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UserLinux Releases First Beta
MohammedSameer writes "According to DesktopLinux, UserLinux has released their 1st beta CD, based on Debian. The project, led by the long-time open source advocate Bruce Perens, aims to provide businesses with freely available, high quality Linux operating systems accompanied by certifications, service, and support options intended to encourage productivity and security while reducing overall costs."
So, if it's oriented to Businesses and support-conscious people, why is it called *User* Linux? Wouldn't BusinessLinux be more appropriate?
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Do we need torrent for 4.5 megabytes iso image?o
http://userlinux.com/installer/netboot.is
Personally instead of seeing 100's of distros I'd like to see some serious work poured into maybe a handful of popular ones to make them more serious desktop contenders. There is a thin line between "choice" and "fragmentation".
I honestly don't think that the cost will have much of an effect on the success of this project. I mean, IT managers willingly pay $xxx to M$ for so much, anything remotely less than that is always a good deal. And then again, most people are apprehensive to the word free. Normally associating it with lower quality, hidden costs, etc. Honestly they could have charged $50 a licesnse, and it would probably increase its use. People like to pay for things they rely on, its just wierd.
je suis parce que j'aime
I am impressed.
not Bruce
Bruce Perens, now that you are around, what's your take on the Canonical project? On the surface, it would appear to be along the lines of what UserLinux is supposed to do... not forgetting that neither is "final" yet, of course ;-).
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
> he project, led by the long-time open source advocate Bruce
> Perens, aims to provide businesses with freely available, high
> quality Linux operating systems accompanied by
> certifications, service, and support options intended to
> encourage productivity and security while reducing overall
> costs."
Did I hear "buzzword compliant" ?
---eludom
You have a problem with a man making money?
Userlinux is an answer to a question no one was asking.
freely available, high quality Linux operating systems accompanied by certifications, service, and support options intended
Best of luck to you and show them that it is quite possible to make money off of supporting open source softwares.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
You got a problem with your wife renting out hoagie space in her ass?
A whore is a whore. Simply put, one who trades their morals for money is a whore.
...freely available, high quality Linux operating systems accompanied by certifications, service, and support options
Why a distro based on Debian? Why not just certify, service and support Debian itself?
I know there has to be a seperate distro for every ego in the OSS world, but from a technical point of view, why is a new distro needed?
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Yes.
censorship is a form of noise, which actively seeks to drown out content with silence - Crash Culligan
wow, if you are Bruce Perens and have a low slashdot id, you get modded up for "First Post" messages?
;-).
Come on, it's the real Bruce Perens
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
While that may be why its named that way, i agree with the first poster that it should be renamed..
Remember its not 'us' that need to understand, its the rest of the world.. And its all about effective marketing..
Poor naming ( regardless of accuracy ) is NOT good marketing.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
LOL!!! No, I don't have a problem with that! :) Hahahaha! It's a good thing I don't have morals to trade or you might be right about me! :) Still LOL!!!
But, I would like an answer to my question, but I'm going to rephrase it after your last post. Do you have a problem with a man making a living from doing consulting, especially with regards to Linux? If not, then I don't understand what the problem is. I guess what I'm really trying to say is: please verify what you really mean by your statements.
And thanks. I'm not being sarcastic. Your last post made me laugh and made my day a lot better!! Despite not liking your point, it's funny nonetheless! If I were a moderator I would give you a 1: Funny
Comment removed based on user account deletion
... a floppy based install instead of a mini cd? Reason is old machines with just floppies and smaller hard drives.
Like some of mine for instance.... like my old laptop still running 95.....and no way to attach a cd to it.... and stuff
From a FAQ on UserLinux
Q: What will be the advantages of UserLinux?
A: [Brock Frazier] Key UserLinux distribution advantages:
1. Streamlined: UserLinux is a streamlined distribution with one key application in mind for a given piece of functionality. One web browser, one word processor, one mail client, one web server. This reduces support overhead both for users and for maintaining security.
2. Standards compliant: UserLinux encourages cooperation with other open source organizations, and values compliance with open standards.
3. Designed for business: The UserLinux distribution is specially tailored towards the needs of business.
4. Professional Services: The third party network of UserLinux affiliated commercial Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) allow for choice in professional services and custom application design options. The separation between the UserLinux organization and the ISVs is a win-win proposition allowing both the support advantages of a service provider network and the neutrality advantages of an operating system not tied to a single company.
