[techtalk] why debian essay..

Curious curious at curious.org
Fri Apr 13 14:42:54 EST 2001


Actualy as soon as I get a chance to.. I plan to write a "debian caveats" that covers things like ease of use /install.. various diffrences that might confuse users of other distributions, speed of stable releases.. and so forth....

With the release of Debian 2.2 the installation has become MUCH easyer.. (not quite the couple click install of caldera).. but it's much easyer.. as for configuration and management.. both linuxconf and webmin are available (though webmin isn't part of the offical standard release)...

if Debian isn't easy enough both Progeny (www.progeny.com) and Libranet (www.libranet.com) have very nice installers and administrative tools.. (Note: libranet isn't avaible for free.. and doesn't "give back" like progeny does)...

once someone gets over the "Linux hurdle" Debian makes alot of sense since they don't have many nasty surprises between releases.. 

My recommendation for new Linux users typicaly goes something like this:
-If you just want to replace your Windows desktop: Go with Mandrake
-If your planning on running a box just as a server: Go with Debian
-If your turly intrested in learning linux: Go with Debian
-If your want to live on the bleeding edge: Go with Debian unstable :)

I haven't tried Conectiva or Trustix yet.. so my view might change :)
Chris

On Fri, Apr 13, 2001 at 11:26:47AM -0400, Martin.Caitlyn at epamail.epa.gov wrote:
> 
> Hi, everyone,
> 
> First, I agree with the comments about Red Hat in the essay.  We still use
> Red Hat at work, but I personally gave up on it after 6.0.  It's not just
> libpcap and termcap:  they've now gone their own way on even the C compiler
> in 7.1 (though gcc is still available).  Also, 6.1 and 7.0 had way too many
> bugs for release code.   I also won't use any distro that isn't open source
> and free, but most still are.
> 
> The main reason I have stayed away from Debian mostly has to do with ease
> of use, and also ease of teaching non-technical users.  The oh-so-simple
> tools in distros like Mandrake (my current favorite) and Caldera allowed me
> to move friends and even my Mom to Linux from Windows painlessly, something
> I really doubt I could have done with Debian.  I am tech support for my Mom
> still, BTW :)
> 
> Please, don't get me wrong.  I do UNIX and Linux work for a living.  I am
> very comfortable on the command line and generally don't bother with the
> GUI at all when doing admin work here.  Give me ssh and sudo and my various
> command line utilities and I am happy.  OTOH, on my home network where I
> have easy at-the-console access to everything I tend to take advantage of
> the GUI tools.  They are just plain easier for some things, and Mandrake
> probably has the best set out there.  Oh, and I am one of those people who
> actually like rpm, particularly with kpackage to manage it.  I know there
> are lots of people who disagree.
> 
> BTW, has anyone downloaded and tried to run Mandrake 8.0 Beta 3?  I'm
> always chicken when it comes to Betas on my machines.  For example, we have
> a Red Hat 7.1 Beta 2 (Wolverine) box in the lab here at work, and it is
> absolutely buggy and downright awful.  They actually went backwards since
> the last beta.
> 
> All the best,
> Caity
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Caitlyn M. Martin             martin.caitlyn at epa.gov
> Systems Analyst              (919) 541-4441
> Lockheed Martin
> (a contractor for the US EPA)
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> 
> 
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