Re: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?
Koyote wrote: It would be nice if Debian had a similar one-floppy net install arrangement. Hmm, seems to me that though it may take a bit more (nine floppies for slink) the same thing is available. Shouldn't be too hard to set up an install based on three floppies (the standard resc, driver, and a very limited base ftp disk). Ah, but any more than one is a problem for a machine with a USB floppy drive! I think you're missing my point. RedHat has a floppy+CD system, with an extra floppy for PCMCIA drivers for some laptops. There's a third floppy which can do the install on its own from the net, and includes support for ftp, nfs or http install. I'm suggesting the creation of such a floppy, *separate from*, not in addition to, the base floppies (though I suppose it is an additional floppy in some ways). BUT- I'd rather have the base floppies, just in case I have to fart around with getting a dial up configured... Oh, for certain! But it's not always an option. AND, you could install everything by d/l ing on a dos partition (if you are keeping one) and read packages from there. (You could do it from floppies, but that would be a bit time consuming) Sure, if you want to forfeit the Windows EULA refund. :-P The solution on my VAIO Z505S was: Use the Debian tecra rescue disk to start the install, re-partition the disk without touching /dev/hda4 because it's used for hibernation, but labeling the future swap partition as ext2, and the future root partition as swap. (I used Debian here just because I like the partition tool better than RedHat's.) Then I booted the RedHat net install floppy, and specified root should go in the future swap partition, and swap in the future root partition (only because RedHat insists you provide swap). It recognized the onboard EtherExpressPro 100 and did a proper ftp install. But don't use the standard Server or Workstation setup, because they partition and wipe the entire drive, including that important /dev/hda4! (I accidentally used Server, so I had to backtrack, repartition, and now I can't hibernate. Oh no!) Then I downloaded the tecra rescue and drivers images into the RedHat partition, along with the base tgz file. I then booted Debian tecra rescue, and re-labeled the swap partition as root, but did not set up swap, and loaded the system from the RedHat partition. Installing the eepro100 module enabled the ethernet card, allowing dselect to get everything from the http/ftp (worked the first time- cool!). After installing, all that remained was to mkswap in the RadHat partition, edit /etc/fstab accordingly, and swapon. Debian install complete, never used Windows! But had to detour to RedHat to make it work. Hence the suggestion: a single floppy net install for Debian would be real nice. But might be not worth the effort, especially with USB support coming in soon- though that would have to be compiled in to the rescue floppy's kernel (not as a module), which would bloat it somewhat. :-( Hope this helps someone, -Adam P.
Re: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?
On Wed, Sep 08, 1999 at 12:40:53PM +, Adam C Powell IV wrote: Koyote wrote: Ah, but any more than one is a problem for a machine with a USB floppy drive! Since most USB machines will have a bootable cdrom drive they dont have to use a single floppy. I think you're missing my point. RedHat has a floppy+CD system, with an extra floppy for PCMCIA Debian has a zero-floppy system, if you have the cd. [snip...] Debian install complete, never used Windows! But had to detour to RedHat to make it work. Hence the suggestion: a single floppy net install for Debian would be real nice. But might be not worth the effort, especially with USB support coming in soon- though that would have to be compiled in to the rescue floppy's kernel (not as a module), which would bloat it somewhat. :-( I didnt use windows to install debian either (a good thing since the last installations i made were on linux-only machines). I used the bootable cd on the pcs with a cd drive, and nfs+ftp on the other ones. Of course, had I not had a single cdrom drive I would have had to resort to other means... Installing via nfs does require several floppies, I think 2 or 3 (including the initial boot floppy). -Lex pgpaDrBhZmLVo.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?
I don't wanna start a flame war, but it is reeelly all that difficult to use 7(or is it 9? -I forget) installation disks instead of two?. I had a truly great experience installing Debian by the book using floppies and apt. BTW: How many disks would you need to install Windoze -about 50-60?! (If it was possible, that is...) Debian Rocks!! :-) Vitux Error is human; complete disaster takes a computer -Oprindelig meddelelse- Fra: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sendt:2. september 1999 13:59 Til: debian-user@lists.debian.org Cc: recipient list not shown Emne: Re: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat? On Wed, Sep 01, 1999 at 11:21:36AM +0100, Patrick Kirk was heard to state: I also graduated from Red Hat. Debian installation is a beast but it leaves you with a working system that is idiot proof. Red Hat is an easier installation but things fail and you're left trawling the net resolving dependencies. I attempted an installation of Slink today, and it's been quite a while since I have done a fresh install, but I've been using Debian for quite a while now (since Bo, at least). I too, graduated from RedHat. One thing that got me though. I didn't have a CD handy, but I have a good net link at work, which regularly get's over 200k/s from Australia's best mirror. I figured, I don't need the CD, just the install disk. Now before anyone tells me to RTFM, I had a feeling it wasn't going to work, but I had a bit of time to kill... :) Anyway, I couldn't be bothered doing all the disk images, so I just got the rescue and drivers disks, booted up, repartitioned (the whole, and only HD). I was hoping it might let me FTP the base... Nope, no chance! Then I remembered that some of the mirrors let you NFS mount them, but I couldn't find anywhere a list of those that would, and their NFS-shared paths. I searched the web, the debain site, and the mailing list arcive, but couldn't even find any hints... Is this information available anywhere? Seeing Debian is such an internet-centric (ie., apt) distribution, it would be nice if you could install the whole thing with one the one or two boot disks (I'm sure you can with redhat). Even if the boot disk had a little FTP client (like wget or curl), so you could switch to a VT and put them on that newly made EXT2 partition. Maybe there is a way to do that, but I certainly couldn't work it out. You have an extremely minimal, but network connected, installation, but no way to use that network. Now maybe the boot disks are already too full, but I'm sure *something* could be queezed on. I think it would be a very useful feature. Now I haven't seen the Potato (are we out of Toy Story names yet!?) boot disks, so I have no idea what is on them. It's just a little suggestion, I guess. Cheers, damon -- Damon Muller ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) / It's not a sense of humor. * Criminologist / It's a sense of irony * Webmeister / disguised as one. * Linux Geek / - Bruce Sterling$ -- Unsubscribe? mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] /dev/null
Re: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?
On Wed, Sep 08, 1999 at 07:54:49PM +0200, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I don't wanna start a flame war, but it is reeelly all that difficult to use 7(or is it 9? -I forget) installation disks instead of two?. Well ... I remember doing an install on a system with a dodgy disk drive. Making the install floppies to find out during 3 attempts that floppy 2,3, and 6 need to be written again is somewhat annoying. I have always found the combination linux/rawrite2/floppies _much_ less reliable than one might desire. Eric -- E.L. Meijer ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Eindhoven Univ. of Technology Lab. for Catalysis and Inorg. Chem. (SKA)
RE: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?
I don't wanna start a flame war, but it is reeelly all that difficult to use 7(or is it 9? -I forget) installation disks instead of two?. 7 or 9 disks?!? I just downloaded the files for the base installation to my harddrive and used my *1* rescue disk that I created from an image to kick-start the installation. Floppies are a PITA, IMO. Too slow. After I had the base install done, I just got everything I needed through apt. -- Bart Szyszka [EMAIL PROTECTED] ICQ:4982727 B Grafyx http://www.bgrafyx.com L.J.R. Engineering http://www.ljreng.com PHP Interest Group http://www.gigabee.com/pig/
Re: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?
Windows 95 was available on 13 disks, of a ~1.7 MB format (upgrade version, at least). Is there a significance about that number? On Wed, Sep 08, 1999 at 07:54:49PM +0200, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I don't wanna start a flame war, but it is reeelly all that difficult to use 7(or is it 9? -I forget) installation disks instead of two?. I had a truly great experience installing Debian by the book using floppies and apt. BTW: How many disks would you need to install Windoze -about 50-60?! (If it was possible, that is...) Debian Rocks!! :-) Vitux Error is human; complete disaster takes a computer -Oprindelig meddelelse- Fra:[EMAIL PROTECTED] [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sendt: 2. september 1999 13:59 Til:debian-user@lists.debian.org Cc: recipient list not shown Emne: Re: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat? On Wed, Sep 01, 1999 at 11:21:36AM +0100, Patrick Kirk was heard to state: I also graduated from Red Hat. Debian installation is a beast but it leaves you with a working system that is idiot proof. Red Hat is an easier installation but things fail and you're left trawling the net resolving dependencies. I attempted an installation of Slink today, and it's been quite a while since I have done a fresh install, but I've been using Debian for quite a while now (since Bo, at least). I too, graduated from RedHat. One thing that got me though. I didn't have a CD handy, but I have a good net link at work, which regularly get's over 200k/s from Australia's best mirror. I figured, I don't need the CD, just the install disk. Now before anyone tells me to RTFM, I had a feeling it wasn't going to work, but I had a bit of time to kill... :) Anyway, I couldn't be bothered doing all the disk images, so I just got the rescue and drivers disks, booted up, repartitioned (the whole, and only HD). I was hoping it might let me FTP the base... Nope, no chance! Then I remembered that some of the mirrors let you NFS mount them, but I couldn't find anywhere a list of those that would, and their NFS-shared paths. I searched the web, the debain site, and the mailing list arcive, but couldn't even find any hints... Is this information available anywhere? Seeing Debian is such an internet-centric (ie., apt) distribution, it would be nice if you could install the whole thing with one the one or two boot disks (I'm sure you can with redhat). Even if the boot disk had a little FTP client (like wget or curl), so you could switch to a VT and put them on that newly made EXT2 partition. Maybe there is a way to do that, but I certainly couldn't work it out. You have an extremely minimal, but network connected, installation, but no way to use that network. Now maybe the boot disks are already too full, but I'm sure *something* could be queezed on. I think it would be a very useful feature. Now I haven't seen the Potato (are we out of Toy Story names yet!?) boot disks, so I have no idea what is on them. It's just a little suggestion, I guess. Cheers, damon -- Damon Muller ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) / It's not a sense of humor. * Criminologist / It's a sense of irony * Webmeister / disguised as one. * Linux Geek / - Bruce Sterling$ -- Unsubscribe? mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] /dev/null -- Unsubscribe? mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] /dev/null -- Bob Nielsen Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tucson, AZ AMPRnet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] DM42nh http://www.primenet.com/~nielsen
Re: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?
On Fri, 3 Sep 1999, Ron Stordahl wrote: : Richard said: : : That puts you a cd behind :) The single-floppy is a downloaded floppy, : which then sucks the rest off the net without even having a cd drive. And : the floppy costs a lot less :) : : True, but incredibly slow, unless you have your own T1. A standard : workstation install is 400 mb or so. Try that on your modem! Works like a dream here with LANCity cable modems ... I'm told by a friend that it's equally fun over DSL :) -- Nathan Norman MidcoNet 410 South Phillips Avenue Sioux Falls, SD mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.midco.net finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] for PGP Key: (0xA33B86E9)
Re: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?
On Sun, Sep 05, 1999 at 08:40:06AM -0400, David Teague wrote: On Fri, 3 Sep 1999, Paul McHale wrote: If you have bizaar hardware, redhat (I believe) has more drivers. Redhat has more packages but this may be an arguement for alien. Paul I have acquaintances who never did get X up under Red Hat using the SiS6326 card. That card is apparently S3 based, but SiS does something really bizarre with it. However, one of my students got X up (late last winter) with Debian after a bit of fiddling. He replaced the 3.3.2 X server with the 3.3.3.1 server, then modified the XF86config file to make the thing work well. I understand that RH 6 has 3.3.3 X. I don't know about specific SiS6326 support. I would like to have a comparison of device support available from Red Hat with that from Debian. Can you address this? Or perhaps someone on this list can answer this. Red Hat tends to release with newer stuff than Debian--of course it is often partially broken, which tends to indicate that they do less testing before release. Debian unstable has newer versions of packages than the stable version (such as X 3.3.4). You can also find newer versions of Debian slink (stable) packages in proposed-updates or at places like (put this in /etc/apt/sources.listg): deb http://ftp.netgod.net/ x/ You will find X 3.3.3 here, for instance. Bob -- Bob Nielsen Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tucson, AZ AMPRnet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] DM42nh http://www.primenet.com/~nielsen
RE: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?
On Fri, 3 Sep 1999, Paul McHale wrote: If you have bizaar hardware, redhat (I believe) has more drivers. Redhat has more packages but this may be an arguement for alien. Paul I have acquaintances who never did get X up under Red Hat using the SiS6326 card. That card is apparently S3 based, but SiS does something really bizarre with it. However, one of my students got X up (late last winter) with Debian after a bit of fiddling. He replaced the 3.3.2 X server with the 3.3.3.1 server, then modified the XF86config file to make the thing work well. I understand that RH 6 has 3.3.3 X. I don't know about specific SiS6326 support. I would like to have a comparison of device support available from Red Hat with that from Debian. Can you address this? Or perhaps someone on this list can answer this. --David David Teague, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Debian GNU/Linux Because software support is free, timely, useful, technically accurate, and friendly.
