"Linux is only free if your time has no value." (Jamie Zawinski) For those whose time has some value: Ease of Installation and Configuration for PC based Operating Systems Again, there is no substitute for checking things out for yourself! The following may not be current and things could have changed with various operating systems. The links given next to each assessment should hopefully give you enough information if you wish to test things out. Warning: The following makes use of the BORROCKS! stamp. This could offend lovers of some OS distributions. "A different "distribution" of Linux is really a different operating system. They just refuse to call it that because it's bad press. But that's what the shoe fits." -- Tom Christiansen, [199910211639.KAA18701@jhereg.perl.com] The CCP14 Homepage is at http://www.ccp14.ac.uk
A Disclaimer: Note: The following are only personal opinions and experiences. They should not be considered a substitute for thinking for yourself and trying things out for yourself. Ease of installation and configuration can be a quality indicator of what Operating Systems may be more appropriate for you to use. One reason that many of these operating systems may have had initial problems is that the files on the mirrors are slightly corrupted - or sending files down a web-client request in the dodgy mode? To test his out, the NetBSD and OpenBSD distributions were tried from a few different mirror sites but they still failed (though differently in some cases). Later note is trying later versions could give a very different result. Last Update: 3rd May 2000 Summary of Operating Systems in terms of ease of installability to get OS up and going on generic PC hardware Could get Installed and running within a reasonable effort: Caldera Open Linux 2.3 (though probably not the best PC UNIX for Crystallographic usage due to it not being that obvious how to get the GNU G77 Fortran compiler easily installed) MS Windows 95/98 MS DOS 5.0/MS-DOS 6.22 (Obsolescent)/MS Windows 3.11 (Obsolescent) Mandrake Linux 7 using ISO CD Image SuSE Linux 6.4 Using evaluation version CD-ROM (Very good - but only seems to come with f2c and not the full g77) Redhat Linux 6.0 Redhat Linux 6.2 (OK - but not as robust as Redhat 6.0 to install and configure) FreeBSD UNIX 3.3 Redhat Linux 5.2 (Obsolescent) Win NT 4 (Borrocks stamp!) Redhat Linux 6.1 (Borrocks stamp!) SuSE Linux 6.2 (Borrocks stamp!) Could NOT GET INSTALLED first or second go (or did not seem worth the bother in the case of Slackware Linux) (in no particular order): Debian Linux 2.1r3 (Borrocks stamp!) NetBSD UNIX 1.4.a (Borrocks stamp!) Stampede Linux 0.89? (Borrocks stamp!) Slackware Linux 3.6 (Borrocks stamp!) Nomad Linux 3.6 (Borrocks stamp!) Mandrake Linux 6.1b (Borrocks stamp!) OpenBSD UNIX 2.5 (Borrocks stamp!)
Refer: What can go on behind the scenes to waste your time and money with buggy/badly made software. Articles on poor programming/rushed out the door/buggy software Bomb Squad by Clive Thompson: http://www.shift.com/shiftstd/SiteMap/frames/mag7.6.asp?searchfor=7.6bombsquad How To Hide^H^H^Handle Security Problems in Your Products : http://www.enteract.com/~tqbf/bug-reports.html UNIX Operating Systems - The Rise of "Worse is Better": http://www.jwz.org/worse-is-better.html
Operating System	Biased Summery on Ease Of Install on "Generic" PC Hardware
OS/2 Warp (http://www.ibm.com/software/os/warp/) Commercial Operating System.	Untried
BeOS (for PC and Mac) (http://www.be.com/) Commercial Operating System.	Untried
MS DOS 5.0 and 6.22 (obsolescent) (http://www.microsoft.com) Commercial Operating System.	Very Good to Excellent. Easy and robust install.
MS Windows 3.11 (obsolescent) (http://www.microsoft.com) Commercial Operating System.	Very Good to Excellent. Easy and robust install. Still a fair bit of available crystallographic software though most is being ported to Win95/98/NT.
