Phill wrote:
I am downloading debian for the first time to check it out. Is v3.0 (released dec 03) the latest version? I can’t find a later version.
Phill
yep. Woody is the latest. stable (core) .debian. release. grab the 2nd cd if you dont have fast broadband.
IMO, it's great for untouched, unmanaged, bulletproof and stable servers, and machines with <32mb ram, or enough ram to open a frame buffer / X desktop comfortably. but so is NetBSD, and FreeBSD. and OpenBSD. and a handful of floppy-disc-distros and USB keychain distros that fit in 5mb/100mb footprints.
The latest debian offshoot would be ubuntu though, followed by knoppix. you should probably grab one of those too.
as a side note, they put the LiveCD's on magazines and in newsagents theses days,which has the advantage of being ready to go, so no 198mb downloads of security/kernel patches, etc to get a bootable system, a 1 minute install/evaluation, and the livecd's can be copied straight to a HDD for permanence and speed. fedora core 3 also has some nice features, it is still redhat though, which might effect that decision.
that said, ubuntu has nice things, e.g., clean, solid gnome with udev/gdev and 2.6.x prelinking. its wierd to have a linux distro that can auto-mount cdr's without setting up some pseudo daemon and waiting for the kernel to lock up in protest. and theres other intangibles too.
That kind of retro new-age hippie communist thinking haunts the debian zealots, so its best to keep that kind of innovative talk to yourself. so,if they find out, just tell them they can do it themselves with about 4 hours of configuration, that should sedate them.
Toliman. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
