Re: Red Hat user shopping around
On Wed, 8 May 2002, Glen Lee Edwards wrote:
> The Debian web site says that Debian will install on 12 Meg RAM. Is that
> information current?
I haven't seen a reason why it wouldn't be.
> What are the main differences between Debian and Red Hat (I'm assuming there are
> a few current or ex-Red Hat users here)?
Based against Red Hat 5.2, an experiance that scarred me for life and
nearly turned me off to Linux entirely as I was starting out until I
found Debian, so this will be a bit biased and outdated.
- dpkg makes life easier than dealing with RPM. The dpkg isn't a
complete bitch to deal with like RPM on the command line. You also have
to make an effort to install two versions of the same package with dpkg,
instead of it being the default behaviour like it is with RPM.
- apt makes life easier than dealing with... oh yeah, Red Hat doesn't
have anything to resolve dependancies and download packages
automatically. So apt is better than getting cozy with a bash prompt
and rpmfind.net for a few hours.
- Filesystem layout is sane. No more trying to have to remember how to
translate the layout from what's in the howto to what's on your system,
it'll be closer to, if not the same.
- We're the largest. Heck, the Apache package used to come with a few
ad banners for Debian which bragged about having nearly 6000 packages as
part of the distro. Most people will have under a tenth of that
installed, but the point is, you have selection and variety.
- Installer's not as scary (as of Debian hamm, which was the last time I
had to use the installer). Yeah, it doesn't autodetect beyond what the
kernel can (ie, you don't necissarily have to know module parameters,
but you at least need to know which modules), but it gives you a bit
more control over what packages get installed right off, and it doesn't
try to partition your disk by default into a bizarre layout.
- Upgrading is easy. I've been using Debian since bo, reinstalled to
get hamm (kinda like the easiest way to upgrade Red Hat), and somewhere
around that time someone pointed out an early apt release to me at a LAN
party. Every once in a while I go through and clean out the cruft, but
it hasn't had a bad cruft buildup yet.
> Does Debian support the old Sound Blaster Pro CDRoms (sbpcd module)?
Not sure, but if the linux kernel supports it, shouldn't be that big of
a problem.
> How well does FVWM run on Debian systems? I currently build FVWM rpms for Red
> Hat.
fvwm2 and fvwm95 (the two fvwm flavors I'm familiar with) run great.
> I need to run servers on two 16 Meg RAM boxes - DNS and mail mainly. X would be
> nice, but I usually use X forwarding on those boxes to another one that can
> handle the load (500 MHZ, 512 Meg RAM).
XF864 is great here, bind9 runs nice, I use it for my local network
myself. exim runs great, and thank you, dman, for that
spamassassin+exim howto; it's working wonders. Adding spamassassin and
sending an email reminding users to report spam has worked wonders (as
opposed to just reminding users to report spam).
> distribution that will work as both a server and a desk top environment. And I
> need one that will remain loyal to its customer base, including those with low
> resource PCs.
Welcome to Debian.
--
Baloo
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