Wandering through the Chaos

A Survey of Linux Distributions

Chris Farris
Room17 Enterprises

Introduction

Purpose of this paper

There are over 116 Linux Distributions as of this writing. Of those there are about 8 major distributions that a new Linux user might choose. The purpose of this paper is to give some objective information and some subjective reviews of these major distributions.

What distributions should provide

A distribution should provide a method of installing Linux, a comprehensive set of packages so the user can perform useful tasks, and an administrative tool so the user can configure the system. All of these components should be well tested ensuring the user does not have to dig deep into the inner working of the distribution to get things to work.

Background

I have been using Linux since 1992, starting with the Boot/Root disk combo, moving to SLS when I got to Georgia Tech. Being fed up with problems in SLS I moved to Slackware in late 1993. I remained using Slackware till mid 1996 when I experimented with Debian. I really liked the comprehensive package selection (but not necessarily the package selection tool) of Debian, so over the next 6 months I migrated all my systems to Debian. I stuck with Debian until a friend started working at SuSE, and I decided I'd try that one. I was so impressed with the commercial package selection, along with KDE and a few other packages, that I now run that on my main system (laptop). My server still remains a complete hodepoge based (loosely) on Debian 1.3.

My purpose in playing with all these distributions was to get a feel for what else was on the market. Having evangelized Debian for almost 3 years, then discovering SuSE was a lot better, I felt it was time to take a gander at the rest of the distributions. The goal of this paper is to give a new user an idea of what they are getting into installing Linux, and which distribution would be best for them.

Evaluation of Major Distributions

Thanks to the folks at Linux Central I obtained several of the major distributions. A trip to Linux Expo and the Usenix Technical Conference provided the rest. The distributions I have evaluated are:

Install Routines

My opinion of the perfect install routine is one that is easy enough for a new user to use, doesn't ask too many questions, and allows someone who knows what they are doing to set up thing outside the install routine. Case in point, older Slackware distributions had some problems setting up NFS if the network had anything quirky about it. I would always mount the NFS manually, and then tell Slackware to install from a pre mounted directory. I have included some comments about each of the major distributions install routines here.

Caldera Open Linux 2.2

One of the most surprising installs I've seen to date. The entire install is X based (fig 1). Lizard, the Linux Wizard is a easy to use graphical install routine. It can be launched from a boot disk or from Windows (fig 2). One really well thought out point was to start installing the packages while it continues to ask the user to configure the graphics card and other devices. Once the questions are over it lets you play Tetris while the packages finish installing (fig 3). Caldera also provides a text based install called Lisa (fig 4).


Figure 1: Caldera Bootup Screen


Figure 2: Caldera Windows Startup Screen


Figure 3: Tetris Install Screen


Figure 4: Lisa Install Screen

Debian Linux 2.1

Debian is often condemned for their horrible install routine. The package selection tool, dselect is responsible for much of this reputation (fig 5). I don't know why, but on my AMD 5x86 133MHz system the install ran over 8 hours before I gave up. Debian 1.3 was never this bad.
However the biggest complaint I have about Debian's install is each package installed want me to configure it at install time. This got annoying even for me, who likes to tweak each component of the system. Debian really needs to offer an option not to configure everything at install.


Figure 5: Debian Package Selection Screen

Mandrake

Mandrake's Install is based on Redhat.

RedHat 5.2

RedHat's install routine is a standard text based installer (fig 6). It runs through each item needing configuring with out being too oppressive. RedHat's install did have a few problems, the Install crashed the first time around, and it never asked for a hostname or network configuration. In addition it never installed the X libraries needed to run X. Both RedHat and Mandrake didn't install the mtools package with their default package selection.


Figure 6: RedHat Install

Slackware

Slackware hasn't changed much since I last installed it. The install is straight forward enough, but it doesn't offer the opportunity to configure X, and I had to manually link the correct X server by hand.

SuSE 6.1

The SuSE install routine, YaST, was pretty good, the only complaint I had about it was it wasn't sequential. The other distributions would ask if you have a color monitor, then ask about the language, then the KB type, etc, on to partitioning etc. YaST was menu based, and could allow the user to select packages and install before partitioning the hard drive (fig 7). Something structured as a wizard would have been a bit better.


Figure 7: SuSE Installer YaST

Turbo Linux

The TurboLinux install was fast and very straight forward (fig 8). I did have some trouble getting the LILO working. I think their package selection tool (Figure 9) is the best text package tool I've seen. The nested trees is much more readable then Debian's yet has more information then the RedHat/Mandrake one.


Figure 8: TurboLinux Install


Figure 9: TurboLinux Install

Installation time.

These installs were performed on a AMD 5x86-133 w/ 64MB or Ram, and a 1 GB IDE HDD. I booted off of a floppy (vs the CDROM).