The Debian System Explained

An anonymous reader writes "XYZComputing has a great interview with Martin F. Krafft, the author of "The Debian System". From the article: 'Despite Debian GNU/Linux's important role in today's computing environment, it is largely misunderstood and oftentimes even discounted as being an operating system which is exclusively for professionals and elite users. In this book Krafft, explains his concept of Debian, which includes not only the operating system but also its underpinnings. Debian is not only a robust and scalable Linux distribution, but it has many other features which are worth looking into, like its open development cycle and rigorous quality control.'"

Comments

As interesting as the technology

[Anonymous Coward]

The organization is as interesting as the technology. Lots of people are willing to put in lots of volunteer time.

I wonder how long it will be before the business schools start to take notice of successful open source projects and learn a bit about management.

Re:Debian has always been the best

[sameeer]

The ease of using Debian based systems in terms of installing software, and easy updates might be just the thing which'll boost linux to the desktops of the majority of computer users who do not want to learn or be exposed to the intricacies of the operating system before using it.. we shall have to just wait and see..

Re:Other Distros

[benjamindees]

is Debian more of an enterprise-admin friendly-scalable distro than, say, RedHat Enterprise?

It depends on your definition of "enterprise". And it really depends on the admin. For your typical, point-and-click, illiterate computer monkey "enterprise" admin who only knows enough to install updates, reinstall the entire OS, and call for outside help, RedHat is perfect. In fact, it appears that this is RedHat's primary market.

For admins who know what they're doing and can invest time in making their jobs easier and more productive, however, Debian is an absolute dream.

Re:Huh?

[no reason to be here]

If Debian is so scalable, why does it take them so much longer than any other OS vendor to simply do a release?

1. scalability has nothing to do with release time.
2. the biggest OS vendors new OS longhorn is due out when, exactly? and how far past due?

just sayin'...

Re:Great book, too bad about the software

[Chalex]

That said, I spent most of 2005 running Debian Unstable and Debian Testing on different systems and ended up finding both overrated and generally a disappointmennt. Debian was too demanding of time and needed seemingly endless fiddling around and careful management

This is the perfect example of not understanding "The Debian System". YOU aren't supposed to use unstable. You're not even supposed to use testing. If you don't want to have to fiddle with the system, use "stable". That's what it's for. This is clearly explained in a number of places in the documentation.

If you really want to use the latest software, why not use Ubuntu? They do all the fiddling for you.

Modifying packages to conform to FHS = bad

[grosskur]

I was a Debian user for four years; I recently switched away because I got fed up with all the downstream futzing they do to their packages. I understand Debian's need to ensure high-quality packages, but making gratutious changes to package interfaces (e.g., moving and renaming files) just to conform to a hardline FHS policy is extremely detrimental in the long term.

Cross-platform compatibility is essential. If the upstream Apache maintainers say Apache can be stopped with apachectl stop, Debian should damn well support this interface. I don't care if they provide /etc/init.d/httpd stop in addition, but they should support the standard interface. This makes life infinitely simpler for people who deal with many different systems---they don't have to keep relearning things. It also makes things simpler for people offering support to Apache users.

The tremendous benefits of cross-platform compatibility come from a package's interface being exactly the same on every system. It is a relatively minor benefit for different packages to have similar interfaces. Breaking cross-platform compatibility, as Debian does, for the sake of cross-package similarity is a horrible idea.

I should point out that I'm picking on Debian here because they are especially bad about this, but almost every major Linux distribution is guilty of unncessarily violating cross-platform compatibility in some way.

Harsh

[dbcad7]

hmmm.. A story praising Debian, you post your agreement and praise, and you are modded troll ? Is there some bad history here or is this an attempt to stop discussion of what distro each person likes ? If it is trolling to state your Distro preference, then why post stories about a distro in the first place. sheesh