RE: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?
I am sorry that I cannot list specifics. I thought I had read in the journals that RedHat offered the most drivers when comparing Linux distributions. I may have had this confused with packages, I.e. RPM. I am pretty sure it was drivers though. Sorry I can't offer more specifics. Can anyone else ? If I am wrong, please tell me ! -Original Message- From: David Teague [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, September 05, 1999 8:40 AM To: Paul McHale Cc: debian-user@lists.debian.org Subject: RE: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat? On Fri, 3 Sep 1999, Paul McHale wrote: If you have bizaar hardware, redhat (I believe) has more drivers. Redhat has more packages but this may be an arguement for alien. Paul I have acquaintances who never did get X up under Red Hat using the SiS6326 card. That card is apparently S3 based, but SiS does something really bizarre with it. However, one of my students got X up (late last winter) with Debian after a bit of fiddling. He replaced the 3.3.2 X server with the 3.3.3.1 server, then modified the XF86config file to make the thing work well. I understand that RH 6 has 3.3.3 X. I don't know about specific SiS6326 support. I would like to have a comparison of device support available from Red Hat with that from Debian. Can you address this? Or perhaps someone on this list can answer this. --David David Teague, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Debian GNU/Linux Because software support is free, timely, useful, technically accurate, and friendly. -- Unsubscribe? mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] /dev/null
Re: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?
Hi, I can't see how RedHat can offer any more drivers than any other distrib because everyone is working from the same source.. All standard drivers are in the kernel source and all distributions use it so therefore all distributions have the same number of drivers. The only things I can think of are: - maybe redhat offers some binary drivers that were developed under NDA. I don't think this would be in their standard distrib as they have been vehment about only having Open Source stuff on their main CDs. They did once do some work on X servers, think it is out of date now, mebbe this is where you heard it. - perhaps redhat has more drivers compiled into their initial bootdisks. Since as part of the install process you can select modules etc this isn't the same thing at all. Hope this helps, Steve On Sun, Sep 05, 1999 at 02:44:52PM -0400, Paul McHale wrote: I am sorry that I cannot list specifics. I thought I had read in the journals that RedHat offered the most drivers when comparing Linux distributions. I may have had this confused with packages, I.e. RPM. I am pretty sure it was drivers though. Sorry I can't offer more specifics. Can anyone else ? If I am wrong, please tell me ! -Original Message- From: David Teague [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, September 05, 1999 8:40 AM To: Paul McHale Cc: debian-user@lists.debian.org Subject: RE: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat? On Fri, 3 Sep 1999, Paul McHale wrote: If you have bizaar hardware, redhat (I believe) has more drivers. Redhat has more packages but this may be an arguement for alien. Paul I have acquaintances who never did get X up under Red Hat using the SiS6326 card. That card is apparently S3 based, but SiS does something really bizarre with it. However, one of my students got X up (late last winter) with Debian after a bit of fiddling. He replaced the 3.3.2 X server with the 3.3.3.1 server, then modified the XF86config file to make the thing work well. I understand that RH 6 has 3.3.3 X. I don't know about specific SiS6326 support. I would like to have a comparison of device support available from Red Hat with that from Debian. Can you address this? Or perhaps someone on this list can answer this. --David David Teague, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Debian GNU/Linux Because software support is free, timely, useful, technically accurate, and friendly. -- Unsubscribe? mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] /dev/null -- Unsubscribe? mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] /dev/null
Re: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?
On Wed, Sep 01, 1999 at 11:21:36AM +0100, Patrick Kirk was heard to state: I also graduated from Red Hat. Debian installation is a beast but it leaves you with a working system that is idiot proof. Red Hat is an easier installation but things fail and you're left trawling the net resolving dependencies. I attempted an installation of Slink today, and it's been quite a while since I have done a fresh install, but I've been using Debian for quite a while now (since Bo, at least). I too, graduated from RedHat. One thing that got me though. I didn't have a CD handy, but I have a good net link at work, which regularly get's over 200k/s from Australia's best mirror. I figured, I don't need the CD, just the install disk. Now before anyone tells me to RTFM, I had a feeling it wasn't going to work, but I had a bit of time to kill... :) Anyway, I couldn't be bothered doing all the disk images, so I just got the rescue and drivers disks, booted up, repartitioned (the whole, and only HD). I was hoping it might let me FTP the base... Nope, no chance! Then I remembered that some of the mirrors let you NFS mount them, but I couldn't find anywhere a list of those that would, and their NFS-shared paths. I searched the web, the debain site, and the mailing list arcive, but couldn't even find any hints... Is this information available anywhere? Seeing Debian is such an internet-centric (ie., apt) distribution, it would be nice if you could install the whole thing with one the one or two boot disks (I'm sure you can with redhat). Even if the boot disk had a little FTP client (like wget or curl), so you could switch to a VT and put them on that newly made EXT2 partition. Maybe there is a way to do that, but I certainly couldn't work it out. You have an extremely minimal, but network connected, installation, but no way to use that network. Now maybe the boot disks are already too full, but I'm sure *something* could be queezed on. I think it would be a very useful feature. Now I haven't seen the Potato (are we out of Toy Story names yet!?) boot disks, so I have no idea what is on them. It's just a little suggestion, I guess. Cheers, damon -- Damon Muller ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) / It's not a sense of humor. * Criminologist / It's a sense of irony * Webmeister / disguised as one. * Linux Geek / - Bruce Sterling$
Re: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?
Damon dabbled, Seeing Debian is such an internet-centric (ie., apt) distribution, it would be nice if you could install the whole thing with one the one or two boot disks (I'm sure you can with redhat). Even if the boot disk had a little FTP client (like wget or curl), so you could switch to a VT and put them on that newly made EXT2 partition. This *is* the install method for FreeBSD. But they had to go to two disks about two releases ago, seems they'v accumulated too many drivers. --
Re: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?
On 1 Sep, Mark Brown wrote: Doing a distribution upgrade without *having* to reboot is rather nice. It is not only rather nice. It is wonderful! We chose Debian becuase it is a great distro when it comes to admin in remotely. Our server is co-located on another continent than our company location. Running Debian has been incredibly problem free for us. Not only can we add and upgrade remotely. Debian has dselect/apt which it as great (almost intuitive) tool for maintaining and upgrading the system. I guess I also should mention that we do not have downtime at all! :) -- Regards, Christian Dysthe E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://oddbird.dyndns.org/cdysthe/ ICQ 3945810 Powered by Debian GNU/Linux Clones are people two
Re: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?
Richard E. Hawkins wrote: Damon dabbled, Seeing Debian is such an internet-centric (ie., apt) distribution, it would be nice if you could install the whole thing with one the one or two boot disks (I'm sure you can with redhat). Even if the boot disk had a little FTP client (like wget or curl), so you could switch to a VT and put them on that newly made EXT2 partition. This *is* the install method for FreeBSD. But they had to go to two disks about two releases ago, seems they'v accumulated too many drivers. Of course, RedHat 6.0 has a single-disk ftp/nfs/http install system... :-) Installed it on my Sony Vaio Z505S, which has a USB floppy so single-disk was mandatory; then from RedHat downloaded the Debian images and installed Debian- without ever using Windoze! Refund here we come... :-) It would be nice if Debian had a similar one-floppy net install arrangement. Zeen, -Adam P.
Re: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?
On Fri, 3 Sep 1999, Adam C Powell IV wrote: Richard E. Hawkins wrote: Damon dabbled, Seeing Debian is such an internet-centric (ie., apt) distribution, it would be nice if you could install the whole thing with one the one or two boot disks (I'm sure you can with redhat). Even if the boot disk had a little FTP client (like wget or curl), so you could switch to a VT and put them on that newly made EXT2 partition. How does zero floppy install stack up? I installed my latest Debian slink from a single CD with no floppy at all. In fact the floppy did not work at all, a fact I didn't discover until much later. Once the system was up, I pulled all the updates off the net. --David David Teague, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Debian GNU/Linux Because software support is free, timely, useful, technically accurate, and friendly.
Re: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?
David said: How does zero floppy install stack up? I installed my latest Debian slink from a single CD with no floppy at all. In fact the floppy did not work at all, a fact I didn't discover until much later. Once the system was up, I pulled all the updates off the net. --David David Teague, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yes it can be done that way (no floppy and single CD), but with the binary now occupying 2 CD's, its best to boot from CD-1(most modern pc's support CD booting), do all the preliminary thingswhen you get to the dselect step you first do the U and I steps using CD-2, then repeat the U and I steps with CD-1 THEN do the A (Access) step selecting 'apt' and repeat the U and I steps and THEN do the C (configure step). I am pointing this out simply for the benefit of beginners like myself who initially did not know the correct sequence for the 2 CD's. Of course you could skip the U and I steps with the CD's entirely, but unless you have a fast network connection downloading much of which is available on your CD's will be a lot slower than first taking advantage of what is on your CD's. One stumbling block with the 'apt' network install portion is that your network connection may require you to use a proxy server for http. The Debian 2.1 CD install system does not provide a convenient way to direct dselect to use your proxy server. Often using ftp rather than http for this step will remove this stumbling bock as ftp is less likely to be proxy'd. But while the http addresses are given, the ftp ones are not. They should be I believe. Can someone provide them for both the US and non-US servers? Ron
RE: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?
One reason is pretty installation. IMHO, RedHat has more eye candy. It starts up with a more intuitive install and gives a general user what they are looking for. Apps, X/MS like interface. Some networking stuff. Great book in every store, most with CDs. Great documentation on getting Samba running (books required :( ). For administrators, debian appears to be the odds on favorite. After the failed floopy install attempt, I installed from CD (long story). Installation went much smoother and when I was done (after running dselect) I could not only ping but ftp and web browse apache. I assure you this was no fault of my own :) ! Nice server in a box installation ! My comments while they are fresh in my mind and before the failed attempt and successful attempt mentally run together more. Debian: 1. Install by floppy then CD didn't work 2. Said it would make my HD bootable, didn't. I still boot from floppies so if anyone can tell me where to look to change this... It's not bad because I almost never have to reboot :) 3. It appears everything installed, but didn't. You have to run dselect to install mandatory packages after you have installed OS ? This wouldn't be so bad if it told you this during install. Maybe it did and I missed it ! 4. You have to run dselect. Ouch ! For a nice installation, this was somewhat painful. Not to mention it is very unclear which CD does what. I tried to tell it I had two CDs and I put the appropriate CD in. It complained about not finding packages like Contrib. Maybe it doesn't ship with it. In any event, I selected and said install and it chuncked away and away and failed to install. I had the wrong CD in. I tried it with the other one and everything seemed to work. Bottom line for me If you want a workstation loaded with semi-useful apps, choose redhat. If you want to play, choose redhat. If you are going to use this for your main computer with no server intentions, I would choose redhat. If you have bizaar hardware, redhat (I believe) has more drivers. Redhat has more packages but this may be an arguement for alien. If you want a network or internet server, choose debian or you'll unfortunately wish you had. Just my intial opinion of Debian and past(pre 6.0) opinion of redhat. For what it's worth, my server is using debian. paul -Original Message- From: David Teague [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, September 03, 1999 3:53 PM To: Adam C Powell IV Cc: debian-user@lists.debian.org Subject: Re: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat? On Fri, 3 Sep 1999, Adam C Powell IV wrote: Richard E. Hawkins wrote: Damon dabbled, Seeing Debian is such an internet-centric (ie., apt) distribution, it would be nice if you could install the whole thing with one the one or two boot disks (I'm sure you can with redhat). Even if the boot disk had a little FTP client (like wget or curl), so you could switch to a VT and put them on that newly made EXT2 partition. How does zero floppy install stack up? I installed my latest Debian slink from a single CD with no floppy at all. In fact the floppy did not work at all, a fact I didn't discover until much later. Once the system was up, I pulled all the updates off the net. --David David Teague, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Debian GNU/Linux Because software support is free, timely, useful, technically accurate, and friendly. -- Unsubscribe? mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] /dev/null
Re: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?
