Two Reviews of Debian 3.0 601
FrankNFurter writes "Debian Planet features a review of Debian 3.0 from a user's perspective. Time for a reality check, debianistas." And twstdr00t writes "Linuxwatch.org has posted their review of Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 Woody. 'The package managment system is nice and easy to use. But the lack of good configuration and installation takes that all away from Debian.'"
Interesting review (Score:5, Insightful)
Debian is rock solid but the install ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Lets face facts (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Debian is rock solid but the install ... (Score:4, Insightful)
I have great respect for your distro and your developers (from your ml's it's painfully obvious that you guys are making a fine distro), but I, and I don't think I'm alone here, find the one-or-two zealots that run around /., web boards, and mls screaming for p.r., really annoying.
We know Gentoo's good. We get the message. We know that you have every reason to be excited. Please, though, stop evangelizing.
I know this is flamebait, but I think a lot of people are sick of this besides me, so I'll take the karma hit if necessary.
Whatever (Score:1, Insightful)
Debian isn't for newbies, it isn't for people who need their hand held, it isn't for your mom. And it will never be. Never. It's not a goal of the project to make Debian easy to use for your grandmother. That's just the way it is.
Now, maybe a la Debian Junior, a Debian-based project will develop whose goals are to make Debian easy to use for your Boss' secretary, but Debian per se is NOT that project.
Debian isn't easy for noobs to use. Debian also doesn't help me decorate my home!! Guess what? Both comparisons are invalid.
Re:install system (Score:4, Insightful)
Now Redhat is hard to use.
Re:Lets face facts (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Scarcity of .deb's. On one hand, it's amazing how many packages are available, considering the debian project has to make them all. And having them centralized is largely good because they're more likely to work together. But on the other hand, you're somewhat out of luck if nobody wants to maintain a .deb for the software you want. Alien sometimes works, but more often the binary will be compiled for the wrong libc, or have lots of dependencies that also aren't in Debian.
2) Out of date packages. Again, the issue is that Debian is the source of .deb's, whereas most developers will release rpm's on their own. This means lag time.
3) Broken packages. This doesn't apply to debian stable. Debian stable is great for servers, but lags too far behind for a desktop. And Debian testing or unstable are actually fairly stable, but do live up to their names more than I'd like.
Can't think of much else. I really like debian, and it amazes me that they do it all for free. It's a great distro, and I realize this evaluation is one-sided because I haven't mentioned all the great things about Debian that keep me away from Slackware, RedHat, and even Gentoo. (Actually I do use RedHat at work because they standardized on it, but after Debian anything not network-based feels prehistoric).
Hardware Recognition (Score:3, Insightful)
I consider myself to be a seasoned Linux user. I have been using various distributions of Linux exclusively on my desktop for two years now.
My school's Unix Users Group [byu.edu] runs a periodic Install Fest, where people bring in their desktops, and UUG members load Linux onto them.
Having settled in Debian myself, I figured I would be able to easily install it for someone else. While all my buddies were zipping through the RedHat 8.0 installation for others, I tenatiously stuck with Debian 3.0 for the guy who came to my station.
Things were complicated by the fact that his network card would not play nice with our switch, so I had to use the CD installation (I always prefer the net install with Debian). It took me about twice as long as the RedHat guys just to get a basic system installed and a command prompt. Then his USB mouse wasn't being recognized by the kernel at all.
Well, the guy went home, and then installed Mandrake over the Debian installation I had worked so hard to start up, because he couldn't figure out how to configure his network or his USB mouse, and he didn't want to go through the time or trouble to get it working. Mandrake just did it for him, and he was on his way with his classwork.
It wasn't until I replaced my own motherboard that I realized that you have to use UHCI for some USB chipsets and OHCI for other USB chipsets (he probably had a chipset that was different than that which came with the Debian kernel image). Mandrake and RedHat just figure all that out for you. I wish Debian would do the same.
Some of the guys on the UUG mailing list are claiming that since RedHat now has apt-get, there is no longer any good reason to keep using Debian. I argue that some of Debian's strongest points are that its developers are not blown about by every whim of the market, and when they say "stable," they mean it. Also, the unstable branch provides ample opportunity to keep up-to-date with the latest and greatest packages, if that's what floats your boat.
Well, to make a long story short, for now, I tend to encourage newbies to just use RedHat or Mandrake ... but to keep their /home directories on a separate partition for the day that they will wipe their root partition and install Debian ;-)
graphical installer is not the way to go (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's not waste time on pretty pictures in the installer; rather, the installer needs to get more robust and support more hardware and installation methods. Installs from USB should be easy (carry Debian on a USB drive key). Installs from RAM disk should be possible (load the entire first stage into RAM using the BIOS, then install from there), and perhaps even the default. Those are the kinds of things that make installs easy, not pretty pictures of penguins.
The Installer (Score:3, Insightful)
From then on, they just apt-get new versions.
