Benjamin Scott wrote:
>
> 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.
>
I admit that the install is still not up there with some of the RPM
based ones (although Storm, and a new distro, Progeny, are working
hard on it, as well as the folks working on woody. That's been my
major complaint with Debian, and it's a one-time complaint.
> 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.
>
Haven't had a problem here. It doesn't seem to do that for me, but
then again, I rebuilt the kernel (they don't do SMP by default -
definately an oversight on the install team, and I see the request on
the -dev list)
> 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.
apt-cache show <package> to get info, including md5sum of a package.
Front end work on apt needed here?
>
> dpkg is also noticeably slower then RPM for queries.
>
> dselect is clunky at best.
dselect, I suspect, is going to go away, in favor of console-apt,
aptitude, gaptitude, etc. Even on the debian-devel list, I don't see
people in favor of it. Hadn't noticed particular slowness of dpkg or
apt-<whatever>.
>
> 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?
>
Hm. no problems here, unless the download has timed out. then, and
install -f (for fix) fixed the problem.
> 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.
>
I admit, I normally update via net, because even with my 25K line, I
set it to do an upgrade in the middle of the night (cron job), and let
it do the work. just use the -y flag to have it do yes, and set the
debconf rules to only ask for critical questions (i.e. almost never,
but I do agree that there needs to be a better way to do this for
unattended work)
> 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.
>
There are packages for building packages, including using dpkg for a
front end.
> 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*.
>
I actually find (given that I have RH on my laptop, debian at home),
that debian works better. rpmfind et al inevitably don't find the
package I want, or tell me I have the latest installed, when I KNOW
there's a newer package out there. Also, despite the --upgrade on
rpmfind supposed to be grabbing everything, it doesn't. I end up
watching the rpm output, figuring out the missing package, downloading
that, trying again, etc. Debian apt-get install <package>, let it
tell me what the package needs, answer Y to download (you can turn
that off with the -y flag), let it go, and I normally have a working
system. Upgrade of X to 4.0.1 happened very smoothly, although they
did run "dexter" (new tool for configuring X), so I had to answer
questions. Only other problem I've had is imwheel not working with
4.0.1, had a conflict until I turned it off (and I'm surprised this
wasn't caught).
One nice thing about Debian is the work the volunteers do on building
the packages to ensure that the dependancies are spelled out
correctly, the package works before it goes into the distro, etc.
I've upgraded to "Woody" the current "unstable" branch, and have yet
to find it "unstable" - it seems rock-solid.
> 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.
>
Should be possible to adjust this, since both are GPL.
> 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.
Matter of configuration, I believe. I'll have to check with the
debian experts here.
>
> 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.
>
Agree here. Part of this is the debian philosophy of not defining
what the run levels mean, but leaving it up to the sysadmin. I've
defined what I want them to be, and configured it accordingly. Then
again, even with RH, I often manually changed things around from the
default.
> 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!
>
And there's talk on the debian-devel of splitting it up. Part of that
problem is doing it in a clean way for upgrades (they take
non-breaking upgrades seriously).
> 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.
>
I've always used the X XF86setup program anyway, as all of the
"official" ones from RH, Mandrake, etc, barfed on my S3 Trio3D board,
so I can't comment (other than I won't buy an S3 board again).
> 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.
>
Well, there's the official CD's - all DFSG compliant. However, anyone
who wants to can put together a non-free CD. They just need to be
aware that some of the non-free stuff can be given away, but not sold,
some is shareware, etc.
> 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. ;-)
>
Hope the reply helps, hope some of the other Debian users chime in. I
agree Debian still has problems, but so does RH, etc. I find the
Debian problems easier to deal with than the problems I had with RH.
I admit I didn't use Mandrake a lot to check it out. I found I
personally hated SuSE's YAST / YAST2 (not saying it was bad, just that
I personally don't work the way it works). I've found that nothing in
the RPM world seems to match, for me, apt.
Storm is a great distro built on Debian, that takes care of many
problems. Progeny, sponsored by Bruce Perens, looks like it's going
to be another one. Corel's available (although I disliked the way it
assumed I was stupid on install, was no more capable than what MS
thinks a Windows user is capable of).
Of course, the RPM world continues to improve. So does the DEB
world. GPL & competition. Ain't life grand!
jeff
--
jeff smith
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
thought for the day: Reality is for people who lack imagination.
**********************************************************
To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to
[EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the
*body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter:
unsubscribe gnhlug
**********************************************************
