Why I use Debian. Was Re: [plug] Mandrake - printing

[Christian]

Greg Mildenhall wrote:
> I disagree. To me, a package is only better than a tarball if it has been
> made correctly, and is compatible with any other packages you might want
> to install. This is true of any package you can find at debian.org or
> redhat.com or associated mirror. This is not true of the average RPM you
> find on a website - they might be packaged in the RPM format, but they
> won't necessarily follow Redhat's guidelines, and hence they won't
> necessarily work smoothly on your system, or be cleanly
> upgradable/removable when the time comes.

This is what I'm talking about when I speak of Debian's "package
management infrastructure".  They have hundreds (not sure of the exact
figure) of developers working at packaging and testing their software
and it's all organised and coordinated in the most remarkable way.  I
don't have enough experience with Red Hat to make any definite comments
on the quality of their packages but given the comments made by some
about upgrading Red Hat systems, I wouldn't be 100% certain that the
quality of a Red Hat package was as good as one of Debian's.  Somehow I
suspect that the fact that upgrading Red Hat systems can be somewhat
risky whereas upgrading Debian is usually very safe suggests that
perhaps the packages aren't quite as good (and certainly at least that
the testing process is not as thorough).  Of course the upside of this
is more "bells and whistles" and more frequent releases.

Regards,

Christian.