Linux Distributions for Librarians

For all you techy librarians, do you use any Linux distributions in your organization? Which version of Linux do you consider the best for your purposes? I’ve used the Linux Online distribution page (http://www.linux.org/dist/) to evaluate all the different offerings, and I’ve installed several. I was unhappy with RedHat, and other flavors have produced similar disappointing results and challenging installations, especially on older Celeron-based PCs. (Article Poll Inside)

February 6, 2004 by Uncategorized 5

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5 Responses

  1. shoe says:
    February 6, 2004 at 6:47 am

    I use SuSE

    I use SuSE at home. If there were spare computers at work, I’d put it on some of them. The assistant director really wants to see Linux in action, and see if/how Horizon can run on a machine that is less than optimal and running Linux.

    The one thing I don’t like about SuSE is that it runs KDE as a default. I am a WindowMaker person myself.

    As far as putting Linux out for staff and patron use (i.e. using as anything other than a server)… I don’t know. Linux is still not for the faint of heart. I can’t see some of the people I work with spending hours tweaking it to connect to the internet or to play a CD with xmms. I can’t see staff members going into the console mode and tooling around to remove temp files (then, they don’t do it in Windows, either).

    I do love its security, (which would be quite useful in a PAC)and I love the pure geek factor of it. I can make Linux do anything I want. I might not know how right now, but the possibility is there. And the community? Like no other.

    Reply
  2. Anonymous Patron says:
    February 6, 2004 at 9:36 am

    tell us more
    It’d be easier to offer suggestions if you tell us why you didn’t like RedHat. 🙂 I’ve used RedHat (and now FC) for years, mainly on momentum and familiarity, though I would have switched to debian or a debian-based distro like libranet two or three years ago if debian’s apt (package manager and update tool) hadn’t been ported to work with RPMs (apparently yum now is equally useful). At work we have many eras of redhat desktops that are mostly migrating to RHEL, cheap for us as an .edu department, and with a much better support lifecycle. Still, I’ve ordered a new home machine, and rather than fc1 or rhel or even debian or libranet I’m going to try gentoo, because of the many, many good things I’ve heard about it, and its support for new AMD chipsets.

    Since you’ve had problems with installs, try knoppix if you haven’t yet. It’s debian-based, but has a terrific livecd mode that auto-detects an insane number of hardware setups. You can run it off the cd as long as you like, mounting your existing drives read-only unless you tell it otherwise. If you decide to stay with it, you can install right from the same cd, and you end up with the benefits of a debian system.

    If you want to go further into the discussion there are plenty of friendly/opiniated folks over on the oss4lib list who’d chip in their $.02 (or more!).

    Good luck, -dchud

    Reply
  3. Anonymous Patron says:
    February 6, 2004 at 11:12 am

    Mandrake
    I prefer Mandrake. It is easy to use and it works!

    Reply
  4. rscrawford says:
    February 6, 2004 at 11:29 am

    Red Hat, Debian
    I’ve got two RH8 boxes at home and a Debian installation (Woody) built onto an ancient laptop and which runs in console mode only (I just use it to hold book database files). Red Hat is adequate for desktop and server use, but I’m more impressed with the robustness and flexibility of Debian — and who wouldn’t love apt-get?

    My local LUG, LUGOD, has gotten involved in building several kiosk machines around the city of Davis. I’ve thought that a relatively cheap machine running Linux with KDE in kiosk mode might make a good terminal in a library setting, but I haven’t really explored that idea.

    Reply
  5. mcbride says:
    February 6, 2004 at 11:41 am

    Re:tell us more
    For the record, I’m looking at downloaded distros, not buy the disk or package versions. This is for personal use, and I’m cheap, and that cheapness costs some time no doubt.

    I’ve found RedHat less that dependable on a older Celeron processor for speed that other distributions. It could be the configuration that I have, possibly some hardware incompatibility. But I wasn’t happy with it. I’ll give RedHat the tops in terms of installation ease, though. And package installation. Other distros are just more difficult. I was just throwing it out there to see what the LISNews community used.

    Reply

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