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Debian

The Importance of Being Debian 397

Posted by michael from the join-the-collective dept.
Orre writes "This is an interesting article on why we should be interested in this non-commercial linux distribution. Some of the points: No lies, Suit-Free Zone, Apt-get. And by the way, Hewlett-Packard has chosen Debian to be their standard linux distribution."
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The Importance of Being Debian More

The Importance of Being Debian

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  • HP Selects Debian (Score:3, Informative)

    by csguy314 ( 559705 ) on Thursday July 18, 2002 @07:53AM (#3907766) Homepage
    well that's no surprise. HP has supported Debian quite a bit and they employee a few people that have been Debian project leaders including current leader Bdale Garbee.

  • Debian rocks (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Richard_at_work ( 517087 )
    I use debian extensivly, mainly because its a no frills linux distro, i get exactly what it says on the tin. That said, it may not be the right distro for everyone, but once you get used to using a text editor to configure things, your a master at using debian.

    The main reason i changed in the beginning was because of apt, which i saw demonstrated. It rocked me, when i saw how easy it was to install a whole bunch of apps. Funny thing is, these days for big things like apache, mysql, exim etc i tend to build from source to get it EXACTLY how i want it. But then theres distros out there that do exactly that, maybe its time for a change.....

  • Benefits (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Oculus Habent ( 562837 ) <oculus.habent@g[ ]l.com ['mai' in gap]> on Thursday July 18, 2002 @07:57AM (#3907783) Journal

    I have preferred Debian for years, even though I don't spend a whole lot on time in Linux these days. Apt-get makes upgrades/installations much easier.

    I belive many of the benefits of Debian would transition it well to Joe Average level users, once the interface/windowing stumbling blocks are overcome.

    • Perhaps Red Hat are going in the right direction by giving a trial membership for one machine on their up2date service. I've found using it even easier than apt-get... Perhaps they'll pull out all the stops next and offer the up2date services free for non-commercial entities (like me!) :-)

      Red Hat 7.3 with the free up2date service is the first time I've been tempted to move my main server machines from Debian...

      -->Gar

    • Re:Benefits (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Torp ( 199297 )
      IMHO Debian is the best *server* distro. Nothing can beat apt updates, especially if the server is thousands of miles away (my particular case). And if Debian isn't stable, what is?

      On the other hand, as a Linux programmer, I find it doesn't matter what distro I use on my desktop. Whatever I install, it gets unrecognizable after a few months of compiling stuff from source. So it's Debian for servers and Slackware for desktops for me.

    • Re:Benefits (Score:5, Interesting)

      by wfrp01 ( 82831 ) on Thursday July 18, 2002 @09:51AM (#3908552) Journal
      Apt-get makes upgrades/installations much easier.

      I love it. But I was curious to see Ian Jackson, dpkg developer, say in this interview [debianplanet.org] that he didn't think apt was so hot. Clearly Ian has a better perspective than I do. Can someone explain Ian's perspective? I don't really understand his objections very well.

      • Re:Benefits (Score:2, Informative)

        by CentrX ( 50629 )
        It seems he was talking about the proper handling of dependencies. According to Debian policy, the "Recommends" dependency "declares a strong, but not absolute, dependency" and that recommended packages "would be found together with this one in all but unusual installations." Thus, when one installs a package, that packages Recommends dependencies should be satisfied by default, and overridden in "unusual installations." However, apt-get does not satisfy Recommends dependencies. dselect, on the other hand, does satisfy Recommends dependencies, and thus installing using dselect ensures a better installation, without missing important packages.

  • PA-RISC Linux (Score:2, Interesting)

    by dohcvtec ( 461026 )
    HP has been quite supportive in the development of the HPPA Linux port, but with rumors abound of the possible demise of the PA-RISC platform, what might the effect be on this Linux port? On the other hand, I also wonder if HP's strong support for PA-RISC Linux may indicate their intention to keep PA-RISC around. Just some questions to ponder...

