most commonly used Linux version?

[Hal Duston]

I am unable to find the initial announcement of RedHat or SuSE.  Gentoo is much to new to be in these archives.

http://www.kclug.org/old_archives/linux-activists/1992/jan/2/0152.shtml 20 Jan 1992 Unnamed distribution from Ted T'so
http://www.kclug.org/old_archives/linux-activists/1992/mar/0/0082.shtml  3 Mar 1992 MCC Interim Linux
http://www.kclug.org/old_archives/linux-activists/1992/aug/2/0197.shtml 15 Aug 1992 SLS Linux (SoftLanding)
http://www.kclug.org/old_archives/linux-activists/1992/nov/3/0488.shtml 25 Nov 1992 Yggdrasil Linux
http://www.kclug.org/old_archives/linux-activists/1993/jul/2/0542.shtml 17 Jul 1993 Slackware Linux
http://www.kclug.org/old_archives/linux-activists/1993/oct/1/0110.shtml  8 Oct 1993 Debian GNU/Linux

Thanks,
--
Hal Duston
hald at kc.rr.com
Kansas City, MO
816-916-7219

On Mon, 23 May 2011 17:43:30 -0500, Jeffrey Watts wrote:
> On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 3:05 PM, Jonathan Hutchins
> <hutchins at tarcanfel.org>wrote:
> 
> > Debian, on the other hand, is probably the most used Server OS, excluding
> > the
> > above enterprize environment.  When the IT staff have chosen the distro
> > instead of Marketing or Management, the server run Debian.  It's
> > upgradability, reliability, and long-term stability are second to none.
> >
> 
> What an amazing blanket statement - one that I've never seen born out by
> facts.  I suppose saying "IT staff" is vague enough to include the 18 year
> old high school graduates that some small businesses are forced to entrust
> their sysadmin duties, or the developers that like to run Ubuntu on their
> servers because that's what's on their laptops.
> 
> As a professional system administrator I can say for a fact that Debian is
> one of the worst choices for a server OS in a business environment.  Very
> few ISVs certify their applications for it.  Very few hardware vendors
> provide tier1 support for it, nor do they test their hardware and drivers
> for Debian.  Debian's position on "non-Free" software means that it simply
> doesn't work out of the box on a lot of commodity server hardware.
> 
> I noticed that you put in a disclaimer about "excluding the above
> enterprize[sic] environment", but I find it laughable that you're
> marginalizing the most important use of Linux in a server role.  I suppose
> we should qualify what a "server" is.  Are you referring to the Pentium 3
> Lenny boxes serving up MP3s in someone's basement?  I would think in the
> context of this conversation we're referring to Servers.  As in, non-PC
> hardware doing "real work" for businesses, government, and education.
> 
> There are only two real players in this arena:  Red Hat and SuSE.  Ubuntu
> wants to be there, and who knows, maybe it will be in a few years.  But
> right now it lacks both the support infrastructure and vendor/ISV support to
> be a serious player.  Debian isn't even on the same planet.
> 
> When I'm working on supported hardware using a supported OS, I rarely need
> to make support calls to the vendor.  However, when I do, I need expert
> level help.  Who's going to provide that for me for Debian?  When I call Red
> Hat they have the support staff _and developers_ available to fix my
> problem.  Novell does too (at least for the time being).  Ubuntu has a few
> guys.  Who will answer the phone when Debian breaks?
> 
> A lot of the popular distributions are re-workings of Debian that use newer
> > packages.  Ubuntu, Mint, and Arch are all based on Debian, as are many
> > others.  Mandriva is the main Red Hat based distribution that's not
> > affiliated with Red Hat.  SuSE uses the same package system as Red Hat, but
> > is very different.  Gentoo and Slackware represent their own branches of
> > the
> > tree, with Slackware being one of the oldest.
> >
> 
> SuSE is very similar to Red Hat in my experience.  Provisioning is the only
> place where I find big differences (kickstart versus autoyast).  Almost
> every other facet of system administration is very similar and it doesn't
> take long to learn the differences.
> 
> Now, I would like to point out that I think Debian has a lot of value and
> does a lot for the Linux community.  But I think your statements are a vast
> overreach and aren't born out by my experience, and I've been working
> professionally with Linux as a system administrator for 14 years and as a
> user for 17.
> 
> Jeffrey.

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