[PLUG] Linux Envy: Another Perspective

[Elliott Mitchell]

>From: Rich Shepard <rshepard at appl-ecosys.com>
> On Sat, 18 Jun 2005, Elliott Mitchell wrote:
> > Yet, there is a Linux qualifier too, Debian. You most certainly do not go
> > for Fedora or one of the other bleeding edge distributions.
> >
> > Perhaps the problem is that super bleeding edge distributions like Fedora
> > are much better known. While few people mention Debian, RedHat Enterprise
> > or SuSE Enterprise. They might be less sexy, but those are no less
> > important than the former.
> 
>    What proves your point is Slackware ("the quiet distribution"). Now in its
> eleventh year, Slackware is one of the old timers still in existence, and it
> is far back from the bleeding edge. Patrick includes a 2.6.x kernel for those
> who want it, but the 2.4.x is the default. I've had some issues with
> applications after an upgrade, but not with the core utilities. It's been a
> very pleasant change from my Red Hat days (which ended with 7.3). Heck, other
> than security replacements, I do no distribution package upgrades from one
> release to the next.

Though modern Slackware may also qualify (been too long for me to say
whether or not it meets the qualification), Debian stable easily
qualifies as well. Each of those things you mentioned is true of Debian
stable as well. It wasn't until the release last week that Debian stable
even had support for the 2.6 kernel.

Anyway, not time for a distro war here. The point is that the second
article was very true. Theo's was comparing *BSD to absolute bleeding
edge distributions, rather than the stable distributions that are a far
better comparison for the characteristics he was looking at.


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