  • It is the same old story. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by $criptah ( 467422 ) on Thursday July 18, 2002 @08:03AM (#3907816) Homepage

    Hi there. The article is nice, but yet it describes Debian just as another Linux distribution. Don't get me wrong, but I think that you can write and say a lot of good things about any Linux distribution, as long as you're the one who runs it. I have nothing against Debian, RedHat, Slackware, etc., but I think that every distribution is good in its own way. The article is nice, but I do not think that it should be 'another reason' for using Debian. Come on, people, it is just a matter of personal preference. Let's not start 'emacs vs. vi' or 'us vs. them' wars again. If it works great for you... that is just wonderful! Thanks,

  • A great distro that's starting to grey... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by stevenbdjr ( 539653 ) <steven@mrchuckles.net> on Thursday July 18, 2002 @08:03AM (#3907820) Homepage

    Debian has long been one of my favorite Linux distributions. It's nice to see it get some coverage from mainstream Linux media (other than Taco's postings).

    However, I've recently begun to be put off by Debian's pace of accepting newer desktop technology. Yes, Debian is a truly free Linux distribution, with a great social contract. But I'm wondering if that's now starting to affect the quality of the distribution. Because it's a volunteer effort, packages updates are slow to come for new versions. The maintainers that do keep their packages updated regularly are often held back by other maintainers of depended packages. This makes it very frustrating for the users who just want to be able to run KDE3 (for instance). Potato is now several years old, but it continues to be the stable release. I can't even consider running Potato on my servers, because older packages are holding back newer, exciting features, such as winbind or iptables.

    I will always love Debian, and will probably continue running Woody on my servers. However, I've switched my desktop over to Gentoo [gentoo.org], and I haven't looked back. I'm still running a truly free, volunteer Linux distribution, but at least I'm not held captive by slow package maintainers.

    • Re:A great distro (Score:5, Insightful)

      by kigrwik ( 462930 ) on Thursday July 18, 2002 @08:10AM (#3907855)
      My /etc/apt/sources.list (extracts):

      # Gnome 2:
      deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian ../project/experimental main contrib non-free

      # KDE 3:
      deb http://kde3.geniussystems.net/debian/ ./
      deb http://people.debian.org/~bab/kde3 ./

      # E17:
      deb http://people.debian.org/~ljlane/downloads e17/

      'nuff said.

      If you want the greatest and latest, you got it. Debian Developers are not necessarily using potato, they like features as much as anybody else. But Debian's "stable" stamp is something that has much more weight than that.

      Besides, Debian has that annoying habit of usually doing the right thing. That's what the article is about, really.
    • Here..Here...I agree. I always thought that was why the 3rd party "commercial" distributions that were "based" on Debian had a chance to suceed. Alas -- they were stricken with the "Debian Curse" and they all failed within minutes. Even that one distro that was started by one of the original Debian guys went down quicker that a crack whore. It was a noble concept to think that maybe we would get a Debian based distro that had package versions released in this century....But alas it was not to be.
    • Being volunteer doesn't mean it should be outdated. Just look at Slackware (8.1) which is very up to date, and is a volunteer one man effort!

      Maybe the problem is rather too many people without structure telling them what to do. A one man volunteer doesn't have such problems, because he has only himself to discuss and argue with :)
    • I haven't actually used either of them yet, so I don't know all the specifics, but I'm not aware of any feature that Debian has that Gentoo doesn't match or exceed.

      Off the top of my head:

      • Non-commercial: check.

      • Suit-free: I believe so.

      • Social contract: check.

      • Standards-based: check.

      • Stable: AFAIK, Gentoo is just as stable as Debian, if not more so.

      • apt: As much as I think apt is a great idea, Portage is better, IMHO.

