distributions

[jrv at mbunix.mitre.org (Jim Van Zandt)]

Constantine Rasmussen writes:
>I think this group would be a good place to form a collection of Linux
>distribution reviews.  Like an online collection of peoples'
>experiences and reviews of Linux distributions.  With catagories of
>comments like:
>
>How easy to install was it?
>Would you recommend it to a novice?  To an expert?
>List the Pros/Cons.
>How would you rate it on the scale of Maserati to Volkswagan?

Some other topics:

Does it allow for an easy upgrade to the next release, without losing
a lot of configuration information (for news, mail, fvwm, dosemu, dip, etc.)?

Does the distribution have tracability - can I tell which package a given
file came from, which disk the package came from, and what the home site
is for the package?  (For example, on Slackware /var/adm/packages has files
which let me trace file->package->disk.  However, I don't know how
to find the home sites.)

Can packages be deleted as well as installed (without breaking other
packages, even though they share some files)?

Is there a mechanism for managing incremental fixes, so a user can fix
some things without reinstalling everything?  (See, for example, the
collection of Slackware fixes maintained by Zenon Fortuna
<zenon at netcom.com> at ftp.netcom.com:/pub/ze/zenon/linux/tmp .)

Does it *really* follow the FSSTND?  Can /usr be mounted read-only and/or
shared by several machines?

Is it set up to run for long periods without attention from the
sysadmin - are there mechanisms for periodically purging
/var/{adm,log}/{messages,wtmp,utmp} and other steadily growing files,
for deleting formatted man pages that have not been recently accessed
(and for which roff source files are available), for deleting old files
from /tmp, etc.?

Have the common security holes been plugged?  Does COPS give it a clean bill
of health?