[ale] RealAudio on linux; distro reccomendations

[Frank Zamenski]

Joe,

I like Jeff's take. Myself, I've been playing around with Linux since '95,
but never too seriously until last year. I started with Slackware (when a
successful install was still dicey! :), then went to RH, also tried Caldera
2.2. No experience with the others. The transition was not easy way back
then, I was a DOS, then OS/2, junkie for years, then had to go the MS Win95
route when it rolled out as a consequence of doing desktop support in the
90s, which I absolutely hated to do! (Very easy to get into a 'rut' and to
maintain that comfort, and DOS and Warp were *my* environments! :) So Linux
was a part time thing with me for several years. I use Linux much more now,
mostly at the office as a natural extension of doing Solaris sysadmin work,
yet I still only use Linux occasionally at home, as after "a hard day at the
command line" (mostly joking), I do admit a certain predisposition to
mindlessly using NT on the internet when I'm tired. When I eventually build
an Athlon with a big SCSI drive and lotsa RAM, that will change though. I
set up VMWare 2.02 with NT client under RH 6.2 on my brother's Athlon 500,
and also slapped it on an anemic RH 6.1 P166 at work, and just love it to
death (even on the slow box)!

While all Linux distros obviously have strengths and weaknesses (minor at
that), I would cast my lot with Red Hat and Caldera also. RH for obvious
support almost anywhere all day long, and Caldera as it's designed for the
hectic IS business environment i.e. installs easy,  lots of GUI tools. But
then, RH (and other distro) installs are getting darn simple now, too, thus
install ease is becoming almost moot. The RPMs supported by both are still
pretty slick though. With your co-worker accustomed to InstallShield, he'd
appreciate these.

Perhaps VMWare might ease his transition a/a, too. He can then maintain his
comfort level, use most of his familiar stuff, and learn Linux as he goes,
since what the heck, Linux would always be running under his NT anyway and
should intice him. But he might want to keep his NT server(s) for a while,
and compliment them with a Linux only testbed server, integrating it into
his LAN as he learns on his VM workstation, whatever.

<totally OT>

One thing I can say about 'crummy ole DOS': not having been 'bred' in an IT
environment all my working life like some others here, I attribute knowing
it well (started with it in the late 80s, mastered it by the early 90s) to
giving me an edge in picking up general *nix command line stuff fairly
easily. With DOS now 'dead' and an MS point and click raised generation
abundant now -- many of whom couldn't do basic DOS for neither love nor
money nor life (I've helped many younger associate desktop support techs set
up a custom autoexec.bat or config.sys files in WinWhateverFlavor, and I'd
find it often utterly exasperating! ) -- many just never will make the
transition to Linux in it's present incarnations unless they have the
motivation and drive. Does your co know any command line anything?  ;-)

</totally OT>

Frank Z.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Jeff Hubbs" <Jhubbs at niit.com>
To: ale at ale.org
To: "Joe Knapka" <jknapka at earthlink.net>; <ale at ale.org>
Sent: Wednesday, October 04, 2000 5:14 PM
Subject: RE: [ale] RealAudio on linux; distro reccomendations


> Joe -
>
> I worked with NT and lesser Windows almost exclusively from 1995-1998 and
> although I had messed w/ Linux most non-seriously during that time, I
didn't
> start pursuing Linux in earnest until Fall 1998.  I am now roughly evenly
> split.
>
> I suppose that first and foremost your friend needs to understand that
LINUX
> IS DIFFERENT.  I feel that Linux rewards hard work and study in ways and
to
> a degree that NT cannot.  The recommendation to use Linux is probably
sound,
> however, unless cost or some other factor takes priority, then he probably
> ought to take the path where he has the greater comfort level.  About a
year
> and a half ago, I needed to create a server environment for a bunch of NT
> workstations and at that time, I had a better comfort level with NT than I
> did Linux/Samba, so I went NT.  Today, I'd probably go Linux/Samba because
> my comfort level there has gotten to the point that I feel I can reap
Linux'
> benefits without worrying about not really knowing what I'm doing.  Your
> friend should continue learning Linux in any case!
>
> Red Hat or Caldera are two suggestions for distros for him to work from.
>
> - Jeff
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Joe Knapka [mailto:jknapka at earthlink.net]
> > Sent: Wednesday, October 04, 2000 3:39 PM
> > To: ale at ale.org
> > Subject: [ale] RealAudio on linux; distro reccomendations
> >
> >
> > Hi folks,
> >
> > I just got a call from a co-worker who's setting up a
> > live video streaming server for a client, based on
> > Real.com products (RealProducer, RealPlayer etc.). I
> > don't know much of the details, but he talked to the
> > people at Real.com, and they recommended he go with
> > a Linux server rather than NT for stability reasons. Cool.
> >
> > But Mark, my co-worker, has zero Linux knowledge, though
> > he knows his way around NT fairly well. His first question
> > to me was, "About Linux: how easy is it?" Then he told me
> > he'd picked up a Linux "Teach Yourself" kind of book
> > at a local drugstore (this is in NYC...), and it came
> > with a Red Hat CD.
> >
> > I have no idea how to answer that question. I mean, if
> > you have no *nix experience at all, you can still probably
> > get a Red Hat box going in a couple hours, but then what?
> >
> > So has anyone on the list jumped from a Windows-only
> > background into Linux recently? What kind of experience
> > was that?
> >
> > Finally, what do y'all think would be the best distro
> > for someone in that situation? (I know Slackware is right
> > out, but it's the only one I have much experience with.)
> >
> > Thanks,
> > -- Joe
> >
> > --
> > *** Joseph Knapka ***
> > In any formula, constants (especially those obtained from handbooks)
> > are to be treated as variables.
> > --
> > To unsubscribe: mail majordomo at ale.org with "unsubscribe ale"
> > in message body.
> >
> --
> To unsubscribe: mail majordomo at ale.org with "unsubscribe ale" in message
body.
>

--
To unsubscribe: mail majordomo at ale.org with "unsubscribe ale" in message body.