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I would like to know which is better for me to use. Obviously you just can't say X, so here is some of my background.
I have been using Linux for many years now. IIRC I started with the 0.9? kernel. I started with slackware, then moved to debian, then Redhat, now Mandrake. The last version I am using is Mandrake 8.1. I occasionally update my kernel but build in XFS. Since Mandrake supports XFS, rather than downloading the kernel source from kernel.org, and patching for XFS, I download the Mandrake rpm, but find that enormously confusing ( with all the patches and no instructions ). So badsically I still go with lernel.org ( about once a year).
Technically I am realtively adept, being a proffesional C++ programmer. I use Linux generally on two machines ( alltough that changes with configurations ). One machine acts as a CVS server, db server, print server, file server, and local web server ( it only serves my LAN, with things like the SGI STL documentation or the PYthon html documentation loaded on it ). The second is often I use as dual boot ( hopefully for Linux programming work when I can find that ).
I connect to the net through a Win machine ( for proffesional reasons many places I need Windows to connect), and don't use a proxy ( I really don't want to export what's on other machines ). However I can share directories between any two machines. This means no autoupdates. A distro which does something like produce a batch script ( I have cygwin on my machine and most scripting languages ) which I can run on my WIn machine, download needed packages into some agreed on location, then do a batch upgrade from the downloaded packages would be nice.
I really don't have a lot of time to maintain the setups I have. It would be nice to setup once and only spend a little time updating. However 'Coffee time' is not a problem ( meaning time I go off and have a cup of coffee, ie compile time ), as long as I come back and discover that the computer has not stalled after 5 minutes requiring some user interaction.
I would stick to Mandrake but for one thing. The setup I have now is OK, but there are two things I needed/strongly wanted: the latest gcc/g++, KDE 3. KDE 3 has provided me all sorts of nightmares, and g++ 3 has given me problems with compatability with older so's ( for example libxml2.so ) compiled with gcc 2.9x. So a distro that recompiles everything when I update looks real attractive to me, as long as it doesn't mess up my config files ( for example I really don't understand my bind configuration, and it's a pain when I lose then, I also don't want to lose my cron jobs ).
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