Report from the Front

October 1st, 1994 by Magnus Y. Alvestad in

The secratary of this volunteer group gives us the scoop on two Linux distributions.
Your rating: None

The Linux Review Group is a group of Linux users willing to donate some of their spare time to testing Linux distributions. We have approximately forty testers, plus one secretary; me. Each time a distributor wants his product tested by us, five of our testers get a copy of it and review it according to a few criteria that we've chosen. This is all volunteer work, so now and then someone drops out and doesn't deliver his report. Therefore, I cannot guarantee that all the products we've looked at have been tested by as many as five people.

MCC Interim 1.0+

This is a free distribution, which we got by ftp from ftp.mcc.ac.uk in /pub/linux/mcc-interim/1.0+. It's available at nic.funet.fi, tsx-11.mit.edu, and sunsite.unc.edu

The best thing about MCC is the documentation: a 60+ page dvi document guides the user through the installation. There are also ASCII excerpts from this file.

The installation is menu-driven. The menus are not fancy (no color, scroll bars, etc.), but error conditions (i.e., no disk in drive) are caught.

There are couple of problems. The descriptions of the packages are a tad too short, and don't say whether each package is recommended or optional. Also, it displays the disk space use of each package after it has been installed. It would be nice to get that information before choosing whether to install a package.

Compared to Slackware, this is a pretty slim package. No soundcard support, no X-Windows, no TeX, etc. One tester complained that some of the “standard” utilities that he was used to from Slackware were missing. How-ever, instructions for getting these parts are included. MCC only takes about 30MB of disk space; ideal if you're a newcomer to Linux and would like to try it out. There is no UMSDOS support, however, so you'll have to repartition your disk.

Linux Quarterly—Spring 1994

This is a commercial CD-ROM distribution from Morse Telecommunications.

A very polished package, Linux Quarterly comes with an MS Windows installation program. One of our testers wasn't able to get this installation program to run, but that might have been due to some local misconfiguration. The documentation is well-written and fairly complete. Of course, like most Linux material, it's not intended for the computer novice, but if you have some previous DOS or Unix experience, it'll do fine.

The CD contains about everything you'll want or need, including MCC, Slackware, an image of the Linux area on tsx-11, etc. It can provide hours of fun for the inquisitive. Free tech support is included in the package.

Magnus Y Alvestad (magnus@ii.uib.no) is a student of computer science who is the current keeper of the world record for single-machine factoring (113 digits). He is also the secretary of the Linux Review Group.

__________________________


Special Magazine Offer -- Free Gift with Subscription
Receive a free digital copy of Linux Journal's System Administration Special Edition as well as instant online access to current and past issues. CLICK HERE for offer

Linux Journal: delivering readers the advice and inspiration they need to get the most out of their Linux systems since 1994.

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.
Anonymous's picture

it's been a long time

On October 10th, 2007 Anonymous (not verified) says:

it's been a long time :)
Ibrahim

Post new comment

Please note that comments may not appear immediately, so there is no need to repost your comment.
The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <pre> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd> <i> <b>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.

More information about formatting options

Newsletter

Each week Linux Journal editors will tell you what's hot in the world of Linux. You will receive late breaking news, technical tips and tricks, and links to in-depth stories featured on www.linuxjournal.com.
Sign up for our Email Newsletter

Featured Videos

Setting up an https server in Apache is easy. This tutorial covers how to create and sign your ssl certificate as well as how to configure the web server.

From the Magazine

January 2009, #177

It's a battle as old as time: good vs. evil. Fortunately, Linux and FOSS are on our side as we wage the battle against those who try to steal our secrets and invade our systems.

Checking your system's security is best done sooner rather than later. Test the locks with our article on security verification; find out how to use PAM to help secure your systems; use MinorFS and AppArmor to implement discretionary access control; learn more about Samba security in part III of our series; use Darknet to help detect bots and secure your systems; use the Yubikey to increase your site's security; and don't forget to lock the doors, because a cold boot attack could render your security useless if somebody has physical access to your computer.

But, we're not just about sowing the seeds of fear. We also show you how to use memcached in Rails, how to manage multiple servers efficiently, how to deploy applications easily with Capistrano, how to manage your videos with MythVideo, how to mix it up a bit (your audio that is), and even play a few games.

Read this issue