I have been looking for a new Linux distrubution ever since I figured out that "Enterprise" is corporate speak for "Give me all your money". (See Understanding RedHat's Strategy.) My primary business applcation only supports a few different Linux distros, so my choices are limited. The other day I was abruptly made aware of another contender I had better take seriously, Trustix.
I have to take this distribution seriously because the company that owns Trustix just bought the company that makes my business application. http://www.comodogroup.com/news/press_releases/24_01_05.html
The ncurses based install was pretty easy. It allowed me to set everything up on raid partions. There was an option for minimal install which was pretty darn minimal. (This is a good thing by me.)
The installation did not leave any services listening on network interfaces. This is great because it saves me the time of shutting down all the ones I don't need. This install was so locked down, I had to turn on sshd to get to the box from my desk. I am very impressed by this.
And thank goodness, there wasn't one silly question about X Windows. As they say in the literature, Trustix is built for servers.
I did have a hard time finding out what the difference between the free version (www.trustix.org) and the commercial version (www.trustix.com) is. I will write a future article on the specific technical differences. I have installed the free version at my office, but have also purchased and downloaded the commercial version for deploying on a new server.
For now it appears the free version will continue to be supported for 2.5 years from its realease earlier this month. They are both made by the same people. Given my first impressions and the fact that I can get an entry level commercial license for about $150 per year, it seems like a good value. Trustix.com does more expensive licensing options available with addtional support and services for those who want that.
I hope it holds up to its first impression.