Re:Interesting review (Score:-1, Insightful)
I've gotten a lot of flack for not liking the Debian dselect installation method, but I stand tall by my opinion. Debian users are the most vocal critters I've encountered, but at least when I complain, the developers see my PhD and know that I mean business and they usually agree with my complaint and say they'll fix it.
But they really haven't, and as such, I've since moved on to Mandrake just for its ease of use. I have it running on probably fourty or fifty machines here in the lab without a hitch.
To be perfectly honest, I'm looking straight and centred to never going back to Debian -- there's simply no reason to. All each flavour of Linux really is is a different set of configuration utilities -- deep down it's all the same Linux code, and doesn't really matter for my experiments.
Thanks for reading.
Re:The problem with those reviews... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I would have to agree, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Debian's installation is totally unpolished, inconvenient, and it basically sucks. That argument that it is only inconvenient if you are a newbie is bunk - it is inconvenient for anyone that doesn't have time to burn configuring every tiny little detail. Yes, apt-get might be wonderful, but it will be much easier for Redhat and co to incorporate Debian's advantages than it will be for Debian to incorporate Redhat's. That is simply a fact.
Debian will never succeed until it takes the installation process seriously.
Debian is for people that *know* (Score:4, Insightful)
I have to maintain a dozen RH boxes and a half dozen mandrake boxes, it sucks compared to keeping a Debian system up.
Further trying to build a dedicated server from RH of Mandrake is terrible. For security reasons a minimal install is best, but its just plain hard to get with "we know what you want" distros.
debian is also getting a complete overhaul in the installer dept. remade from scratch with a modular interface (you want gui? ok, you want dialog, ok you want webmin that will be there also) that will be able to interface with any installer layout you choose (if the interface module exists, or yo uwrite one
Hmm (Score:2, Insightful)
The install sucks, but is that the point? (Score:5, Insightful)
The point of having a server OS is to get it to do useful work without having it hinder / annoy / frustrate you. The ease of install is important in getting the OS installed. Debian certainly lacks in that area. But only a novice would consider the ease of installation a detraction so severe that it overshadows the other good or excellent properties of the server. And trust me : you do not want a novice to administer a production server.
I confess that I am a Debian fan. Despite that, I am able to percieve Debian's deficiencies. The install certainly sucks. I had the pleasure of recently installing Redhat v7.3 . After dealing with Debian's install, the Redhat installer simply took my breath away. It was that smooth. However, the time came to put the OS to use. I needed a way to convert postscript files to pdf. For that, I installed ghostscript on Redhat. It did the conversion alright, but the generated document was useless to me because the fonts werent installed on the system. I repeated the same process on Debian : the dependancies took care to install all required fonts. Voila - the document displayed correctly!
Now would you prefer an OS that works easier over an OS that installs better?
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Get over the installer (Score:5, Insightful)
The average windows user should never see the installer, ditto the average linux user.
Debian users don't pay attention to the installer because we see it just the once.
Linux distro revieers on the other hand never do any real work with a system, just install, install, install.
Debian runs hard and strong and updates itself.
Because it doesn't rely on tech support for funding it's set up to minmise questions by newbies, by actually installing software so it'll run.
I can't program worth a damm, but once i figured out how to edit a config file, that was as far as i had to develop my skill to get debian boxes hard at work on a number of jobs.
Other distro's look flasher installing (try doing a net install off a pair of floppies tho) but after that you're pretty much on your own.
A serious review would be comparing using the machines for a year, but thats beyond IT journalism in general, and linux journalism in particular.
Debian not for dummies (Score:5, Insightful)
Debian is not for newbies. It is *possible* for a newbie to install Debian, but only if they know their exact hardware specifications and have studied the Debian installation guides thoroughly. I installed Debian as my first Linux distro, and I'll agree with this author -- its a bitch to install. I knew my exact hardware specs and thoroughly pre-read through the install documentation (this was a graphical install guide) before starting. It was still a bitch. Then there's the setting it up so it meets your needs: another big bitch.
Hence, Debian is not for newbies. Its even confusing for experts. Now that I've used Debian for several years, I know it. But its install process is still unworthy. Do the developers try to make the install as confusing and non-sensical as possible? Is their model for installation, "Debian installer, dumb and daft by default"? A graphical install isn't necessary; in fact, graphical install's don't make it that much easier to install, and are probably a waste of valuable development time. Most users are still smart enough to figure out how to navigate through a text-based install using hte arrow keys if you tell them how to do it with on-screen help (i.e., up to move to previous item, etc).
Conclusion: Debian is not for dummies
Conclusion: Debian for the daring, Lindows & Libranet for learners. You can get Lindows by paying an $99 dollar membership fee [lindows.com], after which you can have Lindows shipped to your house or download it. Don't bitch about the price. And no, they're not offering it for free download off the internet (and NO, that doesn't violate the GPL). These people actually have a business plan which will keep them in business. Personally, I think that $99 is great, since it gives you access future versions of Lindows. After two years, you're click-'n-run deal runs out, and you can purchase click-'n-run service if you still want it.