5. Flexible: While each UserLinux configuration is designed to support common functionality as shipped, the systems are also open for expansion beyond the standard UserLinux set.
6. Disclosure: As a not-for-profit organization working with software developed in the open, the UserLinux organization as well as the development process for the UserLinux distribution are in the open. Critical system updates are clearly and promptly announced so systems remain properly secured.
7. Lack of lock-in: There are no licensing fees for the UserLinux distribution or related development tools. Service is available from your choice of service providers, but is never mandatory.
8. Free to obtain: ISO images and the source code are freely available.
9. Inexpensive to maintain: The streamlined nature of the UserLinux distribution assures less software to update. There are no per seat charges or OS licenses to be tracked and audited.
10. Secure: Leveraging from the power of open source, the code used in the UserLinux distribution not only has thousands of hours of development but thousands of hours of peer review.
11. Certifications: Hardware, software, support and professional certifications will be available.
fifteen jugglers, five believers
I realize this project isn't at the "released" stage yet, but the web site and even the article linked here don't really provide much info on what makes UserLinux "special". Not only is there little to market specifically to suit types, but to me as a geek there's no info on the site that shouts "here's why we're different!" Specifically, information like: how does it intend to improve the Linux "desktop" initiative? This really needs to be fixed, IMHO, if people are to take a serious interest in UserLinux. To me, it's looking like "yet another distro" which is more upsetting then anything, because I'm getting tired of having more and more similar but slightly different choices that leave me wondering why so many distros are considered to be a good thing. Maybe if everyone decided to work together, rather than all start their own distros, the Linux platform would be in better shape than it is on the desktop.
So, why will UserLinux not be just another one of the pack?
It has been reported the Pruce Berens, from the KickMeInTheGooliesILikePainLinux fame, is attempting to bring slashdot down by furiously typing at his keyboard to reply to every single slashdot post creating a human DDOS attack. Luckily slashdot has survived this onslaught and he's on his way to achieving a world record for the most number of posts on slashdot for a single article, as long as his smoking keyboard withstands the punishment.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
But that's ok. Riding on the work of others is done by everyone. Do you know Ohm's Law? If you do, did you develop it yourself? How about Calculus or, computers. Did you invent the microproccesor? If you are using these tools to make a living, then you are also riding on the effort of others. This is why humans form societies. It makes life easier for each individual and for the whole collective.
As for helping people, by merely helping linux grow in popularity in businesses willing to spend money on Linux, he is helping the linux community grow. Let's face it, while Linux can do just fine on it's own, it can do even better wth money. If I didn't have to worry about money, I would contribute a lot of time to Linux. So, if I can make money while helping Linux, both I and Linux win. By helping Linux in this way, the demand for Linux and Linux apps grows. The more this demand grows, the better the product will get due to more development. He IS helping the community and like everyone else, he is riding on the effort and work of others but still contributing to that effort and work.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Obviously that's a huge jump and the right distro is important. I've been strongly considering Gentoo mosty for keeping the systems up to date and secure (leave everyone in the stable tree, and cron a nightly GLSA to patch all known security holes, and emerge -uD world)
As "administration free" as it seems right now in thought, I am a bit concerned of the nightmare it could become if things get unorderly.
With Red Hat abandoning the business desktop a dedicated business desktop with the open source community behind it is exactly what I am looking for. I admire Sun's Java desktop and Xandros' Business desktop, but I guess I'm just too spoiled by the Debian and Gentoo forums. Both are very active with loads of people helping out. For me I'd much rather get my help that way as apposed to waiting on hold to talk to the next know nothing tech support person.
Introducing Microsoft Vacuum 1.0 The first Microsoft product that doesn't suck.
I love Debian on servers, that's the one place where packages not changing often is a good thing.
One big frustration I have with debian-stable is that the kernel gets so far out of date, that it doesn't support newer hardware properly. Will UserLinux try to keep more up-to-date with kernel versions. I don't need bleeding edge, but 2.4.18 is two and half years old!
Don't tell me to use debian-testing, I've tried it and it replaces too many packages too often for a production machine.
They also work closely with Debian, especially since Ian is runing the place..
