Novell to acquire Suse

[Dan Coutu]

Paul Lussier wrote:

>In a message dated: Tue, 04 Nov 2003 09:51:32 EST
>Dan Coutu said:
>
>  
>
>>It seems like the only distribution not in turmoil lately is Debian
>>and they are just really really slow. (I know, they like to
>>say they're 'stable'.)
>>    
>>
>
>I've never been bothered by Debian's release cycle.  I run
>Debian/Testing on my desktop with Debian/Stable on my servers.  If I
>need a newer version of package on my stable servers, it's usually
>available from backports.org.
>
>I've run 'unstable' on my home machine for a few years now with no problems.
>
>I recommend you try Debian, it's like Green Eggs and Ham.  You might
>just find you'll like it, Sam-I-am! :)
>  
>
Just to be clear, I've been managing a set of  about 7 Debian production 
servers since May and
while I do see how solid it is I seem to be often frustrated trying to 
figure out how to properly
update modules on the system in a precise manner that won't impact the 
production code that is
running while allowing addition of new features that depend on newer 
modules.

The biggest burr in my butt so far has been trying to get the systems so 
that I can use X
applications (like xemacs) on the servers that display back to my 
desktop via an SSH
tunnel. The servers do not have X installed on them because they're not 
workstations. But
it sure would be nice to be able to start X applications there and 
display them on my
X server.

Perhaps I'm just encountering a severe shortage of information, 
knowledge, or both. Given that
I've been working with UNIX systems for over 15 years the knowledge 
shortfall would have
to be something specific to Debian though.