I am going to set up an extra PC that we have here at work to run RedHat or Mandrake. I have both on CD and I am wondering which one would be the better to run and get familiar with.
At the console level there is not a great deal of difference. Mandrake is based on redhat and is therefore highly compatible with redhat. There are one or two differences - for example, the way Mandrake package the Apache webserver is rather different to redhat.
The main differences, however, are in the gui tools that are provided by each distro and in the speed with which they get new versions and updated rpms out. Mandrake seems to be edgeing it on both of these at the moment.
The other issue is support. Mandrake has very good web support but is not as widely used as redhat so, overall, there are more people who can help with redhat than the other distros.
Its really a matter of personal choice - Mandrake gets excellent reviews for its' ease of use for newbies but, personally, I've never been tempted away from redhat as my main distro.
Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't RedHat require more Hard Drive space than Mandrake. The reason I am wondering is because the only extra PC I have at work to use has two 1GB hard drives set up and I want to utilize them according to their size.
It depends on what you install. If I remeber correctly, I complete full installation of everthing is 2.4 gigs. but for a small machine like yours, you would only have to install a few things and probably could get the size around 700megs with a gui, even less if you don't install a gui interface.
Thanks for your input. I tried RedHat and could not get enough packages installed in the limited amount of space. I went to Mandrake and was able to install the packages I wanted with free space left over. I think I will stick with Mandrake until I run across a larger hard drive.
and Redhat is US. I'd say that for corporate (server) use Redhat remains easily the most popular but for desktop use Mandrake seems to get better plaudits.
Its whatever is best for you - another plus factor with mandrake is they compile the rpms by default for 'i586' which equates to the original pentium chipset. Redhat still ships rpms compiled for the old 'i386' chipset. So, if the optimisation bits of the gcc compiler are any good, the mandrake rpms should run a fraction quicker for most people as I guess 90%+ are using at least pentium class processors.
However, to put my redhat back on, you can always compile all the rpms from the srpms to i686 or whatever optimisation is best for your processor anyway. I don't think its true to say you get more in less space with mandrake - probably just that mandrake make it easier to choose groups of rpms - you can be very selective in the redhat install but its less intuitive.
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