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Two Reviews of Debian 3.0
FrankNFurter writes "Debian Planet features a review of Debian 3.0 from a user's perspective. Time for a reality check, debianistas." And twstdr00t writes "Linuxwatch.org has posted their review of Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 Woody. 'The package managment system is nice and easy to use. But the lack of good configuration and installation takes that all away from Debian.'"
the first AC bitchy nay-sayer didn't even bother to read the article
here is a quote from the first paragraph:
"I really want Debian to succeed. I want to use it daily, and recommend it to my friends. But I can't do that right now and I think it's important people understand why."
maybe you can get someone to read it for you (illiterate fuckwit)
The article does discuss the Progeny Graphical Installer, which is being included in the next release. The last time I used this installer was roughly a year and a half ago. I could install a progeny 1.0 system in 25 minutes flat with this installer.
/etc/apt/sources.list to reflect the new base and downloading the updated packages.
Yes, the current installer stinks, and it needs much work to catch up to Mandrake, Red Hat and SuSE. But to move from the progeny to potato to woody releases was as simple as changing my
However, I have not had to reinstall my primary system in a year and a half. I cannot say that for any other operating system. The stable archives work well together.
Debian: not for newbies. Higher learning curve than others. Worth learning if you want more control over your system.
The significant problems we face cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them. -Einstein
Red Hat's got their Red Hat Network upgrade service. It's a lot like Windows Update with XP - it'll tell you when updates are available, and you'll have the option to download them. It works well. I have personally intalled apt-get (for RPM) and I've fallen in love with it. But it is not an official Red Hat apt-get. You can grab it from FreshRPMS.
actully, the article is pretty negative toward the new debian. It actually talks about how other linux versions had better features that he wished were in debian.
Disco Stu was talkin' to you.
Debian is NOT for first time linux users! Unfortunately, the reviewer(s) definitely sounded like they were anyway. Aside from dselect being a little daunting the first time you use it, the install is very easy. Dselect is very easy to use, after you hit ? and read the help page. Otherwise, don't bother.
I'm not really sure why the people at Linuxwatch need a Debian config generator.. XFree86 4 has included two generators that work fine for me. Oh, and I have a rather odd dual head system. Geforce2 and a Voodoo 3. XFree86 -configure, and xf86cfg. Is it really so hard to type those out?
For anyone with a clue, Debian is great! There are so many things that just *make sense* and are missing from other distros. For instance, the reason KDE's application menu was so hard to use as the review stated is because applications from DEB packages are automagically shared between window managers.
Debian is something that you either love or hate. I love it. Everything from the directory structure to the logs to the default application settings are wonderful. How many distros ship sendmail with smtp auth and TLS enabled? :) If you are an advanced user don't let the review fool you. Give it a chance!
Check out Gentoo Linux [gentoo.org].
I tried it, went back to Debian
The only downside is it will take a while to build X, or any other large package(Gnome, KDE, etc).
You can say that again. On average, a package takes about twice as long to download in source form than in binary form. Also, source takes about as much time again to build. So all up, you're looking at about 4 times as long to install a given Gentoo package as the same package on Debian.
While Gentoo takes you close to the bleeding edge, and while its build system is well put together, it is a far more complicated process to set up a system to your tastes than it is with Debian. You need to know a lot of esoteric internals with some key packages, and are left in a position of often having to beg for help on the #gentoo irc channel.
After going back to Debian sid, I was surprised to find that Debian goes from power-up to usable desktop in 2/3 of the time Gentoo takes (which is 1/2 the time Mandrake takes).
In conclusion, there is no bliss which compares to an installed and working Debian desktop. The installer might not be pretty, but once you're up, you can trust apt-get to add anything you want, to a state which actually works.
-- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
apt-cache is pretty useful as a search utility. "apt-cache search " usually gives me what I need.
Anything worth doing is worth doing badly -- G.K. Chesterton
My first distro was Debian. I love the apt system. I cannot, however, live without software RAID.
