> 1st Question: Redhat is getting larger -- I assume its aimed at the
desktop
> and modern machines with masses of HDD space. I found it hard to squeeze
6.1
> onto my P90 server's 500Mb HDD and I guess that 7.1 will be even harder
and
> I'll have to break some package dependencies. Which distribution do people
> recommend for a headless server (with httpd, squid, etc)?
Debian has a low footprint minimal install, some of the web controlled
router distro's eg) smoothwall, or astaro might be another good choice. But
if you know RH, then you might be better sticking to it, and doing a custom
install. I ran servers that way without X, and /usr isn't that large then,
without all the GUI crap.
> 2nd Question: Redhat 7.1 doesn't have Linuxconf! I'm a bit stumped without
> it as I've relied on it as a one-stop-shop for config (I do like YAST on
> SuSE too). Does anyone know why this has gone and what specialist tools it
> is replaced by?
This is why I dropped RH, they have an offer of managing your machine for
you via a subscripton service, or you have to watch the lists/web pages,
and download and install rpm's by hand, or if you're willing to trust it use
something like autorpm.
I didn't know they dropped linuxconf, but you can install it yourself from
the web site. I found I had to anyway as the RH 6.1/2 linuxconf was shipped
with lots of bugs, and wasn't very trustworthy. Maybe the steam has run out
of linuxconf, in favour of vendor specific tools, a bad thing IMNSHO.
> 3rd Question: Redhat 7.1 attempts to do hardware detection each boot - is
> common on all distros?. It has gotten confused about my SCSI card and my
> soundcard (SoundBlaster 16) somewhere along the line but I guess it is
just
> responding to pnp info from somewhere. I'd like to fix this but my old
> method of adding module options in modules.conf seems to be complicated by
chkconfig kudzu --off
chkconfig(8) copied from SGI's irix is something I miss, it manages
/etc/{rc.d,init.d,}/rc?.d very nicely.
> Another question: this Redhat updates subscription programme - any good
> experiences out there.
> simpler distro
Well I'd consider Debian, Rocklinux (www.rocklinux.org), smoothwall, Astaro,
Progeny and SuSE 7.2, plus FreeBSD and OpenBSD before letting RH personnel
loose on my machine, but call me paranoid, experience taught me to take
'vendors' with a pinch of salt a long time ago.
To be quite honest, I think you should have asked about this before you
asked about getting RH7.1, I thought you'ld already made your mind up. It's
probably best to use one distro, but know it well, unless you like making
life difficult for yourself.
As you're happy configuring things yourself, you might well like Debian
rather a lot, I loved the install because it gave full 100% control, you can
even build the fs's by hand. You could spend the money on a RH subscription
on a broadband net connection instead ;)
The reason why I moved to SuSE 7.1 is that Potato is way out of date, and
you miss out on trying commercial programs, and update disks from mags. I
prefer KDE to Gnome, which was the final clincher and wanted KDE2.
You ought to do a minimal Debian install, and then immediately switch to
testing (woody) as it's probably fairly stable by now, though they're
gearing up for a new release, which includes KDE, mozilla, Gnome etc etc.
Rob
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