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1 • Distrowatch data (by Brad on 2022-06-27 00:36:41 GMT from United States)
Jesse, thanks for the metadata - ~300 "active" distros are an awful lot to keep track.
2 • Torrent woes (by Brad on 2022-06-27 00:40:11 GMT from United States)
Speaking for myself, I've never been able to successfully download a distro via Torrent - and this is with a speedy Broadband connection.
I understand that using Torrent is a "nice" way to make sure that more people have access to more distros, but I usually just give up after a few hours of slow-to-no progress, and download the distros "directly".
3 • RHEL Clones (by Marc on 2022-06-27 00:42:41 GMT from Australia)
I like to download and try RHEL clones in a vm.
I never use them for long as a desktopas I feel they dont move fast enough although I get thats what they are suposed to do
As a server I am just a home user and use Proxmox for most things in a vm and it does what I want
4 • Release Models (by Bob on 2022-06-27 01:36:28 GMT from United States)
Just for fun, I had a look at the break-down of release models:
227 fixed
13 fixed LTS
50 rolling
10 semi-rolling
-----
300
5 • Torrents (by Jesse on 2022-06-27 01:37:12 GMT from Canada)
@2: It sounds like you may have a firewall issue or a quality-of-service block happening at your ISP. Do all torrents struggle to download or just Linux ISOs? If it's the former then your ISP is probably messing with your network traffic, but if it's the latter then it suggests you're trying to download torrents which don't have many seeds yet.
6 • The future... (by Friar Tux on 2022-06-27 01:45:06 GMT from Canada)
I voted "I do not run RHEL or any clones". Many, many years ago, my very first Linux distro was Fedora. It scared me back to Windows. Over the years, I tried Fedora multiple times but it never quite worked for me. Once, I even found a free version of RHEL - can remember the name - and according to my notes, it offered up the same issues as Fedora. CentOS was about the best RHEL brand distro of the three, but even it had issues I could not be bothered to deal with.
As mentioned many times before, for me, a distro MUST work out-of-box, with no post install monkeying about. And it must not break after an update or up grade. Very few distros do this for me.
"As for what the future holds"... I really like Jesse's answer, though I foresee an OS "to rule all" OSes. I believe in 5 - 10 years, we will see the rise of a non Linux/ BSD/ Windows/ Apple/ Google/ etc., operating system that will allow the use of any/all install formats, letting the user run any app/program from any proprietary and open source format. I also believe it will be voice operated, removing the need for mouse and keyboard, thought these will still be available for hobbyists. (Basically, for those that have seen the sci-fi movie Colossus (1970), one AI with workstations in most households. But without the world domination issue.) Maybe I'm just dreaming, but we do presently have the technology.
7 • Torrents (by DaveW on 2022-06-27 01:52:05 GMT from United States)
My experience with torrents is that for popular distros (Mint, MX, etc.) they work well, especially just after a new release. The less popular distros frequently have fewer seeds, and tend to download very slow.
8 • Alma Linux as Workstation (by Alex on 2022-06-27 01:57:19 GMT from United States)
What is the advantage of using something like Alma or Rocky as a workstation? If you want long term support is the Ubuntu LTS or Debian Stable not good enough? The latter two have a lot more "mainstream" user packages available out of the box. Typing this right now from a Debian Bullseye installation that has been running without drama on my laptop since week 2 of release.
9 • AlmaLinux live media oddities (by eco2geek on 2022-06-27 02:48:47 GMT from United States)
There are live media for AlmaLinux 9 in the AlmaLinux repo here:
https://repo.almalinux.org/almalinux/9/live/x86_64/
They appear to have been released fairly recently. (There also appear to be images for the Raspberry Pi.)
However, I tried both the KDE live image and the XFCE live image from a USB stick and got kernel panics from both. (Yes, the checksums matched.) So I gave up.
