Debian et al: was re: Mandriva

[David A. Bandel]

Regurgitating the prose of Collins Richey Collins Richey
<crichey at gmail.com> on Sat, 14 May 2005 10:26:07 -0600:

|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

Please ask questions about that which you don't understand.  I stand by
my: Linux is Linux is Linux saying.  And Caldera did things differently
from RH despite being RPM based.

|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.

I have mplayer and haven't had the problem you mention, but then I don't
have Windoze types sending me any off-the-wall media formats.  What
media format is it you can't play?  Did you install the Woody, Sarge, or
Sid mplayer?

|
|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.

Well, I find XFCE too heavy as well and hate the session junk.  So I use
openbox.  Just a plain blue screen for me.  Debian handles the menu and
has a menu item for almost anything you don't run from only a console.

|
|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.

Can't you use RedHat or FC RPMs?

|
|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.

You don't want to join a Debian list unless you like being abused by
idiot adolescents without a clue.

Ciao,

David A. Bandel
-- 
Focus on the dream, not the competition.
		Nemesis Racing Team motto
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