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Re: [Full-Disclosure] Fw: Red Hat Linux end-of-life update and transition planning


On Nov 3, 2003, at 4:58 PM, Jonathan A. Zdziarski wrote:

Why put this on CD3 instead of CD1?

Because at the time of the 3.0 release the 2.4 boot floppies were not as fully tested as the 2.2 boot floppies. Nothing stops you from installing under 2.2 and doing an "apt-get install kernel-image-2.4.18" afterwards.

                                                        Installing Debian using 
the standard practice
(starting with CD1 and moving up) is kind of like installing windows 95
and upgrading as you go.

No, it isn't.

But either way, why not go with 2.4.20?

Because 2.4.20 post-dates Debian 3.0.

By poorly designed I mean text-based,

Text-based != "poorly designed".

crappy looking,

Crappy looking != "poorly designed" either.

                                                                                
                              not very
user-friendly for the average person we're trying to win over from
Windows.

... in your opinion. Others' experience varies on this.

In the setting of desktop OS, Debian is probably the worst
distro available due to its very archaic install tool and the lack of
several important drivers in the default install to even bring up X on
many systems.

Incorrect. The only "missing" driver is the nVidia unified accelerated driver-- which, if you bother to read the license, is non-re-distributable. If you're getting the nVidia drivers off a Linux distribution CDROM the vendor is in violation of the nVidia license. Instead, Debian provides wrapper packages for this driver that will download the source from nVidia and compile .debs from it for you.

Of course, nothing prevents you from using the XFree86 'nv' unaccelerated driver either.

1. A simple, graphical setup
2. Out-of-the-box support for a wide range of hardware
3. Post-installation tools for configuring printers, users, etcetera
4. A graphical, easy-to-use patch system
5. Simple, yet standardized enough to be used by savvy Linux users

Debian meets maybe 1 or 2 of these.

Debian meets 2, 3, 4, and 5, and frankly, on 1 it's simple already but admittedly has no GUI.

Of course, if you'd used it at all you'd know this.

Basically, typical of Debian-slamming in most forums, the objections boil down to "It's different and I don't like it."

-- Cerebus

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