From: Faheem Mitha <faheem@email.unc.edu>
To: Osamu Aoki <debian@aokiconsulting.com>
CC: Peter Kok <cckok00@hotmail.com>, debian-user@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: debian vs suse
Date: Sun, 8 Jul 2001 13:29:03 -0400 (EDT)
On Sat, 7 Jul 2001, Osamu Aoki wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Sat, Jul 07, 2001 at 10:59:46PM -0400, Peter Kok wrote:
> > What is the different between debian and suse?
I am currently running SuSE (6.2) and Debian (2.2r3) (just newly installed
on my machine, and have been using SuSE on my machine since September 99,
so feel qualified to comment.
SuSE is generally much more poorly designed, and is much harder to
upgrade. Basically I think of it as a broken system.
> Debian is better!!!
Yes.
> Seriously, except for packaging system and few minor style differences,
> both are quite similar system (SYS-V init).
>
> Major difference is that debian is free volunteer efforts while suse is
> commercial distribution.
>
> > How are the security and stable?
>
> System is as secure as its admin's skill and efforts.
Debian is a bit more secure out of the box, I think. Though I have not
been using recent versions of SuSE (6.2 is now approximately 2 years old)
so maybe they have improved.
> If you ask how easy to update to the latest security patched program, I
> can say that debian delivers security updates quite fast and updating
> system with them in debian is very easy even for active daemon programs.
>
> Judging from suse's RPM packaging, suse may not be as easy to upgrade
> active daemons like Redhat. (I do not know.)
The differences between upgrading SuSE and Debian are extraordinary. I
recently had to strip down my SuSE system manually, and recompile many
source rpms just to install a recent version of Gnumeric on my system. As
I expect you know, SuSE has no dependency checking, the different rpms have
complicated dependencies which are not always properly listed (I tended to
use autoconf a lot to tell me what the dependencies were) and they
sometimes didn't even use proper build-rooted source rpms, so it was often
necessary to rewrite the spec files in order to recompile the source rpms
safely. (As a matter of policy, I always install software using the
appropriate package manager, so I never install tar.gz's.)
I used Redhat 5.1 between 1998-1999, and it was even worse. Quite badly
broken, basic things didn't work out of the box for no reason etc. From
what I hear about Redhat recently, not much has changed.
Commercial Linux systems might look appealing on the surface, but they are
a mess inside.
> I can tell you that Debian has steep learning curve but it is worth it.
I think the steep learning curve is much exaggerated. If you've been using
another Linux you should do just fine. And Debian just blows away the
competition (at least among other Linuxes, don't know about the BSD's) in
terms of quality control, careful and intelligent design, and
upgradeability.
Faheem.