      Did I miss anything?
    • (delta size)(delta speed) = Konstant

      (delta stability)(delta cutting edge)=Konstant

      What makes Debian technically special (as opposed to morally special ;-) is the serious testing that takes place. Debian packages rock just because they are solid like a rock.

      "We think Debian is the most righteous distribution," says IBM's Linux program manager, Dan Frye. "It takes high-quality code from the rest of the community and then forces it through an incredibly rigorous process to make sure that it's even more stable. So in many ways, it's the core of the Linux community."

  • X11 issues (Score:3, Interesting)

    by IceFox ( 18179 ) on Thursday July 18, 2002 @08:05AM (#3907825) Homepage
    Well I was a Debian user from 98 till last month when I found that on not 3 completely different system could I install debian. (going from the stable 6.2r6 cd's to unstable for X4 which I have to have) A laptop, desktop and small X-terminal type box. The big problem was that there is parts of X3 and parts of X4 tossed all over the place so attempting to upgrade X is just about impossible and after 2 1/2 months I finally gave up and loaded Red Hat to my dismay. (At first I thought it was just a bad package, but those are normally fixed within minutes and not months) On the bright side Red Hat has a nice cool installer and gives me a lot more of what I want to start from. I remember spending a good day after getting Debian up and running configuring everything from X11, my mouse, my network, my firwall, etc etc. Untill there is a debian release that has X4 as the default I will be unfortunettly watching from the sidelines, but when it does I will be back there in a heartbeat simply for apt-get.

    -Benjamin Meyer

    P.S. Why isn't kde3.0 intigraded into unstable yet???

    • Re:X11 issues (Score:2, Informative)

      by BurritoJ ( 75275 )
      When I installed Debian for the first time, I wanted to to the same thing, ie. install stable and immediately upgrade to unstable for X4. I found that the easiest way to accomplish this was to do a minimal install of stable, then to modify the apt.source file for unstable, then to dist-upgrade and install X4 and everything else. No X3 packages to worry about at all.

      KDE3.0 isn't in unstable yet because of the room it would take on the mirrors. They are waiting for Woody to release before bringing KDE3 into unstable. I don't have the reference in front of me, but there is a deb repository with KDE3 debs for unstable and they work great.

      Joe

      • Re:X11 issues (Score:2, Informative)

        by kylegordon ( 159137 )
        KDE3?? These should do the trick ;-)

        deb http://kde3.geniussystems.net/debian ./
        deb-src http://kde3.geniussystems.net/debian ./
        deb http://kde.debian.co.nz/debian ./
        deb http://kde.ping.uio.no/i386 ./
    • Just to let you know... Slackware is now damned easy to get going. I installed it and had it configured within 2 hours (including installing Squid, configuring the 2 network cards and the 1 wireless card as a gateway.)

      Slackware 8.1 -- the Linux for Power users... Now with green squishy filling!
      • You are almost right about the morons.

        You are one of the 98%!


    • ...is to not install X -- or anything else -- until after you've upgraded to testing or unstable.

      It's simple. Say you're starting with a set of stable CDs. So:

      • Install stable (assuming potato).
      • Do not install anything but the base system. No X, no devel tools, nothing.
      • Edit yer sources.list to point to unstable.
      • update and upgrade. Don't add anything new, just upgrade what's in place.
      • Now that you have a working "unstable" dist, start adding new packages: apt-getinstallx-window-system should do it.

      And that's it. I started with a set of potato CDs, and there has never been a trace of XFree86 3.x on my system. Version 4.whatever runs fine, the automatic XF86Config-4 configuration did a fairly decent job, and I'm upgrading with the greatest of ease. :-)

  • The importance of offering support . . . (Score:4, Interesting)

    by div_2n ( 525075 ) on Thursday July 18, 2002 @08:07AM (#3907839)
    Debian may be great at what it does, but Red Hat and others that offer a support model will continue to win enterprise contracts because the manager types want three questions answered:

    1) Does it do what we need?
    2) How much does it cost?
    3) Can we get support for it?

    If any of these questions can't be answered positively, then chances are they aren't going to approve it. With support they usually mean "from the same person that sells it."
    • I think a paid debian archive is worthwhile, the current mirrors are fast.

      This has been tried, but it is really hard to hit that critical mas.

      Think a debian based dist, with up to date software, good stable Staroffice and such all easy to upgrade and certified by someone.

    • Agreed, but . . . (Score:4, Informative)

      by brokeninside ( 34168 ) on Thursday July 18, 2002 @08:17AM (#3907892)
      Your comment seems to me to imply that one cannot buy Debian with support. However, the article specifically states that HP sells and supports Debian. If one buys a system configured with Debian from HP, HP supports it.
      • True, but then you are locked into HPaq for hardware and the whole point of Debian being non-commercial just went out the window.

        I know I would prefer to keep support with those that make the product. HPaq supports Debian today? What about tomorrow? It is true that they likely wouldn't change that easily after investing in one product but for businesses that does not necessarily hold true.

        A new CIO comes in and proclaims HPaq the best hardware for servers and that is all he will approve. He leaves and a new CIO declares IBM the best and all servers hence forth will be IBM. What now? I have seen this very thing happen in real life.
        • If there's a gap in the market, people will fill it. i.e. if there's a large enough need for commercial support of Debian, surely people will form companies to do the job and take that money? I know it's a chicken-and-egg thing, but companies that offer support for other Linux distros could add support pretty easily.
        • What about tomorrow? It is true that they likely wouldn't change that easily after investing in one product but for businesses that does not necessarily hold true.

          Yep...If someone don't think HP/Compaq would be willing to throw away a few person-years of work, maybe they're not thinking hard enough about it.

          - Alpha: GONE
          - Tru64: GONE
          - PA-RISC: GONE
          - HP's entire notebook range: GONE

          I think HP would spend about as much time agonizing over whether to ditch Debian or not as Carly Fiorina would spend trying to decide on whether to drive the Porsche or the Ferrari to work on any given day. HP/Compaq have killed projects immeasurably larger than their Debian support project, multiple times in the past. Debian could be gone in a heartbeat.
        • True, but then you are locked into HPaq for hardware and the whole point of Debian being non-commercial just went out the window.
          Eh? No. If one uses HP systems with an HP OS (say, HP/UX) then one is locked into HP for support on both the hardware and software front. If one uses an agnostic OS, then one is locked into HP only for hardware support. Using a free agnostic OS (such as Debian) reduces lock-in either further because one is not locked into an OS company as well as a hardware company.
          I know I would prefer to keep support with those that make the product. HPaq supports Debian today? What about tomorrow? It is true that they likely wouldn't change that easily after investing in one product but for businesses that does not necessarily hold true.
          This consideration is why it is important to have an agnostic OS. If one centers business around Debian on HP systems and if HP drops support for Debian then one can turn to other vendors for Debian support or develop in-house support. If one centers business around HP/UX on HP systems and if HP drops support for HP/UX then one is sunk.
          A new CIO comes in and proclaims HPaq the best hardware for servers and that is all he will approve. He leaves and a new CIO declares IBM the best and all servers hence forth will be IBM. What now? I have seen this very thing happen in real life.
          This is irrelevant. If a new CIO dictates a move to a different vendor, then the company will have to pay the cost of conversion no matter what. However, a move from Debian on HP to SuSE or Redhat on IBM would be much less painful than a move from HP/UX to AIX. Further, while IBM may not support Debian on IBM, it is quite possible (probable even) that some other vendor (perhaps even an IBM reseller) does.


    • You can get support here [debian.org]

    • Actually, suits ask these three important questions:

      1. Will it appear to work until I'm gone from this place?
      2. Can I hide the real after-sales costs from the budget so I can make my boss approve, and make the company look profitable?
      3. Is there someone we can sue if I end up looking bad for choosing this?
    • If you check out
      this [debian.org] you will see that there are plenty of people willing to sell you Debian based systems and support them. So that is pretty much a moot point.

