Cracked while installing Linux :)

[Renegade]

OK - I finally bought a new box to install Linux on. Went for Suse Enterprise Desktop...

In any event, I'm burning the CDs for the new box on my Windows machine and the software I'm using isn't working... Keeps dying. Strange... Worked for the past 4 CDs...

Well, I reboot - same thing - install new version - same thing - fire up Windows Explorer... It chokes.

Pull out blank CD - it's got a 3cm crack from the middle.

Put in new CD. Everyone's happy...

Still installing Suse though... And very much looking forward to giving it a spin.

I decided to go with Suse (cost $50 for the license - whatever) because Novell sponsors the Mono project, and that's what I'm most interested in.

[steeladept]

Sorry to hear about the issue with the CD, but it is great that you are doing this.  Keep us informed on how it goes.  I keep hearing how good SUSE is, but I haven't played much with it.  I found I like LinuxMint which is a distro based off Ubuntu.  However, Clem (the creator of Mint) takes it where many would like to see Ubuntu go and adds proprietary drivers.  He also creates and provides his own set of tools and does things like implementing the SLAB interface from SUSE and install it on a basically Ubuntu platform.  I have no doubt that he (if not Ubuntu itself) will be supporting Mono if he isn't already.

For any who want to check it out, it can be found at www.linuxmint.com

[f0dder]

I'm personally wary of running one of the "minor" linux distributions for anything serious - what are you going to do if the project, for whatever reason, dies? You can't be sure that there'll always be somebody in the community to continue the project.

Even something as old+big as slackware seemed to face serious problems when it's front figure, Patrick J. Volkerding, got seriously ill...

(And even with that said, I personally use www.archlinux.org for a couple of servers - doh! ).

[steeladept]

I think you sorta just answered your own question - at that point you either switch or hope you know enough to modify it as you need. 

Seriously though, since I am not using it as my server (it is my desktop on my alternate machine), I will just switch to another distro.  I am not exactly a fan of any one distro, but I do have a vested interest in finding the best distro for me and then telling everyone about it so they will become big enough to stand on their own.

[iphigenie]

my husband swears by suse and I can say it is a good distro.

I am old fashioned and I like slackware linux, and sometimes when i need a quick install i go for the slackware based vector distribution -  you get a nice lean desktop in 5 minutes.

But i just rely on windows for my desktop and BSD for my servers if given the choice.

[Renegade]

A good friend runs a major international company's web servers for Europe and swears by BSD as the only thing you can possibly consider for DNS. He's had Linux brought to its knees where BSD doesn't break a sweat. That said, for other things he's told me about, Solaris is the way to go. It's really good to hear from people in the field that have servers with real heavy load.

Suse I picked because of Mono. So far, things are very rocky. MonoDevelop is not very stable and things just aren't very smooth so far. We'll see though.

[steeladept]

Yes, but as I recall, no one has ever described Mono as stable or ready, yet.  Last I heard, it is still under strong development, not even ready for a real Alpha, let alone Beta.  However, to continue testing during development, they have released the code to try and use.  Am I mistaken on this?

[Renegade]

There are production apps released for Mono. There are quite a few actually. I'm not sure how everyone is developing, but I suspect that people are doing most in Visual Studio. MonoDevelop is a port of SharpDevelop, but it's not production ready. Too many crashes.

I tried to get Eclipse running with some plugins to develop in C#, but never quite finished. Seems a bit rocky there as well. We'll see though. At the moment I've got some audio editing to do, but I'll be getting back to things ASAP.

Basically, the Mono framework is ready at varying levels for different things, but the development tools for it still seem behind - unless you're using VS of course - but that doesn't run on Linux.

[iphigenie]

I have a very soft spot for Solaris - first it was the first Unix I really used professionally, and the CDE was a lovely thing to use compared to some of the things I had learned on. I have a sparc 20 with solaris 7 in my basement, for nostalgia's sake.

The newest version has some beautiful features especially for clustering / replicating etc. If you have the money Solaris certainly is a great product.

It is probably because I have used unices first that I like slackware and BSD - slackware is a very unix-like distribution.

BSD is superbly stable, and I removed a lot of hassles in one of my previous lives by moving a whole farm of servers from redhat to BSD - uptime increased dramatically and a lot of mysterious crashes and failures simply never happened again.

I wish I had the time to make them do the same thing where I am now, but I am no longer the person doing the work and I dont think we have a sysadmin skilled enough to succeed 

In the end when it comes to my desktop I am just too used to all the windows software I found over the years to want to try to switch to any other I just havent found anything to even tempt me in any category. The mac is another matter.

[iphigenie]

But to go back to the original topic, if I had to use a linux desktop I would probably pick suse - my husband uses it (when not playing WoW) and I have used it and it is well crafted.

In the past when I have used a linux desktop it was a german distribution which suse bought (dld, if i recall), which is how we ended up with suse in the first place. Things have moved on quite a bit and I have had to use at least a dozen other distros since - from the source-based ones to the slick-we-claim-to-be-a-desktop ones and I still would pick one of slackware/vector or suse if I had to use linux for a workstation.

[steeladept]

Basically, the Mono framework is ready at varying levels for different things, but the development tools for it still seem behind - unless you're using VS of course - but that doesn't run on Linux.

That is great news at varying levels  .

Seriously though, I do use VS and NetBeans as my IDE's the few times I attempt to actually develop something.  Maybe one of these days I will be successful.  Part of my reason for Java (hence NetBeans) is for the cross compatibility.  Even if it is not perfect, it is the best alternative currently available that I have seen that is "offline".  I know web programming is where true cross platform occurs currently, but I want something I can use on my linux box and my windows box when they are stand-alone.  Once Mono achieves it's purpose, it will be a valid alternative - and from what you are saying it may be there now depending on what I am doing...

[Renegade]

...  Once Mono achieves it's purpose, it will be a valid alternative...

That's why I bought the new box & opted for Suse. It looks like Mono is maturing very well and when things become practical, then I'm on board.