--- ken keanon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> There are so many distros out there its confusing.
> Any reason(s) why Debian should be the preferred
> choice?
I switched after many happy years of using SuSE (which
is a great distro to get started with). Debian has a
package and dependency management system that makes
upgrading a breeze. Apt-get changed how I view OS's.
For instance, with SuSE I found myself having to
aquire CD's if a new release came out and I wanted the
latest gear (they do an ftp installation which trails
a little behind the CD releases, but is a *new*
release - upgrades from, for example, SuSE 8.2 to 9
weren't "slick"). Sure, you could download patches or
security updates for the packages you already had, but
upgrading KDE or the like was never as easy as it was
supposed to be. With Debian, I've set my install
source to Debian Sarge and I just run apt-get update,
apt-get upgrade on a weekly basis. I will always be up
to date.
Also, seeing the direction RedHat have moved in (which
I'm not intentionally judging here) made me nervous. I
was installing SuSE in schools here in the UK, but
ended up with 7.1 in school 'A', 7.2 in school 'B',
8.1 in school 'C' etc. And what if SuSE decided to
follow RedHat's model? My main selling point to
schools is financial: I can get a Windows2000 server
license *very* cheaply through my Local Education
Authority. So I needed to switch to a *community*
based distro. One where a company didn't dictate the
direction. I wanted to know that the distro I was
becoming familiar with, and promoting, and advocating
was still going to be *free* (free and free), easily
obtainable and philosophically sound.
To sum up:
Debian is...
1. Easily maintained and upgradable,
2. Not beholdened to the decisions of people looking
at the bottom line.
Hope that helps.
--
Matt
>
> Any statistics from any source(s) to proof the
> popularity of Debian?
>
> I'm in the dark waiting to be enlightened.
>
> Cheers
>
> Ken
>
>
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