Re: redhat vs debian

From: HS (h_55_am_at_linuxmail.org)
Date: 11/12/03 

Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2003 23:02:42 GMT

Jim wrote:
> On Tue, 11 Nov 2003 16:20:42 +0200, Invalid User wrote:

> Redhat is significantly easier to install. It is better designed. The
> installer is designed to make the OS and optional packages very easy to
> implement. It is very much a version of linux with the potential to

True, the installer is a nice one. From the point of view of an average
user, who can tell a tgz file from a ttf, the installer works like a charm.

> Debian is weak in the install. It doesn't have a graphical install. It
> is designed, it seems, to be a package that can be installed at a minimum
> and then you add more to it.

I just installed both Fedora and Debian Woody last weekend (all this RHE
going commercial and no security updates for Fedora is forcing me to
look for alternatives, Debian is the one I am trying out) in PC and made
it dual boot. Installing Debian is a trip to hell compared to installing
Redhat. This is my first hand experience.

>
> Debian is a weak implementation taking little or no care as to the impact
> of itself on the desktop user. It is designed for an by, it seems, linux
> zealots that believe that linux is for the developer and nothing else. It
> is more a techy play thing then an real implementation.

I am not sure about that. apt-get seems to be a nice method to keep your
system up-to-date. Unlike RH, Debian is not going to ditch its users (at
least it doesn't seem like that at present :) ). The only thing so far I
can say is that whoever made the Debian installer needs to take
Introduction to GUI 101 course (see my rand in linux.debian.user).

> All the linux oses fail after the install. Software packages are
> extremely difficult to install or the installers are non-existent and
> requiring you, an end-user, to actually re-compile them.

Don't agree with that all. yum and apt-get make the life simpler, much
simpler than rpm ever did if I may say so. There are my first
impressoins. Moreover, even Fedora now uses yum and apt-get. And there
are millions, maybe not as many as there are for Windoze, packages for
Linux. I think maybe in terms of video games Linux is week, but I am
pretty happy with all the stuff it offers -- and, oh, Mozilla rocks, IE
sucks BIG time!!

> Compared to the hundreds of millions of programs available for the win32
> platform linux has an insignificant number. 10 years after linux was
> started we can't even find in wide use, or any use for that matter, a
> cross-distro installer that doesn't place the burden on the end-user to
> get the job done.

My present concern (not a big one though, since there are work arounds)
is that Linux seems to lagging behind video and audio stuff related to
xine, mplayer and mp3 players. If these were readily avialable without
any legal issues, it would be really really great.

> From kde to gnome, from video player to multimedia app to word processor,
> it is extremely difficult to get software installed.

No it is not. Koffice and Ooffice come to mind (though ooffice doesn't
seem to come with debian by default). They even read Windoze files
reasonably well, well not if there is any heavy formatting.

> If you want to do the basics, browse the web, file manage, chat via irc,
> read news groups, etc then the base install of linux is fine. Try
> anything else and you get caught in the mire of distro packages with
> dependencies that can't be satisifed because the maintainer of the package
> doesn't have the libraries available.

Ever tried apt-get and yum and rpm? I agree if you want to install by
hand, you may need to download various rpms, but hey it is better than
knowing how to compile stuff from tar files -- though it may not always
be true.

> Anyway, RedHat seems to be better although RH is getting out of the
> desktop support business and going all enterprise clientele. With SuSE

:((

> going enterprise only via Novell it leaves few others that are reliable
> easy to install and gifted with the knowledge that the end-user is king.

Hence my trials with Debian.

->HS 

-- 
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