Installed: Disappointment

Posted: September 12th, 2006 | Author: telcor | Filed under: Information Technology (IT), Linux, Work |

During the past few weeks, I’ve had opportunity to install more than my fairshare of GNU/Linux distributions. Indeed, likely I installed more distributionsthe last three months than the prior 10+ years of using GNU/Linux. The distributions installed are:

  • cAos i386, x86_64
  • CentOS 3 i386, x86_64
  • CentOS 4 i386, x86_64
  • Fedora Core 1,2,3,4,5 i386, x86_64 (for 3,4,5 only)
  • Debian 3.1
  • Debian 4-testing
  • Mandrake <=2005
  • Mandriva 2006 i386, x86_64
  • WhiteBox 3 i386
  • Trustix 2 i386
  • Trustix 3 i386, x86_64
  • RedHat 7.3
  • RedHat 9
  • RHEL 2.1, 3, 4 i386
  • RHEL 3, 4 x86_64
  • SuSE 10 i386, x86_64
  • SLES 9, 10 i386, x86_64

Also, I’ve installed:

  • FreeBSd 4.11
  • FreeBSD 5.4 i386, x86_64
  • FreeBSD 6, 6.1 i386, x86_64

Each I installed at minimum once, some two or more times. The goal for each install was a workable server, with minimal software, absolutely no Vendor packaged server applications (Apache, PHP, Exim, etc). Developer tools were installed. No GUI, graphical stuff like X.org was installed. Each had the same partition/slice arrangement:

sda -----
        +--tmp sda1
        |
        +-swap sda2
        |
        +-- sda3

These servers are for testing purposes only, thus the somewhat strange requirements. Followingare observations on some of the installers:

CentOS/Fedora/RHEL

Easy to use. Nothing hidden. Great for installing whether using the graphical or text mode installer. Allows near full controlover everything installed, including disabling the Firewall and SELinux, which is great if you have your own configuration/preferencefor such things.

The update tool was almost fully configured at installation end. GPG keys needed imported and anything handled by the Legacy projectneeded reconfigured.

Mandrake/Mandriva

Likes to hide as much as possible. The Text mode installer is abysmal. When partitioning a disk, when finished tehre was no obviousmeans of progressing to the next step. If you don’t have a floppy drive (or handy floppy), don’t try to save the partition informationas the installer blindy tries to write to the floppy and throws continual errors requiring a restart of the system.

Their security stuff (msec) is impossible to disable during install. You have to do it after the first boot (msec 0). The Corporate Serverdoes not include the ability to install Developer Tools during installation (the Developer Tools package only installs LSB), requiringa manual install after first boot). The Graphical installer tells you little information about partitions. The partition creation tooluses a slider to change the partition size. This is extremely inaccurate and slow.

The update tool, urpmi, requires configuration after first boot in order to download updates.

Debian

Allows control over nearly every aspect of the installation. I’m slightly biased because Debian is my preferred distribution. The installeris easy to use and keeps getting better and more flexible. One annoyance, the installer requires a user be created. It will not progressunless that criteria is met.

The update tool was fully configured after install, ready to use.

cAos

Very easy to install, despite their unique installer: sidekick. No complaints here. Adequate control over everything during installation.The update system was ready to use by the end of install.

FreeBSD

The install is very easy to use, but very fragile. The slightest thing, such as inability to access an FTP site, placed the installerin a broken state, requiring a reboot and restart of the process. It seems the newer version of FreeBSD (5.5, 6.0, 6.1) have this problem.Other than that, one has full control over the process, enabling and disabling what one wishes.

The package management system sometimes needs configuration after install. Ports often need upgraded.

WhiteBox 3

The oddest of the odd. It is based on RedHat, so should work the same as CentOS, Fedora Core, etc. But it has issues. I counted a minimumof 10 times the installer had me switch between CD 1 and CD 2, for a minimal install. I stopped counting after 10.

After those notes, I leave you with this: the Mandriva installer should be scrapped. It is terrible. It’s one thing to hide functionalityto make the process smooth, its another for the functionality to not exist (why can’t I disable msec during install? why is urmpi not configured? No, configuring to use the CDs is not adequate).SuSE is not better in that regard (aside from SLES) as you is configured to use the CDs.Bad, very bad.

And that is my opinion, after umpteen installs.

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