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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.
Considering this is basically Debain 3.0 along with KDE 3, Gnome 2 and OpenOffice, then isn't this just a Woody CD along with an extra's CD, with a better installer?
Talking of which, when I last installed Woody, it took about 5 - 10 minutes, and was the simplest installer I have used to install a linux distro for a while. I dont know what all the gripe is about Debians installer. As long as you can handle selecting what packages you want, and install a module for your network card (and if you can't do this, why are you running linux?) then I do not believe the Debian installer is a very hard installer to use.
All of this is coming from a Slackware user from way back.
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!
I currently use both Debian and Libranet on my home systems. While I personally find Debian easy to install and configure, I think that Libranet has done an exemplarly job in making their install very easy. It has hardware autodetection, can set up a burner and zip drive and allows you to easily configure a network or dial up connection in a way that a novice will understand.
There are other benefits as well. They have a package called XAdminmenu that logically groups many administration tools together, a control panel of sort, that is easy to use and properly annotated so that a new user can configure their system. There is also an active user community that is very newbie-friendly. Plus the support provided by their staff is exceptional and often goes beyond the offerings of other software firms.
Naturally there are also the benefits of being a Debian-based distribution. While they base their current release on Woody, you can easily bump it up to Sid if you wish too. And for new users, once they master APT (or Synaptic or GNOME-APT) they will be introduced to Linux with out the hassle of dependency hell. That is worth something right there.
In short, you get a slightly more polished version of Woody, with current software, support, and a pleasent Linux experience for very little dollars. That in itself is a bonus to our community.
For those that bitched: download the 2.0 iso from their site and give it a whirl, then give me your opinion. Otherwise be happy and stick to your distro of choice.
everyone complains about debian. too slow to release, too hard to install... etc, ad nauseum.
folks. there are other distros. use them instead.
I've come to believe that mandrake is the first distro you use, red hat is the second and then once you realize that you should be reading slashdot and other such sites and start hearing about debian and graducate to that. after debian you start thinking about trying linux from scratch. thats just the nature of the beast. I kind of like it that way.
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(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.