Not faulting UL, just another 'closely knit' option..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Simply because they are the only linux distros with HBA drivers
A lot of corporations don't even *use* SANs. Not every corporation needs em. Just because other distros lack a certain feature X doesn't mean that they're useless for corporations. That's just narrow minded thinking.
BTW, at my corporation, we use Gentoo because we know what we're doing and don't need or want the hand holding that RH and Suse provide. It's amazing! We're a corporation and we're successfully using a distro other than red hat and suse!
Mad Software: Rantings on Developing So
I think Gentoo has a PPC ISO. I'm not 100% on that, though. I figured I'd install Linux on my Mac just to try it out, but then I found Fink. It was really all I needed.
Gotta get me one of these!
Bruce, one major thing you haven't talked about on your wiki is how you are going to give back to us developers who work on Debian, which is the core distro. So far, no of the distro vendors have been willing to support us monetarily (unless they hire us into their corporations). What is the plan on redistributing some of that consulting/support income back to us?
Is there an alternative kernel? 2.6.8 has problems as noted at http://k3b.plainblack.com/index.pl/news2.
This affects the dvd+rw-tools and not just K3B.
-Charles
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Redhat and SuSE's upgrade cycle seems much more disruptive than Debian's. Our main frustration with them is that each of them seem to want to do a complete re-install when doing a major upgrade.
And the first person who gets a serious distro using that name will do VERY well. It's a name that makes sense and we know that everything is in the name... or at least the people who make decisions think so.
Here's my wish/hope list for a business [client] oriented distribution:
Network Login Service Support for:
* Novell NDS, Microsoft Domains and of course your NIS and all that.
* A nice email + swiss army software thingy (like Evolution with support on the server)
* MS Office compatible office suite and/or an ass-kickin' wine configuration that REALLY works especially for brain-dead admins who expect to double-click on SETUP.EXE.
Of course there will be other apps that will need to complete anything beyond the basics listed above, but once those basics are done, it's 90% there.
And when I mean MS Office compatible, I mean REALLY stinking compatible for importing and exporting MS Word docs and stuff. So far, nothing's been perfect yet though it keeps getting better.
+1 Funny moderations do not count towards karma.
RTFFAQ
The unofficial
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Bruce,
Forgive me if this is answered somewhere on the UL website, but do you include or plan to include support out of the box for MP3's and any other technology that Red Hat may refuse to include?
Additionally, if the amount and breadth of your own patches and packages makes it such that UL and Debian are relatives only in spirit, will you go your own way or continue to try to keep ties with it?
TIA
As another data point, the place I'm currently contracting with has Debian on some of their servers. And they're a multinational.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
When will we support PowerPC? Hopefully soon. If someone wants to pay, even faster.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Yes i meant progeny, not prodigy.. sorry about that.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Could you explain this to me, because I'm missing the point you're trying to make. The HIG is designed to provide a consistent interface, specifically so the user doesn't have to guess about what they need to do next. All config tools are cleanly filed under System Tools or Desktop Preferences in Gnome, all clearly labeled as to what they do. If a tool is properly following the HIG, it should be consistent in layout with any other config tool. I guess what I'm trying to say is I fail to see where this is "Gnome's fault."
but with the myriad of choices, what DE comes by default?
Has anyone made a UserLinux LiveCD yet or is that my next challenge (armed with Fabian's new remastering tool and perhaps I'll even try rolling in some automation of the lazy umount method of removing the cd, I don't need much of an excuse but I suspect I might have to do some fixing up so if anyone has already started ... :-)
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
UserLinux _is_ a subset of Debian. The team has chosen a streamlined set of applications to include in each of the various packages (soho desktop, enterprise desktop, and server). You are free however, to install any of the Debian packages, not included in the UL release using standard Debian tools.
You and your team have put together a distribution that finally takes Linux in the right direction--now I no longer have to paste the same "This Is What's Wrong With Linux" comment for every "What should Linux do?" article. You're doing it.
I'm enthralled on your decision to only include one (the best) of each application-type and provide a 'unified front' for those new to Linux and the spirit of OpenSource.
Looking forward to seeing what it's all about..
Best regards,
Jason Fisher
As UserLinux matures more of that will be fleshed in. Non-graphical configuration customization has already been done on the installion aspect of UL. If you have specific ideas, participation is always welcome.
