[NBLUG/talk] [WLUG] Mplayer and Fedora 8

[Dave Sisley]

Bob Blick wrote (but /swears/ he didn't want to start a religious fight 
- sure <smiley>):
>  For instance, other than
> the obvious package manager differences that everyone
> talks about, I don't know where Redhat differs from
> other distros with regard to startup scripts, devices,
> networking, etc. I haven't used it in many years, it's
> changed. And I'm most interested in what's happening
> under the hood, not what choice of applets the toolbar
> comes populated with.
>   
I should have mentioned this in my earlier response, but where those 
little scripties are to be found, and their syntax, seems to be a big 
difference between distros, in my mind.

When I first started using Linux... why it seems like just yesterday...

<cue wavy-line fade to a crowded room at SSU - an Installfest!  Dave has 
brought his laptop and a wifi problem.  Mark Street and Paul Stagnoli 
are knocking their heads together trying to figure out how to get Dave's 
thinkpad on the local wifi network... the big fro-like hair and the 
disco clothes give the viewer a hint as to the year - 1978! (just 
kidding, but not about Mark and Paul - I still remember that!  Thanks 
again, guys!)>

Anyway, the point of that silliness is that when I started, networking 
was really a dark magic to me and I could barely figure out what to do.  
I slowly gained some knowledge and spell points, but stuck with 
Redhat/Fedora because I knew where the scripts went 
(/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg*).  Other distros put them in the 
weirdest places (yeah, I'm talking about you, Slackware!).  It's easier 
to 'get stuff done' when you know where everything is intuitively. 

Startup scripts are another one.  Redhat/Fedora/CentOS/etc. allow you to 
go 'service httpd restart' to restart apache.  I actually know that the 
RH/Fedora command is just an alias for the 'real' one that the other 
distros use ('/etc/init.d/httpd restart').

In my experience I really don't think there's any real difference 
between the major distros, other than (what I consider) small 
philosophical differences (how 'free' does software need to be in order 
to be included).  Whatever packages are included (you mentioned Beagle) 
don't really matter, because I now know how to add & remove packages 
pretty easily - and if something's not in my distro's repository, I can 
usually find a packaged file (rpm for me, deb for some others).  I can 
even compile from source.

I think newbies should just pick a distro and a desktop manager (window 
manager? - I mean gnome, kde or other) and get used to them for a bit 
and try another.  If that doesn't feel right, go back to the first 
choice.  Choices are good, but often the differences are very small.  
Just jump in!

-dave.

-- 
Dave Sisley
dsisley at sonic.net
roth-sisley.net

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