[nmglug] Linux Distributions

[Karl Hegbloom]

On Wed, 2005-01-19 at 15:11 -0700, Jason Davis wrote:
> On Wed, 2005-01-19 at 14:44, Tim Emerick wrote:
> > Dave,
> > 
> > I switched from RH to Debian (www.debian.org) some years ago.  The
> > testing/sarge release of Debian has darn near every package under the sun. 
> > With the apt system you can add different repositories for software that
> > doesn't appear in the standard system.  The apt system really is a dream to
> > keep updated.  The only thing that you might miss is RH's up2date web
> > application where you could remotely do all the updating from their website. 
> > But, I guarantee that once you experience Debians two (sometimes one) command
> > routine to update all of the software on your system you'll be a convert.
> > 
> > apt-get update
> > apt-get dist-upgrade
> > 
> > That's it!!!!
> 
> I agree with Tim , Debian is where it's at.

I really enjoy this list.  You folks are the total opposite of the
Portland Linux / Unix Group (PLUG your ears), where any mention of
Debian or 'apt-get' seems to draw flames from Mandrake and Red Hat
advocates... who run consulting businesses selling Red Hat and own stock
in Red Hat...

I've nothing against consulting businesses or Red Hat or purchasing
stock to invest in something you believe in (I wish I could afford lots
of stock in windmills and fuel cells) but...  There's just so many
reasons why folks in this business should be pooling their common
resources in a shared tool kit like Debian.

 [Some of these things are, in honesty, also true about other distros. ]

It's not controlled by a closed board of corporate directors, but
instead by a democracy of volunteer engineers.  User feedback is
relevant and affects changes.

There is a clear charter and constitution, along with a solid policy
statement and policy extension and modification processes involving
decent parliamentary procedure rather than closed corporate board
"consensus".  Debian is truly democratic.

Not being controlled by a for-profit business, it cannot "go out of
business" and disappear.  If you use a Debian off-shoot repository, you
can at any time point your apt-get back at Debian itself, should you
choose to.  (Depending on what sort of modifications are in the
off-shoot distro, there may be varying degrees of success doing this.)

It is open for use by sub-projects, custom distributions, and
organizations like Canonical, the purveyors of Ubuntu.  You can say
"based on Debian", and that means something.  You can use the Debian
Open Use logo on your product.

The source, documentation, and support mailing lists are truly open to
the public.  You don't have to pay extra to get that.  You can search on
the Debian web site and find something besides advertising.  When you
search the lists archive, you find both question and answer.

The maintainers are just an email away from the end-user.  You don't get
a Microsoft reply from an $8/hr tech-support intern, but instead receive
real information or a simple RTFM (hopefully with pointer to the manual
you need to read).  Since Debian is a large organization, each
maintainer is responsible for only a few packages.  Thus, the person you
contact is likely to know what you are talking about.

Debian (and Ubuntu) is easy to support on pre-loaded Linux products.
Debian provides the necessary infrastructure for doing this.  You can
easily create a 'shadow' repository for value-added software, software
patched by the hardware vendor, custom built kernels, etc.  There's a
well defined way for building kernel images that can be installed using
the normal package tools.  These new kernels show up in the boot menu
automatically.  There's a well defined way for a vendor or local admin
to customize the initrd environment as needed, and that carries over to
new kernels since it's built at kernel image installation time, not
pre-built by the kernel builder.