The live v8.5 KDE image runs fine (I'm posting from it now), although for some reason it doesn't see any of the partitions on my local hard disk. So its usefulness is somewhat limited.
10 • set and forget! (by postertom on 2022-06-27 03:20:22 GMT from United States)
Outstanding review. More like a research paper!
"we should be able to "set and forget" AlmaLinux, and just let it run day after day and year after year"
That would be a huge upside for some of us. The 5 year options are fine for me personally, but each time I install something new for my wife, there is wailing and gnashing of teeth.
"Rolling releases... are quite popular these days"
I think that the trend says something about the preferences of the bulk of active Linux fans. Seems like most of the people here could not care less about "set and forget".
11 • Testing with VirtualBox vs. KVM (by Microlinux on 2022-06-27 06:09:41 GMT from France)
Over the last few years, Distrowatch has done pretty much all of its testing with VirtualBox, which causes lots of issues. Just move to KVM with Virtual Machine Manager. It has way better performance, is 100% Open Source (integrated into the kernel) and you don't have to worry about all this Guest Addition nonsense. All the virtio drivers run perfectly.
Here's how you setup a simple KVM hypervisor on a headless Rocky Linux server:
https://docs.microlinux.fr/rockylinux/el8/hyperviseur-kvm/
12 • RHEL-clones and RPMFusion (by Dan on 2022-06-27 06:13:31 GMT from Germany)
Just a note, with RHEL clones you should not install the RPM Fusion repo, but EPEL. Same group, different repo.
13 • RHEL (by penguinx86 on 2022-06-27 06:52:17 GMT from United States)
I ran RHEL for a while, when I studied for the LPIC-1 certification exams. I haven't ran it since the free trial period expired. I tried Fedora for a while, til an update killed my laptops wifi adaptor. From now on, I'm sticking with Linux Mint, because Mint is the only distro that is compatoble with my laptop wifi adapter with no hassles.
14 • RHEL quality (by Daniel on 2022-06-27 07:36:23 GMT from Czechia)
I never undestand how RHEL can be so popular and how its users praise it for reliability and stability. For me it is Fedora with tons of packages removed and tons of bugs introduced. Both in desktop and server. At least server has less bugs then desktop, which is usually completely broken.
And I never understand how this can be done. RedHat is great developer many great software used all around in distributions. But when RedHat put his work in its distribution, suddenly is such broken...
15 • Alma Linux 9 torrent (by Jeffrey on 2022-06-27 08:38:37 GMT from Czechia)
I wonder what might have caused the incomplete torrent download for Jesse. According to my command history, I added the Alma 9 torrent to transmission-daemon on 28th May, and it downloaded everything within a few hours (perhaps within half an hour; I didn't check back that soon). My ratio for that torrent is now 8+, and it's seeding as we speak.
16 • RHEL (by Charlie on 2022-06-27 10:06:57 GMT from Hong Kong)
After RHEL opens to personal use for free (up to several machines actually), I seldom bother to install clones. Clones are for hosting and vps companies for mass and production deployments.
But I would like to say clones are easier to update, you don’t need a RH account, don’t need to login and refresh your subscription status.
17 • Red Hat (by Mitchell on 2022-06-27 12:04:48 GMT from United States)
Last time I tried the Red Hat was around 20 years ago now. It loaded from something like 8 floppies and ran fine if I recall correctly. But the main lure was the hat offer which came in the mail weeks later. Still have that hat, and no...I do not have those floppies.
Those days were filled with experimentation and observation...distro hopping galore. Eventually, I needed to settle on a daily driver and get work done. I still like to window shop though!
Sometimes commercial interest clouds the overall simplicity smaller projects offer. Mint has grown out of something Ubuntu lacked or did not offer. Debian keeps plugging along even though their website can be overly complicated. One of my favorite distros was Foresight: their ten minute install was the
crown jewel.
Back in the day, I even ran my brother-in-law's small website from Slitaz on an older box tucked into the basement. Puppy always performed well and was stable, there was Mepis, Antix, Damn Small Linux and many others along the way. DEs have grown and morphed into other DEs.
Red Hat proved too large for me even back then, but they have contributed a lot into the Linux community. I can appreciate the history and leave it at that...
18 • Almalinux for desktop (by Flonix on 2022-06-27 13:05:03 GMT from Italy)
I would advise those who want to use Alma/Rocky/RHEL as a desktop to stay on version 8 for at least 1 year (it is supported until May 2029). The reason is that EPEL 8 is much better equipped with software than EPEL 9. Always remember that, for full availability of multimedia content, EPEL must be installed first, and only then RPMfusion.
19 • VirtualBox (by Jesse on 2022-06-27 13:44:47 GMT from Canada)
@11: >"Over the last few years, Distrowatch has done pretty much all of its testing with VirtualBox, which causes lots of issues."
Testing with VirtualBox doesn't _cause_ a lot of issues. It can sometimes _expose_ a few issues. It's usually a very smooth experience.
> "Just move to KVM with Virtual Machine Manager. It has way better performance"
KVM is Linux-only while VirtualBox is much more widely used, easier to set up, and more popular in the distro testing crowd. Using VirtualBox will let people know how an OS being tested will work on VirtualBox running on Windows, FreeBSD, or Linux. Using KVM is tied strictly to Linux.
VirtualBox also integrates better with the host OS while KVM tends to be relatively awkward to use for testing desktop platforms. VirtualBox's graphical output tends to be better/faster than KVM's on my equipment, so the performance situation is actually in VirtualBox's favour.
> "[KVM] is 100% Open Source (integrated into the kernel) and you don't have to worry about all this Guest Addition nonsense. "
VirtualBox is open source and integrated with the Linux kernel. VirtualBox hasn't needed separate guest additions for the past four years.
Why would I switch to a slower, less portable, less integrated testing environment that requires a separate management tool to use smoothly with VirtualBox is faster, already integrated with the kernel, and more portable?
20 • Jesse - "... the rise of rolling releases" (by Tim on 2022-06-27 14:07:18 GMT from United States)
Well, I guess so, but my favorite distro, the venerable rolling release Arch Linux, has been falling, falling, falling, and it continues to fall. I have been running Arch Linux for more that eight years, and it just gets better and better. Do you have any idea why it has fallen so far in the rankings?
21 • Arch (by Jesse on 2022-06-27 14:11:25 GMT from Canada)
@20: The page hit rankings don't measure popularity, they measure how many people visit the project's information page. Arch doesn't announce new versions/snapshots which is the most common boost to PHR stats.
22 • Red Hat clones (by tim on 2022-06-27 14:15:05 GMT from United States)
Well, I run Fedora on a notebook PC, but I do not consider it to be a Red Hat clone. They are pretty closely related, but not close enough to say "clone".
23 • Many a long year since I ran RHEL (by DaveT on 2022-06-27 14:26:14 GMT from United Kingdom)
2002 to 2013 the charity I worked for ran RHEL to keep the trustees and various backers happy. I was the IT Manager and would have rub debian but there we go... My pc and some others ran debian.
We skip happily over the Chief Executive Officer being questioned about embezzling funds!
(he did but got away with it)
He was a **** and we need say no more...
Happy Days!
24 • AlmaLinux kernel panics? (by Scott Dowdle on 2022-06-27 15:21:16 GMT from United States)
@eco2geek - Perhaps you are trying to run AlmaLinux on Proxmox VE? If so, the default CPU type won't work. If you switch from that, you won't get a kernel panic. I'm not sure who to blame for that issue.
