[TriLUG] Debian vs Mandrake vs Redhat vs . . .

[Ben Pitzer]

> > trivial to maintain
>
> Debian.

Seconded.

> > I've looked at Debian and Redhat so far.  I love dpkg, but there are
> > more up
> > to date RPMs for the software I'm looking at, i.e. Webmin in dpkg is
> > .94,
> > not the latest with security fixes.
>
> Some of the Debian people may want to chime in here but I think there
> is an option in your apt configuration where you can elect to use newer
> software than the more conservative default settings would normally
> provide.
>
> Note that Red Hat isn't very great about distributing upgraded versions
> of popular packages, either.  They are pretty good about getting major
> security fixes out fast but other stability or functionality bugs may
> never be addressed at all.

Well, if you're running a server, stability and security are more important
than feature sets, to my mind.  Of course, if your situation requires a
solution to provide a specific feature, then you're getting into murky
water, and need to do a pro/con analysis on an individual basis, but that's
another post entirely.

I'm a big Debian fan, as most folks out there who know me will tell you.  I
find that Debian is extremely easy to maintain, add onto, upgrade, downgrade
(although downgrading is a much less reliable process than upgrading), and
generally keep secure and up to date.  I know that we have alot of RH and
Mandrake users on here who vouch for the efficacy of apt for RPM, but I'm
not quite as sold on the idea as most folks.  First, you never know who is
packaging an RPM from one version to the next.  With Debian, the same
package maintainer is responsible for that package at all times, and in many
cases is either part of the development team for that software, or else
collaborates with the developers to fix bugs and generally keep things
stable and happy.  If the Debian powers-that-be aren't happy with a specific
packages stability, it doesn't make it into the stable distribution, thus
ensuring the stability of that version of Debian.  With no guarantees on who
is building and uploading the packages to an RPM apt source, I'm much less
sold on the idea.  I just don't believe that there is enough security or
stability guaranteed there.  Plus, the 'testing' distro of Debian (currently
codenamed Sarge) is as stable as any RH *.1 or *.2 release that I've ever
played with.  I'm not trying to bash RH or Mandrake, but I've found that the
majority of folks who use Debian cite the package management as the best and
most practical reason for their doing so.  Of course, there is Debian's
dedication to free software as well, but I leave individuals to determine
for themselves if ideology is a good enough reason for them to choose a
distro.  For some it is, and they have my utmost respect for their views.
Those folks are the ones who've helped build Debian from the ground up.


> > I did look at Mandrake, but the 2
> > machines I've tested it on so far where less reliable then the Debian
> > and
> > redhat ones.
>
> Not to diss 'drake but my experience with it has been like what you
> describe.  It's a darned good looking distro in its stock configuration
> but I wouldn't run it on a server.  Or even an important production
> desktop.

I've never used it, but it seems to me that Mandrake is more interested in
usability than security or stability, much like another OS that we all know
and more or less loathe.

> > I'm still open, but a bit cautious.  Haven't played with SuSe
> > or a number of others.
>
> SuSE isn't quite Free (or at least they haven't been in the past) so I
> tend to lump them in with Caldera^H^H^H^H^H^H^HSCO.
>
> There are a number of nice looking Debian offshoots out there.  My
> biggest beef with Debian is the installer and some of the Debian
> offshoots have probably fixed this.

Actually, Debian's installation process has gotten much easier with the
Woody distro, and there are plans to improve it even more with the inclusion
of much of the Progeny Linux installation interface into upcoming Debian
releases.  Progeny had a very nice graphical installer, and that code is not
going to waste.  Somebody also mentioned Xandros somewhere in this thread,
which I thinks is interesting.  I've not had a chance to play with it, but
this is yet another attempt to make Debian more user friendly, which is very
cool.  I hear their installer is very slick, and I plan to try it out soon
myself.  Of course, you can get all of the usability features such as a
sweet apt interface in both KDE and Gnome (although I hear KDE's is by far
the nicest) without having to go with a (semi-)commercial Debian distro.

All in all, for a server, I'll probably always recommend Debian.  It's as
easy to maintain headless as it is through KDE or Gnome, practically, and
the installer these days isn't nearly as bad as folks make it out to be.  In
fact, it's fairly simple, and guides you through step-by-step in fairly
familiar terms.  You still need to know a little bit about your hardware, as
it doesn't have an automatic hardware detection utility like RH, Mandrake or
SuSE, but so long as you know what kernel modules you need for your
hardware, you'll get along just fine.

Good luck, and let us know what you choose!

Regards,
Ben Pitzer