Re: tlug: Red Hat vs. Debian

[Craig Oda <craig@example.com>]

On Sun, 30 Nov 1997, David J Iannucci wrote:

> are now using Debian.  My system is still just newly-installed
> and it wouldn't be hard for me to change now.  Is the "ease
> of maintenance" issue basically moot among the different
> distributions?  Also, I know the packaging system is different
> between these two.  Is it gonna be a problem for me to be
> "stuck" with dpkg (name?), or can one use RPM on Debian now?

You might want to keep Red Hat on there if you've already
got it working.  
A program called alien can do fairly good conversions between
the two packages.  IMO Debian and Red Hat are fairly similar.
I'll give my perception of some differences.

Red Hat
 1) Commercial applications
This is a for-profit company and in order to maintain that profit
they are trying to introduce Linux into the commercial market place.
They have ties with Netscape, Applix, Metro, and other commercial
software vendors.  Their goal is to make Linux as easy to install
as possible.  An interesting difference between Red Hat and other
for-profit software companies, is that the main Red Hat distribution
is also freely available.  

 2) Multi-platform
Red Hat is available on Sparc, DEC Alpha, and Intel x86 platforms 
right now.  I've heard that the Strong Arm port is based on 
Red Hat.

 3) easy to use install and GUI
The Red Hat installation process seems to be easy with a lot of
scripts to automate things.  There is a nice GUI control panel
and other features to make the configuration as painless as 
possible for people new to UNIX or Linux.

 4) Popularity
Red Hat is extremely popular and by far the most popular distribution
on CD-ROM.  


Debian
 1) GNU 
Debian is called GNU/Linux and the entire core distribution is
under the GNU copyright.  Even if you don't care about copyright
issues, the GNU copyright affects Debian users because it tends
to attract a certain type of techie user.  While there is support
for commercial apps under Debian GNU/Linux, it is not the main
focus of the project.

 2) Customizability
Debian installs from 6 floppies and after those 6 floppies you have
a fully functional system that boots and works.  You then add
the packages you want and only those packages.  This creates a
"install no file before its time" system.  This is important for
people that want to know what every single file does on their
system.  This might be important for research (as seen on the
space shuttle), security, or for special apps like embedded
systems.  

 3) Dselect is a bit weak
The Debian package installer is weak compared to Red Hat's
graphical system.  The keystroke commands are a bit obscure.
However, if you are the type of person that uses rpm on Red Hat,
the dpgk of Debian will be fine.

 4) Strong Community 
Debian has a strong following and it could conceivably be more
popular than Red Hat if you calculate all the downloads from 
FTP sites.  The development process is very open.

 5) Debian-JP
If you use Japanese, you might want to look at Debian-JP.  There
is no comparable project for Japanese support for Red Hat.
Good Debian-JP specific mailing list.  Debian-JP seems to be in
a lot of UNIX User magazines. 

  -------

There are many other issues.  I guess it comes down to personal 
taste.  This type of debate must be raging around the world.  :-)
One area where TLUG might be able to supply some new information
is in an analysis of how well the two distributions can be
configured for international and for Japanese support.  IMO,
this is how it is going to end up: Red Hat and PJE compared
to Debian and Debian-JP.


Regards,
Craig



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