[plug] ComputerBank meeting Tues 24th 7:45pm

[Christian]

John Summerfield wrote:
> > Also, there are a LOT more packages available for debian than any other
> > distribution.
> 
> Few 386s and 486s have the capacity to install all that much, so that's a
> moot point. I do know a few other vendors than Red Hat (and its clones)
> ship RPMS; is that true of Debian's format?

I believe the point of having a lot of packages is to give the person
choice - just because there are lots of packages doesn't mean they have
to install them all.  In fact, it might be something that a new user
finds particularly appealing if, upon hearing of some new program which
isn't installed on their system, they find they can just type 'apt-get
install newprog' and on the very next line start working with the
program.

Debian has it's own native format (.deb) which is superior to Red Hat's
in a number of minor ways.  However the real benefit of Debian's system,
in my experience, is the effort put into making sure that the packages
work with the rest of the system and in the infrastructure which backs
this up.  I've heard countless times of Red Hat users who install some
new package or upgrade to a new version and find that their system
breaks badly in one way or another.

As for RPMs, Debian uses alien to convert these to .debs for you - on
the *very* rare occasion that this is actually necessary since Debian
likely has a native package for what you want anyway.

Regards,

Christian.

-- 
Ferguson's Precept:
	A crisis is when you can't say "let's forget the whole thing."