@Jesse - While Virtualbox is available for more OSes and KVM is indeed Linux-only, if one is using Linux as the host OS, why would one care? I don't try to run the same VM image on multiple OSes. I'm not sure if Virtualbox VMs still need guest tools or not. I think they do.. but many distros may include the Virtualbox tools pre-installed... making people think they aren't needed anymore... because they didn't have to install them. Many Linux distros include the KVM virtio drivers pre-installed these days too. Why use KVM when it requires a separate tool to be installed to manage it? Hey, at least half of KVM (the kernel side) is likely already installed... and having to install what management tool you want to use (there are a few different ones to pick from [virt-manager, GNOME Boxes, cockpit-machines, and a QT/KDE tool I forgot the name of, and even, indirectly, Proxmox VE]) isn't any more difficult than having to install Virtualbox... and KVM is maintained with the kernel so you don't have to worry about running newer kernels and potential breakage... and waiting for Oracle (cough) to update... but if you prefer to continue to use Virtualbox, more power to you.
I do concede that perhaps Virtualbox is better geared for graphical Linux VMs than KVM, but if I'm going to cede that, then KVM is better suited for non-graphical Linux VMs. There are also a slew of tools that work with the KVM native disk images (qcow2) so I don't feel weary about claiming that the KVM ecosystem is more broad. Stating that KVM is used by a lot of large cloud providers most likely isn't a selling point for home users, but it doesn't hurt to mention.
25 • @24 KVM vs Virtualbox (by Linux Revolution on 2022-06-27 15:56:24 GMT from United States)
Good summation on KVM. I'd also like to add that KVM is a level 1 hypervisor vs Virtualbox's level 2. Leve 1 hypervisors tend to have better performance since it runs closer or on bare metal passing through more hardware to guest VMs.
Since I run exlusively a Linux desktop, I run all my gui based VMs in KVM including Windows 10. Years ago I moved away from Virtualbox for the fact that Windows 10 needed re-activation after importing the VM to another host pc or a re-installed host pc OS. This doesn't seem to be the case with KVM/Virt-Manager. I've saved off the qcow2 image and moved it around freely without having to re-activate the Windows 10 with a product key.
With a Linux host, KVM is definitely the way to go IMO.
26 • VirtualBox vs KVM (by Jesse on 2022-06-27 16:30:35 GMT from Canada)
@24: > "@Jesse - While Virtualbox is available for more OSes and KVM is indeed Linux-only, if one is using Linux as the host OS, why would one care?"
Because around half of our readers are not running on Linux. I'm trying to review things that are useful for them. I'm not optimizing the situation for myself, but for what other people are likely to be using.
> "I'm not sure if Virtualbox VMs still need guest tools or not."
They don't and have no for four years, as I mentioned in my above comment.
> "many distros may include the Virtualbox tools pre-installed... making people think they aren't needed anymore... because they didn't have to install them. "
People don't need to install VirtualBox tools because the add-on drivers are in the kernel. It's not a matter of having a package installed or not, the driver is a kernel module.
> "KVM is maintained with the kernel so you don't have to worry about running newer kernels and potential breakage"
So is VirtualBox. That's not a benefit one way or the other.
27 • Red Hat opinion (by Jyrki on 2022-06-27 16:31:06 GMT from Czechia)
To me, Red Hat is 90's Microsoft of Linux world. I try to stay away from anything they do.
28 • @20 Arch popularity (by Alex on 2022-06-27 14:57:46 GMT from United States)
I think the Arch-based distros like EndeavourOS and Garuda are siphoning off hits from ArchLinux proper. That said, I would bet that overall if you count all the Arch-based distros together, ArchLinux probably has never been more popular. It is much, much easier to install Arch now than it ever has been before. Maintaining it still requires some weekly research before blindly running sudo pacman -Syu
29 • RHEL Clones (by Otis on 2022-06-27 19:43:03 GMT from United States)
I'm not sure why yet, but I like AlmaLinux. As showcased in the review, there are issues and frustrating ones at that. I keep Alma on a separate drive and am always going back to it to try and make it "just work." Still short of that. Something odd about this, in that when I have ongoing issues with a distro I habitually merely dump it and move on. Something is making me stick with Alma and I have not figured it out yet. Maybe it has to do with the fact that RedHat (5.2 I think) was my very first foray into Linux many many moons ago.
30 • RH (by Tad Strange on 2022-06-27 20:12:55 GMT from Canada)
I've never really gotten along with Redhat. Even in the old days I preferred anything .deb to .rpm.
I tried several of the clones recently and for me they were not worth bothering with - I don't need a server, and as a desktop they all leave very much to be desired, starting with Gnome. I followed several guides to making a functional KDE desktop out of various 'Hats, but none worked terribly well.
I started downloading the KDE image of Alma that was posted above, then thought better of it - bare Debian is preferable to another 'Hat.
Funny. Back when I had the unfortunate assignment of setting up a large Unifi system, Ubuntu server is what the manufacturer recommended. I don't remember why.
31 • RHEL (by Swilson on 2022-06-27 21:30:15 GMT from United States)
I work for a large company, Enterprise wise hands down RHEL. For personal use Fedora
32 • @26 Red Hat opinion (by Nick on 2022-06-27 22:19:51 GMT from Austria)
> To me, Red Hat is 90's Microsoft of Linux world. I try to stay away
from anything they do.
Both Red Hat (now IBM-owned) and 90's Microsoft are just two huge corporations./
Red Hat is not monopolistic, and even Oracle makes their RHEL clone.
RH is heavily involved in development of Linux kernel, GNU libc, GCC, GTK+,
GNOME, systemd, PulseAudio, PipeWire etc., so to stay away you need to run *BSD
or Haiku and a GTK-less environment.
33 • KVM vs VirtualBox (by Charlie on 2022-06-28 01:50:44 GMT from Hong Kong)
Suddenly saw this debate.
For me, as 99% of my time spend on desktop, I found VirtualBox performs better than KVM when I need to run a GUI system. KVM, theretically as a level 1 hypervisor, should br more resources friendly, but it's really difficult to set up even with GUI tools.
I can easily get a Linux desktop VM running in VirtualBox wihtout much settings but under KVM even I tweak and tweak I cannot get exactly what I've been using under VirtualBox (a X11 driver, auto mount shared folders, copy and paste between VM and host). KVM may be a solution for headless VM, but clearly not on desktop.
Moreover, Linux use cases are full of variety, while most of the readers here are under a Linux-only environment, in the whole world it's not. Personally I have Macbook with macOS as my main OS, but I also has a mini PC with both Linux and Windows installed, my time spent on the three OSes are 60%, 35% and 10%. VirtualBox is crucial for me as it provides a unique experiences on these three platforms when I need to run VMs.
34 • @27 (by Charlie on 2022-06-28 02:21:46 GMT from Hong Kong)
> To me, Red Hat is 90's Microsoft of Linux world. I try to stay away from anything they do.
You do know Red Hat hires a lot of kernel developers right?
And Red Hat directly involves or even initiates many open source projects, including but not limited to GNOME, LibreOffice, pulseaudio/pipewire, systemd and many free fonts...
35 • Oracle Virtual Box (by Titus_Groan on 2022-06-28 04:21:58 GMT from New Zealand)
Like all software tools, they have their limitations and or quirks.
When you are familiar with the limitations / quirks, they can be very useful tools.
Limitation / quirk: earlier versions allowed "UEFI capable .isos" to install and run in the Virtual Box as a UEFI system.
However, real metal UEFI installs of the same .iso would fail.
After some head scratching, (and many variations of real metal installs,) it was determined the UEFI implementation of the then .isos were at fault.
36 • AlmaLinux, VBox guest tools in kernel and @25, KVM (by Justme on 2022-06-28 04:58:00 GMT from United States)
I learned two things today. I learned that the guest tools have been included in the kernel for some years. Coincidentally, my ignorance may be the reason for something that's puzzled me before; that Jesse seems to have problems with VBox that I don't have. First thing I do, no matter how well behaved the distro is, I mount and run Guest Additions.
