Re: Debian GNU/Linux at Linux.com
On Sat, 30 Oct 1999, Patrick Kirk wrote:
> Overall, I wonder if Mr. Groeninger will feel the same when he has had to
> battle to get Linux into a company after he leaves college. My employers
> took the plunge with Red Hat because it seems people like IBM, Intel and so
> on like it as well as the techies. In time I hope to get them onto Debian
> but RH did make the move to Linux possible in a way the Debian movement is
> not equipped to.
I found Debian an easier sell because of its packaging system features.
New software can be placed in a central company archive and all
workstations upgraded with an apt-get command. It keeps everyone on the
same sheet of music, so to speak. This takes a lot of load off the people
that have to support applications because they know what they are dealing
with and they can make sure everything is current with a single command.
Another feature that is a great selling point in conjunction with the
upgrading over the network from a central archive is the concept of
meta-packages. If I create a web server meta-package that simply depends
on all the other software needed to create a company standard web server,
I just install the meta-package and it causes the download of all the
other needed software. This eliminates problems caused by human error,
puts all servers in a known configuration, and saves time. Time is money.
One thing that was not considered was price. Debian was sold on its
technical merits alone. Linux is not the answer to every problem but where
it does make sense, we use Debian.
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