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Re: Debian Desktop for a Joe Average



On Mon, Sep 29, 2003 at 01:08:59PM -0500, Ron Johnson wrote:
> On Mon, 2003-09-29 at 12:14, Martin Jungowski wrote:
> > On Mon, 2003-09-29 at 15:07, Ron Johnson wrote:
> > > On Sat, 2003-09-20 at 22:29, sturla wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > If I should advice somebody new to Linux, I would say RedHat, that's
> > > > where I started.
> > > > RedHat 9 has a great installer and contains anything a normal user
> > > > will ever need, including OpenOffice.Org.
> > > 
> > > Gak!  And send him into Dependency Hell?
> > 
> > Exactly. RedHat/SuSE/Mandrake may be great and easy to install - but
> > that's about it.
> 
> I started out w/ Mdk, but fled, in disgust, to Debian.

I'm totally with Ron on this.  My experiences with RPM-based distros
were so bad that a few years ago I tried mandrake and ended up fleeing
back to That Other OS.  And this was as a Completely Average
End-User(tm?)... I was trying to do basic day-to-day tasks, and
installing only mandrake's own RPMs, and it was a constant stream of
dependency issues that translated (in my newbie state at the time) into
"system doesn't work".

RPMs can crap out on you *long* before you get into installing
third-party packages.  Ever tried to dist-upgrade a DeadRat system?

http://www.distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=article-rpm

An accountant friend of mine (very much not a computer-geek) is looking
at making the switch to Linux, and he was leaning towards Mandrake...
I told him to *avoid* RPM-based distros if he wants to be able to
maintain his system over any long time-frame. It looks to me like the
legitimate choices for someone in his situation are Libranet and
Xandros. 

	Cheers!
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