Caldera OpenLinux 3.1

[epsas at inflicted.net]

> 	Most people recommend Mandrake as the best desktop distro. I don't . .
> . I recommend it as the best "all around" distro, but it works great as
> a desktop. We use it as our desktop OS at Viata. 50 users without many
> problems can't be wrong!!!


I have been hearing more and more about how nice the Mandrake distribution is.  I kind of looked it over when it first came out, mainly due to the stigma we (linpeople/OPN community) had towards Redhat and Redhat based systems.  However, I'm thinking about trying out another distro on one of the machines here, and I might give Mandrake a shot. 


Now, for the distro evangelism...  <should I ROT13 this? :>
---

As a distro for servers - how well do you all think Mandrake holds up against an install of Debian woody?  

Is the system configuration primarily designed towards a GUI interface? -- (My main gripe with Redhat systems has always been the presumption the designers had that their users would be interfacing some sort of GUI/ncurses configuration tool to manage their server.  Which, for the most part, didn't make the system impossible to tweak by hand.  It just meant that you had to navigate around all the crufty abstraction layers inherent in the system in order to properly execute a simple change.)

How easy is it to create a software package for a Mandrake system?  

Is it simple to set up a local package repository with custom kernel builds and the like?

Is there a large, open and active community of hackers who work on Mandrake, and are they willing to help out users when problems with the system arise?  Or is it assumed that their users must transfer chump change over to the Man if they need real support? 

Do you get that warm and fuzzy feeling at the end of the day that you are: 

 A> doing the right thing for the free software community by using and supporting this distro?

and

 B> using a solid system that has been stress-tested, poked, prodded and vaccinated against show-stopping bugs, remote security exploits and blatant memory leaks by thousands of volunteers across the globe? 


--

Ciao,
Charles


> 	Most people recommend Mandrake as the best desktop distro. I don't . .
> . I recommend it as the best "all around" distro, but it works great as
> a desktop. We use it as our desktop OS at Viata. 50 users without many
> problems can't be wrong!!!