Re: next debian stable ?
On Tue, Apr 29, 2003 at 04:25:07PM -0500, David Krider wrote:
> Nathan E Norman wrote:
>
> >>Well, then "they" ought to get used to the idea of being used by an
> >>increasingly-smaller cross-section of the Linux-using community.
> >
> > This threat is heard repeatedly year after year; yet debian "user
> > share" keeps growing. I wonder why?
>
> Really... Do you have a reference somewhere? I suppose you're giving
> as much support to your argument as I gave to mine, but whenever I see
> polls on the net, Red Hat, SuSE, and Mandrake are typically in the
> lead.
As they most likely will remain. Marketing does tend to work, and
(IMHO) Debian doesn't have or need any.
> What's the future look like for Debian? Assuming for a moment that
> sarge's release is 6 months off, and *if* KDE 3 and Gnome 2 make it
> into that release, that puts Debian at a year and a half behind the
> other 3.
Doesn't really matter that much. When I first looked at using debian,
potato was the stable release (2.2 r4 IIRC). While that's not all that
long ago, I was used to 2.4.x kernels (was using RH at the time) and
will admit that I was turned off by the default kernel being a 2.2.x.
So, I didn't make the switch at that time. I stuck it out with RH for a
while longer and continued looking for something better.
After a while (and some prodding from a user of one of my scripts), I
came back to Debian again and it was still using a 2.2.x kernel.
However, this time around I had a better understanding of the release
structure and the reasoning behind it.
So, I installed it and started configuring things the way I wanted. I
was amazed at how easily Debian conformed to what I wanted rather than
attempting to force me into what some developer(s) thought I should
have.
Shortly thereafter, I converted every system in my house (~15 or so) to
Debian. I began using Debian as the OS of choice for all systems were
I have an option. I've also applied to become a Debian developer and
currently maintain two packages in Debian.
Debian doesn't need the latest versions of applications to win over
users. It has much more to offer in other areas that other
distributions (all that I've tried) lack. The main areas (IHMO) are
it's policy, ease of administration, and available packages.
People may not start with Debian as their first Linux experience, but I
fairly certain they will eventually migrate to it.
> Yeah, yeah. I know. "If you don't like it, don't use it." I get it.
> I'm still trying to figure out if it's worth it, *to me*, to live so
> far behind the curve for the sake of getting out from under a
> corporate interest.
Behind what "curve". Does the "curve" offer something that you
absolutely have to have? If not, why does it matter? You state that
you're still trying to figure out if it's worth it to you. However the
arguments that your making are about market share and user base.
--
Jamin W. Collins
This is the typical unix way of doing things: you string together lots of very
specific tools to accomplish larger tasks. -- Vineet Kumar
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