[H-GEN] Linux and Partitions

[Ben Fowler]

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On Mon, 25 Sep 2000, Sandra Milne wrote:

> On Mon, 25 Sep 2000, Stephen Thorne wrote:
> 
> > *cough*debian*cough*

:-)

> uh-huh.... well i took the plunge and went from redhat to debian today. i
> must say i am so far not impressed at all. in fact, i'm considering
> checking out what a server installation of redhat actually installs.
> at least redhat is only 1 cd :-P
> Sandra.

We haven't seen much distro-versus-distro flameage lately.  Maybe we're
due for another flamewar ;)

I like Red Hat.  I like Debian too, although they both have their strong
and weak points, whether it be a nice package management system, a slick
frontent out the box, or whatever. Of course, both are reasonably
straightforward to install if you know what you're doing.

Sandra, it depends on what you want out of a distribution.  If you're
looking for something that isn't butt-ugly out of the box [0] and has
half-reasonable graphical admin tools, Red Hat's the go.  If you like free
software, powerful package management (apt-get and friends)[1] and are
prepared to put up with a few more rough edges and missing packages [1],
then Debian's for you.  If you're a UNIX purist or like your UNIX lean and
mean, *BSD [3] is good.

--regards, 

Ben.


[0] IMHO, the way that some of Debian's X-related packages are not quite
    up to par with Red Hat's packages when it comes to default settings,
    aesthetics, etc.

[1] Witness the KDE/GNOME debacle (pissing match?), and how until very
    recently, Debian did not officially support KDE in the
    distribution... at all.  

[2] Being able to just install the base Debian distribution, and have
    apt-get pull down (and update) only the packages I need *definitely*
    rules.  I'm a programmer, and not a sysadmin :)

[3] NetBSD emphasises cross-platform support.  FreeBSD focuses on Intel
    support and performance (IIRC), OpenBSD aims to ship a relatively
    secure BSD distribution.

--
  Ben Fowler   email: <fowlerb at optushome.com.au>  pgp/gpg key id: FFDE6AF7
               vanity web page: <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~zuul/>
 "All I ask of life is a constant and exaggerated sense of my own importance."
                                                                  -- anon.


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