the ponderings of a fence-sitter [was Re: [plug] Debian - clueless :o}]

[Sol Hanna]

Hi Derek,

It's interesting to see you putting your toe in the Debian pond. I've
been quietly reading posts, esp. re. the Novell Suse purchase and the
ensuing distro flame war and sitting on the fence, so thought I might
throw a few musings to the internet wind. Why?

Cos back in Nov 00 I bought my first PC, with Win98, used it for six
weeks and then moved over to Suse Linux 7.0. Even as a newbie I
preferred Linux, and I've never looked back since (yay, it's my third
anniversary with Linux!). I joined PLUG not long after and struggled for
the first 9 - 12 months to work out what the geeks on this list were
talking about! Eventually my dissatisfaction with certain aspects of
Suse and my eagerness to learn led me to cave in to the PLUG peer group
pressure and install Debian. 

Having no background in CS and just being a hobbyist, it took me a week
and several attempts to work out how to get it properly installed. But I
can tell you I learnt a hell of a lot that week! ;-) Whilst Debian was
kinda difficult to get to know, this is where the true advantage of
Debian began to come to the fore - the community. Actually, Debianites
are more like a cult than a community, but a very friendly, supportive
cult. It's strange to think of the strong point of software being
community support, but that was my experience. The Debianistas were very
open, and patiently answered all my dumb questions. I learnt heaps more
in my second year as a Linux user, largely because of this. (These days
people think I'm a guru, but being on this list reminds me that I've got
a long way to go before I reach that status.) 

In time I came to love the strengths of Debian. But there was a catch.
Learning to love Debian gave me a stronger understanding of computing,
and a greater appreciation of open source and the community that makes
it, but it had changed me. I was all of a sudden on another level, and
ordinary (l)users couldn't relate to some of the solutions I was
proposing. And it has to be said that everything was harder to do on the
desktop, and it was starting to bug me. 

So I tried Suse again (I've also tried Mandrake and Red Hat on occasions
too). And I was really impressed. After nearly two years of being a
Debianista myself, I went back to Suse, at first on my laptop, but
eventually on all the machines I run. Why? Well I never was much of a
fan of manually configuring hardware. I put a lot of time into learning
about it, but it never became fun for me. I'm mostly a desktop user, and
I do a bit of web hacking, run a small network for a charity, and a
smaller one at home. I like the polished desktop, having the latest
applications up to date, and the convenience of having everything so
well packaged. It suits where I'm at.

BUT, I don't think Suse is better than Debian. I worry that Suse will go
the way of Red Hat, and I don't like their lack of openness - even
Mandrake are much more open than Suse. There isn't the same community
buzz. If Debian tackles the issues with the installer and the desktop,
I'd definitely consider going back. And I can also see how if you were a
network admin you could very easily fall into a lifelong marriage with
Debian. Debian gets better the better you get to know it. The real
question is how much time and energy you're prepared to put aside to get
this "love affair" (and yes, that's exactly what it is between Debian
nerds and Debian, a love affair) off the ground.

So I'm not going to say which I think is "best". Call this sitting on
the fence, but I think of it as being open minded. To be honest, I'm
really glad I've got a choice. Lucky I a Linux user! :-)

peace; sol


On Thu, 2003-11-20 at 18:20, Derek Fountain wrote:
> I thought it was about time I had a look at a debian system. I'd like to get 
> an idea of how it works and what all the fuss is about. I'm going to start by 
> installing it in a Vmware machine and see how I get on.
> 
> I friend on IRC advised me to go and get the floppy boot images and do a 
> network install from there. Right-oh. This leads to my first, and possibly 
> simplest, question:
> 
> where on WAIX can I point the installer to download the rest of the 
> distribution?
> 
> I'm right up against my bandwidth cap, so it has to be a WAIX attached server!
-- 
------------------------
Sol Hanna
sol at autonomon dot net
------------------------

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