On 03-Sep-99 Ron Stordahl wrote: David said: How does zero floppy install stack up? I installed my latest Debian slink from a single CD with no floppy at all. In fact the floppy did not work at all, a fact I didn't discover until much later. Once the system was up, I pulled all the updates off the net. --David David Teague, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yes it can be done that way (no floppy and single CD), but with the binary now occupying 2 CD's, its best to boot from CD-1(most modern pc's support CD booting), do all the preliminary thingswhen you get to the dselect step you first do the U and I steps using CD-2, then repeat the U and I steps with CD-1 THEN do the A (Access) step selecting 'apt' and repeat the U and I steps and THEN do the C (configure step). I am pointing this out simply for the benefit of beginners like myself who initially did not know the correct sequence for the 2 CD's. Of course you could skip the U and I steps with the CD's entirely, but unless you have a fast network connection downloading much of which is available on your CD's will be a lot slower than first taking advantage of what is on your CD's. What I did with my system, and worked very well, is use both CD's at the same time! I have a CD-ROM drive and a CDRW drive. I booted off the bootable one, installed the base system, rebooted, mounted /dev/hdc on /cdrom, and /dev/hdd on /cdrw, and added these lines to /etc/apt/sources.list: deb file:/cdrom/debian stable main contrib deb file:/cdrw/debian stable main contrib I then ran apt-get update, switched back to the Debian Install on console 1, skipped [U]pdate, and ran Install. Simple, no problems. Of course, you have to have the second cd-rom. I've also done floppy-less and cd-less installs on other machines, by copying the base to another partition from Windows, installing the base, then pointing dselect to the computer with the CD. --- Regards, Wim Kerkhoff [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.canadianhomes.net/wim Running Windows on a Pentium is like having a brand new Porsche but only be able to drive backwards with the handbrake on. (Unknown source)
Re: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?
How does zero floppy install stack up? I installed my latest Debian slink from a single CD with no floppy at all. In fact the floppy did not work at all, a fact I didn't discover until much later. Once the system was up, I pulled all the updates off the net. That puts you a cd behind :) The single-floppy is a downloaded floppy, which then sucks the rest off the net without even having a cd drive. And the floppy costs a lot less :) --
Re: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?
Richard said: That puts you a cd behind :) The single-floppy is a downloaded floppy, which then sucks the rest off the net without even having a cd drive. And the floppy costs a lot less :) True, but incredibly slow, unless you have your own T1. A standard workstation install is 400 mb or so. Try that on your modem! Ron
Re: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?
ron rattled, Richard said: That puts you a cd behind :) The single-floppy is a downloaded floppy, which then sucks the rest off the net without even having a cd drive. And the floppy costs a lot less :) True, but incredibly slow, unless you have your own T1. A standard workstation install is 400 mb or so. Try that on your modem! ethernet directly to the T3 :) And then waiting for a p120/16mb to sort it all out :( --
RE: boot from hd (was RE: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?)
Thanks for the help ! I'll give this a try. When I boot I get 1F0 in the upper left part of the screen. I think this is also the address of the CDROM drive. Probably coincidence. paul -Original Message- From: Patrick Olson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, September 03, 1999 6:02 PM To: Paul McHale Cc: debian-user Subject: boot from hd (was RE: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?) 2. Said it would make my HD bootable, didn't. I still boot from floppies so if anyone can tell me where to look to change this... It's not bad because I almost never have to reboot :) What does it do when you try to boot from the HD? You might take a look at the LILO mini-HOWTO at http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/mini/LILO.html I've heard that some systems do not like lilo, so this may not work out. lilo has worked on every system I've tried it on though. If you have questions, feel free to ask. I'm sure either myself or someone else on this list will be happy to help. Hope this helps, Patrick
boot from hd (was RE: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?)
2. Said it would make my HD bootable, didn't. I still boot from floppies so if anyone can tell me where to look to change this... It's not bad because I almost never have to reboot :) What does it do when you try to boot from the HD? You might take a look at the LILO mini-HOWTO at http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/mini/LILO.html I've heard that some systems do not like lilo, so this may not work out. lilo has worked on every system I've tried it on though. If you have questions, feel free to ask. I'm sure either myself or someone else on this list will be happy to help. Hope this helps, Patrick
RE: boot from hd (was RE: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?)
On Fri, 03 Sep 1999, Paul McHale wrote: Thanks for the help ! I'll give this a try. When I boot I get 1F0 in the upper left part of the screen. I think this is also the address of the CDROM drive. Probably coincidence. Actually the 1F0 is a prompt provided by the mbr package that replaces the master boot record of your harddrive. If I remember correctly 1 boots the first partition, F boots floppy A, and 0 allows selection of booting from any partition 1-4 regardless of their active setting. -- Ashley Clark
RE: boot from hd (was RE: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?)
I was mistaken, it is 1FA. I am not sure how to enter 1. The exact prompt is 1FA: When I press a key I get nothing. When I press enter, I get another prompt: 1FA:1FA: Is there a special way to enter it ? -Original Message- From: Ashley Clark [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, September 03, 1999 6:18 PM To: Paul McHale; Patrick Olson Cc: debian-user Subject: RE: boot from hd (was RE: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?) On Fri, 03 Sep 1999, Paul McHale wrote: Thanks for the help ! I'll give this a try. When I boot I get 1F0 in the upper left part of the screen. I think this is also the address of the CDROM drive. Probably coincidence. Actually the 1F0 is a prompt provided by the mbr package that replaces the master boot record of your harddrive. If I remember correctly 1 boots the first partition, F boots floppy A, and 0 allows selection of booting from any partition 1-4 regardless of their active setting. -- Ashley Clark
RE: boot from hd (was RE: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?)
Try pressing 'a', for 'A'dvanced. That should give you some more options, if my memory serves correct. You probably have more partitions that 1, but they aren't showing up. On 03-Sep-99 Paul McHale wrote: I was mistaken, it is 1FA. I am not sure how to enter 1. The exact prompt is 1FA: When I press a key I get nothing. When I press enter, I get another prompt: 1FA:1FA: Is there a special way to enter it ? On Fri, 03 Sep 1999, Paul McHale wrote: Thanks for the help ! I'll give this a try. When I boot I get 1F0 in the upper left part of the screen. I think this is also the address of the CDROM drive. Probably coincidence. Actually the 1F0 is a prompt provided by the mbr package that replaces the master boot record of your harddrive. If I remember correctly 1 boots the first partition, F boots floppy A, and 0 allows selection of booting from any partition 1-4 regardless of their active setting. --- Regards, Wim Kerkhoff [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.canadianhomes.net/wim A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any other invention, with the possible exceptions of handguns and Tequilla. -- Mitch Ratcliffe
RE: boot from hd (was RE: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?)
