sorry about the length of this rant. don't get me wrong, I think that most distibutions have some set of users, for whom they are the best distro. I'm not saying that Debian is faultless (it has a *lot* of failings), nor that RedHat is evil (I still recommend it as a newbie distro). On the whole, I think we're far more in agreement than disagreement... it's just the little quibbles that lead to rambles like this. :) On Tue, Jul 02, 2002 at 12:50:56AM -0500, Matthew S. Hallacy wrote: > On Mon, Jul 01, 2002 at 10:50:30PM -0500, Carl Wilhelm Soderstrom wrote: > > good riddance to the 'gcc-2.96' lunacy. One of the things I *really* don't > > like about RH is their high-handedness about some things... like using their > > own compiler and making a lot of people work to become compatible with > > *them*, rather than the other way around. > > I've never had a problem with it, except for mplayer bitching to no end about > it, after removing the specific anti-redhat code from configure it worked > absolutely fine. I think the fact that even the GCC people condemned it, is a good indication of the quality of the idea. I know there were some good reasons for it. I've read Alan Cox's reasoning (they needed improvements that weren't forthcoming quickly enough), and I can't gainsay that he has some good points. the fact that they went off to 'hoe their own row', where no one else did, means they might not have made the wisest decision, tho. > > (all the patches they apply to the > > kernel is another one). > > A lot of distributions, including mandrake, debian, suse, etc. add patches > to the kernel to fix bugs here and there (these eventually make it into > the mainstream kernel. but 1000+ patches? like Ben said, they make for a lot of headaches for a lot of people. I sympathize completely with his company's position as kernel developers, having to support kernels from various distros, as well as the stock one. I have to say that I've found the Redhat-patched kernels to be less reliable than ones built from source (that may be a perception, I can't point to any hard facts, since kernel problems are so few and far between under any circumstances). if you say "build from source then", I'll mention that I tried building a 2.4.18 kernel and using it in a RH7.2 installation; and found that NFS and sound didn't work right (using an updated config from one that had worked fine under 2.2.20). went to a Rawhide 2.4.18 kernel, and everything worked properly again. YMMV, it's possible that I did something wrong. > > any way you cut it, RedHat is still a commercial entity... on the upside, > > this means they can pay a bunch of people to do quality control. on the > > downside, they don't have the customer's interests at heart, as much as > > something like the Debian Project does. (and it shows. this is why RH won't > > ship apt4rpm anytime soon... it competes with their revenue model). > > I think they have plenty of customer interest at heart, considering the > number of people using it they're obviously doing something right. by that logic, Microsoft could be said to have plenty of the customer's interests at heart, and I don't think you'd find many people who agree with that. > They've got a very nice installer, the GUI one has gotten substantially better. it's actually about as good as the text one now. (the RH6.1 GUI installer was *vile*). I don't think Debian's installer is at all bad, tho. it's very comparable RH5.x's installer, and as a rank newbie I didn't have problems with RH5.1's installer. > things like kudzu to relieve a lot > of the pain involved in installing new hardware, it's got its good points. can't gainsay that. I personally hate it, because it wastes my time at boot-up, and I mistrust any auto-config tool (bad experiences from my M$ days). that's just my take on it tho, and you're free to ignore it. :) > and all the GUI tools > needed to configure the system (Like SuSE or Mandrake) maybe Debian > has these things too, I haven't bothered to use a GUI setup under > debian lately. Perhaps I'll try it in vmware tonight. seems that Debian tends to configure things on a package-by package basis, rather than have a centralized tool to configure things. I think RH's linuxconf was actually a halfway decent tool; aside from its occasionally non-intuitive interface. rather than ramble off here, I'll leave my comments on user interface design for another post. On Tue, Jul 02, 2002 at 08:48:07AM -0500, Florin Iucha wrote: > We should thank them to push glibc2, linux-2.2, gtk/gnome and gcc-3.0 to > widespread adoption. I think Debian does as much of that as anything. Debian Unstable tends to have that stuff long before RH does. (for that matter, before anyone else does). > They are paying Alan Cox and countless others to hack full-time. can't gainsay that. this is one of the things that makes them fall short of being another M$. (unlike Caldera....) > Show me another Linux company that took the same risks, or gave back so > much to the community. so far they've been a pretty benevolent 'dominant entity'. I just don't trust that behavior to continue, because there aren't powerful enough incentives for it. :) > > something like the Debian Project does. (and it shows. this is why RH won't > > ship apt4rpm anytime soon... it competes with their revenue model). > ... which is giving away .rpms and .isos and charging for support. .... and selling upgrade CDs and subscriptions to the 'RedHat Network'; which is the sort of thing that Debian studiously avoids, because they can save money and hassle by not doing that. On Tue, Jul 02, 2002 at 09:18:41AM -0500, Ben Lutgens wrote: > If you think the debian developers give a flying fsck what the users think > you're on crack. If you think redhat does NOT give a flying fsck what > thier users think, you're on crack. let me rephrase what I said: the debian developers care what the end users think, so far as they themselves are end users. enlightened self-interest leads the way for everyone to enjoy the fruits of a few people's labors. the RedHat teams care about the end users, because they are still _competing_ for market share (unlike M$, who's just desperately trying to convince everyone that the new version is worth buying, just because it's different from the old version... not necessarily better, just different). capitalism leads the way for the owners of the company to make a profit. (and the users benefit as well, as a side effect). the upshot of this, is that the distros end up targeted toward different end users. I tend to fall more into the Debian category of user. others fall more into the RedHat category of user. Carl Soderstrom. -- Network Engineer Real-Time Enterprises www.real-time.com