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Debian Retail on CNN
Chuck Milam writes "CNN is reporting that Debian will soon be available via retail outlets. According to the article: 'The companies say they will donate all profits from the sale of the retail GNU/Linux package to
Software in the Public Interest, a nonprofit
organization for open source projects.' " I've seen the boxes. They're super sweet. Saw them shipping with a Myth 2 CD.
I hear this again and again about Debian's lack of ease of installation and configuration, but I just don't see it. I don't mean as compared to Red Hat or Suse, etc. (they might very well be much easier), I mean just in absolute terms. Now admittedly, I like getting into the innards of things more than the average Joe (and this may be the entire explanation), but I've never found installing Debian hard. I've installed more Win95 machines than I can count, and I'll take a Debian installation over that any day of the week. I've also had someone that had terrible problems installing Red Hat (one of the 5.* versions) find happiness after I recommended he try Debian. This may have been because I was able to give more focused help after the switch, though.
Keeping in mind that my viewpoint is most probably warped (I like tinkering with things, and I know more about PC hardware than anyone I know) I would find it helpful if you could point out some problems with it. Not as compared to other distros, but along the lines of things that someone with no previous Linux experience (but with experience installing other OS's) would look at and go "huh?". If the person who posted the first reply to your comment could offer some points as well, that would be great.
Again, I have no illusions that what you say isn't true. But as I am obviously reasonably ignorant of or unaffected by the problems, and I fairly regularly get asked to recommend a distro by people trying Linux for the first time, I'm quite interested in hearing an elaboration of your viewpoint. Thanks.
But can anyone but me see this as a potential problem? Right now, newbies who walk into Best Buy (for instance) can choose any Linux they want and it runs easily...Debian is, even though I love it dearly, much MUCH harder to get running to the level that a newbie expects.
Without proper packaging and some warning, it could actually damage Linux's inroads into the mainstream if all of a sudden people are getting home and trying to install Debian...
Don't think I'm trying ti diss Debian. I use it on about 3 machines right now. But just because I use it, doesn't mean everyone should...and retail purchases are going to consist largely of people just getting their feet wet with Linux. Seems risky to me.
Werd.
Not really. Note that the "GNU" in "Debian GNU/Linux" is part of "GNU/Linux", i.e. the operating environment based around the Linux kernel. Debian is not a part of the FSF, although we maintain strong ties to the FSF (see e.g. Debian GNU/Hurd).
The Debian project has always encouraged others to use Debian GNU/Linux as a basis for building distributions as Corel has been doing, and SGI, O'Reilly and VA are doing now.
Debian proper ("main") is and will continue to be 100% pure software, but the Debian Social Contract is pragmatic enough to acknowledge that our users may want to use non-free software.