You were right. I get another menu: 1234F: When I looked around the corner at the PC front, I saw the floppy light come on when I pressed F during either the 1FA: or 1234F: prompt. I put a floppy in and pressed F and it is now booting. I am assuming this means there is no boot record on the HD since 1,2,3 and 4 don't work ... I guess I'll try LILO tonight. thanks paul -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Wim Kerkhoff Sent: Friday, September 03, 1999 12:26 PM To: Paul McHale Cc: debian-user Subject: RE: boot from hd (was RE: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?) Try pressing 'a', for 'A'dvanced. That should give you some more options, if my memory serves correct. You probably have more partitions that 1, but they aren't showing up. On 03-Sep-99 Paul McHale wrote: I was mistaken, it is 1FA. I am not sure how to enter 1. The exact prompt is 1FA: When I press a key I get nothing. When I press enter, I get another prompt: 1FA:1FA: Is there a special way to enter it ? On Fri, 03 Sep 1999, Paul McHale wrote: Thanks for the help ! I'll give this a try. When I boot I get 1F0 in the upper left part of the screen. I think this is also the address of the CDROM drive. Probably coincidence. Actually the 1F0 is a prompt provided by the mbr package that replaces the master boot record of your harddrive. If I remember correctly 1 boots the first partition, F boots floppy A, and 0 allows selection of booting from any partition 1-4 regardless of their active setting. --- Regards, Wim Kerkhoff [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.canadianhomes.net/wim A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any other invention, with the possible exceptions of handguns and Tequilla. -- Mitch Ratcliffe -- Unsubscribe? mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] /dev/null
Re: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?
Mark Brown wrote: On Tue, Aug 31, 1999 at 06:11:13PM -0700, Steve Lamb wrote: [Slow releases] This is a fallacy. The longest Debian release cycle I could find on record was 7 months. In fact, that is the average. Red Hat and Slackware have both had 7 month long release cycles. The shorter ones were for ugly bugs they needed to fix that Debian's release cycle pretty much avoids. It's not just the time between releases that's important. For various reasons (long freezes and unfortunate timing among them) Debian has produced releases which were behind the state of the art when they were released - X and the kernel in slink, for example. This gives the impression that Debian releases are much older than they actually are. Aside from things like the kernel and X (which provide hardware support that some people need) there's not much wrong with old software, but people still seem to want the new stuff (right now GNOME is the hot thing). I'd guess that a large proportion of the people who want more than just more up to date hardware support really want to be riding unstable. Almost seems like the problem is truth in advertising. Maybe unstable should be called cutting-edge? ;-)
Re: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?
At 02:24 PM 8/31/99 MDT, Duggan Dieterly wrote: i'm thinking about switching from debian to red hat. is there any compelling reason why debian is better than red hat? -- Duggan Dieterlyvoice: (970) 898-7906 Software Design Engr fax: (970) 898-3684 Hewlett-Packard Co. apt-get
Re: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?
Hi, [ no doubt ths comes up often so I hope no-one minds me commenting! ] I'm sure you'll get lots of answers. For me the main points were: PRO: - More 'standards' compliant in the sense that I found that when I read the HOWTOS in many cases the RH stuff wasn't in the places it said it would be (because they specialise stuff for their tools) whereas it was on Debian. I am NOT slagginf RH I understand why they did this, I just wanted to get my hands dirty and it was easier with Debian. - The update feature and package management frontend. I believe RH has a tool which allows you to update to the latest version of an RPM buit the Debian version is great. APT allows me to get my system upgraded automatically. - Done by volunteers for Free Software. Total personal and not technical choice. CONTRA: - More stuff is done in the RPM format. For example the GNOME stuff tends to lag a bit. OTOH I was always worried where the RPM's were coming from whereas Debian tends to be more under control. - Speed of releases. Volunteers don't have the same amount of time as a commercial operation so the releases tend to be few and far between. They are very solid when they come along but it can be a bit galling if you want to run up-to-date stuff. The choice is to compile it yourself in /usr/local or to follow the unstable branch. HTH, Steve On Tue, Aug 31, 1999 at 02:24:21PM -0600, Duggan Dieterly wrote: i'm thinking about switching from debian to red hat. is there any compelling reason why debian is better than red hat? -- Duggan Dieterlyvoice: (970) 898-7906 Software Design Engr fax: (970) 898-3684 Hewlett-Packard Co. -- Unsubscribe? mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] /dev/null
Re: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?
Hi, i'm thinking about switching from debian to red hat. is there any compelling reason why debian is better than red hat? -- Sure. Debian has a better package control system and can resolve the dependence better. Apt is a superior tool. Can you find an equivalent one for redhat? Second, debian can install rpms, but redhat can not install debs easily. So, in that sense, you have more choices when you are using debian. Third, debian usually has packages pre-configured better than that comes in rpm. But you have to miss some tools like XConfigurator, linuxconf coming with redhat when you stick to debian. If you ask my choice, the answer is certainly *Debian Potato* -- Min Xu City College of NY, CUNY Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel:(O) (212) 650-6865 (O) (212) 650-5046 (H) (212) 690-2119
Re: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?
Tuesday, August 31, 1999, 3:04:45 PM, Steve wrote: - Speed of releases. Volunteers don't have the same amount of time as a commercial operation so the releases tend to be few and far between. They are very solid when they come along but it can be a bit galling if you want to run up-to-date stuff. The choice is to compile it yourself in /usr/local or to follow the unstable branch. This is a fallacy. The longest Debian release cycle I could find on record was 7 months. In fact, that is the average. Red Hat and Slackware have both had 7 month long release cycles. The shorter ones were for ugly bugs they needed to fix that Debian's release cycle pretty much avoids. So stable release for stable release, Debian is on par with others. -- Steve C. Lamb | I'm your priest, I'm your shrink, I'm your ICQ: 5107343 | main connection to the switchboard of souls. ---+-
Re: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?
True package management, including installation scripts. And a process in place to keep packages out of the main distribution that don't follow a standard for file locations, and other stuff. In a word: stability It's great for servers, end-users can use just about any version of Linux and be happy... but for servers, my $'s on Debian. Just an opinion. On Tue, 31 Aug 1999, Duggan Dieterly wrote: i'm thinking about switching from debian to red hat. is there any compelling reason why debian is better than red hat? -- Duggan Dieterlyvoice: (970) 898-7906 Software Design Engr fax: (970) 898-3684 Hewlett-Packard Co. -- Unsubscribe? mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] /dev/null +---++ | Nate Duehr - [EMAIL PROTECTED]| Support Amateur Radio Linux! | | Private Pilot, Telephony Engineer | Ham Callsign: N0NTZ | | UNIX Hack, Perl Hack, Tech-Freak | Grid Square: DM79 | | | May the Source be with you. | +---++ | HamRadio and Linux mailing lists available for interested parties: | |http://www.natetech.com/mailman/listinfo| ++
Re: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?
