[mythtv-users] Most stable compatible Linux distribution

[Jarod Wilson]

On Dec 28, 2010, at 2:47 AM, Jean-Yves Avenard wrote:

> On Tuesday, 28 December 2010, Jarod Wilson <jarod at wilsonet.com> wrote:
> 
>> Of course, I should point out that with RHEL, if your driver is using
>> only whitelisted kernel symbols, you *never* actually need to rebuild
>> the driver, a driver built w/the GA kernel should work with any newer
>> RHEL kernel as well (assuming within the same major release stream).
>> 
> 
> Would still need to manually copy it in the right location :)

False. That's done automagically via symlinks into the new kernel's
weak-updates module path, created as part of the new kernel's rpm %post
install scriptlets (iirc).

> Anyhow I just remembered the best reason to avoid redhat based distribution: yum
> 
> Gosh that thing sucks :)
> I never really could understand why is it that apt/synaptic can do a
> full distribution upgrade in about 15 minutes, when yum would take
> over 4 hours.

Yes, yum used to be quite the dog, performance-wise. Its considerably better
these days, though notsomuch in RHEL5-era code. There's a LOT done wrt to
transaction safety in yum, which as I understand it, is mostly ignored in
the apt case, and accounts for the bulk of the remaining performance delta
that isn't chalked up to running compiled code vs. python. That could well
just be excuses though, I dunno for sure. There's always apt for rpm though
if you can't stand yum, as well as smart and zypper, all of which are
packaged for Fedora. I used apt myself for a good while until yum got to be
good enough that it just didn't matter anymore. There are several very good
and useful tools written around yum as well.

> I have been a long long time user of redhat, then rhel ; it's rock
> stable provided you know what you are doing and user friendliness in
> installation and configuration certainly not one of it's strength.

Installation is definitely a bit more involved than Ubuntu, but its also
a lot more flexible. Tradeoffs here, definitely.

> I even worked at redhat in the US for a few months when we were
> porting Linux on hitachi SH3 (I did the port of uclibc to SH
> architecture)

Huh, I had no idea. Cool. :)

> Having said that, you're the main reason I got to run mythtv at home.
> Your blogs before you even worked for red hat is what got my first
> mythtv install running. So thanks again !

Wish I'd had time to keep up on my docs, might have kept at least a few
folks from defecting to another distro... ;)

> And at the time I did it, ubuntu didn't even exists.

...like, say, that one. I've tried to use it multiple times, and always
find it obnoxious myself, but I'm pretty well entrenched... :)

-- 
Jarod Wilson
jarod at wilsonet.com