The thing I like about Lindows is they have a REAL business plan. They seem to be pursuing Lindows as an OS to be installed on computers off the shelf (refer to Walmart), and seem to be pushing for OEMs to have it on their machines off-the-shelf. They also have ways to make money through their valuable click-'n-run service. Best of all, they aren't offering their entire modified version of Debian GNU/Linux online for free download. This mean's that they're not going to become another dot-bomb. Freeloaders, don't whine; if you want something for free (as in $0), get Debian GNU/Linux.
Suggestion to Debian developers: don't waste time with a graphical install, but do make the install more intelligent and logical, with auto-detection; have good default setup. Things should be set up to a good default when you boot into Debian; i.e., 12pt fonts, the WM of your choice set up to a reasonable and useable default (I'd recommend them working on a good default for KDE, GNOME, and WindowMaker).
But don't fret too much over newbie-nicities. Commercial wrap-arounds for Debian like Lindows and Libranet will make a Debian which has great defaults and is easy for the newbies. They will spend their coding time on making reasonable defaults and an easy install. Debian Developers should spend most of their coding time on hard technical details.
Debian 3.0 Install (Score:3, Insightful)
While the Debian installation isn't as polished as Mandrake's I did not find it to be, as the Debian Planet review states,"an awfully stupid piece of software". The installation seemed to me to be pretty straightforward and I'm no guru. I did make sure that I knew what each piece of hardware in my computer was before I tried the install. That made module selection fairly simple. I'll admit that I was intimidated a bit by dselect and I only used it for a few packages.
Overall I'm very impressed with Debian 3.0. I tried 2.2 a while back but it seemed so outdated that I stayed with Mandrake. After using 3.0 for a few days now, I think I'm going to make this change permanent.
Vices of its virtues (Score:2, Insightful)
I see cause and effect at work here. Let's add a third data point: consider Windows, with its wizards, its helpful way of deciding for you what needs to be done... and of course its simply wonderful stability, as well as the whole issue of talking a WinWizard out of doing things its way when that's not how you want it done.
That, dear slashies, isn't a coincidence. It's a trend line.
Missing the point... (Score:5, Insightful)
In trying to review Debian the same way they review other distributions (which perhaps *only* improve their install system between releases, so as to get better reviews), both of these critics have done Debian a great disservice.
I've been running Linux for about 4 years now, and I've used the install systems for most of the major Linux distributions (Red Hat, Mandrake, Slackware, SuSE, etc). Over this past weekend, I installed Debian on 5 computers. I can absolutly assure you that I would be completely stalled at 3/5 with any other distribution's install system. It's awfully hard to install from CDROM when a machine has no CD drive.
Now, for a newbie I can see that some of the options in the install might be intimidating, but it's all pretty easy if you actually printed out the install document like the website told you to...
Any reviewer of debian that doesn't even manage to notice the fact that Debian can automatically fetch from the internet and install over 8710 different software packages and have virtually any valid combination of them work together perfectly is perhaps not actually interested in reviewing Debian.
Gentoo Evangelist (Score:4, Insightful)
You cannot have a discussion about a thing without mentioning the competitors/alternatives. Apt brings a lot to the table, so does emerge and rpm. A discussion about Debian IS a discussion about apt. And belive you, me, we Mandrake folk had to put up with a lot of apt-get comments over the years, so you Debian types can bite the bullet and listen to what the Gentoo evangelists have to say.
Now, in all seriousness, in a Debian discussion, any comment that is not about Debian should be modded down as off-topic. Likewise, all comments should be about the core story. But the truth of the matter is this: The moderators have spoken. They (me included) want different points of view in every story. Listening to and being around people who disagree is what makes sites like this popular.
Dselect rocks. (Score:5, Insightful)
I do, and I don't think it is. apt is only useful when you know the exact name of the package you want to install. There are other tools to look through the package list, but I haven't tried them, because dselect works.
Need to know what packages are available? Why? That's what the Web is for. If you know what program you want, you know the name of it, and you can nine times out of ten apt-get install it.
What if you don't know the name of the program you want? What if you don't even know what program you want? What if you don't even know what KIND of program you want?
I've discovered hundreds of programs that I never knew existed, while looking through the dselect list, that wound up enhancing my life greatly. Sure, you can decide what you need/want to do, then find a program that does it, but are you really omniscient when it comes to what software is out there? Literally hundreds of times, I've seen a new package and thought, "Hey, that's killer-radical, I never would have thought that something like this would have existed." If you don't know it exists, how can you search for it?
Running apt-get update and seeing that the package list is larger than it was last time is always like Christmas morning for me: bright, shiny, brand-new packages under the tree, and I don't know what's in them, until I open them and unwrap the surprises inside! They are surprise gifts that I receive at least several of every week! Dselect even puts all your presents (new packages) at the top of the list so you can tear into the new toys waiting for you and decide what you want and what you don't.
Running my weekly apt-get update and then tearing into Dselect like a kid on Christmas is always the highlight of my week, because I usually get at least 2-3 new packages that I actually want to play with. Sometimes the new toys they give me will occupy me all night long. Sometimes a new package that I'd never have found out about with dselect will radically change my life, and always in a good way. Because I see every new package that comes through the system, I always know more about more packages than anyone else I talk to, and I'm always able to tell my friends, "hey, guess what new really cool software is out there now?"
Assume that for every person, there is one package that, if he knew about it, he could use it to radically change his life, find real happiness, acquire great personal fortune, etc. What if he NEVER finds out about it, because he doesn't know what the nature of it is and he doesn't know what to look for? What if he NEVER finds it, because he silently downloads its package listing with an apt-get update but never looks at the description? His life has been impaired, possibly forever, out of ignorance.
I can't take that risk. I'm not willing to accept the risk that a package will appear on my package list that could revolutionize my life, and I never find out about it because I never check the list.
If you never use dselect, you don't know what you're missing. You might be missing nothing of value to you, you might be missing something of minor value to you, or you might be missing out on EVERYTHING.
Re:Two reviews? (Score:2, Insightful)
It is a very large problem that is not atypical of the open source crowd; that will guarantee that there will always be room for commercial entities to put the polish on open source projects.
Hard to install? GOOD! (Score:1, Insightful)
This is the way that Linux distributions should be. Before you go
"pffft" hear me out. I am an old-school UNIX administrator that dates
back to the SysVr3 days, and it's time I ranted.
Linux is nice. The kernel is very well done, has support for most
hardware, and is
has gone to hell. X applications are being put in
ground - the administrators nightmare. Some seperation is in order.
Glibc has bloated to 16 MEGS. By comparison, *BSD's libc is functionaly
equivilant and weighs in at less than one meg. The UNIX-like back-end is
being bent to the will of the user-friendly GUI front-end.
This kind of rot is BAD. There is nothing wrong being user-friendly,
however when it makes a mess of the entire userland system, it needs to
be thought out better. As an example, RedHat includes xinetd, configured
to load it's services via
this may be easy for the GUI inetd service configurator to modify, but
it makes configuring things by hand much harder. Editing a single file
is much easier than keeping track of 20 differant files and their
contents. This is just an example, and a rather mild one at that. The
rot goes much deeper, and not just in RedHat.
Back to Debian. I have no idea if this is their reasoning, but my
sentiments are this: If you can't do it right, don't do it. Making a
simple, admin-friendly configuration system that doesn't muck-up the
backend or bloat out the distribution is no easy task. They might
eventualy get it right, but not having it at all is MUCH better than
doing things like RedHat.
As for the install, this goes hand-in-hand with administration. If it's
not easy to configure and set up properly, it shouldn't be easy to
install. It's just begging for trouble to let a luser(def: somone who
can't RTFM and understand it) install an OS they can't properly secure
and configure. They will fuck up their machine, or worse get hacked, or
*gasp* turn into a wide-open SPAM relay. Probably a combination of the
three.
Debian is one of the most admin-friendly distributions out there. Gentoo
and Slackware are the other two contenders. They have done a great job
and we should give them a hand.
Don't forget, Debian is REALLY FREE (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know why everyone whines about the install. The install isn't bad if you've installed a few distros before and accept most of the defaults. Oh, yes, be sure to select the 2.4 kernel flavor of installation and a journaling file system (e.g., EXT3). Anyway, they're revamping the install. If it's too much for you, use something else.
Red Hat is OK, but I was burned one too many times with RPM dependency conflicts. This kind of thing is very rare in Debian, if you take care to maintain your system "the Debian way."
Yes, I'd like to have xfree 4.2, KDE 3, Gnome 2 and the other latest stuff, and they're all available for Debian if you want to install experimental and unstable packages, but I don't, at least not on a production system. There's nothing missing from the stable and testing distributions that keep me from doing most of what I want to do.
Guess I sound a bit like a true believer, but damn, I like being able to turn off my entire network, say for a weekend out of town, and then turn it on and have every machine come up the way it's supposed to with no fooling around. And know that the whole thing will remain free for the foreseeable future.
get a life you linux-heads (Score:0, Insightful)
But....
There are two reasons why linux will never take over the world.
Here's the first one - geeky boys at play [nylug.org] (sorry guys, hope you're not reading)
And the second one - while you linux losers are fricking around geting your silly distros running, out there in the real world, people are getting on with their lives and doing real stuff like writing their novels, typing their contracts, creating artwork, designing software and every one of the million and one things you can use a computer for once you GET A LIFE AND JUST INSTALL THE OPERATING SYSTEM AND MOVE ON !!!
Re:install system (Score:4, Insightful)
For the direct opposite of Debian, take the "user-friendly" Linuxes - Lycoris, Lindows, etc. They strongly discourage the users using the actual configuration files, and instead have graphical setup programs for each one.
Red Hat is kindof the same - it's got tools which create the configuration files for you, but the worst part is the fact that it doesn't tell you what it's doing. Take kudzu, for instance. Yank an ethernet card, and put a new one in (which I did recently) - it successfully removed the configuration from the old card, and created a new configuration for the new card - except for the fact that it didn't change the alias for the module, so none of the actual changes actually happened. Whoops.
