[TriLUG] Debian vs Mandrake vs Redhat vs . . .

[Bradford Powell]

Hi,

To specifically address the availability of current software in
Debian (which I have seen other mention but not respond to directly) 
the 'testing' and 'unstable' branches of Debian are much more
up-to-date. Webmin in those two branches is at version 1.070. To look for
specific packages, try packages.debian.org, under "Search package
directories" to see what versions of software are in which branch.

I myself run unstable almost exclusively, even on machines where I get
real work done. Only once or twice in about 6 years have I had any serious
issues. They have always been the kind of thing where I noticed right away
and was able to simply downgrade. I suppose running testing I wouldn't
have that problem-- items are brought into testing only if they have
lasted some time (length of time depending on whether or not they are
security updates) without significant bugs noted in unstable.

All that having been said, some of the less server-oriented packages (like
X11, gnome, kde) may take a while to get to the latest versions. But for a
server, who cares?

-- bradford powell
-- bradford_powell at unc.edu 

On Mon, 10 Mar 2003, Joshua Bedick wrote:
> I've looked at Debian and Redhat so far.  I love dpkg, but there are more up
> to date RPMs for the software I'm looking at, i.e. Webmin in dpkg is .94,
> not the latest with security fixes.  I did look at Mandrake, but the 2