Author Topic: Distromatch (Read 2150 times)

Zelhar · « **on:** February 26, 2012, 06:35:27 PM »

I am looking for a linux distribution that fits as many of the following specifications:

0. alive and up to date, supports new hardware etc.
1. samba share that works (as a host too) and easy to configure.
2. good web documentations and support.
3. easy to install third party packages.
4. Not Ubuntu

any suggestions ?

angryChineseKahanist · « **Reply #1 on:** February 26, 2012, 06:44:04 PM »

Cent OS? Its based on RedHat Enterprise.
Fedora?
SuSe?
Windows 7.

Zelhar · « **Reply #2 on:** February 26, 2012, 06:59:02 PM »

~~Windows~~

I will look into this. I was thinking Arch or Sabayon.

Zelhar · « **Reply #3 on:** February 26, 2012, 07:05:30 PM »

You know what forget it, I've found the PERFECT linux edition:
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Available-Now-AntiX-MEPIS-8-0-Intifada-104588.shtml

angryChineseKahanist · « **Reply #4 on:** February 26, 2012, 07:20:18 PM »

Quote from: Zelhar on February 26, 2012, 07:05:30 PM

You know what forget it, I've found the PERFECT linux edition:
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Available-Now-AntiX-MEPIS-8-0-Intifada-104588.shtml

Intifada?
Of course you're kidding.

muman613 · « **Reply #5 on:** February 26, 2012, 07:47:28 PM »

I also support Red Hat Enterprise 5 and Centos... They are decent and I have had no problem with Samba support with them.

We run our hardware emulation system off of RHEL systems at work. I also support our debugger and probe applications on Centos and Debian systems.

Zelhar · « **Reply #6 on:** February 28, 2012, 07:16:28 AM »

Well I am giving openSUSE a try. samba seems to be working now but it took a lot of web search and "expert" configurations to get it to work. Then getting the shared windows printer to work takes some effort too. Kubuntu sort of do all this things much more seamlessly, but then again, it didn't work properly.

angryChineseKahanist · « **Reply #7 on:** February 28, 2012, 10:11:50 AM »

You do know that samba has nothing to do with Linux right? you can use the same samba config for any linux.
what problems are you having?

Zelhar · « **Reply #8 on:** February 28, 2012, 10:56:13 AM »

Quote from: angryChineseKahanist on February 28, 2012, 10:11:50 AM

You do know that samba has nothing to do with Linux right? you can use the same samba config for any linux.
what problems are you having?

You can use it if you know how to set all the text files manually and then maybe also how to run some daemons or scripts. But different distro have different gui tools to set samba and also in openSUSE for example certain services must be manually turned on, firewall must be set to unblock the connection etc. It's a different procedure then what I used to from Kubuntu.

angryChineseKahanist · « **Reply #9 on:** February 28, 2012, 01:33:39 PM »

GUI?? Hock-Phoo!
No need. There's only a few lines you need to change in the default config to get it to work in a local environment.

Zelhar · « **Reply #10 on:** February 28, 2012, 01:46:17 PM »

Quote from: angryChineseKahanist on February 28, 2012, 01:33:39 PM

GUI?? Hock-Phoo!
No need. There's only a few lines you need to change in the default config to get it to work in a local environment.

I wish I possessed you level of computer geekiness.

angryChineseKahanist · « **Reply #11 on:** February 28, 2012, 03:30:20 PM »

Do I look like a geek to you?

muman613 · « **Reply #12 on:** February 28, 2012, 04:22:54 PM »

Quote from: angryChineseKahanist on February 28, 2012, 01:33:39 PM

GUI?? Hock-Phoo!
No need. There's only a few lines you need to change in the default config to get it to work in a local environment.

There is a good amount of difficulty getting Samba working on a variety of distros. There is not a one config file fits all option. Even with such system servers as autofs/automount and NIS/ypbind there are differences which can be confusing evfen to a seasoned system admin.

We use SAMBA extensively here due to the fact that every engineer has one linux machine and one windows machine and the windows machines must access the hard-drive on the linux machine {where the source code is built}... Samba is excellent for this... But we have found differences in configuring it,

There are a few good GUI front ends for configuring Samba but I cannot recall the name at this time.

muman613 · « **Reply #13 on:** February 28, 2012, 04:31:34 PM »

Does anyone else here try new distros out in Virtual Machines?

I find this to be very interesting {and I am writing this post from a Centos 6 distro installed in a Virtual Machine on my Ubuntu 8.04 machine at work}. I have several Linux and some Windows virtual machines which I use when I have to port my applications to various operating systems {as I said I support Ubuntu 8.04, Ubuntu 10.04, Debian 5, Centos 6, and RedHat Enterprise 5, Windows XP & Windows 7}.

Using VirtualBox {a free virtual machine software} from Oracle it is possible to simultaneously run multiple OS's on a host system {running either linux or windows}.

I think Virtual Machines are AWESOME!

https://www.virtualbox.org/

https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch01.html

Zelhar · « **Reply #14 on:** February 28, 2012, 05:51:46 PM »

Yes I use virtualbox to try different OS, and also for practical reasons- sometimes I need to use window apps like IE and I don't want to boot into windows. But as of the last two or so versions of Ubuntu virtualbox wasn't working properly- the guest OS often freezes and the virtualbox service itself hangs. I hope it would function properly on opernSUSE.

muman613 · « **Reply #15 on:** February 28, 2012, 08:07:35 PM »

Quote from: Zelhar on February 28, 2012, 05:51:46 PM

Yes I use virtualbox to try different OS, and also for practical reasons- sometimes I need to use window apps like IE and I don't want to boot into windows. But as of the last two or so versions of Ubuntu virtualbox wasn't working properly- the guest OS often freezes and the virtualbox service itself hangs. I hope it would function properly on opernSUSE.