  • here we go again... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Nailer ( 69468 ) on Thursday July 18, 2002 @08:10AM (#3907854)
    Here's three answers:
    • Being non commercial doesn't prevent lies.
    • Judging people by the clothes they wear is immature.
    • Most RPM based distributions have been able to download a package and all their dependencies a while now using a variety of different mechanisms. There's a few good uniques features of dpkg (just as there are rpm feaures) but its easier to implement these features on rpm than to convert most Linux systems to using another packaging format.
    The LSB exists to provide the standards. No Linux distribution, not Debian, not Red Hat, not anyone else, has a current LSB complaint distribution. Download the test suites from linuxbase.org and see for yourself.

    F**k advocacy. Use the best tool for the job.

    • Re:here we go again... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by wfrp01 ( 82831 )
      F**k advocacy. Use the best tool for the job.

      Define "best". Congratulations! You're an advocate!
      • best tool for the job: The tool which can be utilized to most effectively perform a given task, balancing ease-of-use, speed and reliability in relation to the proficiency and needs of the target user base.

        How's that?

    • * Most RPM based distributions have been able to download a package and all their dependencies a while now using a variety of different mechanisms. There's a few good uniques features of dpkg (just as there are rpm feaures) but its easier to implement these features on rpm than to convert most Linux systems to using another packaging format.
      Yeah but is that going to destroy the dependencies of another program? Its not just the dependencies of one package that you want to install, its the interdependent dependencies of the entire system. This is especially true if one starts mixing levels (old program1, newest program2, etc...). Methinks RPM needs another level on top of it to become apt-get.

  • No lies???? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MongooseCN ( 139203 ) on Thursday July 18, 2002 @08:20AM (#3907924) Homepage
    Just because a group doesn't profit off of something, doesn't mean they won't lie. Most of these people hack for prestige instead of profits. And prestige can be even more of a motivator to lie than profits..

  • Misleading comments on gcc 2.96 (Score:5, Informative)

    by elflord ( 9269 ) on Thursday July 18, 2002 @08:22AM (#3907930) Homepage
    I like this quote:

    The maintainers of gcc pointed out that development branches of gcc are not intended for production purposes and that any software which is compiled with the forthcoming, stable version of gcc (gcc 3.0) would simply not run on Red Hat 7.

    What the article omits is that Redhat were right, and the gcc developers were wrong. Sure, you couldn't run gcc 3.0 software on Redhat, but so what ? gcc 3.0 was a botched, DOA release, containing an embarrassing bug that prevented it from compiling KDE correctly, which is why it was "skipped" as a distribution compiler. Redhat havereleased an extended 7.x series waiting for an acceptable distribution compiler (gcc 3.1).

    The gcc team are within their rights releasing something that isn't known to compile a package as important as gcc. Redhat, on the other hand, have to make sure that their distribution compiler can build hundreds of packages. In hindsight, it's very clear that Redhats move on gcc was the right one.

    • No, Redhat were wrong. At the time RHL 7.0 was released, the production version of gcc was 2.95.something. That would have been the correct compiler to bundle with RHL 7.
      • No, Redhat were wrong. At the time RHL 7.0 was released, the production version of gcc was 2.95.something. That would have been the correct compiler to bundle with RHL 7.

        No, Redhat were right. gcc 2.95 was released July 1999. It took the gcc project 2 years to release the ill-fated 3.0 compiler, and nearly 3 years to get out a major release that was good enough to use as a distribution compiler. One would hope for a more aggressive release schedule given that the ANSI/ISO C++ standard was released at the time of the EGCS fork, and there were major standards compliance problems with gcc 2.95.

