[ILUG] Debian or Fedora?

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Brendan Halpin (brendan.halpin at ul.ie):

> I have a brand-new box (Dell, no OS) standing on my desk waiting
> installation as my main workhorse for the next few years. 
> 
> What do I install? I've been running redhat for a few years, and am
> reasonably comfortable with how it organises itself, so Fedora
> beckons. But so does the ethical purity of Debian, and the praise
> lavished in this forum and others on apt-get et alia. 
> 
> I'm a perpetual newbie as a sys-admin, and am really only looking
> for a good platform to run emacs on: where should I go?

Even a perpetual newbie should know better than to troll a Linux user
group mailing list by posting an invitation to a notorious flamewar.
C'mon, Brendan.

The "ethical purity" bit is rubbish, Timothy Murphy's uninformed views
on the matter aside:  Proprietary software is equally as available as 
open-source software in Debian; it's merely placed in a different
package collection and carefully classified as such.

You should install and run whatever works best for you.  Any *ix
whatsoever will run emacs.

If you wish to try Debian, you might be well advised to use
Colm MacCárthaigh's HEAnet netinst image as a point of departure for your
brand-new Dell, as it incorporates many leading-edge drivers for some
Dell models in its installation kernel.  Since you didn't identify the
Dell model or its chipsets, I can't give you more-precise advice.  Steve
Mickeler's netinst image is also apparently good for some Dell models,
as is Victor van Beekum's netinst image.

Details on "Installers" page linked from
http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Debian/installers.html .

-- 
Cheers,                             * Contributing Editor, Linux Gazette *
Rick Moen                       -*- See the Linux Gazette in its new home: -*-
rick at linuxmafia.com                       <http://linuxgazette.net/>