Questions prompted by Phil's post: 

Re avoiding the "upgrade churn" ... 
and how to decide between Mandrake 9.2 or 10.0 ? 
and where can one find a fair and balanced comparison of Linux distros? 

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On Sunday Sept 19, Phil Mattison wrote: (selected topic) 
> ... they have frozen their platforms with RedHat 7.1 and gcc 2.9.5
> to avoid wasting time/money on "upgrade churn" ... 

I whole heartedly agree with this thought. ;)) 

> ... I'm using gcc 3.3.1 with Mandrake 9.2. (I tried Mandrake 10.0 but 
> the new and "improved" KDevelop is ... well, don't get me started). 

Please do "get started" and comment further on this point. 

> ... Or does everyone only build stuff that "everyone knows" is good? 

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All three of Phil's comments above speak to the same issue, 
and it is one that I think needs further discussion and input. 

I realize that there are strong advocates for various flavors of Linux, but 
I have not been able to find a concise "fair and balanced" comparison of the 
benefits and disadvantages of the "leading" flavors .. and I would certainly 
like to see such a comparison based on the most current state of the art. 

I have been using Mandrake 8.1 for nearly three years and have stuck with it 
for two reasons: #1 once I got everything that I needed working (which was 
no easy task), and after going through just one update attempt (which was a 
disaster), I decided to stick with the time-honored philosophy, "if it ain't 
broke, don't fix it."  Seems to me that the whole update idea is a lot more 
trouble than it is worth.  Thus Phil's first comment about the "upgrade 
churn" certainly rings true to me.  Unless someone can tell me a compelling 
reason to think otherwise, I want to avoid distros that are so unstable that 
periodic updates may be needed. 

That brings me to my main question ... which distro to adopt for the new 
system that I'm planning to build.  I had thought I might want to go with 
Mandrake 10, so I'd like to know if 9.2 is a safer bet in all respects or 
only because KDevelop is problematic in some way.  Are there other 
aspects of Mandrake 10 that are possibly problematic?  I saw it at a recent 
PLUG installfest and it looked pretty good.  I'm also intrigued by the new 
Xandros. 

So, bottom line ... where can one find a good comparison of "late model" 
Linux distros features, benefits, and stability? 

Joe 

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