What advantages do each of these version of linux have from one another:

Slackware :)
mandrake
redhat
suse
caldera
gentoo
openlinux
turbolinux
freebsd
openbsd


feel free to add to the list.

Talk about a can of worms you're opening up. ;)

A simple breakdown is that some (many) distros use package managers these days. (Even good ole slackware has one now, which you didn't include on that list).

Traditionally, people don't like RedHat for 'real' high use servers, I know I didn't for a looong while. But the fact is, if you secure them properly, they're all good and will do basically the same thing.

As for the *BSDs they have better packet handling, and some very nice packet shaping/filtering features built in that linux does not, or at least does not natively.

I generally class BSD boxes as my firewalls, and use slackware for my servers. (I do have exceptions to both those tho).

Cya,
Cloak

disadvantage of suse is that it is difficult to get it (but I got it :D)
For server I'd recomend use freebsd or other BSD.

You can get suse from linuxiso.org

disadvantage of gentoo: hard to setup for newbie
disadvantage of mandrake and RH and other RPM based distros: they use RPM a lot
disadvantage of openbsd: only for single proc machines

distros like debian, slackware are more advanced and straight-forward in configuration (and that is big plus)

one big advantage of gentoo: clean

If you want your own distro for your own purposes then look at http://linuxfromscratch.org

Regards,
Miha.

Originally posted by goodness0001
You can get suse from linuxiso.org

yes, but eval version, only for 1 boot.

Where else can you get it, what is so good about it?

You can get it from suse.com if you pay them (there are some other ways). Suse has great administration and update tool - Yast2. Also Suse is European distribution and it is well balanced.

Regards,
Miha.

ok, i will check it out, i have always been a redhat guy and i am trying to expand my horizons.

I use gentoo at home, but redhat on servers(not web servers, I just file servers) (starting to learn BSD)
I love gentoo but the long install makes me not want to install it on a server, for replacement reasons.

I liked gentoo as well, it did take awhile to get X working right on my laptop, and then i had to jerry rig it to get KDE to work right, the kde manager didnt work so i had to do an autologin as a user, but then it didnt let you su to root etc etc etc.

Gentoo has a good package manager, but the time it took to get working semi-decent made it not worth my while. It probably would have been better had i done it on a desktop.