> Perhaps Debian's becoming the developers' OS of choice, while Red Hat > is replacing Slackware as the introduction to Linux. That's fine with me. I started with Slackware, and moved to Debian. I wouldn't recommend Slackware to a new user (unless it has changed) - having a package management system is such a huge labour saver. Over time, I think Debian will end up being more popular than Red Hat. Why? Because Red Hat will have only one company marketing it -- while Debian will have several. Red Hat is probably a better choice for a beginner right now, since it is being marketed towards beginners. That means Red Hat has put together a decent 'retail' package with a CD, manual, and they are a bit more organized (since they are a company, after all). Red Hat Software is a company, so they have to turn a profit. That means they have to have a plan for what they do. An agenda, if you will. Part of their plan is to build an excellent distribution for newbies. Debian, on the other hand, is a pretty loose organization. I think of it as an amorphous blob of software, bounded by the terms of our new 'Debian Free Software Guidelines'. The Debian project doesn't have a particular direction defined. What we do is really the sum total of what the individual developers want to do. In the log run, that means Debian is going to be doing lots of things that Red Hat isn't interested in. Plus, we will have many more developers. Because of this, I believe Debian is going to be the superior distribution, if it isn't already. :-) Cheers, - Jim
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