Debian flamewar (was: OpenOffice doc...)

Derek Martin invalid at pizzashack.org
Thu Feb 17 00:00:01 EST 2005


On Wed, Feb 16, 2005 at 09:15:29PM -0500, Neil Joseph Schelly wrote:
> > And so what if it's ludicrously rock-solid, if it doesn't
> > recognize my hardware?  Not so useful, regardless of how stable it
> > may be...
>
> Debian uses the same kernels as everyone else. 

In point of fact, no it doesn't.  For example, Red Hat kernels contain
many performance enhancements, bug fixes, and functionality
enhancements that other distros don't have.  I don't know what
Debian's kernel devel process is, but they either use Linus kernels,
or more likely they apply their own set of enhancements.  Either way,
they're not using the same kernels as Red Hat.

> And business desktops by the way, since you brought it up, rarely have need 
> for things past stable.  

You keep talking about need...  It isn't always about need.  If I'm
running Sarge, and the guy next to me has FC3, but his system can do
neat things that mine can't, I'm gonna want what he has...

> If Debian Testing is unsuitable as business desktop OS, then I'd say
> nothing in the Linux world is particularly ready yet. just close.

Well, I'd say I don't agree; see above.  I never said it was
impossible to use Sarge as a desktop distro; there are simply better
choices.

> > You're missing the point, which is something like, "If it ain't
> > stable, it ain't usable."  This doesn't mean that YOU can't use it, it
> > means that the management of an organization can't risk using it,
> > because if there's a problem, it could mean a serious loss of
> > work/time/money/etc.
> >
> > In practice, so-called "stable" releases of certain software may be no
> > better, but you're never going to convince a non-technical manager
> > type that it's a good idea to use something which is not considered
> > production- quality by the people who are developing it...
>
> And you're missing the point.  Don't ask your manager to approve the
> use of testing/unstable because it's just a name.  Call it Debian
> Sarge and call it a solid release that is under modern development
> and always up to date, within a reasonable few weeks timeframe to
> work out any bugs in new development.  

I'm sorry, but your point is just wrong.  I can't do that, because it
would be lying.  It ISN'T stable.  THERE IS NO NEW DEVELOPMENT IN A
STABLE RELEASE.  When everyone's systems break because we apt-get
upgrade to broken changes in testing, I'd get fired.  You can't try to
tell me that it wouldn't happen; I've SEEN it happen.

> These are tired arguments... Testing is quite stable and reliable and 
> up-to-date.

It isn't stable ENOUGH.  I refer you to my last post re: configuration
management and my comments above.

> Take that assumption and you realize that everything you said 
> above is meaningless. 

That assumption is patently false.

> If you haven't tried running Sarge though, then you're really not
> qualified for further telling me I don't know what I'm talking
> about.  

I have tried it, and it was in fact Sarge which caused the problem I
was refering to above , when it was testing.  I installed it last year
when I was in Korea, also.  I found it lacking features that I was
accustomed to, so I got rid of it.  

Incidently, around the time I had my troubles with testing, one of my
coworkers actually tried selling the idea of using Sarge/testing on
all our systems...   If we had done that at that time, the whole
environment would have become useless that day, and I'd have been out
of a job.  Fortunately, a different coworker pointed out that at that
specific point in time, Debian unstable was actually more stable (i.e.
reliable) than testing was.  We decided to stay with Red Hat.  ;-)

-- 
Derek D. Martin    http://www.pizzashack.org/   GPG Key ID: 0xDFBEAD02
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