[CLUE-Tech] Fedora vs Debain

[David Anselmi]

Angelo Bertolli wrote:
> Well I've spent over 3 days looking through all the packages in sarge to
> see if there's anything I want... which brings me to my dilemna.  I really
> really like Debian, and I get obsessed with all the packages and control
> it offers, but... it takes SO LONG.

What takes so long?  Selecting packages?  Downloading?

> I don't know if it's worth it.  The advantages to pre-packaged sets
> are also the disadvantages.  So right now I'm torn.

What are the "pre-packaged sets" Debian has that Fedora doesn't?  Are 
you talking about tasksel?

> I can't decide on which to continue with, Fedora or Debian.
> With Fedora I'll probably be more productive because I won't be spending
> as much time tweaking the system itself.

That's a matter of discipline, it sounds like.  I would think that the 
time spent installing should be minimal compared to the time you use the 
system.  Let's see, I have 4 or 5 systems.  One install each.  More than 
two years running for each of them.

The only thing I do regularly is update and upgrade packages.  Since 
these are testing systems that takes more time than it could, but what, 
15-30 min/mo?  And the only one I fool with is my desktop because 
upgrading to KDE 3 too quickly wasn't as smooth as it could have been.

So pick the one that will be easiest to operate over time.  If you do a 
lot of installing, figure out what you're looking for in a base system 
and automate that (disk imaging, FAI, tar, and cp are all posibilities 
for that).  If you're doing repetitive tasks by hand, don't.  That's 
what computers are for.

Dave