[CLUE-Tech] Fedora vs Debain

[Dan Harris]

Angelo Bertolli wrote:

>>>the Sarge distro about a month ago and it was just kinda hard...granted
>>>      
>>>
>>Keep in mind that the sarge installer is still beta, I've used it twice
>>successfully, but I don't think it is ready for prime time yet.
>>    
>>
>
>This kind of sums up the main idea behind why it's taken me until now to
>even try Debian:  it's never been cutting edge.  Sarge features the all
>brand-speanking new kernel 2.4! Wow!  Well, since 2.4 to me is a bare
>minimum now, and I'm looking for a good system with kernel 2.6, AND
>because Sarge isn't even out yet, I think Debian is just behind.  Another
>annoying thing is that Sarge by default installs the i386 kernel instead
>of the i686 kernel.  One of the other reasons I decided to try Debian is
>because of 'discover' from Knoppix.  Does the Sarge installer actually use
>this?  Why did it install the i386 kernel?  I had been wondering why on
>earth it was so much slower than my previous RH installation until I
>noticed this.  I never knew that the kernel architecture could make such a
>difference (this was noticable in gnome).
>
>Anyway, I guess I've decided not to do Debian.  It just lags too far
>behind.  I did install the 2.6 kernel on Debian but it seemed flaky.
>
>And it's just like you stated above "keep in mind that the sarge installer
>is still beta" but it's not just the installer that's beta, it's sarge.
>So I guess overall I'm disappointed.  Luckily they're not as slow as the
>HURD group ;)
>
>Angelo
>_______________________________________________
>  
>
Now hold on a sec.. I'm not trying to fan the flames of a distro war, 
but you need to realize that there is more to Debian than just Woody and 
Sarge.  There are 3 branches of Debian, woody/stable, sarge/testing, 
sid/unstable.  If you want to compare apples to apples, you need to 
compare Sid with Fedora.  When you do that, you'll find that Sid has all 
the same packages ( and more ) than Fedora and all of them are every bit 
as current.

Also, Debian brings another main value that I appreciate: elegant 
package management.  I'm not talking about apt-get, which you can get 
for RPM-based distros now.  I mean 'dpkg'.  The way that Debian manages 
its packages is head and shoulders above anything else I've seen.  The 
smart resolution of dependency conflicts, to a nice curses-based 
prompting system to ask you some basic configuration questions as you 
install packages, has made my life much easier.

I used to manage 7 RedHat boxes.  I got fed up with the constant 
tinkering I had to do with them.  I switched to Debian.  I now have 8 
Debian boxes ( 6 on woody/stable, 2 on Sid/unstable ) and my admin time 
has dropped to near nothing.  

The reason the 'released' versions lag behind the bleeding edge stuff 
like Sid ( and Fedora for that matter ) is because they are thoroughly 
tested and 'stabilized'.  You can't have 'beta' or 'alpha' quality 
packages and still expect everything to run like a clock.  When you run 
Debian stable for a few years, you will appreciate the term 'it just 
works'.  Tinkering is great if you only have one or two servers to run, 
but if you've got a rack full of linux boxes, keeping up with the latest 
and greatest becomes a race that you just can't win.

When Sarge is promoted to stable, I will most certainly upgrade to it 
and fully expect to enjoy another 3 years of easy to admin boxes.

-Dan