on Fri, Jan 19, 2001 at 07:11:04PM -0800, Bill Wohler (wohler@newt.com) wrote:
> [Karsten, if you get fresh reasons, be sure to add them to your lists.
> These lists, by the way, should also be on the Debian Web site.
> Perhaps you can make this happen. PR is a good thing. See also the
> recent thread: Why use Debian?]
Um. Like?
> What I tell folks:
>
> 1) The package manager.
>
> You can tell it to look in several places at once for a package and
> if you ask for a package that depends on others it automatically
> selects those packages. It then downloads the .debs and installs
> them for you. (I don't think Red Hat has this auto-download
> capability--you have to hunt for the .rpms yourself as far as I
> know).
>
> One of the best demos you can do to convince someone is this:
>
> $ foo
> foo: command not found
> $ dselect # select and install foo
Better:
$ apt-get install foo
...which gets foo (and dependencies) in one swell foop (a *very* swell
foop, IMO).
...and if you do like dselect (I don't *dislike* it, but it's a sort of
grudging admiration), scope out aptitude.
> 2) The elegant disk layout.
>
> For example, everything about mail is in /etc/mail. In Red Hat some
> stuff is in /etc/mail, some stuff is in /etc. It's all over the
> place. Ditto for bind stuff.
Your and Ethan's comments on RH scavenging to try to piece together WTF
is happening are very well taken. My two horror stories are:
- RH's lilo docs. What the fuck am I supposed to do with a postscript
file on a system that doesn't *boot*, let alone print or display X?
Debian's text docs are fscking marvelous.
- mysqld init.d script. Just tell me where RH stuffs its mysql server
log. In 30 seconds.
> 3) The elegant boot scripts.
>
> Red Hat hides init.d in /etc/rc.d. It also doesn't seem to provide a
> full set of scripts in init.d either. There are a few other details
> in this realm, but I'm forgetting them now.
I've heard that extreme trauma can induce amnesia....
RH is moving to the FHS/Debian /etc/init.d / /etc/rc[0-9].d standard.
> 5) A mission to get all configuration out of programs/scripts and
> into config files in /etc.
...and more-or-less *flat* in /etc. Lots of subdirs are wonderfully
organized and tidy, but it makes referencing scripts a fscking pain in
the ass.
--
Karsten M. Self <kmself@ix.netcom.com> http://kmself.home.netcom.com/
What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal
http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/ http://www.kuro5hin.org
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