[plug] Debian V Redhat for server

[Matt Kemner]

On Wed, 20 Oct 1999, Greg Raftery wrote:

> I have heard good things about Debian on this list, but I know it will
> take me a bit longer to install. 

It's not as hard as some people make it out to be, really. :)
 
> Is there much grief associated with installing software on Debian that
> is aimed at Redhat? 

Installation of most rpm's is easy using the "alien" package
(which extracts the rpm and repackages it as a debian package) - works
great on the packages I've used it on (3dfx module, q3test etc)

The only time you'd have a problem, is where the package assumes a RedHat
file system layout, and tries to modify stuff in for example
/etc/rc.d/init.d directly (Debian's is /etc/init.d)
When the Linux Filesystem Standard gets decided on and implemented, this
problem should go away.
 
 - Matt