On Saturday 15 May 2004 11:06 pm, Graham Trott wrote:
On Saturday 15 May 2004 8:52 pm, Graham Trott wrote:
leaving out all the redundant fluff you get with SuSE or Mandrake. And ending up with a much better understanding of what's going on.
The second point is I think the most valid and a very good reason for going down the debian road. The first point is less compelling since Mandrake at least can be installed with only the packages that you yourself choose.
Of course most people choose the set options ('networked' 'office use' 'internet use' etc) but that is not obligatory. And even then the list of choices can be amended before installing (and the list of choices stored on disk to make repeating the process much easier).
Well OK I know I've made some unflattering comments about things that Windows users take for granted but in Linux are very difficult.
Yes, but which *distro*? Only the command line to the kernel is 'linux'. That isn't nit-picking, it is simple statement of fact, and an important one at that.
Something that is difficult in one distro, or even in many distros, is often very simple in another, especially any distro that has GUI tools as front-ends for installation and configuration.
The problem at the top of my list is not how easy it may be to set up a system; it's what happens a year or two down the road when it's time to upgrade or the hard drive fails. Figuring out what has to be done to restore my personal files and applications on a new system is a right royal PITA whether on Windows or Linux.
It doesn't have to be. I simply have a small notebook and note down any packages that I install and all configuration applied. Re-installing is simply a case of redoing those steps.
I've done it several times and it was very easy. Most mandrake system configuration, to continue with the mandrake example, can be done in using GUI tools (including wireless cards which is something you mentioned on thursday as being lacking!)
I keep a backup of any files that I have edited by hand (samba.conf being the main one that I don't want to have to re-do from scratch :-)
Finding and installing software using 'urpmi' or the GUI tools is almost always a doddle once your sources are set up as all dependencies are automatically found and installed (much better than standard 'rpm' command).
From what I've seen so far, the package management of Debian is significantly better than any of the others,
Apt is excellent. Debian is excellent too of course - once it is installed and configured. My only point is that there are some distros that are much easier to manage and configure than most others. Also that mandrake is much more complex and powerful than many people realise if they have only used it for a short time and not explored how to use it.
Syd