So what's the point of this example? A person who uses Red Hat would complain about kudzu not working correctly, which is correct - but the person is not debugging kudzu. They want to switch ethernet cards. So for Debian, the benefit is that they know directly where to look (well, if they ask around, that is). And there's no chance of ifconfig and route not working, because that's what all the other things use.
I think there's a strong benefit of using a system that's built solidly on the real workings of a Linux system, rather than tool upon tool upon tool. Less chance of things going wrong.
(Yes, this basically means I want Debian to stay user-unfriendly - at least by default. Have user friendly tools be available to install - like etherconf, printtool, etc.)
Anyway, the point is that the previous statement should've been that Debian forces you to take control over your system, whereas the others do not.
Re:Debian is rock solid but the install ... (Score:2, Insightful)
Guess how long it took me to yank it out of the closet, hook up a monitor and keyboard, install Debian, and get it back in the closet? 7 minutes and 47 seconds! Granted this was just the base system, but all in all it took me less than 5 minutes to install this bad boy, as opposed to about an hour for YDL, RedHat, Mandrake, OS X, OS 9, etc. I love the text-based installer, and wouldn't ask for it any other way.
People complaining about the X install process should realize that they can basically ignore debconf and use xviddetect or any other number of video card detection utilities afterwards.
I would never recommend Debian to anyone who doesn't have at least intermediate Linux knowledge, but then again I would never recommend Linux to anyone who doesn't have at least basic *NIX knowledge (or really wants to learn). People who just want word processing and e-mail can do that fine on there old operating systems and hardware.
Finally, it strikes me as somewhat disturbing that Linux newbies are so numerous now that they are now posting negative reviews of "expert" Linux distros. It's not so much that they get posted that annoys me, as everyone has the right to opinion and free speech. What really bugs me is that they are being taken so seriously. The crowd here at
Re:I would have to agree, but... (Score:1, Insightful)
What do you actually do with your computer?
No, I don't mean which packages do you compile. I mean, what do you do with your computer that isn't related to tweaking it?
Until you can answer that you sound like somebody who uses his computer as a masturbation substitute.
Sorry to sound so harh. Reality bites sometimes.
The writing is usually so bad the spelling is moot (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Dselect rocks. (Score:5, Insightful)
>> found out about with dselect will radically
>> change my life
> In which case you should probably get out
> more
I won't deny it. Sigh.
But don't they say "follow your bliss"? If you get off on learning about new and exciting Debian packages, isn't that just as valid (for you) as sex is for someone who gets off on sex?
Whatever makes you happy is the right thing for you. Different things make different people happy. People say "get a life" or "you are uncool" just because they have different sets of interests. Someone who does nothing but but hang around getting drunk with his friends may look at a person who has few friends and never gets drunk, and say "get a life!" to that person. But maybe the accused person enjoys working heard, learning, accomplishing things, etc. more than he likes carousing and boozing. Maybe when he looks at his accusor and sees that his accusor is into nothing but hedonism, he'll say "no, YOU get a life!"
Which one of them is right? Neither are. They're both doing what makes them happy, even if what they do are polar opposites.
Debian is for newbies? (Score:2, Insightful)
My first foray into linux was RH 6.2. I was running a P-100, 16mb RAM, 2mb PCI video card, 2GB hdd. Lets just say I had 1gb free(!), a GUI I couldn't get rid of and a cmd line that was unresponsive... It was 6 months later I tried again....... It was then another 3 months later with a friend who liked Debian sitting beside me that I tried again. The Text mode installer was intuitive and after the install, the box was like new, it flew!
I haven't looked back since.
I found RedHat TOO black box in approach, "stuff goes in", "things happen", "stuff comes out". I really don't like that, I had no idea what the OS was doing.
With Debian, I found it crisper, faster, more informative, and those damn dependancies, gone *bamph*.
I'm still a newbie, probably always will be, hell, I don't understand regex, I don't intend to. With that said though, I thoroughly reccomend Debian to all my friends.
So, thanks Panix, for the intro to Debian
Perhaps Debian isn't meant to be "finished" (Score:5, Insightful)
I say this because there have been some really nice, slick distributions based on Debian. Corel was the first I can remember. It wasn't everyone's cup of tea, but it had a slick installer that did everything automagically, and some desktop enhancements to make it easier for the average Windows user to handle. Storm Linux was another that was pretty nice- again, a slick installer almost anyone could use, plus some nice system management and configuration tools, similar to Mandrake's. Now, Libranet seems to be doing good things with Debian also. You can read about Libranet here [linuxorbit.com]. Finally, I tried Knoppix [knoppix.com] the other day. It's a neat distribution that runs live from a CD, so one can try Linux without actually installing it. It has all the basics, and a nice KDE desktop. It's incredibly slick- installing, configuring, and loading itself from a CD faster than any of my Linux machines have ever booted. It detected all the hardware and ran perfectly on my laptop, with the nicest KDE desktop I've seen. I've been a Win2k hostage lately, so I've been loading Knoppix to netsurf and use some of my favorite programs, like Lyx. I urge everyone to try it, just for kicks.
