RH or Debian:why?

[Janina Sajka]

I usually try to avoid these discussions, but you've hooked me this time
Patrick.

Why? Because of the very thing you cite. You say it's a problem that RH
works best if you install everything. You say it's a problem because
that's not possible on old systems. 

So, what kind of discussion do you want to have? Do you want to know
people's opinions among the various distros? Or how to get things
running on old computers. To my mind, those are two very separate
things.

But, as I said, I'm going to bite on this one, because I do happen to
have some experience of both Debian and Red Hat. I have, and daily use,
both. Here's my short list:

1.)	Both are great, robust distros.

2.)	They don't do things quite the same way.

3.)	You don't have to install everything during an RH installation
if you don't want to, it's just easier to go for everything if you can.
I've done it both ways many times.

4.)	It's harder to install "everything" on Debian, because that goes
against the philosophy. Is this a bad thing? Maybe, maybe not. It's a
bad thing when you try to do something and find the tool isn't there.
Then you have to take the time to get the tool. That can take awhile.

5.)	Debian will make you feel like a real radical,
counter-corporate, hero of the people. The Debian people aren't into
corporate speak, or Enterprise Editions, etc.

6.)	Red Hat is in there slogging it out for the corporate and public
sector IT dollar. Hurray for them, I say, because they're making Linux
happen where people go to work.

7.)	If you want to be on the edge of the newest and latest
applications for Linux, you'll have an easier time with Red Hat, because
they've probably already put them in.

8.)	If you want to be an old foggie conservative with your system
and only run the tried and true, Debian makes that easy. Yes, you can
scale up to "testing" and "unstable," but what is that? Heck, you have
to work to know what that is, and do it with your system. Not that
there's anything wrong with being an old foggie conserfvative. In the
corporate network room, that's exactly what they want. Reliability is
the name of the game there.

9.)	I have found service and chkconfig to be really slick--far
easier than dpkg-reconfigure and all that init.d and rc.whatever stuff.
Way to go RH.

10.)	Apt is cool, but both have it, so what does that mean? It
doesn't save you from downloading source and compiling something that
doesn't happen to be listed by apt.

So, here's my bottom line. They're both great. Simply suit your
personality in your distro. If you like the flamboyant kind of thing, go
RH. If you want to be solid and minimalist, go Debian.

Hope this helps.



Patrick Turnage writes:
> From: Patrick Turnage <patrickt at tampabay.rr.com>
> 
> Hello.
> I have a few questions about using RH over Debian or vice versa. RedHat and
> Debian have both good package system management tools, but what makes RH or
> Debian your distro of choice? I like Debian because of the package
> management, but I read somewhere the best way to install RH for blind
> people is to install the entire rh system. That is a lot if you are using
> an older computer.
> sincerely,
> Patrick
> 
> 
> -----
> Patrick Turnage
> E-mail: pturnage at tampabay.rr.com
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-- 
	
				Janina Sajka, Director
				Technology Research and Development
				Governmental Relations Group
				American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)

Email: janina at afb.net		Phone: (202) 408-8175