MS Windows 95 (http://www.microsoft.com) Commercial Operating System.	OK to Brilliant. Can be troublesome detecting some hardware but usually most computers come with the drivers for the PC system. During first reboot can fail to see CD-ROM drive where install files are located. (Thus copying files onto hard-disk can be a way around this) Though these can be buggy so it is safer when doing a re-install to search the internet for the latest hardware drivers. Major advance in operating system design in having a "browse" command to find driver files during install. Has boot up in serval modes including command line and safe mode making it easier to recover from nasty config problems. Large variety of crystallographic programs are available for Win32 based system.
MS Windows 98 (http://www.microsoft.com) Commercial Operating System.	OK to Brilliant. Can be troublesome detecting some hardware but usually most computers come with the drivers for the PC system. During first reboot can fail to see CD-ROM drive where install files are located. (Thus copying files onto hard-disk can be a way around this) Though these can be buggy so it is safer when doing a re-install to search the internet for the latest hardware drivers. Major advance in operating system design in having a "browse" command to find driver files during install. Has boot up in serval modes including command line and safe mode making it easier to recover from nasty config problems. Large variety of crystallographic programs are available for Win32 based system.
MS Windows NT 4 (http://www.microsoft.com) Commercial Operating System.	"I am the blue screen of death. No-one hears your screams." Compared to Win 3.11, Win95 and Win98: Klunky and difficult to recover if install goes wrong or hardware config is causing problems). Large variety of crystallographic programs are available for Win32 based system but nearly all WinNT crystallographic software will run quite nicely on Win95 or Win98. It can have great difficulties running older DOS/Win16 based crystallographic programs.
FreeBSD 3.3 UNIX (http://www.freebsd.org) (http://www.uk.freebsd.org) (Download Mirrors: http://www.freebsd.org/handbook/mirrors.html) (Download Mirrors: http://www.itworks.com.au/~gavin/FBSDsites.php3) (CCP14 Dual booting BSD UNIX Guide: http://www.ccp14.ac.uk/solution/bsdunix/index.html) Freely Available Operating System.	By the standards of UNIX, Very Good to Brilliant! Good linear "novice" install though you may have to know your hardware decently. Has good spread of "canned" installs (minimum, X user, etc) It is easy to find the floppy boot/install files and FreeBSD has something no Linux at present seems to have:- "generic" download FTP sites linked into the install so you don't have to remember ftp site names or paths. (seems trivial but like the "browse" option in Win95/98 install, this can be be a life saver. Plus the install manager allows you to go back and forward doing very slick post configuration installs, changing the download site or media type. This config manager can also be run after installation (/stand/sysinstall) to do post configuration. You may need to do an install just to get to the point of finding out what X-windows you require for your card (using Redhat 6.0 to figure this out can be a lazy way of finding out). If you are going into the unknown with a new computer, you may need access to the internet via another computer to get the driver/configuration information (especially for the monitor). Using the QNX GUI Operating System for PC which fits on a single bootable floppy disk and includes a web-browser could be a life-saver here http://www.QNX.com/. Some very good Crystallographic applications not generally available for MS-Windows make it highly desirable to consider Multiple Boot PCs that can handle Windows and a UNIX of some description. FreeBSD can run Linux binaries and Crystallographic programs such as Crunch, Platon/System S/Sir97 tend to compile without problems if you use the compiler flags given on the program documentation or the CCP14 installation run-throughs.
Redhat Linux 5.2 (becoming obsolescent) (http://www.redhat.com) (Download Mirrors: http://www.redhat.com/mirrors.html) (CCP14 Dual booting Linux Guide: http://www.ccp14.ac.uk/solution/linux/index.html#install) Freely Available Operating System.	By the standards of UNIX, Good to Excellent. Good linear install and very good at detecting hardware. If doing a network based install, the major pain is manually entering the FTP address and subdirectory path (figuring out the correct path) and not doing any typos. Generally excellent at detecting most commong graphics cards and configuring X-Windows accordingly. You are limited to the default Win95 like X-Windows managers unless extra effort is put in. Has a reputation of turning on more internet services that are really needed and you may need to know how to turn these off. Though this is an option during the installation procedure to turn off these services if you know what they are. May require some post install config to insert all the network information using the linuxconf program. Patching up the system with security patches/bug fixes via the internet is easy if you know about the AutoRPM software. Some very good Crystallographic applications not generally available for MS-Windows make it highly desirable to consider Multiple Boot PCs that can handle Windows and a UNIX of some description.
