Debian's Importance Missed?
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| tadelste Dec 06, 2005 9:07 AM EDT |
I'm continually surprised by the shrug I see when people discuss on this site. In fact, I think it fit more people than most can imagine. The problem I see: Most Linux users haven't mastered the skills of system administration. |
| Tsela Dec 06, 2005 11:01 AM EDT |
I completely agree. I personally use Debian as a desktop and it has been far easier to install and administrate than I was given hope of. And I'm using Unstable, which is supposed to be the distribution that breaks sometimes and that is difficult to administrate. I really need to get around and write those articles I've been promising (problem: I've just heard I may be away again next week. My soon-to-be new employer is great, but it suffers from a bit of slowness in its communication with me ;) ). |
| jimf Dec 06, 2005 12:30 PM EDT |
Lol, I'm not shrugging. :) |
| dinotrac Dec 07, 2005 5:27 AM EDT |
Quoting:Most Linux users haven't mastered the skills of system administration. Now, Tom... In fairness, System Administration is a professional specialty that goes beyond what most organization ask of users. |
| sbergman27 Dec 07, 2005 6:06 AM EDT |
The reason I tend to yawn when Debian is being advocated is simply that Debian has never given me what I want. I may shrug a bit while I'm yawning; I've never taken notice. I tend to need a few things that are relatively new and are usually not included in Debian Stable. They might be in Testing or Unstable, but as a matter of principle I don't use software when the official policy of the provider is "we do not assure timely security patches". Debian has recently started to provide assurances of security patches for Testing. They finally released a new a new Debian Stable in June or July. And they have set an aggressive proposed schedule for the next Debian Stable after 4.5 years of keeping stable in the crockpot. Based upon historical evidence I'm taking a wait and see attitude. Now, that's a pretty negative post about Debian, so I should probably stop there. On a positive note regarding Debian, I, a dyed in the wool Redhat/Fedora fan have been running Ubuntu on my primary desktop machine for 1.5 months or so. And I like it. It's Debian with the problems fixed. Oh, it has its irritations. But no more than Fedora has. Just different ones, and for different reasons. This is the first time that I have seriously considered moving my focus to a different family of distros. Perhaps Debian's true calling is not as a finished distro, but as a base for other, derivative, distros? |
| jimf Dec 07, 2005 6:48 AM EDT |
dinotrac, Debian will never be a n00b Distro for either desktop or server. So, obviously, some won't appreciate it. |
| Tsela Dec 07, 2005 6:53 AM EDT |
Steve, the "we do not assure timely security patches" doesn't apply to Unstable only because those security patches are taken directly from the source. For instance, when the various Firefox security issues were made public and Firefox itself was upgraded to solve them, the upgrades hit the unstable repositories the very same day (some found their way on my box before I could even read the security announcements). So telling that the Unstable distro isn't patched for security is hogwash. It is. It's just that it isn't done specifically on the Debian packages, but taken directly with upgrading to the latest version. This means one depends on the original coders for security patches (or on the original coders applying the patches they are sent to by Debian developers timely enough). So what? That's not different from security patches in Stable and Testing, which are mostly backports of security patches that were done on the latest versions of programs. Until Sarge became stable, the only distribution that didn't receive security patches was Testing. Stable had its own security updates, and Unstable got security updates with upgrades of packages to their latest version, something which happens extremely quickly. Now even Testing gets its security updates too. So one cannot say anymore that any Debian version isn't timely updated for security. They all are (even Experimental, but it would be crazy to try and run that one ;) ). I'm fed up with the negative attitude against Debian. If it doesn't provide what you want, fine. It's not a one size fits all. But don't spread inaccuracies about a distribution just because you don't like it. |
| jimf Dec 07, 2005 6:58 AM EDT |
Tsela, I agree... well put. |
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