2/5     I thinking of installing Debian Linux because a friend of mine says
        it's much easier to deal with when you install programs. For example,
        during an insntallation the installer will check for ALL dependencies
        and automatically download the right .so files you need. The claim
        is that RPMs are not as thorough and that there's more work involved.
        Has anyone tried both RH and Debian and have comments on this? ok thx
        \_ I've tried both. apt is definitely an advantage over just using rpm
           (as much as it is over just using dpkg).  However, I don't see any
           significant advantage over yum, which is easy to set up for redhat
           or any other rpm based distro.   I wouldn't use Fedora for
           anything important and I wouldn't pay for linux, so I'd say there
           are other reasons to ditch redhat.   -crebbs
           \_ yum seems to have more dependency resolution issues than apt-get
              YMMV
           \_ You seem to imply that Fedora is the only way to have free Red
              Hat. This is false.
           \_ I really like being able to install new packages with apt since
              it gives me a list of zillions of uninstalled products.  When I
              used yum it seemed like you could only upgrade existing packages.
              How do you use yum to search for and install packages not on your
              system?  Thanks.  -!op
              \_ yum search <glob>
                 (at this point you discover yum doesn't have shit you want
                  in the default repositories, now google around for a while
                  until you find a repository, add that to your list, then:)
                 yum install <package-name>
        \_ I currently have Fedora 2 installed on my home machine, and I
           installed Debian on my father's machine.  The current version
           of debian solves all the problems I had with it before.  It's
           is now easily superior to Fedora.  The only thing Fedora has
           that's better is better Korean support. -jrleek
        \_ Debian's package management superiority is a myth. Maybe four
           years ago it was better but now most Linux distributions come
           with utilities like up2date, yum, apt, etc that will take care
           of package dependencies and such. In addition, I'd like to point
           out that Debian suffers from extremely slow release cycle. The
           current stable version of debian comes with more than three-year
           old software. Debian geeks will tell you that the testing or
           "unstable" versions of Debian are just good enough, but do you
           really want to use a distribution that's changing all the time?
           I suggest to try Fedora Core 3.
           \_ I was right there with you till that last sentence.  Fedora
              has the opposite problem as Debian, the release cycle is too
              fast, and you basically HAVE to upgrade because if they are
              working on Fedora X+1 they will not fix issues in Fedora X
              they just say "upgrade to the latest fedora".  That is just
              not acceptable for anyone running more than 1 box. -crebbs
              \_ I am in complete agreement with you about Fedora. Those
                 guys are nuts in terms of releasing bleeding edge stuff.
                 It's great if you want to try out the latest/greatest
                 and you've got time to burn, but treat it as a research
                 or test box and not a production machine. For production
                 machines get RHEL or the free derivatives like White Hat,
                 etc. As for Debian and old software, well, that's the
                 character of Debian. Unfortunately some of us aren't so
                 lucky to be able to run the latest/greatest versions of
                 software so Debian makes sense for the hordes of IT shops
                 that need to remain backwards compatible. -williamc
           \_ Have you looked at Ubuntu? Supposed to be a more up to date
              Debian.
        \_ apt's dependency checking and conflict resolution is better
           than rpm's, but you don't need to install debian to use apt.
           apt can be built to handle rpms and run on RH. We use this
           at work in order to do dependency checking of RPMS on both
           RH and SuSE.
           \_ you seem to be comparing apples and oranges (apt vs. rpm)
              apt is supposed to be running on TOP of a low-level package
              manager, such as rpm or dpkg. You can't use apt without rpm on
              rpm based system. A more appropriate comparison would be apt vs.
              yum vs. up2date vs. other similar tools.

-- Motd purged by some free-market hating communist.  Order restored
   -- ilyas #1 fan