On Fri, Jun 01, 2012 at 07:49:03PM +0100, Philip Hands wrote: > The reason that RedHat don't start things is that their default approach > has been to install a whole load of stuff that you might possibly want, > and allow you to enable it when you are inspired to give some new > service a try. > > The Debian approach has always been to not install anything that you > don't intend to use. It is also to ensure that if you do choose to > install something, it should be doing something useful by the end of the > install (if possible, security considerations allowing). I don't understand what you are saying. When I install a RHEL system from scratch, as with the Debian Installer, it's trivial to install just a base system, then install the software you need after that. In this case, I will do a "yum install httpd", and it will install Apache and its dependencies. In a similar fashion, doing an "aptitude install apache2" will also install Apache and its dependencies. Both systems will be in a similar state with installed software, except RHEL will wait for me to configure the package first, before starting, while Debian is shiiping the "It Works!" page to anyone who queries the server. > That is also why Debian and RedHat diverge when it comes to prompting > the user for configuration questions -- RedHat just want the software to > install, whereas Debian wants it to be useful, so may need to ask > questions. I also don't understand what you are saying here. Red Hat installs the software and makes it possible for me to start providing value to my "customers", as does Debian. What do you mean that Red Hat does not want useful services, and Debian does. > It also leads to the fact that you can do major release upgrades of > Debian, whereas that's not really supported in RedHat, as chances are > your configuration is going to get trashed to some extent, and they > don't have the chance to ask you what you want to do about it. No. In both cases, doing a major release, whether Debian stable -> Debian stable, or RHEL 5 -> RHEL 6, there is going to be breakage. This should always be heavily tested before such a massive migration. This is why there is such things as "development" and "QA" evironments. You always test major software upgrades before doing them. Regardless of operating system. Heh. > If you don't like the assumptions, you are much better off switching to > a distribution that you prefer, rather than trying to persuade the > overwhelming majority of the people that like the current assumptions, > and use Debian because of those assumptions, that they should change > their minds because they are supposedly wrong for liking it that way. Wrong answer. Rather than telling people to go elsewhere, because you don't understand their point of view, the constructive approach would be a discussion about adding a /etc/default/services config file, with "START=on" or "START=off", or something similar. Debian provides a great deal of value to me and many others. Just because it might have one point that I don't agree with, does mean I should ignore all the other points that I do agree with, and use a different operating system. I'm curious how this solves any problems at all. -- . o . o . o . . o o . . . o . . . o . o o o . o . o o . . o o o o . o . . o o o o . o o o
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