Keith G. Murphy wrote: > > Kenneth Scharf wrote: > > Actually it's not that Debian is built to be hard to use. > > It's just that many of the 'pretty' system control and configure > > applications supplied by RH are not in Debian. (Besides they only work > > in X) > As someone who has recently come to use Debian from a year or two of > RedHat experience, I can say that the non-X-based nature of dselect can > be a distinct advantage when you're trying to configure a server machine > (damn thing sure doesn't need X). I mean, I just telnetted into it and > did everything from my (Win95!) client. > > And what about installation on an old machine that doesn't have a > CDROM? dselect was quite FTP-friendly; I couldn't get a RedHat > installation to work at all on this old machine that had only 8M and > antiquated hardware. There are more Debian floppies but, guess what? > Debian saw all my hardware right first try. > > I think a lot of those folks that love RedHat only use it on their home > machine with the latest and greatest nifty hardware, sitting at its > console. But that may well not be the most useful application of > Linux... > > And another thing: a lot of those X-based configuration things don't > work that well. I know that for sure... ;-) > > And the way dselect goes ahead and invokes configuration scripts: rpm > definitely does *not* do that; so if the package really requires > configuration beyond the defaults, you need to figure out how to do it. > Not to mention the way you can load packages down from the web really > easily. I mean, hell, it even tells you when there's an updated > package! > > So far, Debian seems to me like a workhorse: it may not be flashy, but > everything just *works*. That beats flash every time in my book. > > And another thing: the transparency with which Debian is managed. What > the hell do I mean? You can see the whole bug-tracking process. Try > that with RedHat. Right... And the way they segregate the non-free > stuff. It's not that you can't use it; you just know what you're > getting. That's not ideology for me; that's just knowing what's going > on my system: it's damn *useful* to know what's GNU-licensed and what's > STING (Stuff That Is Not GNU). It *is* a sting when it doesn't work > right and you want to change it... > > And is it just me, or is everybody and his mother putting out RPMs these > days, some of very shoddy quality? I have the impression, if it's a deb > and it's on Debian's site, it's gonna at least install properly and do > *something* without crapping out... > > Sorry, just had to get that off my chest. Especially hearing folks > bitch about dselect. I just hope apt is as good. (It's not X-based, is > it? Say it's not...) > > Hope the new logo is good. I kind of like the little bird... > [cut] > > -- > Unsubscribe? mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null
-- Mauro Mazzieri - http://gulliver.unian.it/~mazzieri/ finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] for PGP key and geek code I PC hanno il tasto `reset' perché sono progettati per i sistemi operativi Microsoft Keith G. Murphy wrote: > > Kenneth Scharf wrote: > > Actually it's not that Debian is built to be hard to use. > > It's just that many of the 'pretty' system control and configure > > applications supplied by RH are not in Debian. (Besides they only work > > in X) > As someone who has recently come to use Debian from a year or two of > RedHat experience, I can say that the non-X-based nature of dselect can > be a distinct advantage when you're trying to configure a server machine > (damn thing sure doesn't need X). I mean, I just telnetted into it and > did everything from my (Win95!) client. > > And what about installation on an old machine that doesn't have a > CDROM? dselect was quite FTP-friendly; I couldn't get a RedHat > installation to work at all on this old machine that had only 8M and > antiquated hardware. There are more Debian floppies but, guess what? > Debian saw all my hardware right first try. > > I think a lot of those folks that love RedHat only use it on their home > machine with the latest and greatest nifty hardware, sitting at its > console. But that may well not be the most useful application of > Linux... > > And another thing: a lot of those X-based configuration things don't > work that well. I know that for sure... ;-) > > And the way dselect goes ahead and invokes configuration scripts: rpm > definitely does *not* do that; so if the package really requires > configuration beyond the defaults, you need to figure out how to do it. > Not to mention the way you can load packages down from the web really > easily. I mean, hell, it even tells you when there's an updated > package! > > So far, Debian seems to me like a workhorse: it may not be flashy, but > everything just *works*. That beats flash every time in my book. > > And another thing: the transparency with which Debian is managed. What > the hell do I mean? You can see the whole bug-tracking process. Try > that with RedHat. Right... And the way they segregate the non-free > stuff. It's not that you can't use it; you just know what you're > getting. That's not ideology for me; that's just knowing what's going > on my system: it's damn *useful* to know what's GNU-licensed and what's > STING (Stuff That Is Not GNU). It *is* a sting when it doesn't work > right and you want to change it... > > And is it just me, or is everybody and his mother putting out RPMs these > days, some of very shoddy quality? I have the impression, if it's a deb > and it's on Debian's site, it's gonna at least install properly and do > *something* without crapping out... > > Sorry, just had to get that off my chest. Especially hearing folks > bitch about dselect. I just hope apt is as good. (It's not X-based, is > it? Say it's not...) > > Hope the new logo is good. I kind of like the little bird... > [cut] > > -- > Unsubscribe? mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null -- Mauro Mazzieri - http://gulliver.unian.it/~mazzieri/ finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] for PGP key and geek code I PC hanno il tasto `reset' perché sono progettati per i sistemi operativi Microsoft [PC's have reset key 'cause thy're made fro MS OS'es]
