[lug] The original Debian announcement

Sean Reifschneider jafo at tummy.com
Tue Aug 19 20:44:53 MDT 2008


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Nate Duehr wrote:
> 1) Debian will be sleeker and slimmer.  No more multiple binaries and
> manpages.
> 
> *** That didn't work out so well, did it?  20,000 packages and climbing.

I don't know...  A minimal Debian install is quite small, compared to a
minimal install of most others.  If I had to put Linux on a really small
system, Debian would be on my short list.

The size of the Debian package archive is, IMHO, it's biggest strength.

> 2) Debian will contain the most up-to-date of everything.  The system
> will be easy to keep up-to-date with a 'upgrading' script in the base
> system which will allow complete integration of upgrade packages.
> 
> *** Up-to-date, nope.  In fact, Debian has become one of the slowest

That's not entirely fair to say.  It feels to me that more people run
Debian testing than any other similar release (rawhide, for example).  But
then you're kind of obligated to keep getting the latest things, so if a
new PHP comes out that breaks your app, too bad...

The cynic in me would also point out that the short lifespan of the stable
releases also promote this.  When Debian does a new stable release, you
need to either roll to that release within a year, or commit to providing
your own security updates or go without...  The planned lifespan for Etch
is less than 2.5 years, shorter than even the desktop Ubuntu LTS and, what,
a third of CentOS.

> 3) Debian will contain a installation procedure that doesn't need to be
> babysat; simply install the basedisk, copy the distribution disks to the
> harddrive, answer some question about what packages you want or don't
> want installed, and let the machine install the release while you do
> more interesting things.
> 
> *** Hmm.  Yes or no?  The number of questions has grown so much that it

I would definitely say no here.  Debian and the Ubuntu alt intaller (the
only one I've used) both require far more attention to install than
RHEL/CentOS/Fedora/SuSE.  It's better than it was, but it still requires
quite a lot more attention to install than the others do.  If you're only
installing one or two desktops a year, it's no big deal, but when you're
installing machines every week it's kind of a pain...

I think Debian is great, but it does have some issues.  The second above and
partially the first I think are well addressed by Ubuntu.

Sean
- --
Sean Reifschneider, Member of Technical Staff <jafo at tummy.com>
tummy.com, ltd. - Linux Consulting since 1995: Ask me about High Availability
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