Many Linux aficionados get very excited when the question comes: What Linux distribution are you using? This rather innocent question is quite loaded as many Linux users actually use minimum two distributions, one for work which they can rarely choose and then their beloved distribution at home and it is not uncommon to hear about a third one which is the "pet distribution" which excites them but is not really what they would like their life depend on (yet). While people start haggling about the best installation or the nicest graphical frontend (which the decision from Novell/SUSE to support GNOME as new default the decision for commercial distributions is done as all usual suspects are now on GNOME) one subject is total ignored and which is my pain point all along: stability and function on the lower levels of the operating system. Historically a Linux distribution was nothing more than an assembly of the right combination of source code - or even binary, how so yesterday - packages. They took all the same base and then copied it as fast as possible on a bunch of floppy disks and got them to the book stores. While distributions as natural as this still exist (and I know there are some very nice Slackware kits still out there - even if they upgraded on CDs now) the real Linux distribution of today is doing much more on own implementation of functions and features and trying to differentiate themselves on the marketplace (and there is always a market place - be it Bazaar or Cathedral) and do the most important thing with actually supporting their product for many years to come. And here we go for the professional in me over the bleeding edge. Try today to identify exactly the feature sets in dependencies of a large software stack including all Updates / Service Packs / Kernel refresh and it is like reading the European Union chocolate production guidelines. So why am I going down this line of thinking? Because the DB2 for Linux team is standing every day in front of exactly the same question and lately I have seen some rather esoteric statements about it on Slashdot. If you go to the DB2 Linux validation website where we reference to the DB2 Linux validation program and this is actually open for EVERY DSITRIBUTION who would like to get validated (and be aware: we do this for DB2 specific and this is not an IBM wide card blanche to claim support). The tests executed are stress testing, functional testing and simply crash testing (ever pulled a power plug out of a high powered running transactional database and look what happened on the file system afterwards ?). We list all the distributions that pass but we do not comment on those who just try… So here is my challenge to your next Linux round table: what is the most solid Linux distribution when facts start really to count in a production environment? Features or Function or Support or Consistency? A real subject to drool about in these days (and yes I have a personal preference for Monday installations, Tuesday installations…) Until next time. Boris PS: What triggered this rant? The amazing feedback - positive and negative - I got on the self validation by Canonical with their Ubuntu distribution.