Very happy with Etch

[rennen01]

I've gotta say that every time I experiment with other Distros, I always go back to Debian!

[Sashko]

I've gotta say that every time I experiment with other Distros, I always go back to Debian!

+1

[CooSee]

I've gotta say that every time I experiment with other Distros, I always go back to Debian!

+ 2

CooSee ' Ya

[<(DmC)>]

I've gotta say that every time I experiment with other Distros, I always go back to Debian!

+3

[benuski]

It used to be that way with me and Ubuntu, but I just tried 7.04 beta, and immediately came back to Debian...

+4!

[thamarok]

I've gotta say that every time I experiment with other Distros, I always go back to Debian!

$ echo '+'((((((4 * 6) + (2^2)) / 7) * 5) - (2 * 5)) / 2)'!'
Shouldn't be a problem to calculate that in Debian

[rennen01]

I was testing a Snort Intrusion Sensor on some really old hardware and none of the Distros would shut down properly except Etch

[dms_reddy1969]

It used to be that way with me and Ubuntu, but I just tried 7.04 beta, and immediately came back to Debian...

+4!

+5

[hellfire[bg]]

I've gotta say that every time I experiment with other Distros, I always go back to Debian!

Me too

[SpEcIeS]

I really enjoyed this write up http://opensourcelearning.info/blog/?p=318.

Since I have been away from Debian for some time, and Linux for that matter, installing this version will be quite a reward.

Edit
Does anyone agree/disagree with this write up? http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS5673962628.html
I must admit, this does have me a bit concerned.

[Lavene]

Does anyone agree/disagree with this write up? http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS5673962628.html
I must admit, this does have me a bit concerned.

It's discussed here: http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?t=13780

[SpEcIeS]

Thank-you.

[plugwash]

It used to be that way with me and Ubuntu, but I just tried 7.04 beta, and immediately came back to Debian...

ubuntu imo filled a major gap for debian users during the end of the extremely long woody-sarge cycle but with debian having managed to turn arround etch in a reasonable time there is a lot less need for it now.

also ubuntu has got more radical imo, they are doing things like replacing sysvinit with upstart and bash with dash (bash is still present but dash is what /bin/sh links to) which while probablly things that need doing in the long run are certainly a lot of pain in the short term. This is made more significant by the fact that ubuntu is a second tier distro so the more they deviate from their upstream distro (debian) in core stuff the more non-core stuff is likely to break for them.

[jml]

plugwash, I agree with you. Ubuntu did fill a need for a more newby friendly Debian based distro. I had a heck of a time trying to install Woody way back when.(I gave up and bought a copy of Libranet, may it rest in piece.) Sarge was an improvement. But now, with etch, I must say that things have gotten a lot better. The new graphical installer works very well. The apps while not cutting edge are very solid and suprisingly current. And I was suprised by the fact that Etch used the 2.6.18 kernal. Setting up wireless networking has improved a lot. Over all, a great experience. So I actually see a diminishing need for derivative distros except for certain special needs/interests. (Mint Linux for proprietary codecs and apps, *buntu'/ or PCLinuxOS for Windows converts, and SIDUX Linux for people who want to run SID with a bit of support.) Well its all about choice and it is nice to see so many options out there. I wish them all good luck.

Joe

[AgenT]

Can someone clue me in on this dash fiasco?

Code: Select all

DASH is a POSIX-compliant implementation of /bin/sh that aims to be as small as possible. It does this without sacrificing speed where possible. In fact, it is significantly faster than bash (the GNU Bourne-Again SHell) for most tasks.

I was not aware that bash was slow. bash was used when everyone ran 133mhz computers, so it can more than work on a 2,000mhz one of today. And what benefits are there to dash besides speed? And what is wrong with bash that dash fixes?

[plugwash]

bash is fine as an interactive shell but its a bit heavyweight for shell scripts.

dash is a minimal bourne like shell more suited to simple shell scripts and considerablly faster for such uses.

The problem is if you don't make the /bin/sh link point at it then hardly anyone will use it but if you do make the /bin/sh link point at it (like ubunutu did) you will get lots of breakage of software that assumed /bin/sh will always mean bash.

[AgenT]

bash is fine as an interactive shell but its a bit heavyweight for shell scripts.

dash is a minimal bourne like shell more suited to simple shell scripts and considerablly faster for such uses.

The problem is if you don't make the /bin/sh link point at it then hardly anyone will use it but if you do make the /bin/sh link point at it (like ubunutu did) you will get lots of breakage of software that assumed /bin/sh will always mean bash.

Thank you for explaining that. I think that I will stick to bash and my advanced bash scripting ability.