Are Linux distro's as stable as Macs?

Tom-eg

As above. Also which Linux distro's are the most stable?

Tom Dunne

Tom-eg wrote: »

As above. Also which Linux distro's are the most stable?

Define "most stable".

Oh, and correct me if I am wrong, but isn't OS X built on Unix?

FruitLover

"Macs" is not an operating system. Presumably you're talking about MacOS? Most likely OSX? Which is based around BSD UNIX.

It's difficult to quantify a linux distribution's "stability", as the underlying hardware will never be standardized.

Personally, I reckon you can't go far wrong with Slackware or Gentoo. Debian is also known for being quite stable, and secure (up until the recent SSH fiasco).

ArseBurger

Tom Dunne wrote: »

Oh, and correct me if I am wrong, but isn't OS X built on Unix?

Linux is System V

OS X is BSD

In effect...

An Fear Aniar

I've never used a Mac. I think it's probably much better than a Mac because you don't have all that proprietary lock-in carry on. In terms of stability and security I'd imagine they're similar.


.

boidey

it really does depend on what you define as stable and what exactly you are doing with your OS. TBH I have found that with macs either things work or they don't. As a user there is little option to "lift the bonnet" which I found to be frustrating. OTH linux is so configurable and flexible. Another factor to consider is unsupported hardware / periphals in linux. This is not such an issue with macs i think.
All that said set your linux box up properly and it can run for decades without falling over. If its good enough for NASA i will take that as a good enough endorsement.

ntlbell

Tom Dunne wrote: »

Define "most stable".

Oh, and correct me if I am wrong, but isn't OS X built on Unix?

FreeBSD not linux

PogMoThoin

Linux distros are as stable as the hardware they're ran on. The idea is to source components with good linux support, Ati and Creative are 2 manufacturers I've found troublesome.

Ati have only lately released a proper 2D driver and only yesterday released a 3D driver for their latest cards, article here , Nvidia are miles ahead with linux support.

Creative only released the source code for their X-Fi cards in November 2008, before that they only had 64bit support since 2006, no 32bit support. I've also got a Creative Webcam thats not supported in linux at all.

ethernet

Some distributions are more stable than others. If you want the latest versions of packages in your distro's repositories, then consider something like Debian with very slow and stagnated released for the stability it offers. If you want to run something on a server with long-term updates, look into CentOS as well (based on RHEL).

FruitLover

An Fear Aniar wrote: »

I've never used a Mac. I think it's probably much better than a Mac because you don't have all that proprietary lock-in carry on. In terms of stability and security I'd imagine they're similar

You seem to be confusing hardware with software. A Mac is a hardware device (just a standardized set of PC hardware these days). Linux is software. You can run Linux on a Mac.

BostonB

FruitLover wrote: »

You seem to be confusing hardware with software. A Mac is a hardware device (just a standardized set of PC hardware these days). Linux is software. You can run Linux on a Mac.

Well apart from the Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple-Intel_architecture

Dartz

Linux is stable enough for me to be able to keep my aspidistro flying with blind faith, ignorance and the ability to use google to tell me that I need to pass i8042 nomux=1 to the kernel on boot to make the touchpad work.

Only problems I've ever had with it, was when I broke it myself by mistake...

The_Conductor

boidey wrote: »

If its good enough for NASA i will take that as a good enough endorsement.

I disagree.
NASA still run their mission critical spacecraft hardware with 0x86 and 2x86 processors. They may be rock solid- as indeed is their own inhouse Linux distro, but neither are cutting edge by any means.

Personally I dual boot with Ubuntu 8.04 (I haven't bothered updating to 8.10 yet) and XP Pro. Best of both worlds......

S.

BostonB

Interesting stuff over here
http://klabs.org/DEI/Processor/shuttle/

dubhthach

ntlbell wrote: »

FreeBSD not linux

He didn't mention Linux he mentioned UNIX. OSX (Leopard) is certified UNIX (Single Unix Standard 03) and also includes codes from OpenSolaris eg. ZFS (read only at the moment), Dtrace, NFS v4 Client/Server

The_Conductor

BostonB wrote: »

Interesting stuff over here
http://klabs.org/DEI/Processor/shuttle/

Seems like they upgraded to 386 chips for the shuttle avionics

Naikon

As Linux is only a kernel, the 'stability' of a distro is determined mainly by the userland environment used. Stick with Slack or Debian stable if you want stability.
Ubuntu for example, is fine for it's intended purpose, but I would deffo not use it for production environment servers. Home usage should be ok though:pac:

Red Alert

It depends what you're looking for:

Personally I'd go with (k)Ubuntu for a desktop system. I've two Kubuntu workstations in my lab and have had no trouble with either of them - both are random PC's with a lot of unusual hardware. A lot of the tweaks are done well and the install is pretty idiot-proof.

On the server front I'd either go with Ubuntu Server or Debian for a general purpose server. For a web-server or SSH server I'd probably go with OpenBSD - it's very fast and very secure.