Re: Fw: Red Hat Linux end-of-life update and transition planning

["Timothy J.Miller" <cerebus () sackheads org>]

On Nov 3, 2003, at 4:58 PM, Jonathan A. Zdziarski wrote:

> Why put this on CD3 instead of CD1?

Because at the time of the 3.0 release the 2.4 boot floppies were not 
as fully tested as the 2.2 boot floppies.  Nothing stops you from 
installing under 2.2 and doing an "apt-get install kernel-image-2.4.18" 
afterwards.

>                                                         Installing Debian using the standard practice
> (starting with CD1 and moving up) is kind of like installing windows 95
> and upgrading as you go.

No, it isn't.

> But either way, why not go with 2.4.20?

Because 2.4.20 post-dates Debian 3.0.

> By poorly designed I mean text-based,

Text-based != "poorly designed".

>                                                                                          crappy looking,

Crappy looking != "poorly designed" either.

>                                                                                                               not very
> user-friendly for the average person we're trying to win over from
> Windows.

... in your opinion.  Others' experience varies on this.

> In the setting of desktop OS, Debian is probably the worst
> distro available due to its very archaic install tool and the lack of
> several important drivers in the default install to even bring up X on
> many systems.

Incorrect.  The only "missing" driver is the nVidia unified accelerated 
driver-- which, if you bother to read the license, is 
non-re-distributable.  If you're getting the nVidia drivers off a Linux 
distribution CDROM the vendor is in violation of the nVidia license.  
Instead, Debian provides wrapper packages for this driver that will 
download the source from nVidia and compile .debs from it for you.

Of course, nothing prevents you from using the XFree86 'nv' 
unaccelerated driver either.

> 1. A simple, graphical setup
> 2. Out-of-the-box support for a wide range of hardware
> 3. Post-installation tools for configuring printers, users, etcetera
> 4. A graphical, easy-to-use patch system
> 5. Simple, yet standardized enough to be used by savvy Linux users
>
> Debian meets maybe 1 or 2 of these.

Debian meets 2, 3, 4, and 5, and frankly, on 1 it's simple already but 
admittedly has no GUI.

Of course, if you'd used it at all you'd know this.

Basically, typical of Debian-slamming in most forums, the objections 
boil down to "It's different and I don't like it."

-- Cerebus

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