All of these distributions are Debian, with the finish work being done by someone else.
So maybe we shouldn't think of Debian as a finished distribution, but as a toolkit- raw material for other distibutors to work with. Some have, and have done a good job.
Installing Gentoo is easier Debian (Score:1, Insightful)
After getting my feet wet using SuSE I decided to switch to the distribution dedicated to free software namley Debian.
I had problems with the installation. I'm not going to go into them here. They have been enumerated in other posts.
I went back to SuSE. Later I tried Gentoo. Gentoo doesn't have an installation program. It does however have a social contract. It also lets you specify which licenses you allow.
A Gentoo install goes something like this:
From the bash prompt you get to after booting from the CD.
fdisk
mkfs
mkswap
mkfs
mount partitions
tar -xjvfp
make menuconfig
grub
I't all done from the command line. There is no installation program. If you are a Debian developer it should scare you that I find this method of installation easier than the Debian installer.
It's kind of funny that when people tell the Debianites that "Your installer needs some work"
the response is "apt-get is good!"
Yes I know apt-get is wonderful. I'm no longer stuck in RPM hell myself since I switched to Gentoo. The installer has nothing to do with apt-get.
When people say "Your installation program could be a bit more user friendly. Perhaps it could have hardware autodetection or at least some help text describing what the nv module is"
the Debianites respond. "I do NOT want to have to install X on my computer by default. Why would I wan't X on a server?"
Did any of you guys take a logic class in school? Even I, a physics student, can see the flaws your argument.
People are coming up with constructive critisism and you ar just not listening. It is really frustrating for me to see. Debian could be one of the great distributions that everyone uses
Newbie friendly installer doesn't have to mean it has to be less powerfull.
Can you bash script an install? Burn you own CD and let her rip.
Is it possible to install Debian without using the installer? Thats the way I'm used to doing things now. How difficult is it to get to a point where you have bash and apt-get? Do I have to use dselect when installing Debian?
Henrik Treadup
hetr9922@student.su.se
PS Its 7 am I've been up all night and I'm Swedish. I've probably misspelled things all over the place. How is your Swedish spelling?
PPS No I havn't created an account yet but I had to post. This is an issue I feel really strongly about.
Re:Interesting review (Score:5, Insightful)
No, actually that was intentional. He's the kind of troll that I like: the old-style troll like you would find on usenet. The idea is that you post something which seems meaningful and controversial to newbies, but which is immediately recognized as utter bullshit by the clueful.
This is funny. For instance, look at this post [slashdot.org]. I still laugh at that when I look back: "just in time assembling?!" What really gets me is that someone may have taken that BS seriously (I can just imagine someone nodding vigorously in agreement, afraid to admit that they've never heard of "pipeline overflow caching"). This would be even better in person, eg. as the subject of conversation at a high-brow pseudo-intellectualist dinner party.
Now, when people start taking him seriously, that makes me look bad since I also post to this website.
But why waste your time if you don't have to? (Score:5, Insightful)
While I am all "grown", I feel no need to migrate to a less polished/harder to use distro. I can install and use literally any distro and I certainly don't need a a GUI to get my work done, but why stay in the stone age?
Advances in installs and config tools happen for a reason. There is nothing "better" about something being harder to use or master period. All products should be user friendly. Your forgetting that Computers are here to serve us, not make our lives more complicated.
Real progress is a newbie and an expert being able to accomplish the same task and letting the OS do the work. If I could wave a magic wand and make settings up a safe and solid web or database server as easy as falling off a log, you can bet your ass I would. If the tools you give someone are done correctly there is NO wrong way of doing something, it just works.
There will always be a place for hardcore users who want to "get under the hood", but real progress comes when you no longer have to do that and using a product becomes as easy as flipping on a light switch.
That is why I prefer the "easier to use" distros. Currently they may be making some sacificies in order to promote ease of use. But you know what? They are on the right track and I'd rather help them achieve their goal of becoming "light switches", as opposed any distro which requires a user to spend time mastering it as opposed to simply using it.
Re:Debian is rock solid but the install ... (Score:3, Insightful)
>distros (cough..Red Hat...cough) it totally lets
>me in control.
What in particular do you think you can't control in a Red Hat install? If you don't like what's available in the installer you can even switch over to the command prompt and do things manually.
>I decide exactly how I partition my drive, which
>partitions I format, and which I mount and how.
You can do that all in Red Hat as well.
>And then, it install ONLY what I tell it to
>install, no megs and megs of junk you never use
>(again, Red Hat is especially nasty in this area.)
The base package list for Red Hat is actually pretty lean. About 150 packages, totalling a bit over 100MB. There's some stuff which isn't strictly necessary (tcsh, gpm, slocate) and some stuff which isn't necessary for every system (raidtools, hotplug, dhcpd).
I don't really consider it a drawback to include some low level utiltiies that might be useful on some systems or later on in a systems life. And honestly, the savings of a couple megs of disk space isn't worth the risk of relying on users to actually know if they need particular tools and the hassle on the users part of having to go through the list.
