On Fri, 2004-01-16 at 14:57, adam beecher wrote:
> Is Debian substantially different to Red Hat?
Yes. Unless something vastly significant has changed in the 8-9 months
since I last tried to install Debian, it's an entirely different sack of
worms. It has the reputation of being much more stable, with a much more
reliable updater (apt-get), and less dependence on the unhappily
corporate-style messing-around with system and application locations
that is one of the hallmarks of Red Hat.
WARNING: personal viewpoint follows. If what I'm saying is factually
wrong, please put me right.
<rant>
Once Debian is running, it seems fine. But installing it is a stone
bitch.
It is a server-oriented distro, not a desktop one, so adjust your
expectations accordingly. Insert the
CD-ROM and run the installer and all you get is a kernel and single-user
mode. No hardware detection to speak of, and no X. You need to go and
find (in advance) all the drivers you need for the hardware (I'm unclear
about how to tell the installer that you have them, and where to put
them). No graphical install that I can find (not that that's a problem,
but the lack of hardware detection is a *big* minus). Once it's running
you can log in and apt-get everything else you need, but the process is
wholly manual, as is all the subsequent setup. There is no way I can
find of Debian leaving you with a fully functional working system and
an X login with all the toys installed like RH does.
</rant>
> The most important
> applications will be Apache, PHP, MySQL, sendmail and possibly Bind, am I
> going to have any problems with these?
No, these are all standard and should run better than on RH.
> How does Webmin perform on Debian,
> anybody using it? How does Debian operate as an all-in-one solution (router,
> firewall, mail server, proxy, etc)?
Perfectly, as far as I know.
> How does the file system and operation
> compare to Red Hat, i.e. is it substantially different?
Virtually the same. Just that stuff is in the right places instead of
Red Hat's cock-eyed setup.
> How do updates work on Debian? I don't run up2date automatically on Red Hat,
> but I want it to be as simple as Red Hat to update the machines: login, run
> an up2date-like command to check what's new, and run another command to
> update the box. I don't want to be pissing around with manual lilo/grub
> updates and the like. I want the box to come back up after a kernel update
> with no whines or grumbles every time.
apt-get has never failed for me on the few occasions I've used it, which
is more than I can say for up2date. But I've never taken a Debian box
through a kernel upgrade.
///Peter
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