supadupadad1 wrote:I have become very familiar with how Linux works and know my way around Ubuntu very well. I think i would do fine with Debian also since it they are both the same "flavor" of Linux.
Yes - that is quite true. Ubuntu is basically Debian without the "use only open source" restrictions.
supadupadad1 wrote:I know YDL uses the bash shell. but i see terms like yum and , and I don't understand what they mean. I am used to the Debian way of doing things. I am used to typing sudo apt-get install and sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install. What kind of tips or information can anyone give me to make my transition to this "flavor" of Linux easier?
So - as you've noticed - there are distinct flavors to Linux. The four main flavors are Debian, Red Hat, Slackware and Gentoo.
Yellow Dog Linux is based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, via the CentOS recompile. Red Hat Enterprise Linux - unlike most other Linuxes - is only available by purchase (i.e. you can't download it for free.) However - since the source code is open under the general public license (GPL), you could build it from scratch yourself. This is what the CentOS folks have done. YDL leverages this CentOS build procedure to generate their own build, specifically targeting PowerPC processors and Mac/PS3/IBM architectures.
Now - Red Hat comes in two flavors as well - Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Fedora is designed to be free and cutting edge - like Ubuntu. RHEL is designed to be stable and use field-proven technologies. This means that RHEL and its derivatives like CentOS and YDL are about 3 years behind current Fedora (and Ubuntu) library distributions.
You can read more about this here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_hat_en ... tributionsand a post I wrote here:
viewtopic.php?f=19&t=3684&p=16307#p16307So - what this means is that, for the most part, you can't install newly pre-compiled binaries. They usually require newer libraries than YDL ships with. Instead, we use older versions of programs, or compile them directly from source.
Now - the good news is that, similar to Debian/Ubuntu, Red Hat based Linuxes have a package management system, and on-line software repositories. However, instead of apt-get, we use a program called YUM and instead of .deb packages, our format is called RPM.
They work very similarly - you can run a control panel called "Add/Remove Software" (aka pirut) that acts like the Synaptic Package Manager. We have a guide here on our forums to add 3rd party software repositories to the default YDL repos that let you access most modern software. This is important, since YDL, like Debian & Red Hat, doesn't allow non-GPL software - like MP3 players, MPEG video decoders, etc. - on their servers. Ubuntu includes this stuff by default since their parent company, Canonical, licenses it.
I wrote a little bit more about the 3rd party licensing here:
viewtopic.php?f=19&t=2715&p=10002#p10004In addition, we don't use sudo. Instead, we normally use the
su command in a terminal window to switch to super user (root) then close the terminal window when we're done. What this means to you is that you have to keep track of the root user password as well as your own - unlike sudo in Debian/Ubuntu, where you pretty much just need to know your own.
Luckily - if this bothers you too much, you can install sudo in YDL/Red Hat, then set up the appropriate sudoers groups.
supadupadad1 wrote:I have still have Ubuntu on the PS3, Does anyone know if YDL will run more efficiently? Does the ps3vram thing work with YDL as well? thanks
It probably doesn't run much more efficiently, to be honest. If you install YDL 6.2, you can use a feature called libfreevec, that replaces glibc with an AltiVec accelerated library. It's still being developed, but it can increase system speed a little. And - yes - YDL does use ps3vram as well.
I generally recommend that, unless you like experimenting with different Linuxes, you stick with the distro you're most familiar with. So - if you're used to Debian, stick with Ubuntu - if you're used to Red Hat, stick with YDL. Personally - that's the way I roll. I'm fairly comfortable with Debian - but I learned on Red Hat, and that's the distro I still prefer. I'm just the most comfortable there.
We do have some tips for improving performance in general. These tips will probably work with Ubuntu as well. billb has some good ideas here:
viewtopic.php?f=19&t=7728&p=40050#p40051Cheers,
Paul