on Fri, Jan 19, 2001 at 07:11:04PM -0800, Bill Wohler ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: > [Karsten, if you get fresh reasons, be sure to add them to your lists. > These lists, by the way, should also be on the Debian Web site. > Perhaps you can make this happen. PR is a good thing. See also the > recent thread: Why use Debian?]
Um. Like? > What I tell folks: > > 1) The package manager. > > You can tell it to look in several places at once for a package and > if you ask for a package that depends on others it automatically > selects those packages. It then downloads the .debs and installs > them for you. (I don't think Red Hat has this auto-download > capability--you have to hunt for the .rpms yourself as far as I > know). > > One of the best demos you can do to convince someone is this: > > $ foo > foo: command not found > $ dselect # select and install foo Better: $ apt-get install foo ...which gets foo (and dependencies) in one swell foop (a *very* swell foop, IMO). ...and if you do like dselect (I don't *dislike* it, but it's a sort of grudging admiration), scope out aptitude. > 2) The elegant disk layout. > > For example, everything about mail is in /etc/mail. In Red Hat some > stuff is in /etc/mail, some stuff is in /etc. It's all over the > place. Ditto for bind stuff. Your and Ethan's comments on RH scavenging to try to piece together WTF is happening are very well taken. My two horror stories are: - RH's lilo docs. What the fuck am I supposed to do with a postscript file on a system that doesn't *boot*, let alone print or display X? Debian's text docs are fscking marvelous. - mysqld init.d script. Just tell me where RH stuffs its mysql server log. In 30 seconds. > 3) The elegant boot scripts. > > Red Hat hides init.d in /etc/rc.d. It also doesn't seem to provide a > full set of scripts in init.d either. There are a few other details > in this realm, but I'm forgetting them now. I've heard that extreme trauma can induce amnesia.... RH is moving to the FHS/Debian /etc/init.d / /etc/rc[0-9].d standard. > 5) A mission to get all configuration out of programs/scripts and > into config files in /etc. ...and more-or-less *flat* in /etc. Lots of subdirs are wonderfully organized and tidy, but it makes referencing scripts a fscking pain in the ass. -- Karsten M. Self <kmself@ix.netcom.com> http://kmself.home.netcom.com/ What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/ http://www.kuro5hin.org
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