Even better, if it bugs you THAT much, you can unpack the CDs, remove the packages you don't want in the install from the RedHat/base/comps file, and use that as your install server. We do that where I work because we have our own packages that we want as part of the base install and also wanted to pull out a couple things (gpm is useless on racks of headless servers, for example).
>And it's great for older computers, unlike that
>other distro!!!
Resource requirements have very little to do with your distribution. It's the software that you're going to be running that is the issue.
Matt
Installer sucks, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
I use Debian's installer approximately once per machine, for approximately twenty to sixty minutes of its operational runtime depending on its network connection. It installs the platform, and is never seen again. From then on, the machine runs Debian. Life becomes good. :)
I can forgive Debian's installer for being painful and outdated, since there are several versions of it available for download to support features that aren't available out of the box, and because it installs the single most reliable and best-performing Linux distribution in the world.
Red Hat 8.0 may be easier to install, but try compiling PHP 4.2.x with the compiler suite it ships with. Then try getting a 2.96.x series GCC installed on the box without just building it from scratch.
Yup, gimme my painful installer. It took all of twenty minutes to learn (simple is good, right? :) and it gives me a wonderful system that just works. Keep your shiny installers and bunk distros until they can produce a working system, not just an "oooh, purdy, it booted into Linux!" install.
Oh, and those who complain that apt is only a good package manager when you know the name of the package you're after obviously haven't ever tried apt-cache search.
Re:I would have to agree, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
Secondly, if you want Debian to only be of interest to "people like you", then you should be prepared for it to continue to decline in market-share relative to Redhat, because people with the time or inclination to spend hours or days tinkering just to get sound or networking working are a dying breed.
Re:Interesting review (Score:5, Insightful)
It would be impossible to trim it down, because as soon as you put something in an "add-on" third party source instead of the core distribution, it loses its credibility. Sure, there's a chance it will function properly with the entire distribution, but it's not thorougly tested the way the current Debian distribution is. Bottom line is, the extreme testing length and size of the distribution are not negative characteristics of Debian - they are intended. For me, it's a perfect distribution. I'd much rather apt-get something from ftp.us.debian.org and know for sure that it's going to work perfectly than apt-get it from a third-party source and have a newer version.
I went through that once, using Ximian Gnome on Debian 2.2 (yes, it actually is one of the distributions supported by Ximian). Their packages worked... for the most part. But they had their little quirks and bugs, mostly due to interoperability with the rest of the distribution. It turned Debian into what every other distribution already is - a mostly up-to-date buggy and quirky mass of packages. I'll take an infinitely stable and well-working organized system of old packages any day. Choose a distribution. Debian's purpose is to be old and stable. I use it. You don't have to.
Re:Interesting review (Score:5, Insightful)
Compare that with the variable quality of Redhat contrib. The program I'm the author of had a security bug and I still couldn't get Redhat to pull the contrib packages until someone volunteered to package a newer version several months later.
Re:Interesting review (Score:4, Insightful)
Go for it. You're more than welcome to make your own group and do so, even starting from Debian if you want. ("Debian is 100% Free software", line one of our social contract.) But that's not what developers are lining up to work on, and I suspect that's not what developers are signing up to use. I have 1300 packages installed, and it's nice to know they're all held to the same level of quality with bug tracking system.
My experience (Score:3, Insightful)
I installed potato that way from a CDROM, read the APT howto, and upgraded to woody from the net with no problems. If I need to install something that I want, apt-get will retrieve it in no time.
X worked right out of the box, and Windowmaker.
Debian does have a learning curve. There is a "Debian Way", and it is not the Redhat way, or the SuSe way, or the Mandrake Way. Read the website, and understand the thinking behind the distro, and how to maintain it. You need to learn about APT before you can grok Debian. When you do, system maintenance and upgrades become easy.
Debian Planet story (Score:2, Insightful)
Installation:
He makes comments extensively on SuSE, Red Hat and Mandrake, but shows no real understanding or explain his issues with the Debian installer other than that it "is the worst installer [he's] had to use." He also implies the base install is too simplistic.
Not to be overly critical, but he seems to have no real grasp at the concept of being bloatless. Installation requires the lowest common denominator.
My beef with the Debian installer is that it won't make a best guess on partitioning. Seperately but related, X doesn't attempt any autodetection, even the minimal stuff in XF86Setup from XF86 3.3.6.
Setup:
He complains that the setup refers you to documentation that is not yet installed. My understanding is you are expected to have a copy of the installation manual handy and at least have some idea what it's telling you. Yes, the menu options should be clearer, however, I disagree with the idea that software should babysit the user and hold them by the hand.
The writer clearly shows lack of clue and ability to RTFM with his comment about module selections.
Package Selection:
I just have to plain wonder if this guy has taken a good, long look at dpkg and apt-get.
I do agree with his beefs about the annoying help screens at every turn in dselect. Worse yet, I've been hitting space to clear the damn thing since bo, only to have them change it to enter this revision. Why can't it be both?
