Re: Debian/RedHat at our university
I think that this list below was quite excellent. Some comments below.
On Thu, 4 Mar 1999, Bernhard Dobbels wrote:
> Debian vs RedHat:
>
> 1. Debian has a large number of packages (2400 in potato, and just under
> 2000 in slink). All of the package maintainers communicate, so thus the
> packages work more smoothly together.
It might help a little, if there would be some ready made 'installation
sets' (like 'single workstation', 'internettet workstation', 'server')
with ready assembled collection of packages? There is so huge number of
packages available that it isn't so easy to find out in the beginning what
to install what not. More experienced installers can easily do all
dselections themselves, but this would help newbies, who for sure are
nowadays installing debians.
>
> 2. Debian is also a bit more stable. I think, that the support in chat
> rooms and mailing lists is far superior as well.
I'm feeling the suppport excellent. I've got some experience of suse and
rh before. About stability I know very little. All my distros have been
very stable.
> 3. RH has the easy install method, debian has the easy upgrade of
> individual packages method (i.e., apt-get install package.deb.
The difference is quite small in this respect. Upgrade with rh is easy as
well. On the other hand the installation method of debian isn't much more
difficult. It just *looks* more confusing. (I mean dselect.)
>
> 4. DPKG vs RPM, two features make DPKG better:
> a. DPKG has multiple levels of depends, indicating that a program
> REQUIRES another program, RECOMMEDNS another program, or SUGGESTS
> another program. Also, Debian subdivides packages into multiple ones to
> avoid duplication and reduce download sizes when upgrades are made.
> b. With Debian and DFTP or APT, you don't have to worry about RedHat
> releasing a distribution.
a. Is a good feature. Sometimes it is confusing, however. Sometimes it is
not so easy to understand the reasions for recoomendations and
suggestions.
b. I've got very little experience on this. So I will not say anything.
>
> 5. Debian being the only non-commercial distribution, which means that
> the university can make copies of there own and sell them tot the
> students for any price.
This is a very strong point in my opinion. This point might work for any
individual start selling debian cds?
>
> 6. Debian releases only when the dist is ready and not a day before.
> Deb can do this because the developers aren't working on a
> management-imposed release deadline.
This might be a very strong point as well. I've got very limited
experience about this in practice.
>
> 7. Debian has an installation manual in Dutch: http://www.nllgg.nl
>
We might start writing installation manuals in other languages as well?
Anyone willing to cooperate starting a translation into finnish?
> E-mail: Bernhard@KotNet.Org
> Bernhard.Dobbels@Esat.KULeuven.ac.be
hvirtane@cc.jyu.fi
P.S.
Have you seen a book called 'RH trainer'? That one looks to be quite
excellent. It is written to a newbie with computers. Anyone can install RH
using that as a guide.
The manual I've got for debian is a bit too
technical. There is for example a long discussion on the subject of
advantages of the compiling the kernel, but a quite short instruction how
it should be done on 'a standard installation'. That part is really
superior for example in suse-manual or rh-manual... There should maybe be
first a simple discussion how to *do* it. Then some longer discussion of
the technical points behind doing?
the same
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