[TriLUG] Debian question

[Dan Chen]

On Fri, Feb 22, 2002 at 09:10:14AM -0500, M. Mueller (bhu5nji) wrote:
> Is Debian falling behind the other main distros (RH, Mandrake, SUSE)?  I pick 
> up hints that this is the case in things that I read and overhear.  Several 
> months ago I had some mysterious mainboard problems usings Debian Potato that 
> did not exist with RH6.1 (straight out of the box).  That experience put the 
> question into my head.  Then I just read Mr. Chen's post that the ext3 stuff 
> is unofficially in the Debian.

Ok, I need to clarify. Debian _stable_ (aka potato or 2.2) is "behind
the other main distros," yes. It's the "flavor" of Debian aimed at
production servers. For most workstations, testing (woody) or sid
(unstable) is fine. I've been running sid on select machines for as
long as sid has existed as a flavor, and the "unstable" moniker applies
only to the frequency of package updates (or the introduction of new
packages into it).

> Are the "for profit" distros able to apply more resources to staying current?

Only if you count the retail shelf releases. Arguably Debian sid is
_the_ most current flavor of any distro. It's similar to rawhide and
cooker in Red Hat and Mandrake, respectively.

> Disclaimer:  I know that distro questions can ignite passions similar to the 
> way editor questions ignite passions.  My interest is dispassionate.  Please 
> feel free to release passion nonetheless.  I would love to use Debian.  I 
> think the Debian user list rocks.  But I am inadequate and I just couldn't 
> make the distro work on some of my newsest hardware.  But there is this 
> nagging question in the back of my mind that I ask this group to help me sort 
> out.  (Donning flame suit).

Debian users, like users of other distros and OSes, are stubborn. :P Do
beware the distinction between the flavor of Debian and the actual
kernel, however. I bet you'll find that potato running a recent 2.4
kernel will support your new hardware just fine. :)

-- 
Dan Chen                 crimsun at email.unc.edu
GPG key:   www.unc.edu/~crimsun/pubkey.gpg.asc
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