Apr 20, 2006 06:38 PM
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(Updated Apr 20, 2006 06:38 PM)
Dear reader,
Debian people are very idealistic. They think they are going to change the world with their ideology, value systems, ethics, morality and all the virtues that make life difficult.
No, I don't mean to belittle their ideas or rubbish their ideology. And many people think ideology is all well for classroom lectures, and for giving advice to others, but it doesn't work at all in real life.
I don't think they are wrong. Most of us care about ideology only when it is convenient for us. And with good reason. If we are fighting with an opponent who has no scruples, we cannot preach the Gita to him. Instead we have to give an eye for an eye.
At the same time fanatics have the most sincerity. They want to prove that they are right and they will do anything for it. Probably Debian is a good example for that. You cannot find the sheer hard work, energy and brilliance put in by Debian folks in any other linux distro. And no other linux is really as free as Debian. Sorry, my bad. Debian GNU/Linux.
The icing on the cake for Debian GNU/Linux is the marvellous package management system. Its magic is very quick and can convince the worst of critics in no time. For RedHat users, it will be a whiff of fresh air.
That is what makes it the largest operating system also. It supports more packages and also as many users. By the way, as an aside, the name ''Debian'' is derived from Debra (Ian's girlfriend) and Ian Murdoch, the man who started the Debian effort.
The only two problems I can find with Debian are
1) If your package dependencies get screwed up then God save you!
2) It has old versions of all software, even the kernel
If RedHat gives untested bleeding edge, Debian gives you solid old food. Which is better is left for you to decide. I would say, something in between is what I personally prefer.
The installation used to be a pain in the neck but these days things have improved. I particularly like the make-kpkg package for linux kernel compilation.
# apt-get install kernel-package
And you can start using make-kpkg tool for building linux kernel. Even such a lousy kernel build mechanism is streamlined by the hard work of Debian's volunteers.
If you want to search for any package, you type as a normal user,
$ apt-cache search <some string>
No true computer engineer can ignore linux. No electrical or computer science student can ignore either. Sooner or later he needs to learn it. For me linux means Debian.
Some justification is in order for the junk at the beginning of the article. Because of Debian's ''principles'', they did not use to package very useful patent encumbered packages like mplayer, non free software like Qt(KDE's GUI engine) and many other non open source software like Skype and Opera.
But due to sheer user base and patronage somehow these things are available mostly because of Debian's clout I think. Other people released software with less restrictive licenses. Many times Debian users find it hard to use proprietary software on it.
$ apt-get source <package name>
can give you the source of the Deb package. You can easily modify it and build your own Debian package. And the alien tool can be used to make an rpm from the Debian package. I can make better looking word documents using the rtf tools with SGML converters in Debian than on Windows using MS Word. Similarly I can make rpm using Debian than RedHat. Interesting, isn't it?
Most importantly Debian runs on any hardware, old or new and it supports several architectures. This is a big plus compared to RedHat.
Debian is mostly for scientists and engineers. But with linux making inroads in all unexpected places I would say Debian is the best linux out there.
Redhat has woken up to some of these innovations. RPM was adapted from Deb. I have seen something called ''yum'' similar to ''apt-get'' but Debian is more than its software.
It is a way of thinking...