Redhat Linux 6.0 (http://www.redhat.com) (Download Mirrors: http://www.redhat.com/mirrors.html) (CCP14 Dual booting Linux Guide: http://www.ccp14.ac.uk/solution/linux/index.html#install) Freely Available Operating System.	By the standards of UNIX, Very Good to Excellent. Good linear install and very good at detecting hardware. As per Redhat 5.2, if doing a network based install, the major pain is manually entering the FTP address and subdirectory path (figuring out the correct path) and not doing any typos. Generally excellent at detecting most commong graphics cards and configuring X-Windows accordingly. Has the option to install the KDE GUI Desktop over Xwindows. Redhat a reputation of turning on more internet services that are really needed and you may need to know how to turn these off. Though this is an option during the installation procedure to turn off these services if you know what they are. Patching up the system with security patches/bug fixes via the internet is easy if you know about the AutoRPM software. If you are going into the unknown with a new computer (e.g., you find out when you turn up that it has no documentation and Redhat probing says a Sis 5598 graphics card and it is connected to a Smile 17" Monitor), you may need access to the internet via another computer to get the driver/configuration information (especially for the monitor). Using the QNX GUI Operating System for PC which fits on a single bootable floppy disk and includes a web-browser could be a life-saver here http://www.QNX.com/. Some very good Crystallographic applications not generally available for MS-Windows make it highly desirable to consider Multiple Boot PCs that can handle Windows and a UNIX of some description. Though be wary some weird things have happened between Redhat 5.2 and Redhat 6.0 that have been causing problems with Platon/System S in the soft links (workaround in new version of System S) and the version of the "Bash" Shell. If you have problems, switch to using "csh". Redhat 6.1 supposedly fixes some instabilities that were present in Redhat 6.0 so you may be forced to try upgrading/installing to a later version of Redhat if you strike problems.
Redhat Linux 6.1 (http://www.redhat.com) (Download Mirrors: http://www.redhat.com/mirrors.html) (CCP14 Dual booting Linux Guide: http://www.ccp14.ac.uk/solution/linux/index.html#install) Freely Available Operating System.	Redhat 6.0 almost had a perfect, easy install but somehow, things have gone a bit strange with Redhat 6.1. At least on the systems tried, weird things such as: not installing KDE when requested; missing network configuration on reboot requiring manual setup with linuxconf and the losing of the menu to turn off un-needed deamons during the install is a downward step. Also for a Toshiba laptop, even when using the now "bootable" pcmcia.img floppy disk, crashing during install where it didn't before is now a problem. Comments on the internet newsgroups have been on the ilk that the people at Redhat have been too glued to the stock-market tickertape rather than coding away at the essentials. If/when you do get Redhat 6.1 to run to your satisfaction: Some very good Crystallographic applications not generally available for MS-Windows make it highly desirable to consider Multiple Boot PCs that can handle Windows and a UNIX of some description. Though be wary some weird things have happened between Redhat 5.2 and Redhat 6.x that have been causing problems with Platon/System S in the soft links (workaround in new version of System S) and the version of the "Bash" Shell. If you have problems, switch to using "csh".