Curiosity got me today. I downloaded AlmaLinux and installed it on VBox. Got mouse capture problems, no automatic resizing, same as Jesse, even the keyboard was iffy. I installed kernel-devel and the proper headers, then Guest Additions. All was immediately fixed. Runs beautifully.
I'm a daily user of VBox, and sometimes it can be a PITA. The other day, a Devuan testing kernel upgrade disappeared the vboxdrv. After some fussing, I found it in the wrong folder and moved it. Sometimes I can't get a VM to start when my version of VBox doesn't match the version of the Extension Pack. There are other niggles, but for the most part, It works well.
@25, "the fact that Windows 10 needed re-activation after importing the VM to another host pc or a re-installed host pc OS" That is not a fact. I've run Windows VMs for quite a few years. Right now I have Windows 10 and 11. I've copied them and moved them around many times. Never have they needed re-activation.
37 • AlmaLinux and RedHat clones (by Tom on 2022-06-28 06:49:20 GMT from United States)
It looks like AlmaLinux is still rough around the edges. And how big those images are, a "boot" option at 763 MB? What can they possibly put that takes so much? As for the "DVD" option, they better rename it to "portable SSD" or "BluRay". Those are fat installers to say the least.
But the strangest decision of all is Anaconda. I don't dislike it outright, but it is infamous for not supporting LVM, so using that for a RedHat clone looks like a big mistake.
Still, we need good RedHat clones after this unpopular idea of moving CentOS upstream. The typical arrangement we like at work is RedHat for the main production server and clones for the development and CI/CD tests. That removes most of the hassle of installing RHEL and dealing with the licences, while covering all bases and provides more support for the important parts.
38 • KVM vs. VirtualBox (by Microlinux on 2022-06-28 12:34:31 GMT from France)
The problem with VirtualBox is that it makes you jump through burning loops to work correctly. See here for example:
https://gitlab.com/kikinovak/vagrant/-/blob/main/develop/minimal/opensuse-15.3/setup.sh
And if you really think that VirtualBox has better performance than KVM, then I'd rather politely withdraw from the discussion.
:o)
39 • The evolving data of DistroWatch (by José Augusto on 2022-06-28 14:11:38 GMT from Brazil)
Very interisting questions and answers. But, for me, the data I would like to see is the sum of stats for each "family" of independent distributions. I mean, all stats from debian and its derivatives, all stats from arch and its derivatives, etc. This sum applied for a time period, like, for example, 1 year. And, of course, the results plotted year by year. The purpose of this is to follow the evolution of the linux ecosystem. Sure you can also consider some special non independent cases, like ubuntu and its derivatives. Such profile will present the strengh of each community, as the distributions based on the same seed usually have some degree of cross contribution.
40 • rhel (by dave on 2022-06-29 00:39:43 GMT from United States)
Years ago, I briefly used a VPS that was Red Hat based, but that's the extent of my experience. I don't currently run any servers, but when I do, they tend to use Debian. RHEL use seems to be mostly limited to-- as the name implies.. 'enterprise' usage. So unless a person wants to get a job with a corporation that relies upon RHEL, I don't see the need to even consider it.
41 • Use RHEL ? (by John on 2022-06-29 01:45:43 GMT from Canada)
Use RHEL ? I said yes because that is my Workstation at work. It is not bad, but some things are a bit trying to me.
At home, Slackware.
42 • Re: Do you use RHEL or a clone? (by Fed up on 2022-06-30 01:22:47 GMT from United States)
I use older variants.
The newer (8+ or so) are COMPLETELY broken and fail to boot (can't find root).
The release quality of Red Hat and Ubuntu is so bad, that I'm thinking of giving up on all together.
Also, to echo others here: 7/8GB isn't really a DVD size. Admittedly, it's better than 10gb, so I'm seeing an improvement, but really, it should be around 4GB, or utilize multiple discs, like Debian does.