I'm not a techie so this is a user's perspective. Red Hat is just as free as Debian so there's no issue there like there is with SuSE and Caldera. There are far more Red Hat users out there and lots of RPMs. So give it a try and decide for yourself. I use Debian because its so easy to keep it stable, because I think apt-get is way way easier than rpm and because the support offered by this list is great. Patrick
Re: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?
At 01:43 01.09.99 -0700, George Bonser wrote: Patrick, I graduated from Red Hat to Debian twice. I was hard-headed and did not learn the first time ... gave it a second chance. I came back to Debian. The ONLY thing Red Hat has is an easy install ... upkeep of a Red Hat system is a nightmare. Agree. I moved from Redhat to Debian 2 months ago and only app I'm missing is printtool. Hasso
Re: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?
hi ya patrick/george I graduated from Red Hat to Debian twice. I was hard-headed and did not learn the first time ... gave it a second chance. I came back to Debian. The ONLY thing Red Hat has is an easy install ... upkeep of a Red Hat system is a nightmare. install on rh ain't that trivial lots of gotchas and oopps... like other distro... just need to watch it... - a trivial install would be: * fdisk the disk/format/mount it * dd if=/working_distro of=/target-disk * tweek the network info -- no way for it to know your domain/ip# in advance * autodetect your SVGA/X11 config info * boot_it and it should work whether you like one distro over another would depend on... -- whether you can compile the linux kernel on the distro you just bought... ( some recent version cannot compile its own kernel that is on the cd ) -- which apps you like already on the cd you get - which hardware you have...some distro does NOT support some hardware... - elm, pine, ssh, tripwire, - egcs, java, - wordperfect, staroffice, applix, mysql, oracle, sybase, etc -- how you want to upgrade/patch/maintain it - the nightmare or just let rsync/mirror/raid/home_brew do its magic - if you are local ( santa clara - silicon valley ) ...stop by have these silly boxes for poking around... - rh-5.x/6.0 slackware-3.6/4.0, suse-6.2, deb-2.1/2.2, caldera-2.2, tl-3.6, etc have fun linuxing alvin On Wed, 1 Sep 1999, Patrick Kirk wrote: I'm not a techie so this is a user's perspective. Red Hat is just as free as Debian so there's no issue there like there is with SuSE and Caldera. There are far more Red Hat users out there and lots of RPMs. So give it a try and decide for yourself. I use Debian because its so easy to keep it stable, because I think apt-get is way way easier than rpm and because the support offered by this list is great. Patrick
Re: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?
On Wed, Sep 01, 1999 at 01:43:52AM -0700, George Bonser wrote: Patrick, I graduated from Red Hat to Debian twice. I was hard-headed and did not learn the first time ... gave it a second chance. I came back to Debian. The ONLY thing Red Hat has is an easy install ... upkeep of a Red Hat system is a nightmare. The same for me. I've tried: RedHad 4.0, Debian 1.2, Slackware, SuSE, some more diffirent RedHats 4.2 - 5.2 , and came back to Debian and i will never leave it again. Moreover, i've Debianized every Linux system I could (about 6). My opinion is: Debian is not perfect, but no distro is, and Debian is closest to what I like about Linux. You can tweak everything you can in Debian, while RedHat seems more like M$-windows to me. (you can beat me) RedHat is not much more foolproof than Debian. If you want a Linux for dummies, give SuSE a try - click as much as you wish :) Marcin -- - Marcin Owsiany [EMAIL PROTECTED] -
Re: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?
I also graduated from Red Hat. Debian installation is a beast but it leaves you with a working system that is idiot proof. Red Hat is an easier installation but things fail and you're left trawling the net resolving dependencies. Patrick - Original Message - From: George Bonser [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Patrick Kirk [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Duggan Dieterly [EMAIL PROTECTED]; debian-user@lists.debian.org Sent: Wednesday, September 01, 1999 9:43 AM Subject: Re: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat? Patrick, I graduated from Red Hat to Debian twice. I was hard-headed and did not learn the first time ... gave it a second chance. I came back to Debian. The ONLY thing Red Hat has is an easy install ... upkeep of a Red Hat system is a nightmare. On Wed, 1 Sep 1999, Patrick Kirk wrote: I'm not a techie so this is a user's perspective. Red Hat is just as free as Debian so there's no issue there like there is with SuSE and Caldera. There are far more Red Hat users out there and lots of RPMs. So give it a try and decide for yourself. I use Debian because its so easy to keep it stable, because I think apt-get is way way easier than rpm and because the support offered by this list is great. Patrick -- Unsubscribe? mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] /dev/null George Bonser When someone annoys you, it takes 32 muscles to frown, but it only takes 4 muscles to extend your arm and smack them in the head. -- Unsubscribe? mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] /dev/null
Re: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Steve Lamb) writes: Tuesday, August 31, 1999, 3:04:45 PM, Steve wrote: - Speed of releases. Volunteers don't have the same amount of time as a commercial operation so the releases tend to be few and far between. They are very solid when they come along but it can be a bit galling if you want to run up-to-date stuff. The choice is to compile it yourself in /usr/local or to follow the unstable branch. This is a fallacy. The longest Debian release cycle I could find on record was 7 months. In fact, that is the average. Red Hat and Slackware have both had 7 month long release cycles. The shorter ones were for ugly bugs they needed to fix that Debian's release cycle pretty much avoids. However, Debian seems to have that reputation. Part of it may have been due to the libc thing. But Debian made sure they got it right! Some of this may also go back to the VERY early days of Debian. In the early days much of the Press indicated that Debian was not ready for use, but did show promise. So stable release for stable release, Debian is on par with others. To me, the best things about Debian is that most things work right out of the box, because it uses sensible defaults. Also when you need to fine tune something, it is generally easy to find. In earlier days I did find some things frustrating. Mainly documentation. I seemed to run into circular this document is not up to date, see other document. Presently, I am not running an up-to-date release. So thats not too important to me. In my slakware days, seemed like I was always impatient for new releases. But things are pretty stable now, and I do not feel the need to be on the cutting edge at present. In the back of my head, I keep saying I should update, but never seem to get around to it. When I moved to Debian, I had up-to-date CD's for 3 or 4 distributions in my possesion. I could have gone many ways. I have never regretted my decision. And if I want to install a Red Hat package, no problem. Really no problem for most others either. -- *** Running Debian Linux *** * For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, * * that whoever believes in Him should not perish...John 3:16 * * W. Paul Mills * Topeka, Kansas, U.S.A. * * EMAIL= [EMAIL PROTECTED] * WWW= http://Mills-USA.com/ * * Bill, I was there several years ago, why would I want to go back? * * pgp public key on keyservers everywhere? */ --
Re: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?