Redhat Linux 6.2 (http://www.redhat.com) (Download Mirrors: http://www.redhat.com/mirrors.html) (CCP14 Dual booting Linux Guide: http://www.ccp14.ac.uk/solution/linux/index.html#install) Freely Available Operating System.	By the standards of UNIX, Good to Excellent. Good linear install and very good at detecting hardware. As per Redhat 5.2, if doing a network based install, the major pain is manually entering the FTP address and subdirectory path (figuring out the correct path) and not doing any typos. Generally excellent at detecting most commong graphics cards and configuring X-Windows accordingly. Has the option to install the KDE GUI Desktop over Xwindows. Redhat a reputation of turning on more internet services that are really needed and you may need to know how to turn these off. Though this is an option during the installation procedure to turn off these services if you know what they are. Patching up the system with security patches/bug fixes via the internet is easy if you know about the AutoRPM software. If you are going into the unknown with a new computer, you may need access to the internet via another computer to get the driver/configuration information (especially for the monitor). Using the QNX GUI Operating System for PC which fits on a single bootable floppy disk and includes a web-browser could be a life-saver here http://www.QNX.com/. Some very good Crystallographic applications not generally available for MS-Windows make it highly desirable to consider Multiple Boot PCs that can handle Windows and a UNIX of some description. Though be wary some weird things have happened between Redhat 5.2 and Redhat 6.x that have been causing problems with Platon/System S in the soft links (workaround in new version of System S) and the version of the "Bash" Shell. If you have problems, switch to using "csh".
SuSE Linux 6.2 (http://www.suse.com) (Mirrors: http://www.suse.com/ftp_new.html) (Mirror at HENSA/UK Mirror: ftp://ftp.mirror.ac.uk/sites/ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/6.2/) Freely Available Operating System.	SuSE Linux 6.2 (similar to previous versions) has a non-linear install but is relatively friendly in allowing you to browse around. At the end of the download of files, it can manually ask about hardware questions it already found the answers to in the auto-probing. However, this is an opporunity to stuff up the installation. However, you can normally get Linux installed up to a command line with not that much of a hassle - and also prompts whether you wish to enable portmapper and/or inetd based network services (No is a good idea for a client system). Compared to Redhat, SuSE 6.2 seems quite woeful in terms of setting up the X-server in a user-friendly fashion as part of the installation. Consider using the XF86Setup program which is a relatively slick graphical program for setting up the Xserver.
SuSE Linux 6.4 (http://www.suse.com) (Mirrors: http://www.suse.com/ftp_new.html) (Mirror at HENSA/UK Mirror: ftp://ftp.mirror.ac.uk/sites/ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/evaluation-6.4/) Freely Available Operating System. (ISO CD-ROM Image: ftp://ftp.mirror.ac.uk/sites/ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/) Freely Available Operating System.	By the standards of UNIX, quite excellent for the CD-ROM version. The GUI based SuSE Linux 6.4 install was very good. The evaluation version single CD-ROM only seems to come with f2c (no visible g77). Unlike previous versions of the SuSE Linux installer, it correctly detected the Video card and had no problem installing and configuring the correct version of X. Configuration of the sound card and network card were excellent, but there was no opportunity to see what network services were running and turn them off. (this is the same with the latest Redhats) Browsing of Windows partitions installed, gimp nicely installed. No obvious way to turn services off and Apache web server installed and enabled by default (not good). Nmap shows following services installed: ftp, telnet, time, finger, http, pop-3, sunrpc, auth, login, shell, printer, X11.
Caldera Open Linux 2.3 (http://www.calderasystems.com/) (Mirror at HENSA/UK Mirror: ftp://ftp.mirror.ac.uk/sites/ftp.calderasystems.com/pub/eDesktop/iso-images/) Freely Available Operating System.	By the standards of UNIX and Windows, Totally Brilliant!. While you do have to either buy or burn up your own install CD-ROM (apparantly there is no FTP or HTTP install); the install procedure is very brilliant when performed from either a boot floppy or "while running MS-Windows making the boot floppy un-necessary". The people who did this know their design and ability to probe the hardware. You are simultaneously asked questions via a friendly X-Windows GUI while the program files are being loaded; saving much time. If you answer the questions quickly before the copying of install files is finished, you are given a GUI game of Tetris to keep you amused if you want to take up the challenge (nice touch). (Though I vaguely remember similar things were possible with an old version of OS/2 I played with years ago could do this type of thing(?)) It should be noted that one SCSI based PC system failed to boot up in Open Linux after the install (even though it had no trouble during the install) and another (Toshiba Laptop) showed that 64 Meg of RAM should be considered a minimum amount of RAM as 32 Meg is un-useable. However, this could be due to the "Full install" CD-ROM being used and there is a minimum installation option/CD-ROM that was not tested. It is amazing just how a very slick install can bias an opinion on what probably should have deserved a bollocks stamp for the amount of RAM required and freezing during booting up on the SCSI based system after a nice easy install on one system. Also, custom requirements for crystallography such as installing the Fortran compiler was not tested. Open Linux also installs a major amount of deamons but has a very user friendly program on the program bar in KDE to remove most of these. Again, this was for a full install and things may be different on a minimum install.
