I have to second this. I started using Linux in I think 1996 with Slackware and kernel 1.2.13. People always told me that if you want to really learn UN*X, get Slackware because it's usually broken and really forces you to do stuff manually. I then started using Red Hat since I heard great things about the rpms. Bullshit. Shortly gave up on that and built everything manually from tarballs. I saw "unresolved depenencies" more often than not. Debian I started checking out a couple of years ago and have never turned back. Package management is amazing. And its sticking to standards and GNU really appeals to me. I do sysadmin at work on a Solaris, OpenBSD, and now also a Linux server. We got a server from Dell, who offers Red Hat. No thanks. I ordered it with a blank hard drive and got Debian CDs and set it up myself. I love it.
-Ken On Wed, Jan 17, 2001, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > When I first started with Linux it was with Slackware with kernel 2.0 which I > got of a CD accompanying the magazine(PCQuest in India). I was mainly > dependent on the CD's which I got of the magazine since it was not possible > to download distros of the web through my 28.8 kbps net connection. > Then the same magazine started giving Redhat Linux. So I followed redhat > right from 5 till 6.2. I learnt most of the fundamentals about GNU/Linux on > that!!! > During this period I heard about Debian and I set on a CD hunt. Finaly I got > it of a friend in my institute who had downloaded it and burned it on a CD. I > actually got only the first CD but that was enough to get me going. I > replaced Redhat and installed it and have not regretted it ever since. > The package management system dpkg/apt is simply the best I have ever used > and maintaining the system once it is installed is the easiest among all the > other systems. The one problem I faced at the beginning was that the packages > were not up to date. But that went away when I started following unstable (I > like to stay on the bleeding edge). > One thing I should say about GNU/Linux in general is that it is really user > friendly. No I am not talking about user friendliness defined as working on > pointy clicky things but in the sense that I get to know what I need to know > and nothing is hidden from me and Debian is the distro which embraces this > idea to the fullest. > Those are some of the reasons why I chose debian. > > Vijay Prabakaran.
