Pixel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Stefan van der Eijk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>> and move the idea's and effort into making debian a better distro instead of
>> duplicating the effort?
>
> one main difference with debian, is that mandrake (tries to) takes
> into account the users's needs (and not only the developers's needs)
I think this is not really accurate. I think a more accurate
characterization is that the needs of Debian's users are not
necessarily the same as the needs of Mandrake's users, although both
distributions are expanding their capabilities and creating more
overlap.
As an example: Debian is used a lot in mission-critical server
applications. These may be situations where you don't have physical
access to the box, so it's important to be able to do upgrades over a
ssh or serial line without a reboot. Mandrake is used a lot in
workstations, so it's important to have hardware autodetection and the
latest in desktop apps.
Now, it's certainly possible to use Mandrake in a mission-critical
server application, and it's certainly possible to use Debian on a
workstation, and have an excellent system in each case. I'm sure
there are plenty of people doing both.
But if Debian's user base is heavy with server admins and Mandrake's
is heavy with desktop users, the feedback these sets of users are
going to be sending is different, and so listening to users is going
to produce a different result. Debian users may ask for things like
serial console support, whereas Mandrake users may ask for things like
USB printer autodetection (just hypothetical examples.)
> another difference is the timing of stabilisation: someone told me
> that debian is either not uptodate (the "stable" branch), or less
> stable than Mandrake ("testing")
This is probably true, though it is more a fluke of timing than
overriding philosophy.
-- John