/dev/hda1, then move that to /dev/md0. Too much work for too little return. If your distro doesn't support my needs, there are hundreds more that do.
After booting the Woody CD, I tried "modprobe md", only to discover that it isn't supported. I went on the assumption that it was compiled in, but alas, "mkraid" was nowhere to be found. The only real option was to install to a
I'd also like to see a source compile option added. If apt was combined with Gentoo's emerge, Debian would be almost unstopable.
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
I wonder where this apparent perception that Debian GNU/Linux for newbies (on the part of the reviewers) comes from. Debian is not for newbies. What, do these people think that because Debian sounds friendly, its somehow for newbies?
No, its not. Debian-based Lindows and Libranix are for newbies.
Debian is for experts. Anyone *can* install it and get it set up to their liking, but it won't be fun. It will require knowing your exact hardware specs, exactly what you want, and reading alot of manuals. The only people who will easily navigate their way around installing and configuring Debian are people coming from Slackware, Gentoo, OpenBSD, minix, or other hard-core UNIX-like OS' even more hard-core than Debian.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
I hate how *every* opportunity to point out the merits of their distro is taken swiftly. We all know gentoo is cool.
True, but you should really give libranet a try. It's like a softer, friendlier Debian.
This about sums it up:
/dev/hdd wasn't set up, not even as a plain CD-ROM. The menus were all over the place. The fonts in GTK apps were hideously big. XftConfig wasn't set up to disable antialiasing for standard size fonts, nor were the workarounds for symbol and console fonts (mentioned here) included. Another bug.
kwrite decided it wouldn't display documents it opened and konqueror decided all pages should be 2000 pixels wide, even though the window was about 800.
Sound didn't work, and consequently the KDE bootup screen stalled for ages at the window manager stage while arts slowly died, then popped up a No Sound message box. None of the PPP connection tools worked when not used by root. None of the hard disk partitions were configured (even though they had been recognised by the piece of code that set up LILO). My CDRW at
It was a mess.
dselect's interface leaves some to be desired. I don't see the validity of your point, dselect has a HUGE database of packages in a non-intuitive text interface, if you don't know what you're looking for, I don't see how dselect helps at all.
Am I missing something?
When all freedom is outlawed only the outlaws have freedom
I think the reviewer, while misguided in his criticism of debian, is not off the mark in feeling that debian needs a major overhaul (at least for the desktop). I've had a couple of friends who have sworn by debian as the way to go, but I have to say gentoo is the "expert" distro that has me the most excited? Why, because I get the feeling that the gentoo people are putting an emphasis on keeping their packages up to date. I think it's laughable that debian still uses a 2.2 kernel by default for desktop installs. Ugh. I like to live on the bleeding edge. Have the time I'm not even sure what the improvements are, but if there is a release out there with a higher number than the one I'm using, I'll begin eyeing it hungerly. I understand that debian is designed with stability in mind and that's fine. And if they wish to continue with that as their primary focus, then they will continue to be a server disto (which is fine, too). The fact is, we don't need 15 different "expert" distros for workstation and desktop users. One final note. Great work, debian people. It might have sounded like I hate your distro, but I don't. I'll keep logging into the debian server they got at school, and keep laughing at the people getting frustrated who are stuck on the solaris server.
After booting up the install cd, instead of hitting enter to proceed with the installer, type "bf24" and Debian will use the 2.4.18 kernel instead.
:)
Debian really requires you to completely delve into the "Debian world" to make full use of it. It seems that whenever I need the Debian version of a particular utility, it is there, you just have to find it (which I admit, can be daunting).
Need to search for package, but don't know what the name is, or even what you're looking for? Use "apt-cache search".
Want to update the services inetd listens for without manually editing a text file? Use "update-inetd".
How about modifying run levels? Yep, Debian has that too with "update-rc.d". Oh, need to reconfigure that package you just downloaded? Try "dpkg-reconfigure ".
My point is that like any OS (or linux distribution, for that matter), you need to readup on the documentation. Try reading that Debian Handbook sometime- lots of good stuff!
