[TriLUG] Debian vs Mandrake vs Redhat vs . . .

[Tony Simone]

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On Monday 10 March 2003 08:14 pm, Chris Hedemark wrote:
> On Monday, March 10, 2003, at 06:44 PM, Jon Carnes wrote:
> > OpenBSD is a personal favorite and also comes with IPSec built in, plus
> > it is extremely secure.
>
> OpenBSD is an excellent non-Linux free operating system for a lot of
> applications, but I didn't recommend it because of some of the
> requirements listed.  I think you'll agree, Jon, that OpenBSD is not as
> hands-free in terms of updating software.  They provide no binary
> patches, and no sophisticated package management & retrieval system
> like Debian, Mandrake or Red Hat.  The support community there is also
> far less tolerant of people who don't fully investigate solving a
> problem on their own, whereas the Linux community (for better or worse)
> tends to tolerate ill researched questions more.
>

I have to agree with Chris on this point.  I also love OpenBSD and have run
it for several years in production environments, right alongside RedHat,
Debian, and Mandrake boxes (it's been a log time since I've touched
Slackware, but just saying the name makes me feel all warm and fuzzy).  My
biggest gripe with obsd is what Chris just said, and it's a common
complaint among newer and even some seasoned obsd users.  I personally just
ran out of time trying to grab patches, build new kernels, build new libs,
build new software, etc., everytime obsd released a new set of patches.  
Sure, there's the ports tree, which certainly helps, but it still requires 
a box available to do your builds.  Since I'm not a fan of keeping build 
tools like compilers on my hardened boxes, I always have to keep a spare 
obsd box around to do all this work.  I know, I'm nitpicking...

All that said, I still love OpenBSD's focus and rigor.  pf and IPSec 
implementations are top-notch.  It's just plain good stuff.

As to which distro, well, I'm about to become an official Debian developer,
so I'm biased...  ;)  I will say that I've migrated all of my company's
Linux servers to Debian.  Now, when new security problems are revealed, I
very simply and quickly update my Linux systems.  Then I groan and start to
update the Solaris, AIX, BSD, ...   ugh.

- -Tony
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