[plug] Debian VS Mandrake

[Cameron Patrick]

Brock Woolf wrote:

| I am a 100% Mandrake user, however these guys have got me interested.
| Could someone please tell me all the features/pros/cons/highlights/uses
| of Debian, cause there are a lot of users on here too.

Okay, I'll bite - I've been using Debian almost exclusively on my
desktop at home for over a year, and have been running it as a server
for longer.  So I may be a touch biassed towards Debian ;-)

| And tell me what makes apt-get so fantastic?

Hmm, a quick history lesson may illuminate this one.  Debian has had
automatic dependency resolution (in the form of a program named
"dselect", one of the great user interface disasters of the 20th
century) since almost forever - possibly even before RPMs had been
invented.  With apt-get (which has been in Debian for years now) and
graphical interfaces like aptitude and synaptic, all of that
dependency-tracking goodness has been made a lot more accessible.

apt-get takes care of working out what packages to fetch (from CD or
the Internet or wherever) and installing.  It also makes it easy to do
a full system upgrade in just one command (provided nothing breaks).
Nowadays other distributions like Mandrake can do this too, with tools
like URPMI, but it used to be an area which only Debian had put much
thought into.  Some people claim that apt-get still works better than
the RPM equivalents.

One real advantage that Debian has would be its attention to detail
and generally high quality of packaging.  Packages in Debian are
supposed to follow the Debian Policy, which outlines how packages
should work together and what is expected of a Debian package.  From
simple things like all config files live in /etc (even if the upstream
developer puts them somewhere else by default), all packages should
have documentation in /usr/share/doc/PACKAGE-NAME, X-based programmes
should have an appropriate entry in the menu system (aside: the Debian
menu system was originally written for Debian, and provides a way of
having a common menu hierarchy no matter which window manager or
desktop environment you prefer; Mandrake now uses it too), packages
should have a sensible description and upgrades should Just Work.
Part of this is made possible by the .deb package format itself, which
provides more information than RPMs do about relationships between
packages.

There's also a general mentality of "when something breaks, you fix
it", rather than "when something breaks, you re-install".  I suppose
that this is also partly a function of Linux as a whole rather than
Debian in particular, reinforced by the fact that reinstalling Debian
can be a right pain.

| PROS
| * KDE is the main Desktop focus (I like KDE over Gnome, not that Gnome
| is bad)

Debian is agnostic on this issue, perhaps more than is sensible.  If
e.g. you select the 'desktop' task in the installer, you'll end up
with a full KDE /and/ GNOME installed.  (Can't remember what the
default is once you log in, probably twm or something :-P)

| * Relatively Easy Installer

Yep, Mandrake does pretty well here.  Debian is gradually improving in
this regard - it still doesn't have a graphical installer, but people
are beginning to care about usability.  The new installer features
automatic hardware detection, configuration of RAID/LVM, and retains
the flexibility that the old one had.

| * Rock Solid stability

!?  That's not the Mandrake I remember ;-)

| * Standard Mandrake works well as a Server (Net Gateway/Mail)

Debian is considered /the/ server distribution for a lot of people.
This may be because it's historically been a pain to use for anything
else :-)

| * Hardware > Good Support for a wide range of devices.

Debian is supported on 11 architectures - ranging from i386 to s390
mainframes to sparc to m68k Macs and Amigas - which is more than any
other Linux distribution can lay claim to, and competitive with
NetBSD.  Most hardware supported by other distributions can be made to
work under Debian, but not necessarily "out of the box".

| * Has RPMs for installation

Has DEBs for installation :-)

| * A less proprietry distribution (Like Lindows/Xandros/SuSe

All of the software in Debian follows the Debian Free Software
Guidelines.  http://www.debian.org/social_contract

(Disclaimer: this isn't actually true, and the Debian main
distribution includes some not-quite-free items such as firmware
without source or unmodifiable documentation.  Debian is still much
pickier about this kind of thing than any other distribution I can
think of.  If you like really pedantic bickering about licensing,
reading the debian-legal archives might be your idea of fun.)

| * Comes with a good array of programs flphoto/GQview/

Debian do better than any other distribution I can think of in this
department.  For some meaningless numbers, the current unstable
distribution has 14130 binary packages in it.  A mirror of the
binaries for the unstable distribution comes to around 8--10GB.

| * DVD ripping and DECSS is good as Mandrake has the PLF (Penguin
| Liberation Front) source repositories

There are likewise unofficial Debian sources for these.

| * System Control Center is well designed and configuration is very
|   easy

Debian has no control centre and configuration is often an absolute
bastard.  On the other hand, if you want really quirky configurations,
it doesn't get in your way, and the common configuration stuff is
gradually becoming easier and more automatic.  Part of the problem is
a tendency in Debian to not change things unless you're going to Do It
Right, where "Right" doesn't just mean "better than what we had
before, for most people".

| * Mandrake focus on stability and hardware support

Debian focusses on software freedom, never making stable releases, and
pointless bickering on mailing lists. :-P

| * Features XFree4.3 not 4.4 (4.4 is not true to the GPL and has a semi
| proprietory license)

Most distributions won't touch XFree 4.4.  And, er, what Craig said.

| I can't think of anything else for the moment. So please guys, share
| your thoughts on Debian because I might convert if I hear it is the
| bomb... or at least try it out.

If you're happy with Mandrake, I'm not sure there's much point
"switching".  On the other hand, it's probably worth trying.

Re. what Garry said about Knoppix: I wouldn't recommend installing a
Debian system from Knoppix, though Knoppix is very nice as a live CD
to play with.  The new beta installer for the testing distribution is
probably a better bet for actually installing Debian.  Release
candidate one is coming soon too :-)

Cheers,

Cameron.