[aclug-L] Re: Why Debian?

["Clint A. Brubakken" <cabrubak@xxxxxxx>]

Greg House wrote:
> 
> On Wed, 11 Oct 2000, you wrote:
> 
> > My question is: Can anyone point me to well-written arguments for or
> > against particular distros in a Unix-savvy, availability-critical
> > environment?  My personal experience points to Debian, but I'd like to
> > have some more info to back it up.
> 
> Guess I'll be the dissenting opinion. My personal opinion is that Debian is
> probably great for systems you take a long time to very carefully set
> up...tweak...tweak again...get it JUUUUST right, and then never touch again.
> Provided systems that are using older hardware and don't need any of the
> features or fixes of current software released...

Debian does have a longer release cycle, so the current version is
usually older then the current RedHat. But it uses that time to make it
very stable and secure and ensure there are no major bugs in the system. 

> 
> Unfortunately, I can't think of very many systems I would personally set up
> that fit those specifications. I need things that set up very quickly, that
> support a lot of contemporary hardware, that will change day after tomorrow.

you can always use the unstable branch of Debian which normally is as
stable as a Red Hat .0 release.

> 
> At work, I set up things that need to look like what my real world customers
> either are using or might use. Virtually all of them use Red Hat. So that's
> what I use to create those configurations. I have the CDs laying around
> already, so I use it for other projects as well. It sets up quickly with
> preconfigured package sets (Gnome Workstation, KDE Workstation, Server, etc)
> and I don't have to mess around with configuring a million individual packages
> that I may or may not even be interested in to get a system up and running.

Debian 2.2 now has tasks you can pick and skip dselect. Also they have
changed it so you can tell it what level of configuration to ask for,
with the highest level set, I think it asked one question. 

So you can get a system installed very quick now, but If you have a lot
of software you don't care about the configuration, why install it? Why
not spend the time to lean it out, and get rid of things you don't need,
and get the things you do, to work right.

> 
> I don't have any great distro bias's really. Frankly, RedHat frequently
> frustrates me because of the "easy configuration tools" that seem to keep
> undoing what I do with the config files. If I wanted to run something that had
> an "easy graphical" config tool that screwed up my system, I'd run Windows. My
> favorite distribution is still Slackware, but I don't choose it very often
> because RedHat (or Mandrake, or whatever) has a lot of prepackaged
> applications that I want to use. They're already on the CD and I don't have to
> mess with scouring the Internet for them...spending hours downloading them,
> building them from source (because the only packaged version is for RedHat),
> and letting them install themselves wherever they happen to want to on my
> system (where I can't find 'em to remove them if I later decide I don't want
> the app) and all that. I do run Slackware on a couple of older hardware
> systems I have at home on which the Mandrake or RedHat installers won't work.
> They both crash part of the way through the install, Slack installs and runs
> flawlessly on the same machines.

Thats it exactly Debian doesn't make you install tools and recommend you
not edit the files, editing the config files give you the power to set
options the GUI doesn't have. 

If your installing a server you don't need X, and you don't need a X
installer that might not work with your video card and old monitor


> 
> I've really wanted to like Debian because I like the philosophy of the
> organization behind it, but I've tried 3 different revisions of it, at
> different times over a period of 2-3 years, and have always found it tedious.
> The installations took hours and hours of manually answering questions about
> how I wanted a ton of packages which  I didn't care about configured and then
> when it was all said and done still didn't have everything I wanted installed 
> or
> configured. It has the steepest learning curve of any Linux distribution I've
> seen. I can't possibly imagine recommending it to a new user. If you want to
> see Linux adoption increase at your company, I think an easier distribution is
> needed. After several weeks of reading manuals and readme files, you might end
> up with an extremely stable system that won't give much trouble down the line,
> but that just doesn't fit with the real world expectations that most of our
> industry has for a piece of software. Most people don't want to know that much
> about it, they just want something that runs...quickly and painlessly. I think
> many other distributions do that better then Debian.

Like I say above Debian 2.2 has the option to not ask you those
questions, but Debian is geared towards the power user, who when they
install a package wants it to work right away, instead of waiting for
the install to finish and then setting it up.

> 
> As far as all the "buggy" releases of RedHat. All I can say is that I haven't
> run into anything that held me up much. Even the worst Red Hat release would
> seem to be a lot better (quality wise) then NT. If it's an easy sell into your
> organization because of the name recognition, why not?
> 
> Greg
> 
> -- This is the discussion@xxxxxxxxx list.  To unsubscribe,
> visit http://tmp2.complete.org/cgi-bin/listargate-aclug.cgi

-- 
Clint Brubakken
Developer, Computer Science Services Group, LLC
President Air Capital Linux Users Group 
Wichita, KS
cabrubak@xxxxxxx
---
G:  You bought AOL stock?  That's like buying acreage in hell, Cobb.
AJ: Whore.
C:  I needed the money to buy my nephew one of those stupid Furby
things!
                                        -- Greg, AJ and Cobb
User Friendly, 1/1/1999

-- This is the discussion@xxxxxxxxx list.  To unsubscribe,
visit http://tmp2.complete.org/cgi-bin/listargate-aclug.cgi