[NTLUG:Discuss] Whats the most Vanilla Linux Distro...if there is such a thing

[MadHat]

On Thu, 2003-09-11 at 15:39, Lance Simmons wrote:
> * MadHat <madhat at unspecific.com> [030911 15:04]:
> > On Thu, 2003-09-11 at 13:31, NTLUG wrote:
> > > 
> > > When I say tainted...with RedHat, they tinker with everything so in
> > > many cases if you get something on the internet, you are going to
> > > run into some problems installing it.  I would like to find a distro
> > > that doesn't have that kinda of problem.
> > 
> > No such thing.  All of them make changes (regardless of what anyone
> > here might say).  
> 
> It's true that all distros have _some_ problems about installing random
> programs one finds on the Internet.  Still, some distros are markedly
> better than others in that regard.  There's a better answer to the
> initial question than "no such thing".

No there aren't.  If you are looking for a distro that doesn't taint,
you won't find one, and anyone who says "distro X is good about..." is
just saying they like the way distro X taints the code.  I personally
have no problems with using RedHat (most of the problems I hear, I can
not reproduce on my boxes), we know Chris links SuSE (which is a good
distro as well), we know others have their preferred distro, none of
which are perfect, none of which do raw installs from completely
original source without any modifications or has a perfect environment
for everything you are going to download.  Each developer is going to
build their app on their preferred distro and on that distro and/or OS,
it is going to build fine in most cases.  Now take that same source to
another distro, or GNU tools based OS (like a BSD or other OS with GNU
tools installed), and you might have problems,  and no matter how good
the config script is, there may be failed dependencies, or code that
does not work because of subtle changes that the developers had not
thought of or have not had a bug report for or what ever.  The whole
point of a distribution to get get everything to work together.  Yes
there are some "standards" that should/could be followed, but it isn't
always particle.  So the answer is still, there is no such thing as a
distribution that does not taint the code or make changes or that you
will be able to install all software from the "Internet" without any
work or massaging.

-- 
MadHat at Unspecific.com
`But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
`Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: `we're all mad here...'
   -- Lewis Carroll - _Alice's_Adventures_in_Wonderland_