[ale] Distro Reply

[james at sumners.ath.cx]

I didn't say that they don't have the stability. I just don't think they
are worth the trouble and overhead for a production server. I use SuSE
9.1 on my grandfather's machine because it is an easier to maintain
desktop system.

The first distribution I installed was Debian Slink. The install process
was less than refined and I didn't really know what I was doing at the
time. So, sometime later, I installed Red Hat; first 6.0 and then 6.1.
At one point I had some random RPM that I wanted to install but it
required a newer version of rpm (why, I don't know. It still baffles
me.). I installed the newer version of rpm and the whole database of
RPMs I had installed was wiped clean! All of them. The system was no
longer functional. That was the last straw with me and Red Hat on my
desktop. I proceeded to install Debian Slink. Since then I have tried
other distros, including SuSE and Gentoo, but I always come back to
Debian because of the way Debian works - the whole project - right down
to the filesystem.

However, I continued to use Red Hat on the only server I was running at
the time. After @lanta.con 2000 the server was linked because I had
pictures of the con there. Someone in the wider audience hacked the box
and used it to damage other servers. I then proceeded to install Debian
on the box and it has not had any problems since despite having an even
wider audience than the @lanta.con audience.

That is why I will sit here and defend Debian from such frivolous
accusations as "too outdated." Debian has not let me down. I do try
other distributions and give them a fair shake but none live up to
Debian as far as I am concerned.

For stable, easy to maintain, desktops I would have to concur that there
is better out there. As I said, I have SuSE loaded on my grandfather's
machine. But, for someone who knows how to maintain their system and can
fix things when they go wrong I don't see any reason not to use Debian
Sid for a desktop.

On Wed, Jan 05, 2005 at 01:31:41PM -0500, Geoffrey wrote:
> james at sumners.ath.cx wrote:
> 
> >Debian is stable. You know what you are getting with Debian. I don't see
> >why anyone would use something else on a machine that needs to be
> >reliable.
> 
> Now who's being narrow minded?  Nothing else but Debian?  So you don't 
> think Red Hat, Mandrake, SuSE provide the stability of Debian?
> 
> I'm not knocking the stability issue.  Point is, I'm running SuSE 9.2 on 
> a number of boxes and they are all rock solid. All running a 2.6 kernel. 
>  SuSE 9.0 on a fileserver that's been up 7x24 for at least a year.

-- 
James Sumners
http://ug.dyndns.org/~jsumners/

"All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted."

Missionaria Protectiva, Text QIV (decto)
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