some obscure file or having to hunt around in the rc-scripts or
remove or add rc-scripts for a run-level seems error-prone.

When I went to compile the kernel with the pentiumpro options, the compiler
included with SuSE barfed on the first compile -- it defined some flag and
passed it to a later stage but did the -D with a space after it.  
Mandrake comes with the hardening stuff @ install time -- out of the box.
It provides all of the crypto stuff ready to rpm install -- sets up and
gen's keys and turns on sshd service, gens a host key and starts it up.
Cool!  It also includes a more secure kernel -- with the security patch
already in -- things like only letting users see their own processes,
non-executable stack, etc.  

> Seriously, there is _very_little_point_ wiping out a system to install
> a new one. They're so similar that you'll wonder why you bothered.
---
	'cept that I can't just drop in RPM's from RH or MDK -- Things
like the sshd RPM.  I know how similar they are -- I've been running SuSE
since last fall when 6.3 came out.  Installed it on my laptop and my server.

	I've installed RH 6.1 and have that running on my desktop at work.
I have mandrake 7.0 on two systems here at home.

	I tried to run 'linuxconf' on SuSE -- just did horrible things.
If I remember I had to answer a ton of config questions for the SuSE 
install.  When I let suseconfig touch my sendmail.cf file -- it kept
taking it from functioning to non-functional -- the sendmail demons would
be started, but in ps, they'd all say "rejecting connections" -- thought
it was cute that they would start and then tell me they were rejecting
connections and then just stay around.

> Assuming that pentium-optimised binaries will give you a speed
> improvement is a fallacy. Binaries and libraries will be larger,
> so you'll pay with disk space and load time. Energy may not be created
> nor destroyed :)
---
	686 optimized binaries would take up less space -- libraries
would be smaller -- fewer instructions to accomplish the same task.  The
analogy with energy is flawed.  We are talking space.  Space can be
conserved using more efficient instructions to accomplish the same
task -- like going from the 8085 to the 8086,
the heart of a string move went down to 1 instruction with a prefix.
Previously you'd have to maintain a counter, mov mem ->reg, mov reg->mem,
increment pointers, do a compare and conditional jmp.  

...
	So, ok -- my plan at this point is I went to single user, unmounted
all 'cept root and mounted that ro, then I dd'd the entire disk to another.
I'll arrange my lilo so it boots from the 2nd HD, run mandrake install
reformating / and /var, then rebooting into the 2nd HD and copy over
the config files to mandrake before using it as my mail server.  I
think that would minimize my downtime -- I'll have to rebuild the MDK
kernel because 2214 has an aic7xxx driver that doesn't like my 2nd and 3rd
drives (western digi) -- but driver under 2213 works fine -- yes, 
the maintainer knows about and is looking at the problem but it may not
make 2215 either.  Still a pain, but should minimize actual downtime
while being fairly safe.

	:seems like my best option, so far; but I'll give it some more
thought before doing it...

-l

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