  • Good article (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mfos.org ( 471768 ) on Thursday July 18, 2002 @08:31AM (#3907974)
    I've been using Debian for almost a year now, and I couldn't be happier. As for the article making it seem that you can't get the latest goodies from Debian, that may have been misleading.

    The Debian team maintains 3 branches, Stable, Testing, and Unstable. While Stable uses Kernel 2.2 and XFree86 3, Testing gives you kernel 2.4.16, XFree86 4, and other, up-to-date goodies.

    My only complaint about Debain is that the install can be painful, especially to those used to more graphical oriented tools. But the fact that you can burn a 30meg CD and do an install over the internet is very nice (netinst [sunsite.dk]), and once you get used to apt-get, you'll wonder how you got by without it.

  • The importance of *commercial* distributions (Score:5, Insightful)

    by chrysalis ( 50680 ) on Thursday July 18, 2002 @08:37AM (#3907999) Homepage
    Non-commercial Linux distributions like Gentoo or Debian are impressive. They have more package than most commercial distros, they are actively maintainer, they have an amazing packaging system, they are free and everyone can put his finger in the pie.

    But *commercial* distros are really important. Why? Because companies like SuSE or RedHat have a marketing force. Without them, a lot of companies would never have heard about Linux. Just like a lot of other free operating systems, Linux would have been something designed by geeks, and for geeks. SuSE, RedHat, etc. give an important professional aspect to Linux. Thanks to them, some hardware vendors gave specs or developped Linux drivers. Thanks to them, web plugins like Flash are supported on Linux. Thanks to them and their money, Linux has been ported to Intel and AMD 64 bits architectures. Thanks to them, any dummy can buy a SuSE package with a comprehensive printed manual, everything on CD's and DVD's, and get technical support.

    Sure, once you are familar with Unix/Linux, you can easily use any distro, commercial or not, or even switch to BSD. But I guess a lot of people would never have installed Linux/Unix on their computer if the only thing they was given was http://www.debian.org/ or http://www.openbsd.org/ .

    So please stop bashing commercial Linux distributions. Linux would never have been what it is nowadays without them.

  • Debian is not just a Linux Distro (Score:3, Informative)

    by thebowery ( 200939 ) on Thursday July 18, 2002 @08:41AM (#3908016)
    Hmmmm, lots of people are missing the other part of Debian being kernel independant, there is already a port to a BSD kernel in progress and also you can install it with GNU/HURD if you want.

  • Probably the coolest feature of the Debian distribution is its package management system.

    Probably the only "cool" feature of the Debian distribution is its package management system.

    What else in the distro could you call "cool"? And is it really that "cool"?

  • Coolness (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Apreche ( 239272 ) on Thursday July 18, 2002 @08:52AM (#3908105) Homepage Journal
    I've used Debian a couple of times, and I must say it is one of the better linux distributions. However, I don't use it on any of my machines. The reason for this is the Debian Installer. It is a pain the butt to get the thing installed. And the benefits for doing so don't outweigh the horrors of getting it installed.
    If you took the Mandrake installer. Mandrakes up-to-dateness (stable debian isn't current enough), and mandrakes cool graphical tools and combine them with debians apt-get and overall os quality, I think you would arrive at somethign very close to the best linux distribution possible.

    • Re:Coolness (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Nothinman ( 22765 )
      If you took the Mandrake installer. Mandrakes up-to-dateness (stable debian isn't current enough), and mandrakes cool graphical tools and combine them with debians apt-get and overall os quality,

      The problem is one of the big reasons Debian's overall OS quality is so high because the packages are slightly older. There's more time to make sure everything works as it should.

      The graphical tools and installer would be nice for some people, as long as the ncurses installer is still a choice.

