Quoting Art Edwards ([EMAIL PROTECTED]): > I definitely came to debian after two other distributions (Red Hat and > SuSE).
I first tried linux with slackware, but only because it offered installation with umsdos and I had a 500MB 486 with W3.1. X wouldn't do much more than crash in 8MB, leaving me with a garbled screen (the Avance card still does this now, but I know what to do). But using GNU utilities on a real shell was fantastic after the DOS versions. After all, my background was VAX and, before that, IBM 360/370 but with the Cambridge University Phoenix command language, both very flexible. > Part of it is that Debian is not seen on many Store shelves. I > had to seek it out based on reputation. Part of it also is that the > initial installation is not slick. For me that is now part of its > attraction. I should explain that, while apt-get is truly slick after > you have set up your machine, and the ftp-installation is very nice, the > menu's are relatively low level. Agreed. I'm connected, or course, so I'm used to ftp rather than CD distributions. I started Debian (in the days of buzz) because it was so transparent about what it was doing during installation, so I could be sure that my other vital (at that time) partitions were safe. > Incidentally, the release times have had some significant consequences. > The High Performance Computing Center where I get my cycles just changed > a very nice cluster from Debian to Red Hat because the stable release is > not very friendly to SMP, even though potato is. Hm, I can cope with potato, and I'm just a one-man amateur band. I'm not impressed by the HPCC if they can't cope with running frozen. > While it is true that > you have had nimor releases, I believe they kept the same kernel (is > this true?). > If I am right, then to keep users, you should try to update kernels in > minor releases. I can't see why you should want to couple kernel and distribution releases any more than is unavoidable (i.e. dependencies). Debian did a very nice job of supplying sufficient packages for people to move to 2.2 kernels on slink with its old C libraries. BTW it is hardly notable that Debian is the last (final) distribution for people in *this* forum as we're a self-selecting group. The people for whom this is not true will have moved on into other forums... Cheers, -- Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel: +44 1908 653 739 Fax: +44 1908 655 151 Snail: David Wright, Earth Science Dept., Milton Keynes, England, MK7 6AA Disclaimer: These addresses are only for reaching me, and do not signify official stationery. Views expressed here are either my own or plagiarised.
