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Very well said Matt! And I have to say tech help on the CLUE list is really
first class. I doubt you can pay for better help. Or putting it this way,
paying for customer support would not get you more knowledgeable help. The
only thing is that in recent times most distributions have gotten rather
good. Now there seem to be little nagging issues specific to each distribution
and on a forum such as this not too many members will be fully familiar with
each different distribution even though they may have tried them in the past.
Actually one Distribution that hasn't been mentioned is Libranet. (debian
based) It is a great distribution and has great support from the people
who produce it. Plus they have their own support forum with users that
have been using Libranet and Debian for a long time. So Libranet would be
an excellent first choice, but they sell their distribution so it's not as
easy (cheap) to get the latest release from them as it is to get a free Red
Hat or Mandrake download edition. So if you think you really want to move
to Linux, do consider Libranet.<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.libranet.com">www.libranet.com</a><br>
<br>
Matt Gushee wrote:<br>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid3ED6B170.32729.3141DE2@localhost">
<pre wrap="">Just a couple of quick responses to Adam regarding the different
distributions, then on to the main question--why use Linux rather
than Windows?
On 30 May 2003 at 0:13, Adam Bultman wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Red Hat:
Package management: RPMs.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Debian:
Pkg. Mgmt: .debs, installed with apt-get.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
Of course, that's all Greek to someone who has never used Linux.
There are a couple of important differences between RPM, which is
used by Red Hat and several other distributions, and the system used
by Debian and a couple others. First of all, the Debian system has a
more sophisticated scheme for dependencies (i.e. determining, for any
given package A, what other packages you may need to install first.).
With RPM, you have
Package A requires Package B
or not--with the consequence that a lot of packages are tagged as
"required" when they're not strictly necessary. Debian has
Package A requires Package B
Package A recommends Package B
Package A suggests Package B
In general, Debian gives you more information and more choices, which
is great if you want a heavily customized system, but probably
overwhelming for new users.
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap=""> Somewhat harder to use,
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
On what basis are you judging distributions hard or easy to use? As a
former RedHat and current Debian user who has flirted with SuSE,
Caldera, and Turbo, I don't think your choice of distribution makes a
bit of difference in the ease or difficulty of everyday use: it all
depends what software you install.
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Suse:
Pkg. Mgmt: RPMs. Installs quite a bit of software (I haven't used it
recently, either). Desktop oriented, easy to use.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
In my experience, SuSE seems to have better support for new hardware.
I think they are rather pragmatic in dealing with vendors, whereas
RedHat and some other distributions are more concerned about being
purely Free Software.
On 29 May 2003 at 21:34, Kevin Cullis wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">The simpliest issue: Linux is great for DIFYers (Do It For
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->Yourself),
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">but the differing "distros" that are offered, like Red Hat, provide
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->a
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">bundle of things to get you started.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
Yes, and each one tends to provide a slightly different bundle. It's
mostly small stuff, though, like configuration and system
administration tools.
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">If we all drove a Ford, there
would not be much competition, but because Linux is Open Source,
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->ANYONE
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">can create their own, thus the DIFY perspective.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
I think it's worth pointing out that open source (AKA free software)
has some important benefits even if you never want to personally get
under the hood and tweak things.
1) Your rights:
When you obtain a copy of Linux or other open source software,
*you own that copy of the software*, and you can legally do
almost anything you want with it. You can install it on 2, 3,
or 500 computers; you can give copies to all your friends, and
so on. Of course, many people do just that with Windows .... so
it's more an ethical issue than a practical one. That's
important to many people in the Linux community though, and I
think it matters to many of the people who copy Windows, too,
though sometimes they may not want to admit it to themselves.
2) Support:
Though you don't usually get professional tech support for
Linux without paying extra, the informal support from fellow
users is surprisingly good. Of course there are no guarantees,
but when you ask a technical question on a mailing list like
this one (provided, of course, that you are courteous and
reasonably focused), you almost always get at least one good
answer within a few hours. And you might be concerned about
falling victim to someone's bad advice, but in practice that's
seldom a problem, because there are usually people in these
forums with a really thorough understanding of various aspects
of Linux--because it's open source, anyone who's interested is
free to dig in deep and learn the ins and outs of the system--
and many of these experts are happy to share what they know.
And when someone does give out wrong information, they
will usually be corrected in short order by a more
knowledgeable person.
3) Diversity:
In general, Linux offers more choices: different ways of doing
work, different desktop styles, different programs to solve the
same problem. Of course, more choices means you need to put
more effort into choosing, and not everyone likes that.
Finally, there's the robustness/reliability issue. I haven't used
WinXP at all, so maybe it's better than previous versions, but a
properly configured Linux system very rarely crashes. And there's no
more of this nonsense of rebooting every time you install new
software.
</pre>
</blockquote>
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