Selection criteria

[James Knott]

Phillip Mills wrote:
> I hope this doesn't generate any kind of "my distribution can beat up 
> your distribution" argument, but I'm interested in knowing what 
> selection criteria people used when deciding to put Linux on a system.  
> In part I wonder whether there's any agreement that requirement X leads 
> to solution Y, and in part I'd like to examine whether a new Linux user 
> should be steered one way or another depending on what they need to get 
> out of it.
> 
> (If you've had reasons to put different distributions on different 
> systems, that's really interesting!)
> 
> For example, a couple of years ago when I decided to add a Linux system 
> to my home collection it went this way:
> 1) Since the only net access the system would have would be for me to 
> dial out with one of my Macs and then use that as a gateway, I was 
> willing to pay for a comprehensive set of CDs.
> 2) Among the ones that were on the shelves in stores I knew, I selected 
> the one with the most up-to-date kernel and developer tools.
> On that day, the winner was SuSE 8.1 Pro.
> 
> (OTOH, about 8 years ago, my approach where I worked was to download 
> whatever minimal system I could find, because the only requirement was 
> to match the zero dollars in the software budget.)
> 
> I suspect others have used more analysis and broader requirements.  (?)

Long before I ever tried "DOS", I was using VAX/VMS at work, so I knew 
what a real OS could do.  So even though I was using DOS for a few 
years, I was looking for something better.  In 1992, I switched to OS/2 
and used it for over 10 years.  I also started hearing about Linux a few 
years back and started buying some books etc.  I then downloaded a set 
of Slackware floppies and ran it on an experimental system.  I then 
tried Mandrake on a ThinkPad at work and a bit after that, Red Hat. 
When Red Hat decided to leave the desktop market, I switched to SuSE.
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