on Tue, Aug 14, 2001 at 09:47:07PM -0400, Gilles Pelletier (gipe@videotron.ca) wrote: > We're a small group mulling over the respective merits of Debian and > Slackware for a newbie. Of course, since apt-get takes care of > installing dependencies and upgrading the whole installed software, we > were leaning towards Debian. The newbie, even though his concerns for > security are limited, wouldn't have to care too much about it. > > Only a "tiny" problem remains. Potato is not up to date and it's > apparently difficult to upgrade software unless you get patches at > specialised places ( http://kde.tdyc.com for the KDE 2.x serie, for > instance. ) You then must hope the patch is well done. A Debian distro, when released, is stable. Only bugfixes and security patches are made, no functional changes are made to the system. Note that security and bugfix response is *quite* rapid. Debian/stable is aimed at production systems: servers, embedded systems, dedicated-use systems (e.g.: public kiosk, POS terminal), and some classes of desktops in which maintenance issues are to be minimized. > We though about installing Woody, but, as you people know, the boot > disquettes don't boot yet. Potato must first be installed and an > upgrade made to Woody. Newbies might not appreciate... For a network install, this is recommended and relatively painless. If you maintain a local archive, the installation will be as fast or faster as from CD. - Install minimal base Potato. - Change "stable" to "testing" in /etc/apt/sources.list. - "apt-get update; apt-get dist-upgrade". - Continue with package selection. > As for Woody, once again, it's going to be out... when it's ready, > which might as well mean in June 2002, one year after Slack was out. ...at which point Woody will be stable. See my first paragraph. <troll deleted> > Is apt-get really worth this huge delay? We do plan to teach the > newbie some fundamentals. If you want stable, you get it. If you want unstable/testing (which means: usually works, occasionally tweaks), you get it. Choice. All fully up to date. Gee...I guess that means Debian's maintaining three tracks rather than one. > BTW, in case you wouldn't know, even newbies like to be cutting > edge... even more so than oldies I'd say : ) Yes, I've noticed. Usually from the blood on the floor. -- 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 Free Dmitry! Boycott Adobe! Repeal the DMCA! http://www.freesklyarov.org Geek for Hire http://kmself.home.netcom.com/resume.html
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