Not true at all. UserLinux takes Debian and molds it into an easier to manage subset for buisness. Unlike RedHat and SuSE, support comes from a network who compete with eachother giving the user/company better prices and more choices. Since UserLinux had Debian roots, it is 100% compatable and offers all the packages Debian provides if the administrator so chooses to install them.
Mozilla Firefox is the future. They might as well base things around that now. I think even the Gnome team will abandon Epiphany development eventually. It is rather redundant, IMO.
Well, actually that was "my" booth, I am still executive director of the Desktop Linux Consortium. Everybody had the same sort of cube. Yes, the sign was cheap. And how much audience did you expect for a system that hadn't released its first beta? That was sort of a "show the flag" exercise.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
You know, it's been said 1000 times over, the Linux community needs to have 1 distro, Linux. This is getting ridiculous. You know why so many people haven't switched from Windows to Linux? Because you people make it so difficult to do so.
Instead of creating a new distro everytime there a developer wants to add a new feature or something, why not add it to the core Linux OS. Seems like every month Slashdot has a story about some new distro that just hit the streets and about how great it is.
For once guys, get your act together and start banning together. Community my ass!
http://rip747.blogspot.com
Dont forget the *bsd series is just as huge, if the number of ports is truly that much of an advantage ..
Though its somewhat debateable how many text editors one really needs...( for example ). I feel quality of the ports is more important then the sheer numbers..
BSD is also much older and mature.. and if you pick NetBSD, it beats 11 platforms in its sleep..
Not bashing debian at all, just reminding people its not the only fish out there.. with out leaving that GPL aftertaste..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
They indeed have a PPC iso (works even for G5s) and they even ported portage to OS X. Really cool as soon as more packages will be unmasked.
During the beta cycle, updates can happen much faster if the static packages stay in a repository. As a 4 + meg download, you can try beta steppings much faster, too. I agree, of course, that for the casual looker, a 400 meg download can be a bit off-putting. However, a local repository only has to be filled en masse once.
You rationalize the choice and then immediatly dismiss it without rationalization. The switch of te button order was made because of the results of a usibility study. The study was pretty simple. When a user pops open a dialog box, their eyes gravitate to 4 places: the corners of the dialog. Naturlaly then, you want the prefered operation to be immediatly reachable at the exact same offset of every dialog. Yes is the bottom right of every window where Yes is the prefered choice. Then, when the user decides to move away from teh prefered choice, he simple moves his eyes left to the next prefered choice. This *IS* much easier on users: the usiblity study proves this. That's what they're for. It is however different from most traditional Unix programs and Windows. In the former case, there was never any standard. People just put the buttons there because it's how they'd always done it, because they never think about it. In the Windows choice, MS says to put them that way. MS did not have a usibility study for this, they simply chose it because it's what they always did. What it does however, is put the default prefered choice, usually OK, at an undetermined location. If the window is 400 pixels wide, it might be here, if it's 300 pixels wide, it might be there. There is no natural tracking. Gnome took a gamble by following the "better" way of things. They certainly recognized that it would be inconsistant with Windows, and with KDE too, and most other Unix programs. But they took that chance. They said "we can do it better", and IMO, they did. If you only use Gnome applications, which is of course the goal of the Gnome project, this works out. ;)
but to remain on-topic, im looking forward to trying a distro that has less stuff installed by defualt. if i want another browser, ill apt-get --install one. thats one thing i dont like about most distros, albeit a small caveat.
use your turn signal! you people act like it's divulging information to the enemy
I realize it's just an early Beta, but can we please always impose security first and insist on md5sum's? TIA from a big fan.
Debian "gurus" are known for rejecting anything out there that is not debian. I had my debian box hosed at one point so i inserted a knoppix CD headed towards the debian channel and boy did i got flamed ... Imagine having to explain why i was running knoppix in the first place !
Subject says it all
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
I keep seeing Bruce talk about how easy its going to be for outsiders to influence UserLinux which he says doesn't happen with Fedora. He may have a point that Fedora's direction is very much controlled by Red Hat but watch what happens in a few years once UserLinux becomes established. Mature projects are very difficult to bend to your whim or take in a new direction. Thus the many debian forks.
