On Fri, 20 Mar 1998, Richard Sevenich wrote: > Well, OK - I'll stick with Debian despite Bruce's departure - for a > while longer. The developers would miss folks like me who ask those > naive questions. You can't be elite if no one notices. > > Bruce provided a type of leadership (yes, I know Ian took over some time > ago) that was reassuring to the users. He was the only 'official' bridge > between the users and the developers. Again - he provided reassurance > to us users, that there was a direction in the anarchic creativity. And > he made the developers look good to us users. > > It may be that his work with SPI is crucial to Linux success and he'll > do more for Debian there than here - in the long run. > > My guess is that I've been instrumental (as an academician) in introducing > Linux to perhaps 100 to 200 young people. I recommend Debian, but RedHat is > slicker and more attractive. It's like watching your teenager start dating - > they go for the attractive package. And RedHat is good, so I'm torn. I'm
The isn't completely true about teenagers. I hate to toot my own horn, but I always looked for people with whome I would like to spend my entire life, and there weren't too many like that. Red Hat is very glossy, but I question whether it really works much better than Debian even at the start, and it's long-term appeal is much less. We have used it at my university for a while and have had constant problems reconfiguring things for our strange setup. Debian is more honest about the possible (or even likely) need for manual micro-management configuration of packages. > torn because I want these young folks to experience the instant > gratification which underlies (undermines?) our culture. Otherwise, They'll > just go back to watching TV. Myself, I liked Debian much better than either Slackware or Red Hat (both of which I have had experience with) right from the start. The package management system sold me. I had already experienced massive frustration over poorly specified software interdependency, and Debian adressed the problem squarely. Now I hate to toot the communal horn of Debian people, but I think many of the most valuable new users/hackers/potential hackers are impressed with Debian the same way. dselect can be a bit painful at first, but it both educates users and ensures proper setup, which I think is worth while and should not be compromised in order to make things easier for people with little patience. At the least, new users should be presented with a big isolated intimidating possible confusing window asking whether they want the installer to give them a set of default packages or whether they want to customise their install with tradional dselect. > > I realize that we're not overt competitors of RedHat and that we wish > them well for the sake of linux - but Debian aspires to be the ideal - > non-commercial, free, and excellent. When a slick package like kde is > easily installed on RedHat, but difficult with Debian - some folks get > confused. Yes, I know kde is impure because of qt - but it's slick. > Slick is good for some. Making any X window manager or like beastie completely easy to install requires automagically monkeying with some config files that said window manager package probably has no buisness monkeying with. I guess I do understand the conflict between easy and full-featured after all. > > At any rate, good luck Bruce - we'll miss you. And, sincere thanks to > all the developers - despite my gibes. You are the heart of debian. > > Richard > > P.S. Can this qualify to start a flame war? > > > -- > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
