On Mon, 6 Nov 2000, Jeffry Smith wrote:
> Debian - from the inside (i.e. someone from Debian talking about why
> it was set up, how it runs, what problems they have, etc)
Debian runs? ;-)
Okay, despite the subject line, my goal here is not actually to start a
flamewar. Or, at least, that's not my *primary* goal. ;-) I actually am
seeking information. But this particular subject (my distro vs your distro)
does have a tendency to result in some -- *ahem* -- heated discussions, so I
figured I might as well accept that, and even embrace it. Additionally, the
subject line is easy to filter, and warns off anyone not wearing asbestos
underwear. Besides, it's fun. And at least it's more on topic then
Linux-vs-OpenBSD. ;-)
That being said...
What do those of you who like Debian see in this distribution?
I've just given it a try at home, and I have to say, I'm not too terribly
impressed by it. Actuallly, that is not true. I have a strong impression,
and that impression is decidedly negitive.
The installation utility is still so bad as to be almost painful. While it
did invoke a note of nostalgia to be taken back to the days of Red Hat 2.1, I
can't really say I *liked* it.
Hardware detection is basically non-existent.
Debian doesn't seem to have caught on to the idea of kernel modules. The
installed boot kernel reminds me of the "kitchen sink" kernels of the Linux
1.x days, where you tried to cram just about every driver you could into the
boot system, because that was your only choice. Debian's module management
consists of a list of module names to insmod at boot. Blech.
I found dpkg/apt to be *highly* overrated.
dpkg lacks quite a bit of the power of RPM when it comes to querying
installed packages. There is no way to select packages based on a file owned,
for example. You cannot have it list just documentation files, as you can
with RPM. You cannot specify query format fields. And so on.
There is no way to verify the integrity of installed packages at all, as
near as I could tell.
dpkg is also noticeably slower then RPM for queries.
dselect is clunky at best.
dpkg/dselect/apt seemed to have serious issues with package installation
ordering. Any time I installed more then 10 or 20 packages at a time, it
almost always spewed errors at the end, and instructed me to run the "Install"
portion again. Repeated invocations of "Install" or "Configure" eventually
got everything installed, but that rather misses the point of automated
package management, don't you think?
apt seemed to be brain damaged when it came to source selection. Even if
the latest version of a package was already available on the CD-ROM, it still
kept insisting on getting it from the Debian servers. Perhaps there is some
sort of poorly documented "priority" mechanism, but I didn't find one in the
manual pages anywhere.
There is nothing in the way of package build management that I saw, although
I admit that at that point, I was pretty disgusted and didn't look very hard.
It did make it a serious pain in the arse to compile pine from source, though,
since it didn't warn me that I was missing a development package, and I had to
hunt through reams of output to find the important error message.
Debian packages also seem to think that if you are installing a package, you
are going to start using it *right away*, and you should be willing to sit
there answering questions about how you want everything configured. I
disagree with this approach. (Granted, this is pretty subjective, but why let
that spoil a good rant?) I often install quite a few packages "just in case I
need them". Down the road -- or in the case of a laptop, on it -- I may not
have my installation CD handy when I want the package. And, in terms of
administrative efficiency, it is often easier to just install everything once,
than install each package as you need it. Anyways, Debian really wants you to
configure each package as it gets installed. Yes, yes, I saw the options to
turn all that off, but what you have then is basically a large number of
broken installed packages. I much prefer Red Hat's approach of picking
reasonable defaults when possible, and simply leaving stuff turned off when
that isn't possible. You're going to have to edit the config file anyway in
that case; might as well get used to it. (In fairness, I also object to Red
Hat's approach of turning on every damn service you install, but that's
another rant, for another day. ;-)
Yes, I am aware of the gee-wiz, nifty-keen features of "apt-get". But you
know what? rpmfind, autorpm, up2date, and friends, give me pretty much the
save functionality, and unlike Debian, *actually work*.
Debian's init scripts are much less sophisticated then Red Hat's.
Like a lot of Unix users, I cringed when I saw the green "OK" messages Red
Hat introduced with RHL 6.0. But you know what? After going back to plain
old text with Debian, I realize I actually *like* them. They give me a
valuable feature: They let me see, from across the room, if all the
subsystems are starting okay, or if things have gone wrong. You can see that
big red "FAILED" a mile away. With Debian, I have to stare in concentration
at each and every message, and hope they don't scroll off the screen too fast
to read.
Red Hat's init scripts also log all the messages to a file, which can be
very useful for trouble-shooting, especially from a remote site where you
can't see the console. Debian didn't have that.
chkconfig. Debian has no chkconfig! chkconfig makes working with System V
runlevel service scripts so much easier, and Debian doesn't have it. And yes,
I discovered update-rc.d, and no, it isn't the same thing.
Red Hat's network interface management scripts are much more modular and
flexible then the single, monolithic "network" file Debian uses.
Debian seems to think the RPC portmapper should be part of the kernel. If
not the network hardware. Every time I tried killing it or disabling it, it
would spring up again. It was like a weed. And you can't uninstall it, since
it is part of this huge monolithic package called "netbase".
That brings me to another thing. Red Hat splits their packages up much
nicer then Debian does. You get portmapper and inetd and net-tools and so on
as separate packages. This makes for easier upgrades, easier package
management, and so on. With Debian, you have one big blob called "netbase".
Hope you want it all, because you're getting it anyway!
You are expected to configure X yourself, by hand, the old-fashioned way.
Near as I could tell, anyway. Given the fact that even a lot of servers run X
at least part-time, this didn't strike me as particularly friendly.
They don't include Netscape on *any* of the *three* CDs that come with the
"Official" distribution. I'm well aware of the philosophy behind Debian and
their "completely free" distribution (I'll leave the contradiction present in
the DFSG for another day). They could easily solve this by giving you a
separate CD with the "non-free" distribution on it. Put a big warning on it.
A big red sticker that says "PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF RMS, DON'T USE THIS
SOFTWARE". But making everyone download the bloated 30 MB Netscape
distribution is a serious design flaw.
gdm seemed to cause a 10 to 20 second pause during login, which I gave up
trying to track down.
In fact, at that point, I gave up on the whole damn distribution. Nothing
worked, it lacked a lot of nice features, it didn't have the packages I
wanted, it was a pain to use -- it, in a word, sucked.
It took less then five minutes of my time to get back to a working, stock
Red Hat 6.2 system, complete with a basic GNOME desktop.
(Yes, the installer took a good 20 minutes to run, but I could sit back and
read a book while it did its work -- again, unlike Debian.)
Yet Debian seems to get high praise from a lot of people, including some
people in this LUG whose opinions I highly respect. Is there something I'm
missing? Did I get a copy of Debian 1.0 labeled as 2.2 by mistake? Or is
there just a large masochist segment in the Linux user population?
I await your replies/insults/death threats with baited breath. ;-)
--
Ben Scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
* I most emphatically speak only for myself, and not my employer. *
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