Richard wrote:
Hi,
I'd like to hear some technical advice on the
comparison of Fedora and Debian. If I want to
mainly
run network applications, what package should I
use?
GUI is not critical to me.
Both are community developed projects. Each
embodies the same
philosophy of Open Source Development. Comparing
the two distributions
requires the consideration of their respective
release schedules.
Debian produces a stable distribution. To get a
package to stable, it
must first work its way through the unstable branch,
then the testing
branch, then stable. The last stable release came
out two years ago.
This can be a misnomer, though. The "testing" and
"unstable" branches
of Debian have many of the same packages as a Fedora
release, but the
Debian developers do not consider them mature or
tested enough for a
Stable, Production Quality Distribution.
Fedora produces an evolving distribution. Its
bi-annual releases
integrate the most stable form of the newest
packages available. It is
a bit of a testing platform through which RedHat can
best evaluate which
packages are ready for its Enterprise release. Once
upon a time, RedHat
released numbered versions, often several times a
year. Deciding which
release was stable or appropriate for you or your
business was
difficult, and the life of respective releases was
undetermined.
You should ask yourself what you want to do with
your server. You will
find a great set of tools and features in Fedora
that are available
through the command line or a GUI. You will find
that the non-gui
install of debian, while simple, can intimidate
some. Getting X11 to
work with debian stable can be a challenge for some.
I run Debian stable on my home servers, and I
install it for POS
customers for running their proprietary POS apps
like Counterpoint.
Rock solid, headless, and uptimes are ended only by
prolonged power
outages. I run Debian testing on my iBooks. I want
the "newer" stuff,
like KDE 3.x, so I go with testing for these less
demanding installations.
Many people on this list run Fedora. It is fun, it
is new, it was
inspired by a local student, Warren Togami, and it
creates some Hawaiian
pride for everyone. For a hobbyist or an open
source enthusiast, it is
fun and exciting to use, it seems, for most.
The primary criticism of Debian Stable is that the
packages are old.
Most of these critics are incapable of stating the
technical merits of
the "newer" packages they profess to crave. I
prefer, for stability and
reliability, to go with the least common
denominator, so to speak.
Hopefully this helps without fanning the
ideaological flames of our more
dogmatic users. You have a lot of choices, and
hopefully others will
share their own opinions on the matter.
Perhaps you should state what Network Apps you
intend to run in order to
shape the discussion along the lines of each
distribution's version of
the Apps you want.
Thanks,
R
my pleasure
--scott
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