Subject: Which Linux to use in a research/educational envioronment?

From: Jan K Labanowski <jlabanow$at$nd.edu>
Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2004 12:28:17 -0500

Dear CCL,

With Linux getting more popular and becoming a commercial entity
one, has to make a decision what to install on his/her desktop.
The situation is even more complicated, if you need to install Linux
on hundreds of desktops. The critical points from my perspective are:

1) Which flavor/vendor of Linux will be supported by the vendors
    of application software.  As much, as I may like Debian, many
    commercial packages will not work with it (e.g., due  to file
    system differences).

2) What is the deployment cost (in a broad sense, "the real cost
    of ownership"):
    a) how much you need to pay for the license (for example
       some "Enterprise" Linux distributions)?

    b) how solid is a linux distribution and how much time you need
       to install it and make it work?

    c)  How much maintainance is required?
          i)  The "Enterprise" (and pricy) Linuces promise stability,
              easy upgrade and patching paths, and Administration tools,
              which make maintainance easier for large installed base.
              They also promise continuity and backward compatibility
              for older packages installed on your computer. 
         ii)  The "development" (and free) Linuces will require frequent
              patches, release upgrades, etc. You will most likely face
              glibc compatibility problems for many packages when
              you upgrade, have constant problems with kernel versions
              (e.g., for device drivers, which require recompilation
              for specific kernel), etc., etc...

3) Portability... Related to the above. If you compile your software on
    one Linux, can you expect it to run on many other Linux boxes,
    or only on a specific flavor of Linux.

There are obviously more issues. I will summarize the answers and
will make sure that I protect the sources (for corporate respondees,
this may be important).

Thanks in advance

Jan
-- 
Jan K. Labanowski, Ph.D.                   Tel. (574) 631-4565
Science Computing Facility                FAX (574) 631-9293
University of Notre Dame
225 Nieuwland Science Hall
Notre Dame, IN 46556-5670