I'm not a developer but would like to share my experience with installing/using Debian and compare it to Windows 95/98. I'm a long time Unix user (Sun, Apollo, HP), but not administrator, and started to use/administer a Debian machine a year ago. Since then I installed/upgraded Debian 2.0 on three machines. I found my system (dual PPro) very stable, fast, with all the software I need running well, easy to upgrade and maintain.
However, configuring it is a nightmare, especially in comparison to Windows. I'm not a Windows user, but on a dual boot machine I needed about 5 min. to set the proper time, configure the monitor, install printer and ZIP drive, establish a PPP connection. On Linux I have to read a lot of documentation (/usr/doc, man pages, HOWTOs, bug reports) before I can set almost trivial things (like changing From: field in the mail headers). Eventually, this usually involves changing just a line or two in configuration files, but may take hours/days to find out. I installed and tried Webmin, and it looked like a great tool for a non-experienced administrator. I didn't stay with it because it has support just for Debian 1.3, and it isn't packaged for Debian. So it doesn't give me any assurance that what it does to my config files is in accordance with Debian 2.0 policy. However, a tool like that, with Debian support (eg, all packages with config files should register with it, like menu system) would certainly bring Debian much closer to non-experienced users. Now the obvious: "Why don't you do it?" First, I lack the expertise, and second, such a tool really requires to be accepted into the Debian policy. This note shouldn't be taken as a criticism to your great work, but rather as a point of view of a grateful, non-expert user. If anybody cares, I'm willing to give a detailed account of typical configuration problems. -Igor Mozetic
