Re: slashdot poll
Keith G. Murphy wrote:
>
> Kenneth Scharf wrote:
> > Actually it's not that Debian is built to be hard to use.
> > It's just that many of the 'pretty' system control and configure
> > applications supplied by RH are not in Debian. (Besides they only work
> > in X)
> As someone who has recently come to use Debian from a year or two of
> RedHat experience, I can say that the non-X-based nature of dselect can
> be a distinct advantage when you're trying to configure a server machine
> (damn thing sure doesn't need X). I mean, I just telnetted into it and
> did everything from my (Win95!) client.
>
> And what about installation on an old machine that doesn't have a
> CDROM? dselect was quite FTP-friendly; I couldn't get a RedHat
> installation to work at all on this old machine that had only 8M and
> antiquated hardware. There are more Debian floppies but, guess what?
> Debian saw all my hardware right first try.
>
> I think a lot of those folks that love RedHat only use it on their home
> machine with the latest and greatest nifty hardware, sitting at its
> console. But that may well not be the most useful application of
> Linux...
>
> And another thing: a lot of those X-based configuration things don't
> work that well. I know that for sure... ;-)
>
> And the way dselect goes ahead and invokes configuration scripts: rpm
> definitely does *not* do that; so if the package really requires
> configuration beyond the defaults, you need to figure out how to do it.
> Not to mention the way you can load packages down from the web really
> easily. I mean, hell, it even tells you when there's an updated
> package!
>
> So far, Debian seems to me like a workhorse: it may not be flashy, but
> everything just *works*. That beats flash every time in my book.
>
> And another thing: the transparency with which Debian is managed. What
> the hell do I mean? You can see the whole bug-tracking process. Try
> that with RedHat. Right... And the way they segregate the non-free
> stuff. It's not that you can't use it; you just know what you're
> getting. That's not ideology for me; that's just knowing what's going
> on my system: it's damn *useful* to know what's GNU-licensed and what's
> STING (Stuff That Is Not GNU). It *is* a sting when it doesn't work
> right and you want to change it...
>
> And is it just me, or is everybody and his mother putting out RPMs these
> days, some of very shoddy quality? I have the impression, if it's a deb
> and it's on Debian's site, it's gonna at least install properly and do
> *something* without crapping out...
>
> Sorry, just had to get that off my chest. Especially hearing folks
> bitch about dselect. I just hope apt is as good. (It's not X-based, is
> it? Say it's not...)
>
> Hope the new logo is good. I kind of like the little bird...
> [cut]
>
> --
> Unsubscribe? mail -s unsubscribe debian-user-request@lists.debian.org < /dev/null
--
Mauro Mazzieri - http://gulliver.unian.it/~mazzieri/
finger mazzieri@gulliver.unian.it for PGP key and geek code
I PC hanno il tasto `reset' perché sono progettati per i sistemi
operativi
Microsoft
Keith G. Murphy wrote:
>
> Kenneth Scharf wrote:
> > Actually it's not that Debian is built to be hard to use.
> > It's just that many of the 'pretty' system control and configure
> > applications supplied by RH are not in Debian. (Besides they only work
> > in X)
> As someone who has recently come to use Debian from a year or two of
> RedHat experience, I can say that the non-X-based nature of dselect can
> be a distinct advantage when you're trying to configure a server machine
> (damn thing sure doesn't need X). I mean, I just telnetted into it and
> did everything from my (Win95!) client.
>
> And what about installation on an old machine that doesn't have a
> CDROM? dselect was quite FTP-friendly; I couldn't get a RedHat
> installation to work at all on this old machine that had only 8M and
> antiquated hardware. There are more Debian floppies but, guess what?
> Debian saw all my hardware right first try.
>
> I think a lot of those folks that love RedHat only use it on their home
> machine with the latest and greatest nifty hardware, sitting at its
> console. But that may well not be the most useful application of
> Linux...
>
> And another thing: a lot of those X-based configuration things don't
> work that well. I know that for sure... ;-)
>
> And the way dselect goes ahead and invokes configuration scripts: rpm
> definitely does *not* do that; so if the package really requires
> configuration beyond the defaults, you need to figure out how to do it.
> Not to mention the way you can load packages down from the web really
> easily. I mean, hell, it even tells you when there's an updated
> package!
>
> So far, Debian seems to me like a workhorse: it may not be flashy, but
> everything just *works*. That beats flash every time in my book.
>
> And another thing: the transparency with which Debian is managed. What
> the hell do I mean? You can see the whole bug-tracking process. Try
> that with RedHat. Right... And the way they segregate the non-free
> stuff. It's not that you can't use it; you just know what you're
> getting. That's not ideology for me; that's just knowing what's going
> on my system: it's damn *useful* to know what's GNU-licensed and what's
> STING (Stuff That Is Not GNU). It *is* a sting when it doesn't work
> right and you want to change it...
>
> And is it just me, or is everybody and his mother putting out RPMs these
> days, some of very shoddy quality? I have the impression, if it's a deb
> and it's on Debian's site, it's gonna at least install properly and do
> *something* without crapping out...
>
> Sorry, just had to get that off my chest. Especially hearing folks
> bitch about dselect. I just hope apt is as good. (It's not X-based, is
> it? Say it's not...)
>
> Hope the new logo is good. I kind of like the little bird...
> [cut]
>
> --
> Unsubscribe? mail -s unsubscribe debian-user-request@lists.debian.org < /dev/null
--
Mauro Mazzieri - http://gulliver.unian.it/~mazzieri/
finger mazzieri@gulliver.unian.it for PGP key and geek code
I PC hanno il tasto `reset' perché sono progettati per i sistemi
operativi
Microsoft
[PC's have reset key 'cause thy're made fro MS OS'es]
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