On Thu, Jul 18, 2002 at 01:36:09AM -0700, Karsten M. Self wrote:
| on Wed, Jul 17, 2002, Larry Smith (doccpu@yahoo.com) wrote:
| > I can use some moral support here.
| >
| > We use Redhat at my job for technical work. My instincts are to
| > switch to Debian (I have both RedHat and Debian at home). I'm running
| > into a bit of resistance.
| >
| > Are there substantial reasons, in your view for making the switch to
| > Debian?
Very substantial.
| > Better package management system.
"Better" doesn't begin to describe it.
I'm just going to add to some of Karsten's comments.
| - Debian Policy is what makes it that way (which nobody outside
| Debian seems to understand).
Precisely.
| - Minimalistic install. RH installs are easiest when done as
| "kitchen sink" loads -- absolutely everything. Debian greatly
| favors the "get a minimal base on, then add _just_ what you need".
| You get a more streamlined box, with less cruft, less stuff to
| break, and fewer security problems to worry about. Not to mention
| a lower bandwidth budget for updates.
It is *impossible* to install a minimal RH system. Their "python2"
package depends on "Mesa" which depends on "XFree86" which depends on
"xfs". You can't run python on a headless server without also
installing X. In addition, the 'xauth' program is part of the X
server package. You can't use X-over-ssh on your headless system
without also having the X server installed.
People have mentioned RH's installer being better than debian's.
Here's what I know about it :
. dselect (as horrible as it is) is better than the package
chooser in RH's installer
. a coworker told be about a default setting RH's installer had
whereby it partitioned the *server* system with a huge
/usr partition (like around 20GB). Is that insane or
what?
| - It just works®
Amen.
I also have comments on the rpm port of apt (found on freshrpms.net).
First, it is potato's apt. No "preferences". Second, someone had the
really bright idea to mmap() the Packages.gz file. 96MB of RAM isn't
enough to 'apt-get update' like that (using the "rawhide" repository).
I've used debian's apt (potato and woody) without any problems on a
system that only had 8MB RAM (and 32MB swap). Sure it thrashed a lot,
but it _worked_. The rpm port of apt doesn't even work.
-D
--
"...the word HACK is used as a verb to indicate a massive amount
of nerd-like effort." -Harley Hahn, A Student's Guide to Unix
http://dman.ddts.net/~dman/
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