Re: Upgrading from slackware to debian
On Tue, 18 Mar 1997, Leandro Asnaghi-Nicastro wrote:
> What is the difference between Red-Hat, Debian and Slackware?
Slackware: One of the oldest distributions, and is showing its age.
Created as a "bugfixed" version of SLS (Softlanding Linux System).
Maintained by one person (Patrick Volkerding); home site: Walnut Creek
CD-ROM (www.cdrom.com). No package tool available. Very slow to get
updated; no interim upgrades. Considered by many "old-timers" to have
"lost it" with the latest version (3.1), as most of the new parts are
added "flash", with most known security problems left untouched.
Red Hat: Available in two versions; shareware and commercial. Most of
the software is the same; the commercial version used to have a commercial
X server included. Maintained by several paid people; home site: Red Hat
Software (www.redhat.com). Package tool available. Reasonably quick in
bugfixes, sometimes slow in major updates (one of the last to have a
version with a 2.x kernel). Versions available for DEC Alpha and SPARC.
Rumored to be one of the easiest to set up (it and I simply don't get
along). Was the base for the original Caldera Network Desktop (a
commercial version of Linux, with many interesting additions).
Debian: Maintained by over a hundred volunteers, each maintaining one (or
several) package. Package tool available; able to use Red Hat packages.
Hosted by CrossLink; home page (www.debian.org). Overall, one of the
fastest with updates and bugfixes; in many cases, the program author is
the package maintainer. Initial installation has had its share of
"gotchas", mainly dealing with dependencies. (Don't install everything at
once; install the recommended packages on the initial installation, then
install a few packages at a time afterward.)
Hope this helps.
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