43 • Red Hat (by Justin on 2022-06-30 22:01:51 GMT from United States)
I want to like Red Hat, but I haven't figured out what there is to like over other distributions. In the old days of Fedora Core, it felt like a non-stop stream of updates that would sideline me for a couple hours (used it for a project; had no say in the matter). Boot was slow and continued to be slow years later when someone showed me Mint and I saw fast booting. To be generous, I saw other distros use some equally long boot sequence, so maybe they were slow to adopt improvements? Weird considering all the software tech that starts there. Anaconda is slower and more painful than other installers. The Arch Way is maybe a little worse because I have to remember steps, but an Arch Guide on one half of the screen and a terminal on the other would be at least as good. I started with KDE (go Knoppix!) but everyone told me how much better Gnome was. I never really saw it. I used Mate and Cinnamon because Ubuntu was on Unity and failed to install properly at the time (the build chain was only supported on Ubuntu). The worst thing was working in a company where no one wanted to use their Red Hat support line because they said it was a pain, so they relied on me to solve their problems. I swear their stuff is intentionally complicated, requires training and certification, as a way of profiting off open source. Good for them, I suppose, to be profitable, but seems almost like a Microsoft model of locking you in and making you "need" them.
At the same time, Red Hat has offered technologies, while controversial, have improved the Linux ecosystem. Kernel development today is also the majority large companies. I guess I like having them around as an option as long as I don't have to use them. I avoid anything in the RPM tree for the reasons above, but just because it doesn't suit me doesn't mean it's bad. I'm happy to have an ecosystem where the diversity can exist. Monocultures are bad and tend toward the lowest common denominator. Linux users in my experience are not typical users, so once you're at "for the masses" scale, stuff has to become so stupid, so restrictive because you have to protect users from themselves. Maybe that is what Red Hat is really doing, and why stuff is such a pain (or resembles Microsoft like systemd being compared to svchost.exe)... it's just necessary with large numbers of people and unique situations.
44 • Enterprise OS (by Leon on 2022-07-01 12:35:03 GMT from France)
Another bad review, but not because of the bad distro, but because of the bad reviewer.
Namely, a good reviewer should always be aware of what it is reviewing, and it would inform oneself about the product, before it starts reviewing. One can't set one set of testing rules and apply them to everything and anything. It just doesn't make sense, as enterprise needs are often very different, or even the opposite of consumer needs.
RHEL and clones (Alma, Rocky, Springdale) are enterprise OS's -- nothing for some "a distro MUST work out-of-box, with no post install monkeying about"-likes. They are not the target for the enterprise grade products.
On an enterprise product, nothing is supposed to work out-of-box -- that's the job of admins, which will prepare the custom images before deployment.
Upon fresh install, nothing works -- as it should be. No sound, no printing, no ... you name it, but everything is there, and everything will work if activated.
Those monkeying at home with some enterprise distros, here RHEL clones, should know that first thing to do is install / activate the following:
https://ibb.co/JvzDm7r
At the position 3, one would mount the VBox extensions, from the VBox menu.
After that's done, you'd like to add Flatpak, as without it, it's completely useless at home.
Epel is a must, but Epel won't save you the day. Most applications a some kJunk that should have been thrown out many years ago, but nobody bothered to do it, and of those very few applications in there, there is nothing one would really want to install. Inkscape 0.92.3 is in Epel, but 1.2 is available as Flatpak -- just as one single example. The same goes for all the rest.
The advantage of such enterprise OS and Flatpak is, that one can "set it and forget it, and just let it run day after day and year after year", and it won't break after an update or upgrade.
It won't even need the upgrade, in fact -- with 10-year support, it'll run longer then the HW on which it is installed.
45 • @44 Leon: (by dragonmouth on 2022-07-01 13:05:26 GMT from United States)
"On an enterprise product, nothing is supposed to work out-of-box"
Maybe in the company you work for.
