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Wojciech Domalewski · #1 Post by **Wojciech Domalewski** » 2004-09-18 20:02

Why do you prefer Debian to other distributions?

startx · #2 Post by **startx** » 2004-09-19 06:04

that's a looong story, here comes my personal view on the
"why debian"-thing:

1) first of all, debian is free software , free as in freedom.
http://www.debian.org/intro/free
http://www.debian.org/social_contract

2) it is unbelievable stable and (well, that's a question of taste) comfortable
to work with, especially the package system.

3) it has a great community working on and around debian,
with many wonderful people ...

that's for the start ...

Oracle · #3 Post by **Oracle** » 2004-09-19 10:49

I come from Gentoo, which uses quite the same system as apt-get, called emerge. The problem is that with emerge, you have to compile everything you want to get... Extremely good if you want to optimize things, my poor 350Mhz (used for testing) took about a week to compile everything to have it up and running... So I tried Debian, with the installer, and everything went well, system was up in about an hour... Now, untill I don't get a better testing machine, I stay with Debian, which is exactly what I have been searching for...

Jeroen · #4 Post by **Jeroen** » 2004-09-19 16:01

I like the good integration of packages, if I read about a piece of software, I can more often than not apt-get install it, and it just works. I don't need to bother with compiler flags, or possible problems because I have a slightly different compiler version than others, etc etc

It has been tested alongside exactly the same the other packages and libraries on my system.

Another big plus is that every package is very well according to the Packaging Policy, and thus has config files in /etc, and any static binaries and support files in /usr, etc etc. That makes it very easy to work with new packages, and I know for example that I can find documentation about any package in /usr/share/doc/<packagename>

startx · #5 Post by **startx** » 2004-09-20 17:16

@Oracle

you have to compile everything you want to get...

i never tried gentoo, but people told me that there is only a minimal plus of performance in comparison to the "pre-compiled" debian.

can agree with that?

Oracle · #6 Post by **Oracle** » 2004-09-22 16:55

Well, most of the time, I can say... yes, I agree... but only on recent computers. I own an old one, K6-2 350Mhz 98MB RAM, and I can see a difference in speed (well, mostly 'cause I use XOrg instead of XFree)... with an optimized use flag and architecture flag, Gentoo is much more faster on a small machine. Compiling kernel using genkernel is very easy and let you do some changes in the options, putting it to K6-2 (there is no kernel for the moment designed for 586 in Debian)... In this particular case, Gentoo is better... but the time needed to compile is too long (about a week...)

But overall, performances are quite the same, Gentoo is a bit faster, not that much...

zynix · #7 Post by **zynix** » 2004-09-22 19:33

deleted

AdrianTM · #8 Post by **AdrianTM** » 2004-09-22 23:05

Freedom first.

Apt-get (Kpackage) + Debian pool combination. You can't beat that, you can install almost any program that you think of with just a fiew clicks. I tried some RPM based distros and I was lost. They are getting closer but I thing it's a long way till one of them will offer (freely) a repository as big as Debian's.

Stability, I even upgraded all the way to Sid and I didn't have any problem, any crash... "Unstable" is rock solid in my experience.

Debian = Linux for me.

-i- · #9 Post by **-i-** » 2004-09-26 18:25

Because I just love apt! And it is simple. I have never liked those graphical tools. They make everything just so slow.

Roeland · #10 Post by **Roeland** » 2004-10-05 08:14

Debian is practically on every device in my house (well, not on my Linux PDA, that one runs VR Linux). I really /love/ everything it offers, from the install to the possibility to mess everything up with obscure experimental stuff. (Yes, I'm one of those who already loved the Woody installer, though the Sarge installer is heaven.)

I'm a leader of a computer workgroup for kids and youngsters, which is all running on Debian GNU/Linux (I'm learning them everything about Open Source, Free Software, etc). At the moment we're experimenting with Skolelinux, a Debian-based educational distro. Without Debian, we'd be nowhere.

So, Debian for me. Most of my friends prefer Debian too

The apt-system is heaven-sent. The 'community' is great, the Freedom is fantastic.

-Roel

dirk · #11 Post by **dirk** » 2004-10-05 08:40

The reason why I'm running debian is first apt-get (minimalistic dependecie errors

), and secondly the software is bleeding edge

SoulNOTHING · #12 Post by **SoulNOTHING** » 2004-10-09 04:56

um its free i heard it was tough to install, i like a challenge, i heard it was fast, before i used over 30 different distributions between 3 computers two desktops and one laptop none them just seemed write to me i installed sarge and i feel at home i just decided to give it a try and all the other distros i thought were good cant hold a candle to debian