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

[Peter Wright]

Greg, Christian, John, etc...

On Tue, Feb 22, 2000 at 05:07:50PM +0800, Greg Mildenhall wrote:
> On Tue, 22 Feb 2000, John Summerfield wrote:
> > Most times I can find an rpm created for Red Hat, though often for
> > the wrong version.
> And hence rarely better than a tarball, and usually worse.
> 
> > The big disadvantage of tarballs is that rpm doesn't know what
> > files it installs, so upgrading & removing are both more
> > difficult.
> No, that's an _advantage_ over unofficial RPMs. You put the files
> where they are, so you know what to remove. Who knows what an
> unofficial RPM might do?

Well... you should be able to tell from the RPM file itself exactly
what it would do if you tried to install it.

Of course mixing tarballs with package-managed stuff can cause
problems unless you know what you're doing. Hence if you
compiling/installing stuff from tarballs, you usually do it under
/usr/local or /opt or whatever, specifically so you can make sure it
doesn't pollute your nice wholesome package-managed /usr partition.

> > I use RHL because it works.

Yeah, I used to use Slackware because it worked, too. :)

> > I have no problem with folk using other distros, however, I don't
> > expect I'd recoup the time converting if I did convert to
> > something else.
> You might be surprised. Probably depends how much and how many Linux
> systems you use, and whether they are
> production/development/stuff-around.

Debian's package management is something that I don't think you can
fully appreciate the wonder of until you try it and use it for a
little while. The 'ports' tree for the BSDs is the only thing that
comes close. It seriously rocks.

> > If I install another vendor's distro, it will because of something else 
> > packaged with it.
> If something is packaged with only one distro, I wouldn't touch it. :)

Which, the something or the distro? ;]

> OK, so that's a generalisation, but still a rule of thumb.

I'm guessing you probably meant more "usable with only one distro,
(excepting those apps that are to do with distro-specific
control/configuration and would thus be essentially pointless on
another distro)", am I right?

If so, I can see why you chose your way of saying it. :)

> -Greg

On Tue, Feb 22, 2000 at 09:13:35AM +0000, Christian wrote:
> Greg Mildenhall wrote:
[ John wrote ]
> > > If I install another vendor's distro, it will because of something else
> > > packaged with it.
> > If something is packaged with only one distro, I wouldn't touch it. :)
> > OK, so that's a generalisation, but still a rule of thumb.
> 
> To Greg: Does this mean you've sworn off APT? :-)
> 
> To John: Debian has APT, no other distribution has it.  By your own
> reasoning, you should consider installing Debian.

John just said that if he _did_ install another vendor's distro, it
would be (hmm, I'm reading the implied stuff now :) because there was
something packaged with it that he wanted/needed. Further implication
being that that something isn't packaged in his current distro of
choice.

If he doesn't want/need APT (or any other Debian-specific app), then I
guess there's no reason for him to try Debian. :)

Pete.
-- 
http://cygnus.uwa.edu.au/~pete/

--
"The reason for the success of this somewhat communist-sounding strategy, while 
the failure of communism itself is visible around the world, is that the 
economics of information are fundamentally different from those of other products."

  -- Bruce Perens, on Open Source software. (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates)