Joel on Software

22

I've been sanity-checking FogBUGZ for Unix by installing various OSes under VMware.

Easiest Linux to install: RedHat 9. Mandrake is not bad but still uses some jargon that makes it not quite ready for prime time, for example, you would not be able to get through setup without knowing what "root" means. SuSE went to a lot of trouble to create a good setup, then they go out of their way to make it difficult and slow to install if you don't pay them for disks... my SuSE setup is still not done after several days of work. FreeBSD is pretty difficult to setup. Debian is very close to impossible, even for geeks.

The reason I need all these setups is because there are so many different ways to distribute software on Unix: we had to produce a .rpm, a .deb, a .tar.gz, and a .dmg for OS X.

(FogBUGZ for Unix system requirements: Unix, PHP 4, MySQL, Apache. It will ship in a few days).

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You’re reading Joel on Software, stuffed with years and years of completely raving mad articles about software development, managing software teams, designing user interfaces, running successful software companies, and rubber duckies.

About the author.

I’m Joel Spolsky, founder of Fog Creek Software, a New York company that proves that you can treat programmers well and still be highly profitable. Programmers get private offices, free lunch, and work 40 hours a week. Customers only pay for software if they’re delighted. We make FogBugz, an enlightened project management system designed to help great teams develop brilliant software, and Fog Creek Copilot, which makes remote desktop access easy.