[ic] OT: Alternatives to Red Hat

[Ed LaFrance]

At 08:43 AM 11/5/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>Quoting mike karthauser (mikek at brightstorm.co.uk):
> > on 5/11/03 7:31 am, Nicholas Cook at ncook at intropolis.com wrote:
> >
> > > Curiosity question, but why did you switch off of FreeBSD?  I ask
> > > because I have been considering switching to it from RedHat, and I don't
> > > often hear of people moving away from it.
> >
> > I was also thinking this. FreeBSD is a lot easier to keep updated that any
> > other *nix variety I have used.
> >
> > Mac osX is based on it so then you are killing 2 birds..
>
>I know there are people running IC on FreeBSD, but Interchange doesn't
>run best with FreeBSD. This is due to signal problems; the rewinding system
>calls cause problems similar to what you see on Linux with Perl 5.8.0.
>
>We have solved the largest problem with it, the one hanging in select, but
>there are still plenty of boundary cases.
>
>It also used to be important to compile your kernel to larger-than-supplied
>values for CHILD_MAX and other values, but I don't know the current state
>of affairs there.

Dear Mike and others who responded -

Thanks for piping in with your opinions. I had also asked this question of 
a trusted source whom is not on this list, and based on their response, as 
well as those made here, Debian and Slackware seem to have percolated to 
the top of the candidates list; FreeBSD is also a close contender, but with 
the caveats which Mike pointed out above.

I have the latest Debian stable release in my possession, and a suitable 
test box - that's where I'll start. Any useful learning experiences as the 
pertain to interchange and related services will be posted to this list, 
hopefully to the benefit of others.

- Ed


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