I do understand your frustration though; I wish they would just make that the default kernel.
(looks up from pdf files)Complete linux newbie says: I think the Debian installer is more useful than Mandrake and FreeBSD. Forget the reviewer. Read on to know why.
I teach M$ Office part-time to adults, everything from making a selection to full VBA progs. I can fdisk, regedit, poledit, etc. I had inherited enough old parts to build a P200/32ram box, 2 HDs(tot: 3gig). It begged to be the first Linux machine in my home network. This last week I decided it was time.
I did my research about different distros. Lots of reading. Talked to some ppl. I got Suse 8 Eval cd, and played with it for an hour on my main box. It looked good (KDE I believe), but I never saw the prompt. (don't forget, I don't know the *inx lingo yet) I was ready. Remember I had the Internet as my guide on the PC beside.
I burned the Mandrake 9 ISO. After chocking up over 30 hours, I gave up on Mandrake. Graphical install, text install, different options(like no KDE/Gnome), blah blah. Some choices, but not much choice. It held my hand, and couldn't help my old box. Frustrating. Even with all the reading.
I installed BSD with floppys/FTP. It worked. I stared at the prompt. I was scared. I read a lot more. I realized I was way out of my league.
I got the Linuxcare ISO (someone suggested it in conversation). Being able to boot to a full (small) Linux didn't help me.
I got the Debian Woody mini ISO. (sub 300mb) It was all text. It asked me questions. It worked. It rebooted and I scrolled through lists of packages (for about 2 hours) I didn't know about looking for things like Apache, mySQL, sshd and ICEwm, plus a few others. At the end it grabbed everything, told me about conficts (dhttp or some such needed port 80, but apache would use it, and the stuff wasn't even done installing yet!), asked my plenty of questions, (many I didn't understand, but for which there were recommendations) and then it was done.
Now, I don't even know how to show a list of files without it scrolling by, or search for a file. I have learned in the last day how to edit a config file (if I find it), use putty to connect (but now what to do I don't know) and a few simple *nix commands. Debian worked, period. I am on my way to learning Linux, thanks to Debian's installer. And I am not some computer science person who groks text and hash tables. I am a business person cum teacher.
Point being: Debian's installer should work for the reviewer who has been "using" *inxus for over 3 years. Don't believe the hype. I never used *nix before Wednesday, Oct 23, 2002. Now I am using Debian, learning something every minute I read and try.
Now if I could only figure out how to do a file find...(puts nose back to pdf files)
One word:
aptitude.
Because every package maintenance tool needs a built-in implementation of minesweeper.
Real world users prefer not to be doing major revision updates every 6 months.
no matter how pretty the installer.
'There is a Light that never goes out.'
If you think Debian is hard to install, you need to know about PGI.
PGI is the Progeny Graphical Installer. It is slick and easy to use. If you run it, it will set up your computer with a perfectly good Debian system.
You do not need to run the official Debian installer to get a valid working Debian system.
The official Debian project does not need to integrate PGI before you can use it. You can use it now.
Note that Debian supports a huge number of architectures, but PGI is only available for x86 and ia64 (Itanium). I'm sure future versions of PGI will add support for other architectures.
Now, here is the part where I was planning to tell you how to get PGI. But I'm all confused now and I can't tell you yet.
It used to be that there was an ISO image of a PGI installer CD-ROM, available for download. You would just download it, burn it to CD, and boot from the CD.
Now, PGI has released their 1.0 version, and the downloadable ISO image is gone. Instead there are the tools to create your own PGI install disk. While this is totally cool, this makes it hard for me to tell you how to get a working CD image.
I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing that if you take the sample "configlets" from the PGI distribution, and build a PGI disk image using that, you might get the equivalent of the ISO image they used to offer. I'm planning to look into it, but by the time I figure this out, this news story will be long since gone from the Slashdot front page. So it goes.
