[ Date Index ] [ Thread Index ] [ <= Previous by date / thread ] [ Next by date / thread => ]
On 20/12/12 17:08, bad apple wrote: > Everything Simon says, and I'd go further than that as well: Debian is > the best operating system in the world. > > Now that is a major claim, so here is my reasoning. For a start, it's > open source and free in both senses of the word. That will always > elevate it over any proprietary system in existence because although it > may not have all the bells, whistles and features of zOS, AIX, Mac OS or > Windows, you will always be able to get it and use it for nothing. And > anyone can add the features themselves: it may not be particularly easy, > but I assure you that writing things like LPAR functionality on Power > boxes wasn't 'easy' either. If you're a fortune 500 company and you must > have some hardcore enterprise functionality, there's nothing stopping > you paying a crack team of C gurus to write it for you and deploy it on > Debian, rather than Solaris or HPUX. The source code will always be free > and available to everyone, not just channel partners with deep pockets. > You or anyone else can always fork it and make it your own at any moment > and Debian won't care. > > If you're a Stallman-esque free as in freedom advocate, stock Debian by > default qualifies as "Free". But if you want linux-firmware, proprietary > blobs for wifi and graphics hardware, it's all in the clearly labelled > non-free repos. Debian has excellent ports to multiple platforms, from > lowly ARM devices to multi-million dollar s390 big iron and everything > in between. Debian stable is indeed very conservative in package choice, > but that's why they have Testing for more current packages and Sid for > the absolute bleeding edge - again, something for everyone. Choice is a > good thing. If even Sid isn't new enough for you, then like me you can > "apt-get source" from mentors.debian.net and build it yourself. Debian > documentation is thoroughly excellent, bug tracking is top-notch and > developers (generally, there are always a few...) won't give you the > OpenBSD-style tough love if you dare to contact them directly with issues. > > Finally, there is a huge Debian community to pester online for help and > google will return literally millions of hits for almost any query you > can come up with. There are countless forums and dedicated sites for > users and admins to pool resources. And of course, the new poster boys > of the linux world, Ubuntu and Mint, amongst many others, wouldn't even > exist if it wasn't for Debian. > > I use, or have used, most operating systems in existence, and some of > them I really like and actually prefer to use for certain tasks (I > wouldn't use Debian for a network-edge router for example, although I > *could*) so I'm not a fanatic advocating Debian for everything and > nothing else - I actually use RedHat or derivatives more often in the > day job and my laptop is currently running Arch. I've got a windows > install for occasional gaming. But I'm just pointing out that we maybe > don't appreciate good old boring Debian quite as much as we should do. > And that's why I think Debian is the best OS in the world. > > Cheers > > PS: almost 20 years in, and except on Sid, I've NEVER had dependency > hell on Debian. I second everything you say. As for dependency hell I often had it when I worked with Redhat (and Fedora) and SuSE IMHO rpm isn't in the same league as Debian's package manager ie. dpkg and apt or aptitude. Keith -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ All e-mails including their file attachments are scanned for viruses and spam using Symantec's and ClamAV's scan engines. -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq