Re: A question for the list:
On Fri, Nov 05, 2010 at 06:43:34AM -0500, ZephyrQ wrote:
> Stan Hoeppner wrote:
> > ZephyrQ put forth on 11/4/2010 9:50 PM:
> >> If you could not/did not use Debian (either Lenny, Squeeze, or Sid),
> >> which other distribution would you use and why?
> >
> > What situation are you in that motivates this question?
>
> Not a specific situation, merely an exploration.
>
> I've been using Debian stable for years. I've tried Ubuntu (in the
> early years) and Mint. Before Debian I used SuSE.
>
> Lately, though, Debian seems 'stale'. I know that Squeeze is coming up
> the pipe fairly soon; but I'm in process of moving my office and
> upgrading equipment and am taking opportunity to see what others like
> besides Debian. I may try out another flavor.
>
> I realize that Debian's 'stableness' contributes to its 'staleness', and
> I like/need that stability as I do a lot of work from home. But I also
> want to try out some software that is often not supported yet in stable
> (dependencies, usually) and I don't have time (middle-aged teacher...)
> to track down fixes/kludges/etc. So I'm looking for a good balance
> between stability and usability while staying up to date (sort of).
>
Sounds like maybe you want Debian stable with backports. Or maybe
Debian testing (particularly now that testing is frozen, things should
be more consistent than normal in testing).
If I couldn't use Debian, I'd probably run one of the following.
CentOS on my servers.
Advantages:
1) Loooong supported life (7 years)
2) CentOS / RedHat is popular with businesses, so knowing it well might
help me get a job someday
Disadvantages:
1) Much smaller repository than Debian. You can get additional
software from several 3rd party repos, but you'd better pick just one
because they often conflict with each other.
2) Subject to commercial interests (RedHat).
Ubuntu on my desktops.
Advantages:
1) LTS versions have approximately the same supported life as Debian
stable.
2) Large repositories.
Disadvantages:
1) A little more buggy than Debian, in my experience. Way more
upgrades than Debian stable.
2) Subject to commercial interests (Canonical)
3) The online help is great for beginners, but now that I'm past the
beginner stage I find the amount of "noise" in the Ubuntu help forums
to be particularly unhelpful.
Ubuntu on my servers?
Advantages vs. CentOS:
1) Large repositories -- might not be important on servers, depending
on application.
2) Apt is quicker than yum, although I think yum has had some recent
speed improvements.
Disadvantages vs. CentOS:
1) Shorter supported life.
2) I think I trust RedHat's direction more than Canonical's, mainly
because RedHat has been around longer and Canonical still seems to be
struggling with its identity/purpose/business plan.
That's all for now...
-Rob
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