Re: Linux distro

On Wed, 1 Aug 2007, Joseph S wrote:

> My small gripes about Ubuntu are:
> 1) rpm, for all its faults, is still better than using apt

This is drfiting off-topic for this list, but this statement is so odd I
can't let it go unchallenged.  You must have some odd criteria for
"better" or run into something quite unusual, because it's rare one finds
people suggesting a preference for rpm over apt.  I've spent countless
hours of my life stuggling with rpm over the last decade, and it's only
recently using it has become a more bearable situation due to better
dependency tools such as yum.  apt is rarely hard to deal with.  I'm sure
you've got a story as to how you decided rpm is better than apt, but I
wouldn't agree and I think you'll find it a difficult opinion to defend.

> 2) It doesn't include xen support like Fedora does

Ubuntu has had Xen packages available since the 6.10 release:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/XenVirtualMachine

> But my big gripe is that it won't let me run 32 bit apps on my 64 bit
> system, which means a lot of firefox plugins don't work.

32-bit apps not building/running correctly on a 64 bit installation is not
a problem limited to Ubuntu; it's an equally messy problem on all Linux
distributions, and the workarounds for each are similar.  On the topic of
Firefox plug-ins:

Fedora/RHEL:
http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/linux-flash-java-realplayer-under-64bit-firefox.html

Ubuntu:  http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=1174435

--
* Greg Smith gsmith@gregsmith.com http://www.gregsmith.com Baltimore, MD