I also don't see how going negative on other distros is going to help your cause when commenting in public. Prove why your better with code, not somewhat negative marketing against Red Hat. You seem to be a bit Red Hat obessed and constantly mention them in the UnitedLinux white paper. I'd rather see why its better than Windows, Solaris, or OS X, not fellow OSS distros. Yes I know your trying to appeal to linux users first but great features sell themselves better than a negative comment anyday. And realize that future UserLinux users will pick up on your tone and intent. A year from now I don't think we all want to a bunch of UserLinux users Trolling against Red Hat and other distros constantly here and elsewhere.
I wish UserLinux the best of luck though and very much look forward to trying it out. It sounds like a great idea and is definitely needed. One more distro in the mix especially a Free one that caters to the business crowd specifically is fine by me.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
That's why we use SuSE... we can plan for a downtime upgrade for a given server around 2 to 3 years after initial setup to bring it up to "latest SusSE" and be confident that it'll be supported for another couple of years. (at which point we'll probably be thinking hardware replacement anyway!)
I think he's all the right choices technically (if he ended up with postgresql instead of mysql - can't remember where that one came out) -- but agree the name won't appeal to businesses.
The beauty of this fork is that it'll be extremely easy to maintian.
* Since the fork would use all the same code all the companies that support UserLinux would support ForkedUserLinux.
* We can have a fast-track certification process where anyone certified with UserLinux is automatically certified for WhateverLinux.
* It's a simple matter of s/userlinux/yourfavoriatename/ and you're on your way to become famous!
There's nothing particularly wrong with a reinstall for major upgrades as lots of things can get broken in the process. RH et. al. don't want to carry on supporting legacy versions of packages with their major releases. With Anaconda and network kickstarts the pain of doing complete reinstalls is pretty much eliminated - assuming you manage your configurations well.
With the RHEL product, there will be security updates for 5 years, which do not require reinstalling the entire system. There are "free" clones of RHEL, check out WhiteBox Linux or CentOS or Tao Linux. I'm using WhiteBox in a production environment.
The thing I don't like about our release cycle is that in an ideal world, there would be a way to support both desktopish users, who need something that is secure, and won't have any major breakage, as well as server users, who may be happier with a release rarely cycle. Testing is close to what the first group needs.
You can't just nab random packages from testing or unstable though, you risk making a mess of the system.
It's a difficult problem, and I wish I had some better ideas about the answers... I don't think the other guys have quite figured it out yet either. Redhat isn't bad, but like Bruce says, we need something that's free and open.
http://www.welton.it/davidw/
I think you might be the one who's out of touch
Question: How can I get a stable, easy to use, and supported Desktop OS that doesn't require me to invest a huge amount of money into new hardware or software licenses?
Answer: UserLinux.
Bruce,
1) Do you think it would be fair to describe UserLinux as a sub-distribution of Debian, rather than a distribution in its own right? If it is a sub-distribution can you explains some of the advantages and disadvantages.
2) As a 4yr Debian user would I be able to start using UserLinux right away? Are the tools the same.
3) I presume the system almost completely complies with debain-policy. Is this true and if not, where does it differ?
4) How large is the UserLinux archive at this stage? How many packages do you have? How many of them are pure-configuration type packages? How many are applications that aren't in the offical debian archive? (such as video players etc)
Thanks is advance for any answers and sorry amount the number and scope of questions. A few links would be great if its easier than giving full answers
Elivs
(PS - I'm about to try a netinstall to check out the system myself.)
As I'm both a big fan of the Debian project and a Gnome user, I was really looking forward to trying UserLinux. After the announced their beta I decided to finally give it a test run. I have to say that their installer is embarrassingly broken. I've run Debian Woody, Debian Sid, SuSE 9.1, and Fedora Core 1-2 on my desktop and have never run into any problems with it. But the UserLinux installer refused to install to my existing partitions (simple ext3) and only "installed when I gave it the entire disk. Even then, I say "installed" because there were massive broken dependencies and error upon error.
I would have reported this to them, but you have to subscribe to a mailing list first just to file bug reports. Uh, okay maybe not. I'm still hoping that they put out a usable distro -- maybe when Debian Sarge stabilizes they will be able to put out a more stable installer. Until then it's just not good enough to bother.
