On Sat, 2007-03-31 at 09:51 -0400, Douglas Allan Tutty wrote: > On Tue, Mar 27, 2007 at 05:41:45AM -0700, Michael M. wrote: > > > What has made Debian a great fit for me over the past months is its > > beefed up efforts to make testing a more viable option for users (for > > example, by providing security updates for testing). I started using > > Etch some months ago, perhaps close to a year ago, pulling in just a few > > packages from unstable, and it has been a great fit for me. Until the > > past few months, when it has increasingly come to seem stale to me. > > It's only natural, then, for me to question whether *I* really fit in > > with your definition of "We the Debian people." > > > > Why don't we reframe this as: What is the best OS/Distro for Michael? > > Perhaps you have some conflicting needs that requires a non-standard > answer? I _think_ that what I hear that you want is: > > More recent software than what is in stable or testing (when its > frozen). > > Less dynamic than Sid
That pretty much sums it up, the important qualification being testing *when it's frozen.* Prior to the freeze, and for at least a while after it began, I was happy with testing. That's the only reason I am frustrated with Debian's reluctance/refusal to commit to a schedule. If I knew, for example, that for up to six months out of every two years, testing will be frozen, I could live with that. If that were the case, testing would be the optimal distro for me more than 75% of the time, which would be good enough. But as past and recent history (Dunc-Tank tanking, etc.) has indicated, Debian has no inclination to do that, and many Debian users appreciate its reluctance to do so, for reasons I can understand. I just don't happen to be one of them. > What about: > > Debian stable or testing to run your hardware with a *buntu in a > chroot? Gives you a base OS that won't crash but more recent > software. Yikes, that sounds complicated! > Is Linux for you? What about one of the BSDs? I've been looking at > OpenBSD; they release every 6 months (their Release is like Debian's > Stable), with security update (source patches) as necessary. Following > every security update even if it doesn't apply to you, you end up > running their Stable. Their Current is like Debian's Sid. I have tried FreeBSD and quite liked it. I didn't keep it around because, at the time, FreeBSD slices weren't accessible from Linux OSes, which made bouncing between Linux and FreeBSD problematic. However, someone on this list pointed out a month or two ago that the situation has changed. Multiple file system types make me a little nervous -- I was happy to leave Windows behind once and for all in part because it freed me from the NTFS/ext3 divide -- and switching to any *BSD would bring back that issue, but it would be worth it if I found a *BSD to be a better option for me because I could eventually leave Linux behind like I did Windows. OTOH, in terms of alternative OSes (alternative to the dominant OS today), Linux seems to have more momentum behind it, and a wider range of hardware support. It would be kind of ironic to ditch Linux just as a company like Dell is preparing to sell computers preloaded with Linux. All my Windows & Mac using friends already think I'm a masochist for using Linux (my friends are non-techie liberal arts types, as am I) -- it would only confirm their opinion if I dropped Linux just as it's making mainstream headway! Anyway, I never looked closely at the advantages (or lack thereof) of one *BSD over another. FreeBSD seemed to me to be the most user friendly, and it's the one that the desktop-oriented projects, like DesktopBSD, PC-BSD, and FreeSBIE, are based off. That was just an impression I had at the time, I would certainly look into the others if I decide to try that route. > They can release every 6 months because they only focus on the main OS. > Third-party stuff (upstream) is in packages (binary) and ports (source > tarballs pre-tweaked to compile properly on a given release level). > Using the ports and packages system is supposed to be similar to > using aptitude from the command line. It brings in whatever > dependancies there are, compiles anything required, and installs it. > It also will uninstall. > > It sounds to me like this may be a viable option for you: > > Stable, reliable, OS > > Upgraded every 6 months > > Fairly recent third-party software. > > So tell us what your ideal OS would be and do. There's enough cross-OS > experience on this list to give good suggestions. > > I'm not marking this thread as OT since a discussion on why Debian may > not be working for someone, and what a user's needs are, is important > for Debian folks. So lets _not_ have a flame fest. Lets help a debian > user with a fundamental problem: his OS isn't doing what he needs it to > do. The "perfect" OS for me would be Debian testing in a non-frozen state ... it has everything: the power of apt (with a truly awesome management tool in aptitude, which I love); recent-if-not-necessarily-bleeding-edge software versions, a huge software repository; plenty stable, with very infrequent breakage anywhere; manageable, rolling updates (I like, in general, to update about once-a-week) with no real need for upgrading; flexibility -- no preferred windowing environment; no binary blobs installed by default, but still available if you need them (I do use Flash, lame, w32codecs, Sun's Java, and non-free unrar; I don't use nVidia's proprietary driver, nor MS fonts, Adobe Acrobat, nor any other non-free software I can think of). I like Gnome and would be reluctant to abandon it, but I could probably survive with XFCE or even just Openbox; I don't care for KDE. Of those I've tried, my favorite non-Debian-based distro is Arch Linux, the caveat being that Arch is very bleeding edge and more prone to breakage here & there than Debian testing. It's more like Sid, in that respect. Arch was inspired by CRUX, which is probably too advanced and D-I-Y for me, and CRUX was developed along *BSD lines, like Gentoo. In many ways, a *BSD might really be my best bet. Is there anything else that compares favorably to Debian testing out there? -- Michael M. ++ Portland, OR ++ USA "No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream." --S. Jackson -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
