[lug] new distro

[Michael D. Hirsch]

Peter,

It sounds like you might like Gentoo.  It is totally free, like Debian, 
but much more cutting edge.  It tends to have very up to date tools.  
The "portage" system seems as nice as apt-get to me.

It is designed to always build from scratch as part of the installation 
process, so it is not for the faint of heart.

Michael

On Monday 07 October 2002 12:53 pm, Peter Hutnick wrote:
> David Morris said:
> > I can only second Timothy's support for Debian....it is a
> > wonderful distribution that is far easier to use in most
> > every way than RedHat.  And for all those that tout the
> > benefits of other package management systems than apt-get, I
> > can only guess they haven't tried apt-get as I have yet to
> > find a single comparison (objective or otherwise) that could
> > truthfully say there is a better package mangement system
> > than apt-get.
>
> Okay, I'll bite.
>
> I'm real big on the whole "Free" thing, so naturally I installed
> Debian.
>
> Complaint number one: they try to strong-arm you into installing from
> a mirror.  That sucks.  It is a cute idea and all, but I have an
> unreliable 56k (yeah, right) connection.  I have the patience to suck
> down an ISO (or three) with wget --resume and check MD5s, but I can't
> hang with trying to install via a totally unreliable method.
>
> Granted, the ISOs are there, but you have to claim to run MacOS or
> some other bullshit to get the links.  Lame.
>
> Two: Debian runs two branches, "Broken" and "Stale."  Sure, you can
> install select "Broken" patches on a "Stale" install, but our buddy
> apt is going to go up the dependency chain and basically convert your
> entire box to "Broken."  Thanks.  I understand that this is
> necessary, /given/ the pre-condition that there is no branch that is
> both reasonably recent and reasonably tested/stable.  But then,
> that's really the complaint in a nutshell.
>
> Finally, apt: Okay, it is pretty good.  But I don't believe that it
> is substantively better than RPM*.  If anything I think that the
> Debian package maintainers do a better job . . . but that just takes
> us full circle to the "Broken"/"Stale" debate.  IOW, the selection of
> packages is really good, and all the dependency stuff works pretty
> well (not as well as the Debinistas would have you believe) but you
> are stuck with a choice between a system that is (generally) less
> tested/stable than, say, the current Red Hat release, or one that is
> rock-solid, and roughly up to speed with the previous Red Hat /major/
> rev, or older.  Not much of a choice IMO.
>
>
> -Peter
>
> *Okay, we all know that apt and RPM aren't diametrically opposed. 
> But in the final analysis Debian's package system is "apt based" and
> Red Hat's is "RPM based."  So when I say "apt" and "RPM" above, I
> really mean the distro's package system on the whole.
>
>
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