  • Debian... love and hate... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by GreenKiwi ( 221281 ) on Thursday July 18, 2002 @08:55AM (#3908138)
    I've been using debian for several years and really find it to be a stellar distribution. I love apt-get and the fact that it has been a solid system (even though I'm running unstable). My only gripe is that the install system and process for configuring X could be improved greatly. My roommate just tried installing Debian and configuring X (and getting nvidia drivers to work). His response was that maybe he should really go back to windows! OUCH! I Downloaded a few other distributions and he was much happier with his experience with all of them. (SuSE Mandrake and RedHat)

    Don't get me wrong, I love deb and will keep using it, however, getting it to be a bit for friendly to the first time user couldn't hurt either.

  • Micrsoft just called, they say Slashdot violated their copyright on favouritism, biased journalism and immoral propaganda towards other OSes. They are now deploying Special Agent Ballmer to sodomize Taco for this. Have a nice day.
  • If you want to read about how to keep the Debian packages that matter completely up to date, jump here [livejournal.com].

    Please point the next person to complain about Debian's slow releases here. The point remains: slow releases are still a good thing. For anyone with basic UNIX skills, the major updates are just a minor convenience. And each full distribution upgrade carries unnecessary risks.

  • If you are looking for a non commercial distribution that is always being updated you might want to try Gentoo (http://www.gentoo.org). Currently the distribution is using Gnome2 and KDE 3.0.2. The reason I chose it over RedHat is it builds everything from source code so that it is compiled to take advantage of ones hardware and updating is very easy to do. Every once and a while, I type: 'emerge -u world' and it downloads the latest and greatest sources, builds them all optimized for my hardware, and then installs them. Some people set up a cron job to do this nightly. Another thing that I like is one starts out with a bare bones system and then installs only what they want to use which prevents things from getting bloated and running a lot of stuff that one does not use but may be a potential security risk.

  • Real reason to use Debian (Score:3, Insightful)

    by coleSLAW ( 23358 ) on Thursday July 18, 2002 @10:12AM (#3908709) Homepage
    Everybody goes on and on about the wonders of apt-get, as if it were the only good thing about Debian. (By the way, you guys should be using aptitude now. Aptitude tracks "auto" packages which have been only been installed to meet dependencies.)

    Debian's most valuable asset is its devotion to its users. We are the only GNU/Linux distribution to work on this many architectures. Debian is the testing ground for non-i386 XFree86.

    Debian is also invaluable to the developer community because the Project submits bugs upstream! Yes, when a package does not compile on PA-RISC because the code is poor and/or non-portable, a bug report (and likely a patch) is forwarded upstream. Not only does this fix a lot of bugs, but it improves software quality across all architectures. Plus, system administration across the Debian platform is extremely consistent.

    Debian considers itself the Universal Operating System. That is why projects such as Debian NetBSD, Debian OpenBSD, Debian FreeBSD and even Debian GNU/Hurd are in active development. I know the GNU/Hurd port has been doing a very good job of making sure programs are truly POSIX compliant.

  • Hewlett -- wha??? (Score:3, Funny)

    by angst_ridden_hipster ( 23104 ) on Thursday July 18, 2002 @11:52AM (#3909406) Homepage Journal
    And by the way, Hewlett-Packard has chosen Debian to be their standard linux distribution.

    Hewlett-wha? Perhaps you mean "HP" (soon to be known as "Compaq-Fiorina").

    (http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/bu siness/companies/hewlett_packard/3282149.htm)

  • Not really...

    HPs first foray into Linux was Red Hat.
    Then they switched to Debian.
    Then they switched back to Red Hat.
    They are also listed as partners in United Linux.

    In short, HP can't make up their mind. Note that the new Itanium 2 (McKinley, IA64) products such as zx2000, rx2600, zx6000, are all shipping with Red Hat, not Debian. Also true I think, for rx5670 and rx9610.

  • I'd be more willing to consider Debian if it wasn't for the fact that the last distro they were willing to call "stable" is getting quite old now. I have to pick between "recent" and "stable" - I can't have both. And that is the main reason I've been staying away from Debian.

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