Strange. I have had no problems with VBox in Ubuntu 8.04 nor Ubuntu 10.04 on both my home and work systems. I can even run Windows Games on my Quadcore Ubuntu 10.04 home system..

angryChineseKahanist · « **Reply #16 on:** February 28, 2012, 11:06:38 PM »

Quote from: muman613 on February 28, 2012, 04:22:54 PM

There is a good amount of difficulty getting Samba working on a variety of distros. There is not a one config file fits all option. Even with such system servers as autofs/automount and NIS/ypbind there are differences which can be confusing evfen to a seasoned system admin.

We use SAMBA extensively here due to the fact that every engineer has one linux machine and one windows machine and the windows machines must access the hard-drive on the linux machine {where the source code is built}... Samba is excellent for this... But we have found differences in configuring it,

There are a few good GUI front ends for configuring Samba but I cannot recall the name at this time.

Uh, you're going deep here.
Don't scare him. He's not trying to manage a mixed environment of 800 machines.
He's talking about two or so computers.
He can take the default config and just change a few lines her and there. Add a user and map it from a remote machine on his LAN.

angryChineseKahanist · « **Reply #17 on:** February 28, 2012, 11:07:18 PM »

Quote from: muman613 on February 28, 2012, 04:22:54 PM

There is a good amount of difficulty getting Samba working on a variety of distros. There is not a one config file fits all option. Even with such system servers as autofs/automount and NIS/ypbind there are differences which can be confusing evfen to a seasoned system admin.

We use SAMBA extensively here due to the fact that every engineer has one linux machine and one windows machine and the windows machines must access the hard-drive on the linux machine {where the source code is built}... Samba is excellent for this... But we have found differences in configuring it,

There are a few good GUI front ends for configuring Samba but I cannot recall the name at this time.

S.W.A.T.??

angryChineseKahanist · « **Reply #18 on:** February 28, 2012, 11:16:45 PM »

Quote from: Zelhar on February 28, 2012, 05:51:46 PM

Yes I use virtualbox to try different OS, and also for practical reasons- sometimes I need to use window apps like IE and I don't want to boot into windows. But as of the last two or so versions of Ubuntu virtualbox wasn't working properly- the guest OS often freezes and the virtualbox service itself hangs. I hope it would function properly on opernSUSE.

I agree, virtualbox is good for beginners.
I also use it because its easy....and it doesn't cost $20/year like VMWare.

I notice that for desktop virtualisation, vbox runs very well on .... windoze.

For Linux, I recommend running headless. So, after you have your guest running the way you like. Shut it down and run it headless. Configure the display to allow RDC (remote desktop) and choose a port like 5001 for your first VM 5002 for your next...Don't use the default unless you only have one machine.
vboxmanage startvm ubuntu10 --type headless
Then to power it down:
vboxmanage controlvm ubuntu10 acpipowerbutton

For stability, you can try VMWare Hypervisor bare metal. But you can look into that later.

Zelhar · « **Reply #19 on:** February 29, 2012, 07:01:59 AM »

Thanks I will look into this headless thing.

angryChineseKahanist · « **Reply #20 on:** February 29, 2012, 09:13:06 AM »

Quote from: Zelhar on February 29, 2012, 07:01:59 AM

Thanks I will look into this headless thing.

Allah huakbar

BritishSword · « **Reply #21 on:** February 29, 2012, 09:44:27 AM »

Mandrivas a very functional distro.

I prefer mint myself. It uses ubuntu packages but it not ubuntu or a direct derivative off.

muman613 · « **Reply #22 on:** February 29, 2012, 04:45:44 PM »

Oy Vey!

Today I have been working with several virtual machines. Currently installing an Ubuntu 10.04 guest OS on a Windows 7 host VBox and simultaneously installing Centos 5.4 guest OS on my Ubuntu 8.04 host VBox...

I have a peculiar problem supporting one of our users. I learned on Monday that they want to run my application on Centos but they didn't tell me a version. I assumed they were using the latest version of Centos {version 6} and I ported my application to build and generate a Centos 6 RPM file... But then I get an email today saying that they are running Centos 5.4 which probrobly means my application wont run on it because when you build an app on a system it becomes dependant on which versions of libraries are installed {thus older executables will not run on newer OSes without compatibility libraries}. So too newer apps will not run on older OSes because they don't have the newer libraries.

So I have suggested to the user to install Ubuntu in a VM on Windows and install my application in it... In the meantime I am also testing if my Centos 6 RPM will install on the Centos 5.4 system. It is also a problem that Centos 5.4 is no longer supported with updates from the developers thus I am stuck with having to build libraries from sourcecode {which I am quite familiar with doing} which is a bit of a pain in the arctic...

Zelhar · « **Reply #23 on:** February 29, 2012, 05:52:56 PM »

I am surprised I haven't read a word mentioned yet of BSD. angreeChineseKhanist is certainly geek enough and asian enough to use it.

I would have tried it myself except it doesn't work well with vbox and harder to install on a multiboot machine.

muman613 · « **Reply #24 on:** February 29, 2012, 06:31:03 PM »

ACK,

I wish you would have mentioned that in order to make headless work you must install the VBOX extension pack {which I had not installed until just now}... I have been messing with trying to get headless working on my set-up here and then I discovered that headless only works if the extension pack is installed...