VA, O'Reilly, and SGI Sponsor Debian in a Box

Anonymous Coward writes "According to this News.com article. VA Linux Systems, O'Reilly and Associates, and SGI. Will be co-sponsoring a retail box version of Debian GNU/Linux. In addition VA will be helping to setup toll free technical support for Debian."

Comments

Demographics

[Anonymous Coward]

This is good news for Debian and I hope it will go some way towards combating what I perceive as Debian's undeserved reputation.

Anyone's whose used it (including myself) can wax lyrical on it's various fantastic attributes including easy-administration and stability but often it seems to go unheard.

The following reasons seems to be the ones I run across the most:

1) Debian isn't RedHAt

I'm afraid for some people there is no hope. Having released themselves from one monopoly they, with busy hands, form a new prison. I guess the Press helps this big time and with many new users coming onboard we see this trend increase.

Debian isn't useful for everyone, if you're totally happy with your current system there's no reason to change it. But to have a closed mind while using a system based on openess seems awful!


2) Debian is out-of-date

Debian is done by volunteers and stresses stabilty so it does tend to move forward less quickly than other distributions in terms of released versions. This makes it very suitable for servers.

For client machines there are ways to stay up to date either using the unstable branch (like tracking any normal development project) or getting updates from those that release the software.

I do have some sympathy with the argument that it can be harder to stay up to date with Debian than RedHat because often people only package with RPM. Luckily Freshmeat helps and if you hang round on the debian mailing list you find out placed for getting stable updates for example www.debian.org/~branden keeps updates for XFree86.

If you do program some software I hope you'll consider releasing it as a .deb. Gnome used to be bad but now someone at debian helps them so there is hope for all!


3) Debian is difficult

It's certainly true that Debian requires some effort in both installing it initially and getting used to the package system. The payoff is in a stable system and one which is easy to upgrade. The package system is complex because the integration of a system isn't straightforward - that said apt and the GTK frontend are going a long way towards streamlining as much as possible. It really does take system to the next level allowing you to upgrade distributions without reformatting or using a CD - there seems to be work on recompiling like with FreeBSD which would be fantastic.


4) Debian is political

Often cited as 'Those Free Software Nuts'. This one I think I have to agree with, because Linux is political in the sense of making individual decisions for freedom of exchange and community. In fact RedHat should also be commended on making a totally 'Free' distribution - proof that commitment to this principle can transcend the commercial barrier. In a way Debian is the easiest way for me to support the concepts of Free Software without making much effort as the Debian developers do it all for me - yeah I'm an armchair Free Software supporter! Aside from that I like being part, just by using, of a community program somewhat like the sharing impetus of the original Internet development.


Perhaps the demographics of Linux users are changing but I think Debian has a lot to offer.

bit
ps If you're one of those hard-toiling debian users can I say a big thanks every day of happy pr0n surfing is thanks to you ;-P

Debian, the good stuff

[doomy]

Debian is truly something else,

The place I work at, is now running 90% debian, and would soon be running 100% debian. The neat bit about debian is how it's packaging system holds and it's ultra cool package management tool (aka apt). Which was the very reason why we upgraded to potato on all our servers. Debian does a good job of packaging almost anything that you can think about. And not only that, we can create a system that is fully GPLed with debian, without the hassles and.. "code-less-bugs" associated with commerical software.

One other thing I like about debian is it's platform support. Yes, debian runs on the most platforms (Linux version). Not to mention, debian is the first OS that has support for the GNU Hurd (very cool and very 21st century stuff :))

And guess what, debian has the best maintainers and you can meet and talk with them through their conferencing rooms (over on OPN) and mailing lists. They are extreemly helpful. Bugs are resolved almost instally, if you find a bug, the very next day it would be fixed (if possible) and everyoen doing an update would have it.

Speaking about updates, debian uses a very advanced package updating/upgrade/management system. Dependences are always checked (infact, you can install a whole debian system by just typing out one line with apt-get).

Debian is also good as a thin client. We have wroking debina client boxes running on 15 mb of hd space, where else the alterantive (rh took around 30 mb - on minimal install).

If you like, download debian cd now! The download process is done through rsync (Not a full big WAD of 640 mb like other distros), debian uses a very advanced tool to check and recheck every bit of your download, infact you can stop and restart download anytime you like, and create the cd spanning several days (not just in one go). This is one feature that would even give ppl with modems the chance to download debian ISO cd over the net. Get it .. boot it.. love it! Swirl it!

Oh! Free virtual-beer in #debian over on OPN
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