Stormix vs. RedHat

[krylos]

I feel like I have started to break out of my first Newbie shell and I have read a lot of good stuff about Storm Linux (Hail) and I'm thinking about downloading it, then burning it onto a cd and installing from there. I have a couple of questions though.

1. I am currently using Redhat 6.2 and I am addicted to RPMs. I've heard about "Alien" and was wondering if it is as friendly as RPMs have been to me.

2. When I installed Redhat on a new hard drive I left an open partition (about half of the drive) so that I could maybe install another distro there. Is it possible to install Storm on this open part of the drive... or do I have to format the whole thing and install either/or.

3. How do I back up my current configuration of Redhat, so that if something screws up (or should I say... If I screw something up) I can bring my box back to where it is now.

4. I am running Enlightenment and Gnome, and I use the GIMP quite a bit, are any or all of these included in the download?

5. Last but not least... whats the big deal about apt-get?

any help is greatly appreciated... criticism of Storm and Redhat is also appreciated.


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krylos

"When linux is outlawed, only outlaws will have linux."
NetCrack (http://www.netcrack.homestead.com)

[CRT_Monkey]

Hey man, I recently switched from Mandrake 7.2 to Storm Linux and I think it's great so far. Apt-get is a frickin miracle if you understand how to use it. I just installed KDE2 with it and Wow!

Just to give you an idea, I typed " apt-get install kdebase <enter>

apt-get proceeded to install not only kde2 but all the dependencies! Apt-get blows RPM outa the water.

and about Alien, you can make any file into a .deb file with alien. Also you can generate a .deb file from any kind of file.
got an .rpm/tar.gz file? alien -i filename <enter> and voila!

Debian is the ( you know what I mean )

http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/cool.gif Debian http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/cool.gif

[krylos]

damn that sounds tight...

[Muzzafarath]

Choose which ever you are comfortable with.

http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/cool.gif Slackware http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/cool.gif

[veloctTX]

I run LM 7.2 and I'm happy with it but I got Debian 2.2 and Slack 7.1 also. I may just have to get Storm Linux and give it a whirl to see if I like it.

[fuzzy]

Storm is a good distro based on Debian.
Debian (not Storm, though) will (very shortly) be releasing their latest update on "potato" (security fixes, Mozilla18, kernel 2.2.18) so it may be worth the wait for 7 to 10 days.
Honesty, though, my current Storm box is doing great.
I run stable for the most part (unstable has a knack for messing things).
I did upgrade to kernel 2.4.0-test10 and it is a bit zippier.
In any case, apt-get is a wonderful tool.
Once you learn how to use dpkg, it, too, works like a charm.
I woudl give Storm Hail 2.05 a shot. It's a nice environment. Let us know what you choose and how it's working for you.
(End of ramble.) http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/smile.gif

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Politicians have one thing in common with baby diapers...
They both need to be changed regularly for the same reason.
--Anon.

[This message has been edited by fuzzy (edited 26 November 2000).]

[krylos]

I'm downloading Storm right now... As I have been for the last year and a half (or thats what it feels like) I think Ill try to install and see what happens... Until then does anyone have any suggestions for my other questions?

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krylos

"When linux is outlawed, only outlaws will have linux."
NetCrack (http://www.netcrack.homestead.com)

[fuzzy]

Storm "Hail" comes with both KDE (not KDE2) and Helix Gnome. You can run Enlightenment, Sawfish, WindowMaker, Afterstep, IceWM and,I think, that's it. Plenty, if you ask me. It comes with the Gimp since it is packaged with Helix Gnome.
Also, youwon't be addicted to rpms for long once you get the hang of apt-get. RPMS are very clumsy. But alien works well with them and tarballs (if you so choose to use it for those). Simple alien packagename.rpm and it will convert it to a .deb package. From there you would use dpkg -i packagename.deb to install it.
You can install Storm on that partition but it's a little tricky getting all of the OSes to be bootable with LILO. It can be done but it takes some adjusting. I think you can find more information about that somewhere here on LNO. (Also, if that partition is more than 8M into the harddrive, you may have issues with LILO not wanting to boot that far into the drive -- the infamous 1024th cylinder issue.)
To make sure you don't screw up your Redhat config, don't touch that partition (partitions) during the Storm install. AND HAVE A BOOT FLOPPY FOR REDHAT!! That way, if you mess things up with LILO during the storm install, you can still boot to into Redhat without a problem. Don't do anything until you have that floppy boot disk for Redhat.
Hopefully that answers your questions.

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Politicians have one thing in common with baby diapers...
They both need to be changed regularly for the same reason.
--Anon.