RE: Oracle on Linux ..... Red Hat vs. Suse

Well, I switched from RH 6.2 to SuSE 7.2 (now I'm running 8.0) and here are my impressions:
1) RH was using a proprietary compiler (gcc 2.96) and libraries

   were incompatible with many independent pieces of software.    In particular, Oracle installation was a genuine nightmare.    No way I'm going back to RH while they're using that @#$!    compiler.
2) Availability of software for SuSE is very poor. Nothing on the rpmfind.net,

   their website is lousy and they are working very hard to make it even    worse. In particular, they used to have a subdirectory called "full-names"

   where one could find all rpm packages that were officially available for a

   given release. That was far too easy, so they removed that directory and    replaced it with the file "INDEX.gz" which you are supposed to download,   "zgrep" for the given package and then download it from it's location. 3) SuSE technical support is bad and less then useless. RH wasn't a shining

   example of customer service either, but SuSE really shows you what the word

   untermensch really means.
4) SuSE kernel is tainted and is not reporting version the way it's supposed to.

   That confuses the heck out of the utilities like OSS sound drivers. When I

   asked SuSE for help they told me to use ALSA (I've paid for OSS and with ALSA
   my mic was dead as dodo). When further pressed, they told me that kernel relinking

   is for gurus only and to stay away from that nasty stuff. Eventually, I downloaded

   a standard kernel, linked it to fit my HW, installed OSS and it worked perfectly.

   SuSE kernel has completely unexpected dependencies and cannot be compiled easily

   without the help from SuSE. The latter is impossible to get. 5) Software is installed in curious places (xmms is installed under /usr/X11 so that

   you cannot use plugin rpms) and is always at least a version behind. Ximian GNOME

   doesn't work quite well and one needs an expert to do so, otherwise, only KDE is

   left.
6) SuSE has memory test as one of the booting options which was an extremely

   convenient thing when I was installing additional memory and my DIMM was bad.
7) The latest RH betas are done with gcc 3.1 which is an official gcc release.

   As soon as that hits production, I'm switching back to RH, especially now when

   RH and Oracle Corp. resolved their differences.

Mladen Gogala
Oracle DBA
Phone: (203) 459-6855
Email: mgogala_at_oxhp.com

> -----Original Message-----
> From: lembark_at_wrkhors.com [mailto:lembark_at_wrkhors.com]
> Sent: Monday, July 22, 2002 4:10 PM
> To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
> Subject: Re: Oracle on Linux ..... Red Hat vs. Suse
>
>
>
>
> -- Christopher Royce <ffm9np_at_onsemi.com> on 07/22/02 08:53:32 -0800
>
> > Have been unable to arrive at a definitive position
>
> There isn't one. There are tradeoffs between the two distro's.
> Most of it comes down to which one you are more comfortable
> with or which one does more things (including the installation)
> that you cannot fathom.
>
> --
> Steven Lembark 2930 W. Palmer
> Workhorse Computing Chicago, IL 60647
> +1 800 762 1582
> --
> Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
> --
> Author:
> INET: lembark_at_wrkhors.com
>
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-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
-- 
Author: Gogala, Mladen
  INET: MGogala_at_oxhp.com

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