At some point around Tue, Sep 19, 2000 at 02:43:38AM +1100, Jeff Waugh spaketh thusly:
> [...with a subject like that do you expect me not to bite?!? I wonder if
> anyone was timing the reaction speed...]
Heh. I'm still surprised it took you that long ;-) My excuse is
I'm recovering from the amount of discussion my little diary
comment on advogato caused<g>
http://www.advogato.org/person/thom/ if anyones interested (the
top half, not the bottom)...
>
>
> > Heracles wrote:
> >
> > I know the title of this note is a little extreme, but on the advice of
> > several members of SLUG i decided to give Debian 2.2 a try. What a
> > mistake!
>
>
> Absolutely. If you're happy with your current distribution (and from the
> sounds of things a few weeks ago, you were), stick with it. There is zero
> point in changing from what you're comfortable with, to something new, for
> no reason.
>
Couldn't agree more. Although I know I've sounded a bit rabid on
occasion about Debian, changing distribution is the same as
changing anything major (house, car, (girl|boy)friend, etc) - it
has its foibles(sp?) and differences, and you have to take the
time to get used to it.
For instance, my home machine is on it's fourth (this month)
install of freebsd, as i get used to it, break stuff, reinstall
it, get used to the way it handles stuff differently to linux.
Occasionally, yes, I do get utterly hacked off with it and give
up and go back to my debian install, but I'm prepared to put the
time in - mostly reading the freebsd handbook and other stuff on
the web by new users of freebsd and so on, and just playing with
it untill i understand it.
Debian's documentation (/usr/share/doc/{package-name}) is
usually pretty good.
>
> > It usually takes me about 30 minutes to install and configure a default
> > SuSE system - I have been working on installing Debian for four (4) days
> > so far and have not yet been able to get it to work properly.
>
>
> The first time I installed Debian I cheated a bit. (Read: I made it *harder*
> for myself.) I did it in two goes, the first to get slink installed from the
> basic floppies (enough to get an ethernet card going), and the second to
> upgrade to potato (then frozen) from the UTS network. Combining the time it
> took to complete both parts, it probably took about half an hour.
>
the longest I ever took was 14 hours - did a base install on
potato floppies and did everything else over a v90 modem to get
to woody ;-)
> (Then Anand came along and made it the wonderful SLUG server we use every
> day!)
>
> When I've installed from CD, I've gone from blank hard disk to server in 20
> minutes (note that doesn't include X or other desktop prettiness). If you
> haven't already tried the Tasks install method, that's where the fun lies.
The part that takes an install of debian for me up to half an hour is
remembering my X settings and getting exim bedded down and happy
> dselect is the Devil's work, and though some Debianites (Gus! Masochist!)
> swear by it, I would quite happily take it to a dark alley and give it the
> ESR treatment.
>
hehe. console-apt rules my world ;-)
>
> > I had to use this windoze machine to get back on the net - Debian just
> > keeps killing the ppp daemon, or if I manage to get the connection I can
> > ping the ISP's machines, but can't get a browser or email client to work.
>
>
> Yes, that's a recognised problem with Potato. Sadly the release team were
> fed after midnight the morning of its release, and... well, the inevitable
> happened. You can find more information about this on the debian-gremlins
> mailing list.
>
> Debian did it?!?
>
> Seriously, it sounds more like you haven't read some of the applicable
> documentation or used the best tools provided with the distribution. Taking
> in an entire distribution's worth of niceties (and Debian has more than it's
> fair share) takes quite a while.
>
> I'm was a victim of distribution safety-blanket hugging. It wasn't until (I
> think) Thom pointed out Debian's excellent task-dialup and pppconfig that I
> knew what I was missing!
guilty :-)
> It takes a fair while to learn the ins and outs of any OS.
Couldn't agree more. /me looks at the stack of Solaris books on
his desk. /me cringes
>
> > What a waste of time and effort!
>
>
> I had a good few hours of reading when I started using Debian. I think to
> get the most out of the OS, it's a must. Also, one of the great advantages
> of Debian as an operating system is the (almost pathalogically) helpful
> people... You can always ask! :)
>
The great joy of debian is (a) the IRC based help - #debian on
openprojects irc, iirc (b) the debian mailing lists and last and
very much not least (c) apt
The thing is, debian - and by extension corel and stormix - is
based on a totally different methodology to a RedHat/RPM based
system such as SuSE - with different design goals and a *very*
different approach. RedHat based systems, are, on average, aimed
more squarely at the (in marketing speak) "entry to
intermediate" level users, and a lot of their tools and design
decisions reflect that. That's not, however, to say that a
RedHat box with the same software as a Debian box is any less
powerful or useful - obviously it isn't! (nor, on the other
hand, is it to say that debian always gets it right)
It's also a similar problem to going from win9x to NT - the
methodologies and thinking behind the implementations is
different, although much of the software remains the same.
Think of it as an investment, time wise, and make it a challenge
- all the tools are available, and we're all happy to help you
out as much as possible...
>
> There's three computer-related (okay, non-programming though) things that
> never fail to blow my mind on a daily basis: Linux, Debian and GNOME - and
> the amount of time and effort that has been put into them is humbling.
And again, I couldn't agree more
>
> - Jeff
>
>
> -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------- http://linux.conf.au/ --
>
> Ye shall be cursed to fall in love so easily, and yet be so
> cold of heart as never to express it.
and Jeff, where's the quote from? I keep thinking I know it but
can never pin it down...
>
cheers,
Thom
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