[nylug-talk] [NYLXS - HANGOUT] Re: Benefits/drawbacks of building Linux as a package [was: Looking for recommendations on Linux Distro]

[Michael Werneke]

On Sun, Mar 16, 2008 at 5:20 PM, Michael Werneke <michael.werneke at gmail.com>
wrote:

>
> > Heh. The HURD is a mess. The partitioning scheme is so incredibly
> convoluted and confusing that it will most certainly never be a mainstream
> OS. Granted, it may indeed be a superior way to partition disks but no one
> but a hardcore geek will ever gr0k it enough to actually use it. Even
> Linux's way of naming disks and partitions is so greatly different from
> Windows, that newbies to linux have an incredibly difficult time wrapping
> their heads around it.
>
> And as far as package management goes for kernels, I gave up on compiling
> my own kernels a long time ago. I found that they were just not worth the
> effort for my own uses.  When apt (and now aptitude) install new kernels,
> they both keep the old kernels and then put the newest kernel at the top of
> the grub.conf so if the new kernel happens to panic, or just won't boot
> properly I can just reboot and pick the next kernel on the list. As far as
> there being issues with pre-packaged kernels, the only ones I've had have
> been with obscure and antiquated hardware. I have a DEC Alpha running Debian
> Sarge and the initrd had been pointing to the wrong place to find the /
> partition. I don't remember what the workaround was, but shortly thereafter
> there was an update to the installer and it Just Worked(tm) after that. Your
> mileage may vary.
>
> -Mike
>


Whups. I wrote grub.conf insteal of menu.lst.