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Libranet 2.7 Released
Jon wrote in with news that Libranet 2.7 has been released. I've never tried Libranet, but Debian 3.0 is a fine, up-to-date OS with the usual Debian installation (harder than necessary), so if Libranet offers that Debian goodness with a better installer it should be an excellent choice for both experienced and newbie users.
I've said this before. The Debian installation just isn't that hard. I'd like to hear some specific points about what makes it difficult other than that it isn't X based, but rather console based.
What I don't think is stressed often enough is that you only need to install Debian ONCE. I'm running it on several machines (home/business) and I haven't even had to reboot to upgrade.
apt-get dist-upgrade
Love it, love it, love it.
My Karma was at 49, then they switched to words. All that work for nothing!
(if that in fact is not the very same package that insisted on dragging X along with it)
.deb format that make debian superior. .deb files and rpms are essentially equivalent. The benifit comes from the package database. All of the dependancies are consistant in the debian package database which relieves all the problems that you have installing rpms from various vendors/providers. The number of packages available directly from debian is also far greater then what is available through any other distribution.
build-essential does not include X, or anything X related. The text based installer is not forgiving to people who answer questions claiming to be an expert when they are really not. If you choose the expert options in the debian installer, and you are not a debian instalation expert, you will become lost and frustrated. This is poor social engineering on the part of the debian installer team, since most other installers require you to choose 'expert' to be able to configure things the way you want to and that causes people to claim that they are experts by default whenever they install software. If you'd like a more 'friendly' installer, you can try PGI, which is graphical, and superior to anything I've seen for any OS except suse. It is not the default installer for debian yet, but it works practically perfectly, and would likely satisfy you.
What distribution you use is personal perference, so I'm not really trying to sway you in either direction, but I would like people to know that your experience is not typical. Debian is not the right choice for everybody, but it is also not the technical nightmare that you are implying.
the supposedly superior apt system
Aah, noteriety through misunderstanding. Contrary to popular belief, it is neither apt, nor the
If apt hosed your system it is either because you were using a faulty mirror, you did something wrong, or you were using unstable.