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

[Derek Fountain]

> 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?

<snip!> Wow. You fancied a spot of typing practice tonight, Sol? :o)

Ironically, I'm actually one step ahead of you. My first Linux setup was a 
Slackware system I downloaded from Uni in 1994. I took it home on 40 floppy 
disks and managed to get X up and running on the communal 486 box we had in 
the shared house. I ran Slackware for a while, then RHL, then switched to 
SUSE-5.something a few years back. I've used SUSE ever since.

I went through all that "community" thing you talk about, and thoroughly 
enjoyed it. SUSE has a friendly and helpful community, which sadly seems 
rather remote at this distance. It's much stronger in Europe where I lived 
until last year. But now I use my Linux boxes for real work - software 
development mainly, and that means I /just want them to work/. Tinkering is 
all well and good, but that doesn't improve my skillset in what I get paid 
for (or not as the case is right now!). I want efficient tools and packages, 
easy administration, and so on. SUSE has all that.

So why did I step over to debian tonight? Well, I've used SUSE too long. I 
need to broaden my understandings of the state of the art. If someone said to 
me "we'll give you a week's work fixing this webserver, and by the way it 
runs <something other than SUSE>" I'd currently have to say no. I have a 
thorough understanding of SUSE, but know little to nothing about the others. 
General concepts transfer easily, but specifics don't.

The Linux world is converging: walk into any "yeah, we use Linux" shop and 
you're likely to find Redhat, debian, Novell/SUSE (in Europe) or TurboLinux 
(in Asia). Maybe one or two others depending where you are in the world. I 
had to start somewhere, so I picked debian. It's like stepping back in time 
so far, but once I get it running I'm hoping I'll see what benefits it 
offers.

-- 
> eatapple
core dump

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