Re: tlug: Red Hat vs. Debian

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <turnbull@example.com>]

>>>>> "Craig" == Craig Oda <craig@example.com> writes:

    Craig> 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

No.  RedHat is by far the easiest distribution to use if it works for
you, and everything you'll ever want comes in RPM form.  If the first
condition fails, it's better to switch (to Debian) than fight.  If the
second fails, or if you want to build your own custom software
packages (I now make a Debian package every time I build a new
kernel---this is absolutely routine, there's a package that does this
for you automatically---it helps me keep them straight and makes
backing them out if an experiment fails easy), you may want to
consider moving to a different distribution.  I've never tried to
build a RedHat package, but I have looked at the specs files and I
don't like them.

    >> 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?

    Craig> You might want to keep Red Hat on there if you've already
    Craig> got it working.  A program called alien can do fairly good
    Craig> conversions between the two packages.

Does alien do Debian => RedHat as well as RedHat => Debian?  Anyway, I
know it's supposed to handle .tar.gz as well.  I have never had a
problem with using RPMs under Debian (except that I often dislike
their default resources, and of course you completely lose
dependencies).

    Craig> Red Hat

    Craig>  1) Commercial applications

    Craig> This is a for-profit company and in order to maintain that
    Craig> profit they are trying to introduce Linux into the
...
    Craig> An interesting difference between Red Hat and other
    Craig> for-profit software companies, is that the main Red Hat
    Craig> distribution is also freely available.

No, this is true for all the major Linux distributions.  Has to be.
The only important RedHat specific tool with public source is rpm,
AFAIK.  Do they provide source for Glint and RedBaron?  I thought those 
were binary only.

    Craig>  2) Multi-platform

    Craig> Red Hat is available on Sparc, DEC Alpha, and Intel x86
    Craig> platforms right now.  I've heard that the Strong Arm port
    Craig> is based on Red Hat.

Debian is working on a Sparc port; what's slowing them up is the
instability of the Sparc kernel/library situation.  I assume there's
an Alpha port in the works, too.

    Craig>  3) easy to use install and GUI

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

I find the control panel does not help much for me; if I didn't get it 
right in the first place.

    Craig> Debian

    Craig>  1) GNU

    Craig> Debian is called GNU/Linux and the entire core distribution
    Craig> is under the GNU copyright.

So is that for RedHat; it's only stuff like Red Baron and Glint that
aren't.  The GNU/Linux thing is a Stallman-ism; he put a big hurt on
Debian, and things still aren't completely right between FSF and
Debian as far as I can tell from a few comments on Debian-i18n and (a
couple of other lists that I haven't read recently).

AFAICT Stallman is just pissed off that the HURD is never going to be
as good an operating system kernel as Linux....

    Craig>  2) Customizability

    Craig> Debian installs from 6 floppies and after those 6 floppies
    Craig> you have a fully functional system that boots and works.
    Craig> You then add the packages you want and only those packages.

And Debian is a bit more catholic about which packages are available.
FVWM95 is buggy on a monochrome screen (ie, the Sparc ELC), and I
really hated the task bar and other Messy features.  Why customize
them away when FVWM-2 is available?  Because it's not, on RedHat.
Yeah, it's probably there in one of them humongous contrib archives, 
but I've been burned several times by RedHat contrib RPMs.

    Craig>  3) Dselect is a bit weak

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

Obscure?  Come now; I rarely use the display toggling options.  the
only one I use much is `/' which is straight out of vi, and means
`search'.  Glint is not very bright about dependencies, and searching
is absent as I recall.  deselect is very good about dependencies, AND
more important, tells you about them when you are using FTP.  Glint
only works on the locally available stuff AFAIK.


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