501 Not Implemented
When Oracle first got interested in Linux they were definitely cross vendor oriented in their discussions. RedHat agreed to build ENT3 to Oracle's specs for 10g so now they are in bed together. OTOH I wouldn't be shocked to see groups like SAP wanting to pick a non redhat solution just because of RedHat's close relation with Oracle.
"where's the free-beer enterprise-grade Linux we've been expecting?"
*cough* Gentoo?
Nope...he got modded up because he's Bruce Perens.
I agree that it was a gamble. I simply believe they lost, that's all. The usability study open which this was based was quite flawed on a number of grounds, only one of which is that the "spatial logic" of where to place buttons only makes sense if the only reason the user is clicking the button is to make the dialog go away. In other words, annoying informational messages (usually single-button anyway) and annoying wizards. It pretty much went into the dialog discussion trying to answer the question "what's the fastest way to make this dialog go away?" instead of "what's the best way to communicate information to the user and get a response that reflects the intent of the user?"
There's a lot in the HIG to like. They say "label those buttons with meaningful labels, not just OK and Cancel" which is great to see (and arguably more necessary because if the buttons are all switched around, you need to label them more clearly). But the simple fact is that natural language order pre-dated Windows. It goes back to the very first graphical and linedrawing-based apps. It was settled, and no users complained that there was a problem (unlike when Windows moved the "close" button to the upper-right corner and users suddenly started accidentally closing apps they meant to resize). User complaints about button order just plain didn't exist. Apple commissioned a usability study, and while there are good things about usability studies, every now and then you find usability specialists changing things that are already fine in order to justify their commission. Case in point: Exactly how much easier are microwave ovens getting after all of the "usability" improvements?
When someone says "I just want to cook this for 30 seconds, does that mean I should hit "Reheat" or "Popcorn"?!?" I think to myself, "This is usability gone horribly wrong." The makers of this microwave would certainly say "But we did a study! People respond quicker to task-oriented buttons!"
The fact that there was a study, I guess my point is, is meaningless if the study is crap to begin with. I and many other Linux users would have no problem using Gnome if it weren't for the button-order problem. But as it stands, the Gnome HIG created two camps of Linux users that can never be reconciled--where previously there had only been one group in complete agreement. And for Linux users to agree about ANYTHING is amazing--but they did in fact all agree about button order once upon a time.
It's fine to disagree. Disagreement is good. But somehow this strikes me as more of a manufactured difference of opinion than one that would have naturally occurred if the Apple study had never occurred.
Actually I installed UL before I knew what I've done. I was looking for network installation images of debian for one of the freshly arrived machines. The default debian installer didn't work for some reason - I don't remember if it was SATA harddrive or smth like that... I did more search - found this UL network installation files, put them up in dhcp and installed the beast... What I liked: besides standard basic questions which it had to ask (like keyboard, partitioning) it asked me just 1 question to choose from: workstation or workstation and server... I remember that I chose workstation... Since then it installed everything and didn't ask a question (or I was sleeping and I missed it), as opposed to debian installation where you need to configure many packages by answering some basic questions... What I didn't like - I didn't catch why workstation installation installed apache for me... So in two words: I installed debian wo knowledge that it wasn't debian and was surprised that it went too smoothly... Then splashscreen announced that it is userlinux... anyway I decided to upgrade to unstable so I moded sources.list and here we go - I had the desktop ready to be used in less then an hour without paying much attention on what it is doing there :-)
If he is successful in launching UserLinux, and it looks like he will be, I will definately be switching from Fedora to it in the future. When Redhat told us that we couldn't use their 'stable' distro anymore, I switched our few servers over to Debian. I've been waiting for the day when my clients can once again run the same OS as our servers, but that day just won't come with Debian's conservative release cycle. It's just much nicer to have to support one distro.
I suppose I could have switched to Suse or Mandrake or some other one, but how do I know things won't change for them? If the money is calling, they WILL change, but the same cannot be said of Debian, and that's why I like it - I don't want to be distro-hopping every 4 years when some company gets sold.
Why do I keep typing pythong?
And, no karma for funny posts, so I hear...
cheers
zenaan
* The Humble Legend * Debian Enterprise: http://debian-enterprise.org/ * Homepage: http://soulsound.net/ * PGP Key: h