Debian 3.0 CDRs

[Mark Paine]

Quoting Alfred <alfred at mazuma.net.au>:

> At the risk of being flamed I would like to add a con to using Debian.
> 
> When I installed it (eventually, the boot disks kepts segfaulting during
> 
> install...) it was a bare system. To get Xfree 4.0 (for GL support) and
> 
> KDE 2.2 to run was a major exercise, with lots of hacking of apt config
> 
> files to make it work. In the end I gave up and reinstalled
> Mandrake...
> 
> When it comes to dependancies I like the FreeBSD ports system. "cd" into
> 
> the package you want and type "make", works like a charm every time :)
> 

One problem over the last year or so has been the fact that the stable version 
of Debian was behind the times in versions of its software eg Xfree.  I think 
with Woody, it has now caught up and is only a couple of months out of date.  
This is one of the strengths and weaknesses of Debian stable.  Its a tradeoff 
of stability vs the latest and greatest.

Testing (now Sarge) is often cited as the one to run it you want more recent 
versions.  I am going to try that on my workstation and see how it goes.

The initial installation of Debian has always been its weak point, but once it 
is installed, it just runs.  How often do you have to install in the overall 
life of a system?  First impressions are a problem though, and Debian sometimes 
does not give a good first impression.  It is slowly improving though.  Other 
distros just do things a bit faster and fancier...


> Antti.Roppola at brs.gov.au wrote:
> > 
> > The other nifty thing I like is having security.debian.org in my
> sources list,
> > this, policy and apt makes it very easy to fire of a round of security
> updates
> > without too much worry about breaking things.

A definate advantage.
 
> > Thirdly, I haven't had a recent set of Debian CDs for a long time now.
> I just
> > install from a network boot image or an old CD set and install from
> the network.

The Woody CDs are the first Debian CDs I have bought in probably almost 18mths 
to 2yrs.  Network updates are great - but with a 28.8 modem connection (thanks 
Telstra!) they can be rather slow.  I have just changed ISPs and am amazed at 
the peformance increase I have got even with a 28.8 connection (although I now 
tend to get 31.2 rather than 28.8).  The server I have also has an apt cache on 
it which helps when running multiple installs of Debian behind a dial-up 
connection.  With my higher performing connection I am going to see about 
running Sarge on my workstation once I have got Woody running on it.

Mark P.
--
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