Re: why debian - longer
hi ya
just atarted to read the thread ... interesting ..
hey tim.. good summary ... but ... :-)
On Fri, 12 Nov 2004, Tim Kelley wrote:
> > Any statistics from any source(s) to proof the popularity of Debian?
#
# if you believe their numbers; some statistics of "popularity" vs
# "downloads" vs "derivatives"
#
http://distrowatch.com/stats.php
http://distrowatch.com/stats.php?section=popularity
- imo, i don't buy madrake being the most popular
for many gazillion reasons
http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=independence
- lots of derivatives of debian ... good or bad ??
> > I'm in the dark waiting to be enlightened.
shining the spotlight on u
> Well, first, some very general things:
just some comments ...
> 1. Debian is not a commercial organization, but a protected non-profit. This
> means they cannot be bought out.
people can and will jump ship for any number of reasons ...
> 2. Debian is a democratic organization, this means they cannot change
> directions suddenly, are not subject to the whims of an executive, and will
(uninformed) whims of "an executive" is an extremely strong point ...
very important ..
aren't (good) managers supposed to take input from their informed people
and make educated guess vs the manger's miniml understanding of the gory
details ( for higher up the managers .. it becomes more of a business
issue vs a techie one )
- techie stuff is maybe 5%-10% of the total corp picture
- if you can show you can save gazillion dollars and
improve corporate reliability/performance of your computers and
resources, you can probably push your widgets thru vs the
old school ways of doing stuff with old computers
> not incur massive upsets in the user base nor in its developers. It also
> means it will not just dissappear overnight: too many people are involved.
which is good and bad
> a. Debian provides the most stable linux environment, both as a target for
> development and for daily work, of any linux distributor.
"stable" meaning as in woody ???
- that can be good and bad ... it's too too old for me or for
me to show/demo to potential customers
- customers usually want latest greatest widgets and features
and they want *you/us* to fix the bugs/problems ..
and if not, they'd stay with what they know works for the past
few years, losing the chance for upgrades and changes
most all distributors ( the ones i care about ) are shipping with at least
2.4.26 or 2.6.8 kernels ( the linux part of it )
- rest of the kitchen sink various from vendor to vendor
- and more importantly, one can easily add your changes to bring
it "current" to make it a fit for the customers
> b. Debian provides mechanisms for ease of administration and management like
> nothing else I've ever seen. Almost everything is done uniformly and
> sensibly. This goes far, far beyond "apt-get".
uniform across windoze ( 95, 98, 2k, xp, solaris, hp, sgi, linux ... )
- not a trivial problem .. but easily manageable as long
long as the pointy haired execs don't make random changes
- apt-get won't help you in the majority of cases
> d. Debian is enormous; sarge will be approximately 15 cd's or 2 dvd's. Almost
> the entire free software repository is at the users fingertips.
"size" ( number of cd's ) is not an issue
even "free" ( $$$ ) is not an issue as people and corporations pay $$$ for
"free" stuff ( some paying really crazy $$$ for just the colorful branded
"cd"s which is identical to the free versions )
cost of ownership, reliability, performance, ease of use, ease of
installs, compatibility, upgrades, security, etc..etc..
people just want the minimum stuff ...
- a webserver ...
- a dns server ...
- a firewall ..
- a mail server...
- users workstation ( kde/gnome ) ..
- for each applicaiton(server), it does NOT matter that there are
30,000 - 60,000 packages available to download
> e. Debian keeps up with security very, very, well;
probably a good strong poiint ...
but it will ask the user some silly questions once in a while
( not a good thing ... keep the user's original config )
> d. security is made a easy as possible;
e:
> Red Hat for example, has a vested
> interest in selling you RHN to get security updates.
and they (all commercial versions that provide support on the side )
have been doing that for 5-10 years ... consistently breaking things
so that some folks will in fact call the vendor up and pay for answers
of what changed
> They will therefore
> never have a system as simple and elegant as "apt-get".
there is more too it...
- there is the install issue ...
- there is the get it working for what they want
- there is the keep it working once its up ...
- there is the patches and new apps to install after-the-fact...
- there is the security updates
...
apt-get is NOT the answer to all the user's problems
> Let's look at some of the details and niceties the above policies and
> attitudes have engendered:
>
> 1. debsums - check md5sums of files on filesystem with debian packages.
good thing to have .. but all distro and files can also have the same
> 2. apt-get - easy package management (SECURITY made easy -as it *should* be)
everybody has their own variation of the same functions though
some are more cumbersome to use ...
> 3. apt-cache - search / browse available packages
searching can be ez or hard .. depending on if you know what it's called
- same problem with all distro
> 4. equivs - bypass the packaging system while satisfying it
danger danger will robinson :-)
> 5. apt-listbugs - query the bug tracking system
> 6. apt-listchanges - notification of what your updates did
good for developers but users and consumers wont be pickign thru
bug listings and fixes and status
> 7. separating configuration files from the files in the package (making it
> easy to update without disrupting operation, among other things) see concept
> of "conffile" in a debian package
in my book, any upgrade or update that asks the user "answer this
question" and sits and waits is NOT a good thing .. esp if the user
doesn't know how to reply ...
- seen too many of those problems from "worried users"
- worst would be to overwrite the users config files
( i'm paranoid so i save any/all config files for each machine )
> 8. wonderful docs; for example, all package changes are listed
> in /usr/share/doc/package/changelog.Debian.gz, and all upstream changes
> in /usr/share/doc/package/changelog.gz. /usr/share/doc also contains useful
> examples where appropriate. you thus have a complete history of the upstream
> package and the changes the packager made to it, separated neatly.
that's true of just about every distro ...
too much documents that nobody seem to read first ...
> 9. installs only what you tell it to (c.f. Red Hat)
you can tell most any distro what files or what package or what "server
it defined for itself" that their distro installer allows you to do ..
most are gui based ..
> 10. wonderful way of abstracting kernel and kernel module building (also
> apples to other packages in general)
if you mean cat /proc/config.gz
- that's true of every distro that supports 2.6 kernels
( inheriting existing kernel options seldom worked in 2.4 kernels)
it's trivial to make dep ; make bzlilo ; update lilo/grub
and straight forward ..
- too many extra hoops for the debian way ...
- too many kernel module problems in the debian kernel
what is NOT trivial for the users that has never built a kernel is what
is the list of hardware ...
> 11. politely splitting up of packages when appropriate (e.g., snort-mysql vs
> snort-pgsql and snort-common, same for many, many others)
most packages are split accordingly too .. depending on who the person
or distro was at the time ...
- dependency and prerequisite problems will always exists ...
come to think of you ... you should add the "dependency" checking
on your list of features ...:-)
> 12. apt-build - build packages on the fly from source
thats nice ... and in other distros ...
./configure && make && make install will do the same
except that not all packages come with configure or a sensible
default config files
> 13. auto-apt - install packages automagically when a (missing) file is
> accessed (great for ./configure; make ; make install freaks)
i have yet to see all that stuff work right ..
> 14. reportbug - easy way to report bugs to the BTS
good thing for developers... not sure how many users will file
correct bug reports vs just the typical "my system is broken"
which drives everybody batty
> There are dozens of others, I'm getting tired. Someday perhaps I'll compile a
> reasonably complete list of niceties :). Anyone care to add?
:-)
add cost of ownership ...
- but, usually it's just the admin problem of the admin themself
add availability of patches being made available usually before other
distros
add upgrade from antique woody to sarge w/o too much problems ..
( another major advantage of debian .. that other distro cannot do
( properly
have fun
alvin
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