Derek Broughton wrote: > Tom Allison wrote: > >> I guess this is really just a vent/rant but... >> >> I am a current user of Debian. >> I picked it from Slackware because I was in favor of a faster install >> process than slackwares. Of course I had fewer questions in Slackware >> because I was always RTMing. Debian makes it easier to not do that. > > > Hmmm. I can't see that. Do you mean just because we're all so nice and > helpful? Because it's hard to use Debian without _some_ source of > documentation. > Actually it's the reverse! I can install so much more and so much faster than I can possibly read!
> Bloat? I'm stunned. OK, the term "Bloat" was incorrect. I would like to retract that statement if it's at all possible. It isn't a matter of physical bloat in MB consumption. On the other had, it can be made quite small and is possible to do most things without any X. >> This niche specialization may have won >> arguements with Debian, but it's at a high price with respect to >> interchangeable configurations. I may be able to fix something on >> Debian, but not on any other distro. >> >> Is this a common digression between the distros? > > > I'm not sure I understand you but I think you're disappointed that > Debian isn't Redhat, or SuSE, or Slackware. Which one do you think we > should slavishly imitate? :-) It's not that simple. Debian has some really good stuff. But finding out where things go can be really difficult. This difficulty, in my experience, comes from a deviation from the very direct approach of something like Slackware or even Sun Unix. All distros are making these deviations in order to keep the configuration capability manageable. We ask a lot of Linux these days. But the deviation in Debian is hard to identify and track down. I'm not always sure which is the best way to do or where to look. I used to always look in /etc/*.conf for the settings, but they've moved into /etc/defaults/*.conf. This is news to me. I think it's about Documentation and getting a clear message of architecture (or philosophical) changes to the Debian set-up. Documention of a more Systems Administration approach. Things like: Where do I put my pcmcia ethernet card setting? /etc/network/interfaces, or /etc/pcmcia/network.opts. AND "We are changing to a new abstraction layer of /etc/defaults so that we can better ..." Philosophy -- example: Slackware has all it's documentation right in the file you need to edit. And if it isn't in there, they probably tell you were to go. But it does all assume some functional knowledge of a basic BSD style rc. format. Similarly, everything is in /etc/ with tons of text in the files themselves. example: Suse keeps everything, including the kitchen sink in one really big file. Now you know where to start from. example: Debian -- I'm still not entirely certain. But I am still trying. In all of these, and with Debian in general, I have found that the documentation is really the key. Who cares if it isn't "The RedHat Way". If that is so important then I suppose I should go with RedHat and shut up. But I really like Debian. It's a cool ideal. But the documentation, if available, will accomodate so many potentially uncomfortable problems. example: I had one PC that would swear the only editor it has was something called 'ae' and not 'vi'. Make 'crontab -e' a little foreign to me. Someone, somewhere, mentioned that there is some defaults controlling application for setting things like the default editor and that fixed me up. Until I got the message by word of mouth I had no clue as to what to do. Changing EDITOR did nothing for me. I expected it to. It's a common functionality between everything I've ever seen in Linux/Unix (maybe my experience is still too limited?). But today I have forgotten the name of this application and have absolutely no clue how I would ever find it again. I am lost. To treat this specific case, maybe just a list, in <dl> form of the Administration Tool/Function, and a description of what it does would help. Even 'whatis' would help. But I don't know what to type in after that as the name of a configuration/administraction management tool in Debian. > I can only say that imo it _must_ be a > common digression between distros. We all try to do things consistently > where possible, but surely it's more important to do things _right_ than > to be consistent with Redhat if Redhat does it wrong (which happens :-)) > otoh, maybe I just don't understand what you mean by abstraction... > -- > derek > > -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
