Re: A rookie's query: Want to about Debian and the related
On Sat, Dec 7, 2013 at 11:07 PM, Atle Solbakken <atle@goliathdns.no> wrote:
> The reason why most people don't have Linux-distros on their home box is
> because no-one is forcing people to use it. Linux-distros are decentralized
> projects with no intention of making any money and therefore no need to make
> people using it. Geeks, like me, often ends up with Linux because they want
> to be the computers boss, not the computers slave.
> I feel for adding a few things about user-friendlyness.
> Debian does not come with any centralized registry which helps all this
> trash Joe talks about to hide away. Windows puts preferences of installed
> programs, Windows itself, information about file types, hardware +++ into
> this registry file which just grows and grows every week making your box
> slower and slower, ultimatly forcing you to re-install everything. This
> registry is the root of all evil on Windows, let me compare Microsofts
> solutions using the registry with Debians methods.
> In Debian, there's in very few cases any need to install or configure any
> hardware drivers, everything is fixed for you automagically every boot. You
> can take a hard drive with Debian out from one box and move it to another
> box with different hardware, and it'll just auto-detect everything when you
> boot it. That's user friendly.
> Windows would have needed to 'install' loads of drivers (install == putting
> more garbage into the registry) on the first boot, you would need to
> download loads of drivers for graphics, sound etc. (more registry pollution)
> and then you would need to buy another licence because Gates detects that
> the hardware is different.
> Every program in Debian is itself responsible for storing it's own settings,
> usually in the per-user home directories (Firefox puts stuff in
> /home/xxx/.mozilla for instance). If you want to delete the Firefox
> settings, just delete the folder. In Windows, you have no easy way to remove
> a programs preferences.
> A Debian package is mostly just an archive with some files in it. When a
> package is installed, the files are copied to the file system. If the
> program needs to start on boot, like a server, it puts startup scripts into
> dedicated directories. Some programs also have configuration files, usually
> located in /etc/. When the package is removed, the files are deleted.
> When you install or uninstall a program on Windows, you have no guarantee
> that the people who made the software have writes their uninstall code
> properly. Many programs leaves loads of stuff behind (registry trash) when
> uninstalled.
> Debian provides a set of high quality packages which properly cleans up
> after themselves on uninstall.
Thanks for this great explanation Atle. But using Debian would require
a user to know such basic aspects before hand and it is expected....I
hope in the future, Linux would be more and more popular every
where....I wonder why I was using Windows!
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