In all the companies I know of, the management wants the new system deployed yesterday. Sys Admins DO NOT have the luxury of time to fioddle-faddle with software that does not work. If it doesn't work first time, every time then companies do not purchase that system. They move on to the one that does work without too much adjusting.
46 • Monkeying about... (by Friar Tux on 2022-07-01 13:31:34 GMT from Canada)
@44 (Leon) Ahhh, but if this enterprise distro does NOT work out of box, it has failed. As admin, my job is to keep things working smoothly and safely - not having to fix or activate things that should be working automatically. IF this is your definition of an enterprise distro, then I would be wise, as an admin, to find something else.
As for Jesse's review, I find it mirrors my own testing of the distro - though it appears Jesse got better results than I ever did. So far, I find the reviews from the guys at DW quite fair and well done. But as all reviews go, they are the opinions of the reviewer. You can take it or leave it. So far, I'll take it as most of the reviews have mirrored my own experience. Also, I take into account the reviewers past experience and knowledge. DW has been around a while, and the guys running it are quite knowledgeable regarding Linux.
47 • Admin says ... (by Leon on 2022-07-01 17:26:03 GMT from France)
You people just can't read properly. What I'm talking about is basically 'Windows autostart'. ;)
Will say, everything working, but only IF activated.
@45 (by dragonmouth)
You misunderstood something here. "Upon fresh install, nothing works -- as it should be. No sound, no printing, no ... you name it, but everything is there, and everything will work if activated." -- "EVERYTHING WILL WORK IF ACTIVATED". ;)
We are talking about services, not about broken OS. ;)
@46 (by Friar Tux)
Another one who can't read. ;)
"... AND EVERYTHING WILL WORK IF ACTIVATED"!
Activating features is not 'fixing', and no, it shouldn't be 'working automatically'. What one needs should be activated, not more, not less, and RHEL can't know what I need, right?
Nothing works automatically in a good enterprise OS. In Windows server, not even web browser could connect the internet, if the admin didn't activate / allow it first -- and that's exactly how it is supposed to be.
I tell who is allowed to do what and if -- nothing should be just working, and make me extra work. Activating some feature is a matter of seconds; searching for what all is running and deactivating 90 % of it is a hard work.
It's less work to activate the few desired features, then to deactivate all that shouldn't work.
Reviewers past experience and knowledge on one thing, doesn't imply reviewers past experience and knowledge on another thing, or on all things. ;)
48 • DW review(s) (by Otis on 2022-07-01 18:40:08 GMT from United States)
@46 yep. In addition, the small blurb at the bottom of each review, to me, highlights the most important aspect of said review(s): The reviewer names the specs of the machine that the distro was deployed upon. That needs to be looked at carefully, as we know how various Linux distros install and behave differently on different hardware. And there's a lot of varying hardware out there.
49 • @47: (by dragonmouth on 2022-07-01 21:24:36 GMT from United States)
"We are talking about services, not about broken OS"
No, Leon. YOU are talking about services.
When a corporation buys a software system (O/S, services, applications) it expects everything to work first time, every time. Otherwise they go to another vendor.
50 • What broken OS? Alma, RHEL (by Mr. Hu on 2022-07-01 23:54:05 GMT from Philippines)
Somehow the idea has been planted that, because Jesse had some trouble downloading from AlmaLinux servers, and had some problems with Virtualbox, the OS is 'broken".
Quote: "I tested AlmaLinux on my workstation and in VirtualBox. When running on the workstation all my hardware was detected. I had no problems getting connected to the network through my wireless card, video performance was average, and the system was stable."
First, AlmaLinux is not Red Hat, it's a substitute for those who want to have RHEL but don't want to pay for it. RHEL is an enterprise distro, not directed at home users who may want to play with it in Virtualbox.
Number of Comments: 50
Display mode: DWW Only • Comments Only • Both DWW and Comments
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