Oh man, I really hope I''m misunderstanding what they are saying over at Gentoo but it seems like they are giving up the Portage system for.....RPM package management. Debian, here I come....

Okay, I''m a retard

I got hit by the first April fools joke, and it''s only 1:41am....oh boy, this is gonna be a bad year.

But, I am still interested in Debian. Anyone have experience in both to give the good and the bad?

They also want to include XFree into the standard install. I think they are sure that users won't mind the mildly increased build times... ;-)

edit: just read the remaining newsletter. Gentoo on an Xbox. And this was posted to early to be a joke.

[edited by - Erluk on April 1, 2003 3:32:12 AM]

screw debian... I tried to load it on my laptop, install went fine, on the next reboot got kernel panic. Happened each time i tried to load it, so I went back to slackware. I think next time I'm gonna roll my own linux on it using that Linux from scratch. I'm also hoping that will resolve dependency problems and missing libs and the such when I ./configure programs.


edit: fixed linky

[edited by - hitchhiker90 on April 1, 2003 9:48:09 PM]

I use Debian for all of my systems. Hitchhiker90: Did you install testing or unstable? Which kernel did you have installed?

I run stable since I don''t need to run the latest and greatest for most purposes. Testing should be good enough for people who want more up-to-date software, and unstable would be great for experimenting or hacking. You can mix and match from different versions as well, so my Stable-based system can run some Testing-based packages.

Stable can get frustrating when using things such as Mozilla 1.0.0 or Gaim without file transfer support, but I am for the most part guaranteed that my system won''t crash badly. The only problems I had was individual applications crashing or acting buggy, such as Mozilla freezing up or X restarting. The system itself doesn''t crash though.

As a new GNU/Linux user, I actually liked Debian. I didn''t like Mandrake installing everything for me. I had no idea what was on my system. Debian forced me to install things as I needed it, so I know exactly what it is I am using. While this might be frustrating for normal everyday users, I was using Debian to learn about GNU/Linux. I decided to not install XFree86 right away just to force myself to use the command line. I figured that I would use GUIs when I learn how to do things without them. Now I am quite comfortable in KDE or fluxbox as well as the command line.

Installing Debian is daunting for a new user, but once it is up and running, maintaining the system is a breeze. I encourage new users who want to experiment to try Debian, but if they don''t want to deal with the hassle of learning how their OS works, I promote Mandrake generally...of course, Mandrake''s latest offering is apparently really buggy.

Anyone know of a good beginner''s distro? I am secretary of my university''s LUG and we''re having an install fest this month. We''re leaning towards Knoppix, but some people seem to think Slackware is good for newbies.

Any other options/opinions?

quote:Original post by Hitchhiker90
I think next time I''m gonna roll my own linux on it using that Linux from scratch. I''m also hoping that will resolve dependency problems and missing libs and the such when I ./configure programs.

On a LFS system, nothing will help you with missing libs; you will have to hunt them down yourself. You could try to do a stage1 Gentoo installation which still has that LFS feeling but is more comfortable.

quote:Original post by GBGames
Hitchhiker90: Did you install testing or unstable? Which kernel did you have installed?

I will have to get back with you when I get home. I don''t remember which version it was... would I be able to tell just from booting up the cd?

Okay, I tried installing Debian 3.0, and I got up to the point of dselect, and when I tried adding a whole group, I got a million dependencies pop up. I thought the whole point of Debian was to mitigate that sort of thing?

So I backed out by hitting R, thinking that tasksel (or whatever it was called) would still install the main selections (X Windows, Desktop, and development packages. Nope, now I've just got the command line when I boot up. So now I'm going to have to figure out how to use apt-get to build X for me as well as some desktop/window managers.

I'm not a total newbie when it comes to Linux, but the installer does need to be a little more concise about what it's doing. For example, when you first mount the partitions, I didn't realize that the first partition you select was the root mount. I partitioned my disk earlier with cfdisk so that /dev/hda7 is mounted as /boot, and /dev/hda9 is mounted as /. So when it came along and found the partitions, it asked me if I wanted to mount /dev/hda7. I thought the installer would ask me where I wanted to mount the partition. Nope. On any other further partitions, THEN it asks you where you'd like to mount the partition.

So, I have to give Debian a thumbs down based on the installer. Dselect was horribly explained from the built in help, and I had to go to Debian's site to figure out what was going on on my other machine. To be fair, Gentoo isn't the friendliest installer either, but I was able to get it up and running without as many headaches as Debian.

[edited by - dauntless on April 2, 2003 3:09:14 PM]