Re: Why should I use Debian?
Date: Mon, 04 Sep 2000 18:26:13 +0200
From: Helgi =?iso-8859-1?Q?=D6rn?= <hehe@post.netlink.se>
To: Debian User List <debian-user@lists.debian.org>
Subject: Why should I use Debian?
Message-ID: <[🔎] 39B3CD25.6788A126@post.netlink.se>
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Hi all Debians!
I am a devoted Linux user, running Caldera at work and SuSE at home
(that's also work!). At home I have a dual boot with Win98 and I always
have an extra partition to run an extra Linux distribution for testing,
I've installed and configured almost all of the most common
distributions.
Debian/GNU is the most interesting projec I can imagine in the world of
software, idealistically it suites me perfect. I really would love to be
able to use Debian as my default OS.
I installed Debian 2.1 (slink) several times but I was never able to
configure it to my satisfaction, GNOME never worked, ppp never
worked,printer never worked, everything was just a total mess. With
great excitement I waited for the 'potato' to be cooked, and here it is;
ready to consume!
I've installed it, Debian 2.2 'potato' and it's a total mess! Worst of
all is dselect, after the main installation I used dselect to install
some extra packages, took me around two hours to go through the whole
collection. When it came to installing the packages it only installed a
few of what I had chosen, some only partially, but most of them it
didn't install at all.
Are there bugs in dselect?
==========================================
Hello. Welcome to the wonderful world of Debian Linux!!!
First of all, a devoted Linux user will use Debian:) Actually, I just converted
to Debian with the release of Potato. Previous to this I used Redhat, Caldera,
Slackware, Mandrake, etc.
Debian is definitely a change from all the RPM based systems. Debian reminds me
of Slackware the most, but with one big difference, package management! RPM is
horrible when it comes to dependencies. Try to install an RPM package without
all the dependencies and you'll know what I mean (as you spend the next hour
looking for all those other RPMs you'll need). With dselect/apt, it handles all
the dependencies, wonderfully I should mention. It's fairly similar to Helix
updates their packages, but much better.
There definitely is a learning curve though. I would not recommend Debian to a
newbie. Storm Linux sounds like a fairly descent choice (since it has a GUI
installer/upgrader), but I've never tried it. I plan to stay clear of RPM based
systems now that I've been spoiled with Debian "deb"s.
Debian is also more like a traditional Linux. Not until I used Debian did I
realize you were supposed to add users to groups instead of simply changing
permissions. This is just one example of things I never learned through the
other systems.
My favorite part of the Debian experience though, is this mailing list. I've
learned so much in the last two weeks it's amazing. Debian users really know
what's going on! I have yet to see a question "stump" the users on this mailing
list.
Finally, I should reiterate about the learning curve. When I first installed
Debian I really screwed up. So, after doing some research on past mailing lists
and other documentation, I was able to piece together how Debian package
management works (I'm no pro though). I remember reading that it takes a while
to setup Debain, but once in place, it's very easy to manage/upgrade/etc.
It REALLY does take some time to get used to how Debian works, but, it all makes
sense in the end. I encourage you to not get discouraged, but, regroup and learn
Debian. It's been truly a rewarding experience for me.
Scott
PS: This is not a PAID advertisement by the way:)
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