Debian Linux 2.1r3 (http://www.debian.org/) (Mirrors: http://www.debian.org/misc/README.mirrors) (Mirror at HENSA/UK Mirror: ftp://ftp.mirror.ac.uk/sites/ftp.debian.org/debian/) Freely Available Operating System.	May be trying Debian again by burning another CD as it is meant to he the most popular Linux Distribution at the moment. However, a few tries at install implied it is nowhere near as slick as Redhat. It does not seem to have the option for FTP or HTTP based internet install which you would think would be mandatory for a mainstrean Linux distribution.
NetBSD 1.4.a (http://www.netbsd.org/) (Mirrors: http://www.netbsd.org/Sites/net.html) (Mirror at HENSA/UK Mirror: ftp://ftp.mirror.ac.uk/sites/ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/) Freely Available Operating System.	First set of floppy images (tried different floppies) did not seem to work and just hung the computer (possibly corrupt on this particular mirror). Try again off a different mirror. Gets further but like OpenBSD, fails on probing the SCSI card.
Stampede Linux 0.89? (http://www.stampede.org/) (Mirrors: http://www.stampede.org/mirrors.php3) Freely Available Operating System.	Install did not work. Will have to find notes again to see what happened. Don't think I got beyond the boot floppy stage.
Slackware Linux 3.6 (http://www.slackware.org/) (Mirrors: http://www.cdrom.com/titles/os/slackwar.htm) (Mirror at HENSA/UK Mirror: ftp://ftp.mirror.ac.uk/sites/ftp.cdrom.com/pub/linux/slackware/) Freely Available Operating System.	Could not be bothered wading through which combination of boot disks. A Borrocks! stamp with unacceptably little wasting of time.
Nomad Linux 1.0 (http://www.nomadlinux.com) (Mirrors: http://www.nomadlinux.com/install.html) Freely Available Operating System.	Did not get beyond the boot floppies. Could be worth having a look again in the future as looks like some interesting science oriented stuff being done here. ("based on the encap package managing system for ease of installation and upgrades") Have requested that Hensa/UK Mirrors consider mirroring this in the UK. There is some good general help information here: http://nomadlinux.com/linuxreadme.html
Mandrake Linux 6.1b (http://www.linux-mandrake.com/) (Mirrors: http://www.linux-mandrake.com/en/ftp.php3) (Mirror at SUNSITE UK: http://sunsite.org.uk/packages/Mandrake/6.1b/) Freely Available Operating System.	"Boot failed". Check floppy disk by reformatting floppy disk with same computer, using same version of rawrite2 on burning a Redhat image - which did boot.
Mandrake Linux7 (http://www.linux-mandrake.com/) (Mirrors: http://www.linux-mandrake.com/en/ftp.php3) (Mirror at SUNSITE UK: http://sunsite.org.uk/packages/Mandrake/6.1b/) (ISO CD-ROM Image: ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/Linux/distributions/mandrake/iso/) Freely Available Operating System.	Mandrake Linux 7 using ISO CD Image (Good to Excellent using GUI based Custom Development install) G77 Fortran compiler is installed using this pathway as well as doing a generic setup. X desktop has a very good internet updating facility and well as general management tools. Easily can get rid of superfluous network demons running on startup by going into DrakConf and manually point and click on services (be wary that if you set the Security Level to the "Highest Setting" users will not be able to run any programs by default (including "ls" and "pwd").
OpenBSD 2.5 (http://www.openbsd.org/) (Mirrors: http://www.openbsd.org/ftp.html) (Mirror at HENSA/UK Mirror: ftp://ftp.mirror.ac.uk/sites/ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/2.5/) Freely Available Operating System.	Boots but like NetBSD, fails and dies on probing the hardware.