- Subject: Re: [SLUG] Defining "Mainsteam"
- From: Daniel Bush <dlb.id.au@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2009 16:28:06 +1100
- Cc: slug@xxxxxxxxxxx
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2009/4/3 Malcolm Johnston <drmjj@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Regarding Martin Visser's comments in the final "Sound Problem" posting. I
> don't want to incite a Holdens versus Faclcons type debate here, but how
> would one briefly characterize "mainstream Linux" these days?
> ...
>
> All this may be just me. I haven't had a decent look at distros like
> Ubuntu,
> and this is why I ask my question. What, in a nutshell, is their appeal?
> One one level it's all Unix, of course, but, given that, what are the
> appealing differences?
>
>
I don't always like the way debian (and perhaps by extension ubuntu) modify
the conf files and arrange things for various software - I don't want to
have to figure out the debian-way on top of figuring out the software itself
- but the thing I keep coming back to is the packaging system and
particularly apt/aptitude. It's gold [1].
I've used yum utility with centos which does a similar thing but I had more
trouble getting what I wanted (that may be because of less experience and
the fact I was using one version below current).
The other thing is that debian and its non-commercial nature seems like an
interesting phenomenon in itself. It feels big, comprehensive and reliable
(that ssh thing last year notwithstanding :) ) but it's not backed by any
big company or an overt commercial interest. Seems to me that there is
definitely something valuable there in the way it brings together a lot of
the best free/open-source software into a unified system that can be shown
off to the world.
[1] it also helps that there are isp's like iinet who provide free mirrors
for debian/ubuntu/* repositories which you can use if you are customer
--
Daniel Bush
http://blog.web17.com.au
http://github.com/danielbush
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