On Friday 12 November 2004 05:53 pm, Tim Kelley wrote: > On Friday 12 November 2004 02:11, ken keanon wrote: > > Hi, > > > > There are so many distros out there its confusing. Any reason(s) > > why Debian should be the preferred choice? > > > > Any statistics from any source(s) to proof the popularity of > > Debian? > > > > I'm in the dark waiting to be enlightened. > > Well, first, some very general things: > > 1. Debian is not a commercial organization, but a protected > non-profit. This means they cannot be bought out. > > 2. Debian is a democratic organization, this means they cannot change > directions suddenly, are not subject to the whims of an executive, > and will not incur massive upsets in the user base nor in its > developers. It also means it will not just dissappear overnight: too > many people are involved. > > 3. Debian has a social contract with its users which makes certain > (considerable) guarantees. > > 4. Debian is run and maintained by its core user base (debian > developers) and as such has a tendency to make things as easy to > manage as possible.
The core user base (Debian devl) is not necessarily the democratic majority of users. If you like to believe in the social contract, users, afaikt, are anyone who uses Debian. There are far more 'users' than developers but no representation of the non-developer-users. Until Debian will accommodate impute from non-developers it is just an exercise for the developers. > > As a direct result of the above, we also see that: > > a. Debian provides the most stable linux environment, both as a > target for development and for daily work, of any linux distributor. > > b. Debian provides mechanisms for ease of administration and > management like nothing else I've ever seen. Almost everything is > done uniformly and sensibly. This goes far, far beyond "apt-get". > > c. Debian has a Bug Tracking System which is 100% open to the public, > a boon to admins troubleshooting problems. No one else, not Red Hat, > Sun, Novell, Microsoft nor Suse, has anything remotely comparable. > > d. Debian is enormous; sarge will be approximately 15 cd's or 2 > dvd's. Almost the entire free software repository is at the users > fingertips. > > e. Debian keeps up with security very, very, well; and does so with a > minimum of disruption. It is quite safe, in stable, to update > security without worrying that your configuration will be blown away. > > d. security is made a easy as possible; Red Hat for example, has a > vested interest in selling you RHN to get security updates. They will > therefore never have a system as simple and elegant as "apt-get". > > Let's look at some of the details and niceties the above policies and > attitudes have engendered: > > 1. debsums - check md5sums of files on filesystem with debian > packages. 2. apt-get - easy package management (SECURITY made easy > -as it *should* be) 3. apt-cache - search / browse available packages > 4. equivs - bypass the packaging system while satisfying it > 5. apt-listbugs - query the bug tracking system > 6. apt-listchanges - notification of what your updates did > 7. separating configuration files from the files in the package > (making it easy to update without disrupting operation, among other > things) see concept of "conffile" in a debian package > 8. wonderful docs; for example, all package changes are listed > in /usr/share/doc/package/changelog.Debian.gz, and all upstream > changes in /usr/share/doc/package/changelog.gz. /usr/share/doc also > contains useful examples where appropriate. you thus have a complete > history of the upstream package and the changes the packager made to > it, separated neatly. 9. installs only what you tell it to (c.f. Red > Hat) > 10. wonderful way of abstracting kernel and kernel module building > (also apples to other packages in general) > 11. politely splitting up of packages when appropriate (e.g., > snort-mysql vs snort-pgsql and snort-common, same for many, many > others) > 12. apt-build - build packages on the fly from source > 13. auto-apt - install packages automagically when a (missing) file > is accessed (great for ./configure; make ; make install freaks) 14. > reportbug - easy way to report bugs to the BTS > > There are dozens of others, I'm getting tired. Someday perhaps I'll > compile a reasonably complete list of niceties :). Anyone care to > add? > > > -- > _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ > / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ > ( t | i | m | @ | i | t | . | k | p | t | . | c | c ) > \_/ \_/ \_/ \_/ \_/ \_/ \_/ \_/ \_/ \_/ \_/ \_/ \_/ > GPG key fingerprint = 1DEE CD9B 4808 F608 FBBF DC21 2807 D7D3 09CA > 85BF -- Greg C. Madden -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
