Re: How would I get debian unstable?
On Thu, Jun 05, 2008 at 01:34:24PM +0100, A J Stiles wrote:
> For me, Debian is all about purity (only Free software is installed by
> default) but also about not getting in the way of the user. Debian doesn't
> insist for you to use some fancy graphical configuration tools; you can just
> edit configuration files by hand without fear of breaking anything or having
> them overwritten by some magical master configurator. And you can choose
> whether you want to install pre-compiled packages or compile from Source.
> Almost every piece of Free software ever written is available in the
> repositories anyway, ready to use; but if you happen to have some special
> requirement, you can easily build your own hacked-up version (for instance,
> I have a specially-modified copy of Gramofile -- a vinyl LP ripping
> program -- that is tied to the USB audio input).
>
> Debian isn't the easiest distribution in the world, or it certainly wasn't
> when I started out on it. Try as I might, I couldn't quite get to grips with
> it and so went over to Mandriva (or Mandrake, as it was called then). That
> was fine for awhile, but I eventually outgrew it: their package repository
> was limited and I ended up learning to compile things from Source Code. And
> by the time you're doing that (and you have learned the hard way
> about -devel packages, or -dev packages as Debian calls them) then it no
> longer matters which distro you're running anymore.
>
> This, of course, was a long time before there was such a thing as Ubuntu. For
> the most part, Ubuntu *is* Debian, just customised. Bits have been sawn off
> and bits have been welded on, but the engine and chassis are recognisably
> Debian. Ubuntu is what I would recommend to anyone seeking to try Linux out;
> just because I know that if it fouls up, it's familiar enough for me to be
> able to fix it -- all the configs and logs are exactly where I have come to
> expect them to be.
Debian stable releases seem to upgrade better to the next release than
Ubuntu. I think Ubuntu should really put some more effort into making
sure upgrades work flawlessly. I think fixed release dates is a huge
mistake on the part of Ubuntu, but rather typical of anything with
commercial backing.
> The other distributions with a reputation for being "hard" (because they
> involve understanding, if not how things work under the bonnet then that
> there *is* a bonnet with moving parts under it, and sometimes doing things by
> hand without the benefit of slick graphical "wizards" to allow you to select
> one of a number of pre-set configurations; some people seem conditioned to
> think that there is something intrinsically hard about reading text and
> typing on a keyboard) are Gentoo and Slackware.
I think many people don't realize that installing a system is hard. I
think most computer users would have difficulty installing windows if
their system hadn't come with it pre installed.
> Slackware is very "old-skool" (though it has up-to-date packages), and tends
> to stay even further out of your way than Debian does. This extends to not
> having a package management and dependency resolution system of its own. I
> tried it, and it didn't really seem to offer anything that Debian didn't.
>
> Gentoo is famous for tweakability. Instead of pre-compiled packages, Gentoo
> packages contain Source Code and automated build instructions; they are
> compiled right on your machine to suit your machine, according to various
> optimisation flags specified by you. Again, I tried it; and it also didn't
> seem to offer anything special over Debian apart from the fact of there being
> no more need for -dev packages. It was a good learning experience, though:
> I'd seriously advise anyone who is thinking of creating their own GNU/Linux
> distribution to do an install of Gentoo from Stage One, even if you don't
> plan to base your distro from Gentoo.
If they don't have -dev packages, that means every system is wasting
space on header files that it probably doesn't need.
I have never tried gentoo, since it is fundamentally the wrong way to do
a system. I have built stuff from source before, and I really don't
have any need to waste cpu cycles on doing what the package maintainer
already did.
> In all fairness to Slackware and Gentoo, I am quite sure that had I been using
> either of these first and dallied with Debian, I would have gone back to what
> I knew. And if Ubuntu had been around when I lost patience with Debian, then
> that's what I would have tried next. If I'd tried Ubuntu sooner, I'm not
> even sure I'd ever have reverted to Debian; except maybe for GUI-free
> servers.
I started with SLS, went to slackware, then redhat, and finally Debian.
At no point did I ever want to go back, since each time was a vast
improvement.
> BTW. If you want to see real elitism, try hanging around with a bunch of SuSE
> users -- they are all boss-eyed from looking down their noses at everyone
> else! ;)
I installed SuSE once. That didn't last long (the installer alone
pissed me off).
--
Len Sorensen
Reply to: