Debian flamewar (was: Can I bother you with another Linux question?)

[Ken D'Ambrosio]

Wow.  Deep breath, all.  As usual (editors, MTA's,
scripting-language-of-choice, etc.), there's more than one way to skin a
penguin.  [Apologies for grizzly imagery.]  They both have their
strengths, and, yes, they both have their weaknesses.  [As an aside, I
find that Ubuntu has addressed a great many of the weaknesses of Debian
-- including the "glacial pace" so lovingly referred to, below.]  I used
RH for some five years (from the 3.0.3 release in '96, up to 7.3), and
found that it had -- and almost certainly continues to have -- the best
blend of ease-of-install and default applications/settings.

Debian -- stock Debian -- sucks to install.  I mean, it's not anything
like a '93 version of Slackware or anything, but if you don't know
Linux, Debian's going to be a bear.  And even the all-powerful Debian
*still* gets its own share of install DB problems from time to time --
memorably, I recently had two Debian boxen refuse to upgrade stuff
because it needed to upgrade a package that it said it couldn't upgrade:
e2fstools, IIRC.  Since I was running ReiserFS, I didn't even know why
said tools were installed, and finally hand-edited the config database
to pretend it wasn't installed.  I fail to see this as a reason to "love
Debian", and, yet, I do.

ALL THAT BEING SAID, however, superficial sniping is just plain silly. 
It's as silly now as it was when the first flame was sent -- whenever
the hell that was.  Go forth, use your distro of choice, and feel free
to proselytize, even.  But lay the hell off of the "my DIMM is bigger
than your DIMM" rhetoric.  It's Just Dumb(tm).

$.25 (two bits' worth of advice -- I figure the above blather is well
more than two cents' worth)

-Ken

Travis Roy wrote:

> for a good side by side comparison of real features of packages and
> not package managers see:
>
> http://www.kitenet.net/~joey/pkg-comp/
>
> For actual package management see:
>
> http://lwn.net/Articles/49967/
>
> FLAME ON
>
> Ben Scott wrote:
>
>>   IMPORTANT NOTE #1: Regular readers of this list will recognize the
>> subject line, which I drag out whenever a Debian luser makes a
>> particularly egregious claim about what they consider God's Chosen
>> Distribution.  People who are not interested in pointless flame and
>> debate should delete any message they see with this subject line.
>>
>>   IMPORTANT NOTE #2: While my message below is written in the mode of
>> a flame, my tongue is at least somewhere in the vicinity of my cheek.
>> While I believe the points I raise are valid, if I were looking for a
>> serious discussion, I would use far less sarcasm and invective.  But I
>> know from experience that serious discussions with religious bigots
>> are pointless.  That doesn't preclude me from having fun at their
>> expense, though.  :-)
>>
>> On 11/17/05, Thomas Charron <twaffle at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>   Even then it may not work is there are missing dependencies on the
>>> part
>>> of THAT library as well.
>>>
>>>   Why I hate rpm and love debian..  ;-)
>>
>>
>>
>> #ifdef FLAME
>>
>>   For the love of $DEITY.  You must be going for a record on the
>> number of stupid assumptions per number of words.
>>
>>   Let me break out my clue-bat...
>>
>>   *WHACK*
>>
>>   RPM is a package manager, Debian is a distribution.  That is like
>> saying "Why I hate Cool Ranch Doritos and love Nabisco."  I expect you
>> mean "APT".
>>
>>   *WHACK*
>>
>>   RPM is a package manager, APT is a dependency manager.  They are not
>> the same kind of tool.  The equivalent of RPM on Debian systems is
>> "dpkg".  The equivalent of APT on Red Hat is "up2date"; on Fedora it's
>> "yum".  Get a freaking clue.
>>
>>   *WHACK*
>>
>>   The reason the person ran into trouble was because they were not
>> aware of any of these tools.  How the h*ll is Debian going to do
>> better when all someone does is "scp /usr/X11/lib/libXm.so
>> some.other.host:/usr/X11/lib/"?!?  Is Debian patching their kernels to
>> intercept all file I/O calls and fire off APT if someone copies a file
>> the wrong way?
>>
>>   *WHACK*
>>
>>   Debian would be a really nice distribution if it wasn't managed by a
>> bunch of overzealous fools who have lost all connection with reality.
>> The Debian creed is "Debian is God's Chosen Distribution.  Debian is
>> Perfect.  All Glory to Debian!"  The problem is that any attempt to
>> report any kind of bug, conflict, issue, or RFE to a Debian person
>> results in being met as a heretic.  After all, Debian is *perfect*.
>> Any suggestion that things might be otherwise is a direct attack on
>> the Deity.  Such reports are thus ignored.  Thus, Debian generally
>> does not improve, or does so at a glacial pace.  It really has
>> devolved to that point.  It's pathetic, and it's a damn shame to see a
>> project with such noble goals and ideals ruined by such mindless
>> elitism.
>>
>>   *WHACK*cluebat snaps*
>>
>> #endif
>>
>>   I find "yum" does very well when it comes to solving dependencies on
>> Fedora and CentOS systems.  "up2date" worked fine on Red Hat systems,
>> when I still used those.  I've noticed "yum" appears somewhat slower
>> then "apt-get" for many operations, though.  Which is curious, as I
>> also find "rpm" to be somewhat faster then "dpkg" in most cases.
>>
>> -- Ben "Software Atheist" Scott
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