debian still rules my world

[piranha]

y'know -- it originally took me a relatively long time to switch from redhat to debian. inertia was mostly responsible for that, i knew my way around redhat, so the *poing* waxing excitedly about debian wasn't quite enough. zie did eventually wear me down though.

right now i am back on a redhat system, since i am waiting for my laptop IDE adapter before i am wiping all of this and install my own stuff. and *wah*, i want my debian!

but at least i have a network connection, a browser running, and IM working. oh, and mahjongg. :) i am contemplating installing NFS back on aegis, so i can remotely mount my image drive and work on digicam pictures in the gimp, but really, i shouldn't. still, it is much better than nothing. my answer to the "what will you take to a lonely island with you" question shall have to be a satellite-linked computer so i can look up what plants are edible.

speaking of plants, nothing happened in the garden because it wasn't just raining cats and dogs today but also pigs and cows. i'm not complaining, i like the rain. here in BC april showers bring may showers, and apparently this year also june showers.

we have a new stray kitten living in the attic, a little calico. *sigh*.

Comments

[elissaann.livejournal.com]

Will there be pictures of the new kitten? A name?

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

no way. she looks healthy, and i am gonna ask around the neighbourhood whether she is somebody else's (suspect not) and then trap her and take her to the humane society.

not adopting cat #7.

[vanbeast.livejournal.com]

There is nothing like suddenly having apt again after any period of time being stuck with yum.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

oh yeah. yum is better than rpm, but my first exposure to it didn't really endear me. spoiled from using apt.

[huashan.livejournal.com]

What do you find to be better about debian than redhat? If you'd like you can just reply to me, I don't know if others are interested in an OS comparison. I'm just curious about what you see as the differences between the two OSs.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

first off, terminology: they're not different OSs, they're different distributions. underneath they're both still linux.

debian's package management is my main personal reason. that, and its release cycle mean that i know exactly what i am getting into with any package i decide to install. redhat has this mix of very conservative to completely bleeding edge packages, tossed together by anyone who can manage to build an rpm, without quality control, and i never really trust any given package. other people therefore also praise debian's stability in comparison to redhat, but i don't care that much. that said, it is terrifically stable even with the mix of releases i run.

debian doesn't just have a package management system tacked on, but it is at its core. it's flexible, and at the same time it's well managed, and fairly standardized -- the debian developer process does a great job. i come up very rarely against an issue with a debian package, while i have rpm problems more frequently. i think it's totally impressive to see such great management in an open-source project.

i have upgraded glibc on a running debian system without a problem. i wouldn't dare do that on redhat (though it might be possible now; i am just gunshy).

it also is less bloated for an initial install, and the install can be customized before downloading.

philosophically, i prefer debian to redhat because it's true open-source at its purest, no commercial interests are involved, and it's not a mere testing ground for a company's enterprise services. (i don't mean to diss redhat; they've contributed so very much to the spread of linux. just that my ideals lie elsewhere.) i'm eyeing ubuntu now, but this factor is keeping me with debian for the time being.

good information about many distributions all in one place can be found at distrowatch.

[huashan.livejournal.com]

Interesting. Thanks!

[necturus.livejournal.com]

I'm running Ubuntu on my new AMD64 machine, and I'm thinking about installing it on my old laptop that currently runs FreeBSD. FreeBSD is nice and fast, but my wireless card interferes with my cound card, and nobody I've consulted seems to know why.

I just finished setting up a similar laptop at work with Ubuntu and an external USB audio interface so announcers can record news and weather reports at home instead of having to come to work.

My Web server, a 1998-vintage Pentium II, is still running Fedora Code 3, and I'm pretty happy with it.

Wow...

[huashan.livejournal.com]

I just remembered something bizarre. I was interviewing for a job at CERL, and the person interviewing me mentioned that you were the next person to be interviewed. I immediately knew I wasn't getting the job and spent a couple of minutes talking up your SKILLZ before thanking the interviewer for the opportunity and leaving. I flat out told him that if he had the opportunity to hire you, he'd be unwise to hire me for it. heheheh

Weird...and that brought to mind another one...I was offered a job in a unix lab at Parkland College and turned it down for reasons that seemed reasonable at the time and now seem complete moronic, and JRM took the job and thats where he got his start as a Unix Admin. Of course, if I start enumerating the things I've done in my life that directly negatively impacted my employment, I'd be here typing all day.

Re: Wow...

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

did you really? how cool. and i thank you in retrospect, *grin*. do you remember for what job that was?

ah, the days when i actually had mad skillz. *sigh*.

Re: Wow...

[huashan.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking about that, and its pretty much got to be the PASR job. The more I think about it the more sure I am that the interview took place in that room you had your office in up there, and then later JRM had that office.

Hunh...my memory must be starting to come back. I just remembered the password to apasr, which I wasn't supposed to have. And yes, I checked, and yes they changed it.