test systems

[Steven D'Aprano]

Ethan Furman wrote:

> Howdy,
> 
> I'm going to setup a few linux systems for testing (probably three) as
> well as the three FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and (possibly) NetBsd.  Oh, and
> Windows.  ;)
> 
> Any recommendations on which linuces to pick?

What are you testing? Is this for buildbots? Are you testing consumer-level
software? Who is your software aimed at?

Depending on the answer to that, normally I would say one each from the
Debian and Redhat families, plus one other. E.g. pick one from each:

(1) Debian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint

(2) RHEL (if you can afford the licence fee), Centos, Fedora

(3) Gentoo, Arch Linux, Suse, Slackware


Some additional thoughts: 

I presume you're using VMs rather than six physical machines.

What, no Apple Mac?

Keep in mind that Arch uses Python 3 for the system python.

Also keep in mind that Arch is generally considered to be so far out on the
bleeding edge that even Slackware users consider them nuts. :)



-- 
Steven