It probably won't be long before you will be able to choose from several PGI-based installers (for free). But right now I'm not sure where to send you for an ISO image.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Yep, I recently switched to Gentoo and have been loving it. More customizable than Debian, and Portage is *much* more up to date than Debian's package trees.
The install procedure, however, isn't exactly newbie-friendly.
Prior that we were a Red Hat shop. Since our software is high-performance e-Tailing tools for the Catalog and Mail Order industry we made the "switch" (heh) from Red Hat to Debian because of three words: Stability, Stability, Stability.
Was Red Hat stable? Yes, was it as stable as Debian, maybe. But it was clearly "apt-get" that really sold us as we're consistantly RPMing the crap on our existing RH 6.2 machines, it became clearly a time suck to keep up with patches/updates enhancements of all the software in RH and all the software that we used in our application.
I think its fairly clear that people (outside the Debian circle) are souring on Debian because they don't include the latest release of KDE 3.x, or the installer is clunky, or the package management system isn't like XP or Red Hat. But in the REAL WORLD, we could care less about that stuff.
Hell, I don't think i've ever installed Debian as a desktop as its own beast, if I wanted a distro for a desktop using Debain, I'd go over to Libranet or even Xandro's/Lindows.
But to me, thats stuffs unimportant for my business, so I'm not intrested in it. Debian 3.0 is perfect for a small to mid-sized busines running Linux as an application server or database server. Trust me, its perfect.
First of all, our needs seem to be the needs of a typical Linux shop (server based installations, running Apache, PHP and Java). We aren't a company that believes the desktop for Linux is that radically important. Maybe this is why we chose Debian in the first place -- the graphical wiz-bang installers for us sucked because we would throw marginal video cards into our machine -- text mode, thats what we wanted. Sure, some pundits could "ding it" for not including some later packages (i.e. gcc, latest kernel etc.), but thats not really what you'd want for stability, would you? If you really want those packages -- Just point your sources.list over to some mirror and "apt-friggin'-get" it... I don't understand the fuss, but hey, people love to belly ache.
I believe that Debian fills the holes that other distro's (RH, Mandrake, Suse et. al) seem to leave -- a rock solid distro with a simple text based installation with a great package management system. If your running a large server installation, why would you need anything fancier? I think Red Hat in particular try's to concentrate on the server, but i'm not convinced -- plus, damn to its too expensive, if I wanted to spend that kind of money, I'd run XP Server... Mandrake's cute, and Suse' looks interesting -- again all desktop stuff... Not really where Debian fits in.
Hey look Debian is not a Ferrari, but hell, to me its like that old 1980 Mercedes 300D that you can't stop running and you can STILL get new parts for... ;-) Its a workhorse -- its "Diesel babe". Thats what Debian is... we need these distro's out there folks. The flashy, shrink wrapped glizty ones are good to keep Linux chasing Windows in the hopes of catching it, but in the REAL WORLD we need the distro's you can pull of the net' install, and have it work... whats wrong with that?
Actually it does, and for quite some time too. `apt-get euro-support`. I even got the euro symbol on my console for quite some time now.
with these tools not only can you see a list of availible packages, but you can search through package names, their content, a few other things.
I know there are other tools out there, but if you are running a gui, these tools make installing new packages and even searching for a package that performs a certian function (but that you may not know the name of) a breeze!
just my $0.02...
-frozen
I'm not always the brightest pixel in the stream
Xandros, based off Debian, ships this week. If it's done correctly, it'll offer all the Debian goodness, with an actual ease-of-use for end-users. I am looking forward to it, to see what they've managed to do with Corel Linux.
"Xandros Desktop 1.0. The product, due to be released on September 30, 2002 and available for purchase within three weeks after that date, is built upon Linux kernel 2.4.19, XFree86 4.2, Debian 3.0, Corel LINUX 3.0, and enhanced KDE."
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
I know this is not a mainstream application, but I would like to mention that the Debian s390 port is great. The install was as easy any of the other s390 distros we tried (SuSE, RedHat). And while the packages we care about (PHP, Apache, MySQL) might a minor version behind, they were as new or newer than the ones include on the other distros.
