Re: Switch MDK -> Debian, probably
Zachary Rizer wrote:
You don't have any of these silly collision issues
with Debian. Occasionally, something like this might
happen, but probably only with sid, the unstable
branch. Apt handles dependancies far better than any
other package manager. Bar none.
I wouldn't be so sure of that. It used to be so, but I think the
opposition has caught up.
-> what about the kernel? Did the 2.4 -> 2.6 change
require a complete
os install?
Of course not. This wouldn't require a reinstall in
ANY Linux distribution that I know of.
On one system I alternate between 2.4 and 2.6. Make that two systems, at
least until yesterday.
-> kernels: are they patched? MDK ships a kernel
heavily patched as
standard, in my opinion this is really useful. If
debian kernels are
"clean", can I take a MDK kernel (let's suppose I
compile it, but what
about taking the rpm with the kernel?) and use it in
Debian? (I suppose
yes, but who knows)
There are "Debian" kernels, yes, that are included in
the apt repositories. But, there is nothing stopping
you from compiling your own kernel. (There is also a
mix of the two -- compiling your own kernels the
Debian Way)
Debian kernels are patched alright. As best I can tell they tend to have
stuff taken _out_ of them. There are patches available though (standard
Debian packages that is) that facilitate building your own kernel. I
think I saw a set of patches for a RH kernel!
-> rpm packages are everywhere... what about .deb?
I'm able to compile
apps, but, since having a package allow me to
uninstall it cleanly and
simply, I always prefer prepackaged apps. Will I be
able to use rpms?
You will rarely, if ever, have to install an RPM.
(But when that time comes, yes, it's possible)
Welcome to apt.
IBM java is an example. Should work, but remember that there is the
pposibility such a package will get confused about where things are,
and some packages just don't make sense. Think of Mandrake's
configuration tools; they would be _very_ confused.
-> will I be able to use MDK, SUSE and Fedora (the
latter doesn't
matter that much, I never seen them) configuration
tools? AFAIK, Debian
leave the user alone, there are no "debian" tool to
configure the OS (I
originally chose MDK due to this). Note: this point
is a must. Without
GUI tools to speed up system configuration, I won't
choose Debian.
This question is a highly sticky one. In general, GUI
configuration tools limit the user. No system
administrator worth his salt EVER touches a GUI
configurator. That being said, though, there ARE some
That is plain patronising nonsense. Who configures CUPS entirely by
editting text files? Sure there are some text files you may wish to
edit, but adding a printer using the web interface takes just a minute
or so, and you get it right first time, every time.
On some of my systems I _must_ configure DHCP by hand, but a fairly
simple menu interface (ir may be a GUI) would allow relatively novice
admins get a working DHCP server in a couple of minutes whereas using a
text editor they'd need to spend hours, maybe days, reading
documentation to decide what all those options do and which ones they need.
tools available for Debian -- but these are available
for all other distributions as well. I'm talking
about things such as "Webmin" -- Debian does not have
its own "system configurator" -- unless you count
Debconf, but that's not really what you're talking
about.
debconf is certainly limiting. And it's not even a GUI!
--
Cheers
John
-- spambait
1aaaaaaa@computerdatasafe.com.au Z1aaaaaaa@computerdatasafe.com.au
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