I've never heard of, or experianced, the kind of funkitude with failed packages cancelling the whole apt-get download like he claims.
The Installation Overall:
I'm with him right up until he suggested hiding things behind "Advanced" buttons. Sorry, but I don't see how making the installation less intuitive and more complex somehow magically makes the installer droolproof. I also don't agree with the idea of using branded names instead of driver names. Maybe have a help option that explains the branded names to the drivers, and definately an autodetect option. Don't sacrifice efficiency for those who know what they're doing in favor of those who can't be bothered.
I agree with the idea that dselect needs to be redesigned, however, making it more like a GUI will only confuse users expecting it to work just like a GUI, and will actually make dselect more painful to deal with than vi, instead of slightly less painful.
The Configured System:
I'm just going to summarily dismiss all bitching about KDE. KDE sucks. Gnome sucks. CDE sucks. Cocoa sucks. Microsoft Explorer sucks. All these systems are too baroque, adding unneeded complexity for the user to wrap thier brain around instead of presenting them with the actual system. Sorry, but mv, cp, ls, find, and a newbie oriented text editor aren't that hard to learn how to use. I mean, my compuphobic art-geek sister can figure it out. Hell, my WinBigot(tm) roommate was even able to figure out that much.
Debian has pretty complete documentation of configuration files in the comments in those files. I haven't had to look in man section 5 in a very long time, around the time I had to reinstall due to accidentally deleting /usr back in early 1998 thanks to improved documentation in
comments. Control panels are thus very much dead-weight.
Conclusions:
I have to seriously question whether or not he knows what he's talking about about RPM. I've used RPM recently. It's still painful to use and terraparsecs behind apt-get *still*. Even with urpmi. apt-rpm segfaults on machines with low RAM. Package names are *still* not standardized. Versions still conflict badly, and upgrading the system is still a "fsck me harder" experiance.
I strongly disagree with the idea that we should create yet another method for configuration. No. Webmin works. Linuxconf works. $EDITOR works better, and the config file comments usually have more helpful information than webmin and linuxconf do, and it's usually faster.
The Debian Desktop idea is almost a good one, but then again, that's why themes.org [themes.org] exists. Why duplicate that effort here?
Granny proof: No. I'm all for accessiblity, but you should never stop learning. Plus, trying to granny proof anything leads to bloat and a shitload of bugs. Need proof? Look at Gnome. Look at KDE. Look at Nautilus. Take a long look at Microsoft Explorer. Notice how they all fail at that goal, and notice how buggy and bloated they are. This is not an honorable or obtainable goal, time would be better spent trying to find lost cities of gold.
Re:Clearly he has never install OpenBSD (OT) (Score:3, Insightful)
>hour finding documentation on partitioning info.
You should have bought the CDs
The CD comes with an annotated transcript of a typical i386 install. That may not sound helpful, but it makes the install very easy.
People don't like Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
It is my belief that most people simply do not like Linux anymore. At least not the Linux environment in its true form, instead they rely on extra software to take away all the hassle which comes when you administrate a Linux system (yast, linuxconf, etc.). Allthough I don't claim this to be a bad development (personally I think it is though) it is becoming pretty clear that just because of this development people completely loose track and focus of what Linux really is.
When taking a closer look at Debian GNU/Linux you will see its a completely free distribution which is composed of Linux software. Software like XFRee86, KDE, but also shells, shell utilities, and so on. Allthough Debian has provided in some installation guide most of it is done the Linux way, apart from compiling your own software that is.
There is a lot of complaining about the way Debian is installed but I truly wonder if any of these complaining people have actually bothered to, for example, grab a copy of XFree86 directly from the XFree site in order to set that up ? Because that is exactly what you get when you use Debian, you'll get Linux in its purest form. The Linux OS with access to all the major software packages out there. And yes, perhaps the Debian team could have put some more effort in the installation process, perhaps.
But have we allready forgotten that Linux isn't Windows ? Who cares about the harder / rougher installtion process, once its installed then you'd normally don't have to bother with installing for the next 5 years. And the configuration part... True, it doesn't give you nice hardware detection and all of that. Instead effort and attention has been put in other aspects. For example the option to keep your system running for those 5 years I mentioned above, even when you do want to upgrade to the next release. And I don't mean pop in the CD and select upgrade, I mean keep your server running while the next release is being downloaded and/or installed. Try that with RedHat or SuSE :)
In conclusion; I think people are losing focus to what Linux really is. Its nice that there are companies out there investing in Linux and developing nice tools to make configuration and installation easier. But this development does not take away the mere fact that Linux itself is still a Unix based environment which is (and should be) configurable using vi at all times.
And when a certain distribution gives you just that then its a little bit disturbing, IMO ofcourse, when people start complaining about how hard it is to install and configure. Because in the end it seems these people don't realize anymore that they are complaining about Linux itself.
Re:Yup (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, Red Hat 8.0 is polished as hell. But unless it's got a free method as simple as Debian's "apt-get update; apt-get upgrade", I won't be switching anytime soon.