[Ham-Linux] Which Distro/Apps/Apps development software to use?

[Bob McConnell]

Dan Nelson wrote:
> Okay lets try this again?
> 
> What in the world is all this garbage talk about compiling LINUX
> drives, Kernels and applications. Shezz when is the last time a
> normal user  or for that matter a poweruser had to do that. I have 4
> computers running 16 different operating systems (All on Linux hosts)
> and I have never had to manually compile a single Linux kernel,
> driver or application! Now days it seems like Linux runs better and
> faster out of the box then Windows ever did. It seems like the only
> people complaining about having to compile kernels and drivers are
> windows fanboy'z who have never had to  compile  a Linux  kernel or
> driver in the first place  and are simply looking for reasons to bash
> Linux.
> 
> About the only users who need to manually compile applications in
> Linux are those advanced users who are trying to run the latests and
> greatest Alpha Software thats not yet stable enough  for inclusion
> into the repos. By the way I would rather compile an open source
> application then infect my computer with windows shareware.

That is, unless you prefer something other than the default selection of 
applications from the distribution. I have been upgrading my home 
servers to Slackware 12.2 over the past two months. Each one is 
installed from the CD without any database or web server. Then I 
download the source for Apache, PHP and PostgreSQL, configure them my 
way, compile and install.We use RHEL 5 at work and have to go through 
the same process every time IBM changes their server hardware. That is 
the easiest way to get rid of the MySQL addiction ware.

I have two servers that I build custom kernels on, just to get rid of 
all the superfluous drivers and utilities in the default kernels. It 
reduces the boot time by 2/3, plus I really don't need USB drivers in a 
box that is older than the USB definition. But one of them has 1.2 TB of 
IDE drives (4 * 320 GB) and makes a very nice file server. Someday the 
world will remember what the 'I' in RAID stands for, and I'll be able to 
build a newer box to replace it.

Oh yeah, I compile each release of Firefox and Thunderbird as soon as I 
can after they come out. FF 3.0 is still not available as a package for 
older releases of Slackware, and last I checked the latest was still not 
available for even 12.2.

Bob McConnell
N2SPP