[ILUG] Dell Poweredge - best distro

[cout at eircom.net]

Gentoo dloaded and compiled for every box?
I suppose it depends on the box and your available bandwidth.

Last time I used Mandrake, I found it's gui integration 'mostly via linuxconf if I remember correctly' got in the way of what would seem to be simply edited scripts in slackware and it seemed to have alot of 'needless' gui stuff that really seems to take up alot of disk space and give little in return.
Plus starting X without so much as issuing a command on the cli was the last time I checked for the ubiquitious unwashed windows masses....errmmm, no but seriously, I'm sure it works for recruitment agency types.... 'splutter'.

Hmm I would love to distro bash all day, but ... well ok a little distro bashing... for example integrated config proggies like linuxconf or Yast/Yast2 always seemed to be a right pain in the arse.

Yast2 the last time I used it would only allow you to select /dev/ttyS[n] or /dev/isdndevice[x] for making a ppp connection through Yast and as I was trying to use /dev/cnxt0 or /dev/ttyLTS0 and I 'couldnt' supply an option for the ppp connection to Yast2, I had to go and fix all of the permissions in /etc/ppp because Yast2 didn't give me the option of selecting a device 'other' and didn't fix permissions in /etc/ppp, I had to go and to that myself... so why I spent time actually trying to use such an interface, just to end up bypassing it escapes me, seems a bit pointless to have such an interface only to end up having to circumvent it, thus to me it makes more sense to use a system like Gentoo, or (other) that does not try to hand hold in such a way.