The thing has been rock solid reliable. I can create an identical installation with all the same packages by typing in a couple dpkg and apt-get commands. The only problem I've hade was answered one day after I posted it to the s390 mailing list.
Best of all, it didn't cost us $30,000 like RedHat wanted to charge us.
I'm not entirely comfortable with the premise of this review. Thi author prefaces the review with this:
The Redhats and Mandrakes of the world are dependant upon user adoption because they have a financial interest at stake. User adoption means increased revenue, and with that, provided they run their business well, financial success.
In courting users, Corporate Linux vendors have to appeal to as broad a cross-section as they can, in an effort to become all things to all people. There's nothing wrong with this, and I applaud their efforts, but there's no reason to hold Debian to the same standard as distributions with mass-market appeal.
The Debian project does not cater to the same people, nor are it's goals in line with these other Linux distributions. Those of us that choose to run Debian tend to look at issues other than "ease of installation," or "latest and greatest" software packages.
It is far closer to a server-class distribution than these others can claim to be, in my opinion.
When I'm looking to play Quake III, I don't install it on my server. I install it on my desktop system, where I run Mandrake.
When I want to ensure that my infrastructure is sound and stable, I run Debian. I want my upgrades to come off without a hitch. I want to upgrade in place, with little to no downtime. I don't want to worry about dependencies that need to be satisfied. I want it all to happen cleanly, and efficiently.
Debian is unmatched when viewed from that perspective. If the Developers decide to allocate their time and resources toward a fancy installation routine, that's fine, but it's not what concerns me most. I hope they never sacrifice the things they do well so that they can chase after the userbase. It's a niche distribution that suits me just fine the way it is.
For those that would die defending it, Freedom
has a sweet taste that the protected will never know.
Well, it breaks all the software into fairly logical groupings. Want sound stuff, check out the sound section. Also, it provides detailed enough descriptions to figure out if you really want something or not, whether it has been replaced with another package, etc.
A graphical dselect would be nice, but text-mode tools are absolutely required. Makes no sense at all to install a graphical environment on a dedicated or headless server, let alone require one to be able to admin the box.
"Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world." - Alan Greenspan, 1999
I have to agree here. I think people really like Debian for the same reasons people really like the BSDs. It has power *AND* is consistent.
I started on Slackware. Every system seemed to have weird frontends that just insulated you from the real thing. That is one thing that Debian does *NOT* have.
On the other hand, Rock Linux and the like give the same raw access, but their lack of consistency still drives me back to Debian.
It is also nice to generally be able to count on things functioning the way the developer intended them to function (a few crazy applications usually developed at RedHat aside).
I mean, even Interchange (RedHat's e-Commerce solution, used to be Tallyman/Minivend) installs and works find as a Debian archive. Then there's alien... I just don't find myself fighting against the system, I just end up working with it. A lot of distros and other OS vendors miss the mark of having a base system that works well before slapping an interface on it. Debian very rarely feels like the developer was "trying to get it out the door". It's the kind of software that gets developed when there are no deadlines. I like that.
It's consistent, solid, and I have the right mixture of bare metal with finished interface.
I think a lot of these complaints will disappear when Debconf really takes off and a lot of the silly messages disappear.
I think Mauve has the most RAM. --PHB (Dilbert Comic)
Only new people seem to use dselect. It is going to be replaced with aptitude which is much better but I expect most people won't use that either.
Every Debian user I know (myself included) upon installing a new system installs the minimum, logs in as root and types something like:
# apt-get install x-window-system task-c-dev vim
New users and reviewers never seem to clue into the fact that apt is a really fantastic package managemnet system and dselect is a really bad front end which should be avioded.
The installer that one of the reviews complained about admittedly isn't very good either. This is why it too is going to be replaced for the next stable release.
Progeny has just released a new ISO for a woody install using PGI. You can find it at http://archive.progeny.com/progeny/pgi/.
We heard your plea.