Debian et al: was re: Mandriva

[Collins Richey]

Quotes from Collins, Lonni, and David in that order

> > > As I mentioned in an earlier post, ManDrivel. I'm not likely to try
> > > it. Free is where it's at for me, and for the foreseeable future free
> > > RedRat (read: CentOS) since my work is based on RHEL releases.
>>
>> must be nice.  why can't everyone just wise up and use RH/FC to make my
>> life easier?  ;)

< Because Debian derivatives are so much easier to maintain (no RPM
< dependency hell), never require reinstalls on "upgrades" (which are
< continuous anyway), and with over 18,000 packages, building from
< source is rare.  And the Debian packages just work together and rarely
< have bugs (they're rather anal about that).

< The above has been the norm for many years.

Sigh, Debian again. I've recently tried Ubuntu again, and I'm rather
well impressed, but I still don't understand the Debian setup (double
sigh). Ubuntu has a nice howto for getting various common programs
that are not part of the standard release. Works pretty slick, ugh
almost. On CentOS I got the mplayer stuff and codecs using the Dag
repos, and it just worked (tm), but when I tried the recommended
packages for Ubuntu/Debian, I got an mplayer that would work for some
file types and not for others. Few things piss me off more than
getting an email from friends with some sort of Windows crappy media
format (TM) that I can't play on Linux. That happens seldom with the
mplayer I have on CentOS.

Also, a current peeve, since I run IceWm as my "desktop" (please,
let's not do the wm vs. desktop discussion again) of choice, I was not
able to find a deb package for bbrun which is one of the essentials
with IceWm or any "desktop" that does not provide a "run" function
since I don't like updating menus every five minutes. I know, why
don't I just run XFCE? Probably because IceWm is a little lighter
weight (starts up quicker) and I don't need a file manager and session
management stuff.

Also, the RPM hell of years ago (pure RPM distros) is pretty much gone
with yum or the apt for rpm stuff. I hear that the apt for RPM stuff
is poorly maintained. I haven't had to chase a dependancy (I've had to
chase a few packages) since I put up CentOS. The question is still
outstanding whether I will be able to upgrade from CentOS4 to CentOS5
in a few years. The way in which RedRat screws around with things in
Fedora makes me doubt it. Also RedRat has a habit of choosing not to
support things that are a standard elsewhere - xfs and other
filesystems, other important kernel functionality, and xfce are good
examples. CentOS is making available a plus repository (and of course
there's Dag), but the RedRat (CentOS) base is a bit slim for my
tastes.

OTOH, RedRat is ideal for engineering users such as I support. All
they need is a stable C toolchain for developing embedded code. Some
of them never run outside of Init Level 3. None of them care about the
latest KDE or GNOME. We're looking at RHEL3 or 4, when problems with
OpenLDAP are resolved, but most users are still RH9 and reporting no
problems.

Like most large corporations, my employer is a firm believer in
licenses (someone to kick around) with large suppliers, RedRat in this
case. They wouldn't touch Debian or CentOS on a bet even though they
never use the RedRat support that they pay for. They also pay (through
the nose) for ClearCase and SlickEdit. That's not going to change.
Even the choice of server hardware is based on less than logical
decisions. Someone higher up in the food chain doesn't like how the
Dell rack mount cases open, so rumor is we'll be switching to HP!

The one thing no one can match (gentoo is trying) is the massive
number of packages available with Debian.

As a final gripe. I have not bothered to join any Debian mailing
lists, but I've heard from others that they have a positive aversion
to newbies, and  that gets my dander up. Also, Debian being more
popular than some distros, I'm sure the traffic volume is higher than
I would prefer.

End of ramble.

-- 
 Collins
       When I saw the Iraqi people voting three weeks ago, 8 million of them, 
       it was the start of a new Arab world.... The Berlin Wall has fallen. 
               - Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt