Linux for Intel dual-processor systems

Am 03. May, 2002 schwätzte Alan Gore so:

> Thanks much, folks, for all the information on running Debian on a DK440LX
> dual-processor motherboard. I'm wondering: any opinions on how SuSe 8.0
> stacks up against Debian on systems like this? How would you compare the
> two distros in general? I notice that SuSe seems to come with a lot more
> applications, databases, etc. than Debian. Does either of these distros
> have a significantly better or more generally accepted packaging scheme
> than the other?

Actually, debian has way more packages than SuSE :).

I've got SuSE 8.0 and need to start playing with it fairly seriously for
some consulting.

Don't know SMP on either well enough to say anything useful. SuSE probably
has more experience with SMP systems. They were the first dist for S/390
and they've helped work on SMP. Both have SMP kernel packages, I just can't
compare how well they actually work.

SuSE has much more frontend stuff for adminning. When I last used YAST it
was pretty good for what it did. It's a lot more obvious than the debian
stuff. I believe it's improved quite a lot since then.

Debian, OTOH, mostly did a superior job with autoconfig of packages. X
being the one thing I've seen lots of problems with ( not that Brandon
Robinson hasn't done a most excellent job with X, it's just that that's a
huge job and there have been a lot of major changes to deal with in the last
couple of years ). Debian also does a better job of not stomping on local
config files than anything except slackware ( and maybe gentoo ). With
debian it's due to policy. With slackware it's due to not having an upgrade
model :).

SuSE supposedly has most of their upgrade over the Net issues worked out,
which was the main feature they needed when I last used them. They do have
non-Free Software ( including yast ), which is annoying, but they do a lot
of Free Software development that goes back to the community as well.

ciao,

der.hans
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