On Friday 28 December 2001 10:07, Justin Bengtson wrote: > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Bob Miller [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > > Sent: Friday, December 28, 2001 9:47 AM > > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Subject: [EUG-LUG:727] Re: new /home? > > > > 60% off retail and a free carpet shampoo. What a deal! > > didn't think of it quite THAT way... > > > RedHat probably has a GUI way to do it, too. > > gawd, don't remind me. the only reason i installed redhat was so i > could tinker with my OWN operating system instead of trying to keep > another one working. another thing i realized last night was that > redhat is, amazingly, far more FHS compliant that debian. despite my > personal and irrational dislike for RPM's, redhat is pretty damn > close to a "right out of the box" OS. > > now if debian would just get off that constant six month old (or > however long) software model... not to mention that 2.2 kernel! can > somebody beat them over the head!? ah, well, they have their > reasons. i have mine for leaving them behind.
It's good to keep in mind that Debian stable is intended to be a base that stable machines can depend on, for long periods of time, to not cause problems when packages are updated. Utilities, libraries, apps, etc. change as little as possible so that custom user scripts, etc. don't break. Also, because newer versions of KDE, GNOME, etc. can have conflicts with various stable libraries, developers often can't build new packages for them. I would very much like to see a Debian branch, say "wobbly," that had a full release complement of "boot floppies," etc. that were as fresh and bug free as possible (remember too that nothing even makes it into the testing branch unless it builds for _all_ supported Debian architectures). But, that would increase the workload on the already overworked volunteers who keep Debian going. As it is, the testing branch does fairly well at keeping most packages fresh and usable. However, as you point out, many packages people want, say Mozilla, can lag by several months for various reasons (mostly build problems on underused architectures) and that can include Debian developers dropping out silently, widowing for an extended period one or more packages (when a package is dropped cleanly, Debian does fairly well at finding someone to take it over). It's largely up to users to notice when a package has been widowed and file a bug report. I'm going on a bit long, but, as you found, it's best (aside from philosophical reasons) to choose Debian because you want a Distro that is relatively easy to maintain, not because you want to be leading edge.
