Re: RedHat more debian like?
> I know Libranet sells a debian-based distro and has paid support. I
dont
> know anything about them. Does anyone else have a opinion of them?
> -Kev
Kevin,
I run Libranet 2.8. I am happy with my purchase.
Their distro is fully compatible with official Debian repositories, and
is based on testing (sarge). The two shipped CDs contain all the
important apps including OpenOffice/Evolution/Mozilla/Gaim (which saves
a lot of time getting a fully usable system up-and-running without net
access).
Their installer is also very quick and easy and does a very good job of
hardware detection and installation of the necessary modules and such.
I thought I'd end up disliking Libranet and go back to "pure" Debian.
But I was amazed at how little their distro preaches this or that method
of doing things. They don't rely on Gnome or KDE or any other window
manager/desktop environment. They default to IceWM, but let you choose
whatever you want. They don't have any strange deviations from the
typical Debian way of doing things, which is key.
At this point, I don't really feel like I'm running "Libranet" anymore
what with the pinning/upgrading I've done to unstable. I feel like I'm
running Debian, but I was just saved the trouble of setting up my
hardware and installing everything from scratch. Their Xadminmenu is
"just another app" I use if I ever want to install something off the
Libranet CD or use some of their other provided shortcuts. And their
support forums/mailing list are full of helpful and friendly people ;)
In a sense, I wish I had Libranet back when I was setting up Debian on
my old computer 2 years ago or so. But on the other hand, it was a
learning experience back then. I feel fine using Libranet now because
that initial setup is just a chore. I want to get to coding ;)
Overall, my opinion of Libranet is positive. That said, I wish they
would release ISOs of their distro on their website (not the stripped
down "classic edition"). I would still pay them, but I guess others
wouldn't.
Nonetheless, I think Libra's distro is much more in line with basic open
source principles than the more dumbed-down distros based on Debian.
-Andrew
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