On Tue, Aug 31, 1999 at 11:04:45PM +0100, Steve George wrote: [Please include line breaks within paragraphs and leave a blank line between paragraphs] - More 'standards' compliant in the sense that I found that when I read the HOWTOS in many cases the RH stuff wasn't in the places it said it would be (because they specialise stuff for their tools) whereas it was on Debian. I am NOT slagginf RH I understand why they did this, I just wanted to get my hands dirty and it was easier with Debian. All distributions do this to some extent. - The update feature and package management frontend. I believe RH has a tool which allows you to update to the latest version of an RPM buit the Debian version is great. APT allows me to get my system upgraded automatically. Doing a distribution upgrade without *having* to reboot is rather nice. CONTRA: - More stuff is done in the RPM format. For example the GNOME stuff tends to lag a bit. OTOH I was always worried where the RPM's were coming from whereas Debian tends to be more under control. I've never actually found this to be a problem, particularly with the unstable distribution. I currently don't have any non-Debian software on my machines that isn't either commercial or a local hack. -- Mark Brown mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Trying to avoid grumpiness) http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~broonie/ EUFShttp://www.eusa.ed.ac.uk/societies/filmsoc/ pgpZi28tm7ngP.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?
On Tue, Aug 31, 1999 at 06:11:13PM -0700, Steve Lamb wrote: [Slow releases] This is a fallacy. The longest Debian release cycle I could find on record was 7 months. In fact, that is the average. Red Hat and Slackware have both had 7 month long release cycles. The shorter ones were for ugly bugs they needed to fix that Debian's release cycle pretty much avoids. It's not just the time between releases that's important. For various reasons (long freezes and unfortunate timing among them) Debian has produced releases which were behind the state of the art when they were released - X and the kernel in slink, for example. This gives the impression that Debian releases are much older than they actually are. Aside from things like the kernel and X (which provide hardware support that some people need) there's not much wrong with old software, but people still seem to want the new stuff (right now GNOME is the hot thing). I'd guess that a large proportion of the people who want more than just more up to date hardware support really want to be riding unstable. -- Mark Brown mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Trying to avoid grumpiness) http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~broonie/ EUFShttp://www.eusa.ed.ac.uk/societies/filmsoc/ pgpt3aVrULGKY.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?
On Wed, 1 Sep 1999, Hasso Tepper wrote: Agree. I moved from Redhat to Debian 2 months ago and only app I'm missing is printtool. I like printool of redhat. So I used alien to debianized that thing. I installed and it works(gui), but have not tested it yet. Anyway, to comment on the original post... I tested/evaluated all major linux distros. And Debian came on top. Sure, there are many rpm's around. But it's not made by the core redhat people. So quality of the rpm's varies. Yes, there are not many .debs around... but who needs it? there are literally thousands of .debs made by the core debian developers. So the quality is extremely good. If you really want an easy distro, try to get hold of the upcoming corel Linux distro. Wait... it's based on Debian! just my 2 cents, = == Andre M. Varon - Technical Head = = == Lasaltech, Inc. - Bacolod City, Phil. = === = http://andre.lasaltech.com = = = = = Eat Shit! 100 billion flies can't be wrong!
Re: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?
nathan nattered, True package management, including installation scripts. And a process in place to keep packages out of the main distribution that don't follow a standard for file locations, and other stuff. But the biggest single reason: this list. Most problems get resolved in a matter of hours. I actually prefer FreeBSD (everything from licensing to packages), but the support on this list for debian more than makes up for that. -- These opinions will not be those of UNI until it pays my retainer.
Re: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?
On Wed, 1 Sep 1999, Richard E. Hawkins wrote: True package management, including installation scripts. And a process in place to keep packages out of the main distribution that don't follow a standard for file locations, and other stuff. But the biggest single reason: this list. Redhat has an excellent support list also. As far as I'm concerned, the reason for choosing either Debian or Red Hat is purely a matter of personal taste. If you don't like one, try the other. Red Hat is easier to install and has more stuff included with it (stuff which is in non-free in Debian), but Debian's package system is much better. The two also take very different approaches to maintaining the software. Even so, they are still both Linux and are still, given a running system, about 99% alike.
RE: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?
try and decide for yourself. I use Debian because its so easy to keep it stable, because I think apt-get is way way easier than rpm and because the support offered by this list is great. I agree with the former two reasons, but from my experiences, Red Hat's list was much better. Not to put down this one, though, but on that one, every one of my questions were answered with at least five responses. Here, I see questions go buy unanswered, which really sucks, especially if you have the same question or if you're the one who asked it. -- Bart Szyszka [EMAIL PROTECTED] ICQ:4982727 B Grafyx http://www.bgrafyx.com L.J.R. Engineering http://www.ljreng.com PHP Interest Group http://www.gigabee.com/pig/
Re: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?
Duggan Dieterly wrote: i'm thinking about switching from debian to red hat. is there any compelling reason why debian is better than red hat? -- Yes, Debian is technically superior (IMHO) - plus the official Debs is free software and upholds the principles of free software (see the GNU web-site at http://www.gnu.org if you haven't already). They call their distribution GNU/Linux for good reason We should support the volunteer culture which Debian is keeping alive in what is becoming an increasingly commercial Linux world.
Re: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?
On Wed, 1 Sep 1999, Hasso Tepper wrote: Agree. I moved from Redhat to Debian 2 months ago and only app I'm missing is printtool. ...Which works fine using alien... -Brad
Re: Why use Debian? Why not Red Hat?
I have put redhat on a system here several times, and each time had some minor problems with it. 5.0 and 5.1 had the ftp daemon broken, I couldn't ftp to the box. 6.0 has the nfs daemon broken, I can't seem to mount any filesystem of the box on another box (running debian slink). I can mount the slink fs on the redhat box. 5.2 OTHO had NO problems. Guess you must use the LAST RH release of a series. Other minor things like not having /usr/local/bin in the path by default (minor nit). Debian hasn't seemed to have any problems (well, I tried DHCP once and couldn't get it working, but I still have yet to RTFM on that one!) === Amateur Radio, when all else fails! http://www.qsl.net/wa2mze Debian Gnu Linux, Live Free or . __ Do You Yahoo!? Bid and sell for free at http://auctions.yahoo.com
