3 Distributions Power Up Linux (eWeek) [LWN.net]

eWeek Labs tested SuSE Linux 8.0, Mandrake Linux 8.2 and Red Hat Linux 7.3. They say "... the penguins have made some great strides in usability - to the point that users unfamiliar with Linux could comfortably find their way through a machine installed with any of these Linux variations." (Thanks to Brian Park)

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3 Distributions Power Up Linux (eWeek)

Posted Jun 12, 2002 13:02 UTC (Wed) by mwilck (subscriber, #1966) [Link]

Finally a review that focuses on the most important Distro feature - ease and flexibility of configuration and customization. I am sick and tired of reading reviews that focus on installation on particular hardware, and then start discussing "features" such as the KDE version included which are the same across all current distros anyway.

I don't agree with some of their findings, though.

While it is true that yast2 is more powerful than Mandrake's and particularly RedHat's configuration tools, it comes with that nasty comrade, SuSEconfig. Unless SuSEconfig is disabled, power users simply shouldn't try to fine-tune their system with Unix' most powerful configuration tool, vi.

More than that, linuxconf and, in particular, webmin are comfortable tools that outperform Yast2 in almost every aspect (except, of course, distibution-specific software upgrades). And they coexist with vi.

Wrt firewall and security configuration, the authors obviously overlooked Mandrake's fabulous bastille tool. I can't think of a better guide to system security.