On Tue, Aug 29, 2000, Gerald Oskoboiny wrote:
> Why did I switch to Debian? Redhat's packages don't handle
> upgrades and dependencies as well as they should, and rpmfind [3]
> doesn't do the right thing by default as often as it could.

Not only Debian's packaging system is really cool, but Debian's
philosophy is also important.

First, it is very modular: for example, you have a telnet and a telnetd
package, etc. It allows you to install only what you want.

Second Debian is a project promoting free software. Non-free programs
(Pine, Tin, XV, Netscape, etc) are tagged as such and you are not
encouraged to use them.

I think that the last important thing about Debian is that it kicks ass.
For example, you have startup scripts which really work.

The only drawback of Debian is that it is less Plug'n'Play than Red Hat,
since it will ask you questions which will sometimes require a good
knowledge of Linux.

I guess that it's a trade-off: either you want an easy-to-use OS (Red
Hat is IMO Linux's Windows, with hardware detection at startup, a lot of
things done for you by default and you always have surprises after
upgrades) or a powerful one (with Debian you can really do whatever you
want, but it requires as Gerald said some configuration work). The good
news is that Debian with apt, debconf and now auto-apt in Woody is
becoming easier and easier to use.  And Red Hat is becoming more and
more like Windows. :-)

I must say that I understand the need of a Linux distribution with with
ease-of-use of Windows, but I don't understand that somebody who knows
and understand Linux might be happy with it. And I am not sure that in
the long run this is what people will want to put on their servers.

--
Hugo Haas <[email protected]> - http://larve.net/people/hugo/
To alcohol! The cause of and solution to all of life's problems. --
Homer J. Simpson