Things like this get my goat...

Story: Review: openSUSE 10.2 Earns a Seat at the Head of the TableTotal Replies: 5
Author Content
devnet

Jan 04, 2007
8:56 AM EDT
From the article:
Quoting:For example, some of the production-quality Linux distributions like Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise excel on the stability part, but they do so by sacrificing some cutting-edge features,


Do tell what production-quality Linux is. If you're thinking of stability by sacrificing cutting edge features, I'd say you'd be better going for Debian or Slackware. Or to truly control every aspect of your computing, Gentoo or other source based and roll your own.

Just don't coin a new catch phrase.

I find that ALL LINUX DISTROS are production quality since every single one of them could run a webserver at any enterprise.

Another thing, why is this guy using XFS? XFS net's major gains are in LARGE (as in really large...like Dino's head) filesizes. Why use XFS on a small lab? Silly to me...especially considering this guy isn't using 64 bit versions (only 64bit extensions) of the distros he's using so gains will be minimal...and you can't resize an XFS filesystem...if this guy is moving stuff in and out of his lab, he's going to have a tough time.

One other thing. Fedora supports XFS out of the box and was one of the first distros to do so (Fedora Core 1). I'd like a hit off the ganja pipe this guy is smoking. I mean, come on!

Quoting: But Fedora doesn't really support XFS (it can be made to work, but just barely), and there's nothing about the distribution that justifies taking a +20% performance hit in exchange.


How about trying this at the boot prompt next time you install Fedora Core?

boot: linux xfs

Any credibility that was virtually or actually present flew out the window on this article. Especially considering Fedora Core 6 would have worked quite a bit better for his installation problems he faced...and the USB ones.

Quoting:The current version of the SUSE installer seems to have a lot of problems
And for that it "Earns a Seat at the Head of the Table?" Seems you've got your stories mixed up here.

Quoting:One other unfortunate condition in openSUSE 10.2 is that the fonts don't look as good as they did under 10.1. Whereas the previous release used the Bitstream Vera font family by default, that font isn't even included in the default installation of 10.2 (it's on the DVD but you have to manually install it). Worse, the font that is embedded into the SUSE applications and menu is jagged and unreadable, and it cannot be changed since it's embedded.


And for that, it "Earns a Seat at the Head of the Table?" WTF?

In all, this article was like a ride down prozac lane. While there were many problems that were mentioned that didn't exist in Suse 9.3 but suddenly appeared in 10.2, it somehow was good enough to replace it. Logic be damned.

No offense, I know this guy has creds, but he must sit on the TV and watch the couch.
dcparris

Jan 04, 2007
9:07 AM EDT
When I grow up, I want to be a critic just like devnet!
dinotrac

Jan 04, 2007
9:13 AM EDT
>(as in really large...like Dino's head)

Hey, you don't put a billion dollar gold stash in an itty-bitty piggy bank!
devnet

Jan 04, 2007
9:20 AM EDT
lol :D

Someone has to point out the problems right?

e.g. Size of Din's head...problems with the article.

:)
tuxchick

Jan 04, 2007
9:36 AM EDT
This is an odd article- "... classic Debian, both of which are great for experimenting with brand-new technologies, but they don't provide the kind of long-term stability that I need for my lab." eh? Classic Debian is stable as a table, and full of the old mold this author loves. :)

The filesystem stuff is rather odd, too. Ext3 isn't as slow as some folks like to claim, and it's rock-solid, which is more important than a few molecules of extra speed. XFS has a number of known problems on Linux that stem from it being a kludgy port from IRIX and SGI hardware, instead of a nice clean native implementation. The comments to this LWN article explain it better than I can: http://lwn.net/Articles/187336/

I've been bitten more than once by XFS blowing up on Linux/x86. (Slow learner.) Even so, IME it doesn't run slower on Fedora, or all that much faster than Ext3. And, as devnet pointed out, using XFS on 32-bit systems with small files doesn't make much sense.

JFS, Reiser, Ext2/3/4, and XFS are all just variations on the same tired old tune anyway. Sun's ZFS is a truly revolutionary filesystem. Someday it will be ported to Linux, and then we'll have a filesystem to get excited about.
devnet

Jan 04, 2007
10:22 AM EDT
Agreed...ZFS perked my ears up quite a bit...and the tests I've seen:

http://storagemojo.com/?p=222

http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/zfs-discuss/2006-Janua...

http://mail-index.netbsd.org/tech-perform/2005/11/18/0000.ht...



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