[ltp] Periodic distro question

[Robert Munro]

Hmmm.  All distros have trade-offs and it would seem you've discovered 
some of them.  Slackware is minimalist, but you have to configure a lot 
by hand.  RedHat/Mandrake, Suse, and Debian each attempt easier 
installation and configuration, but at the price of transparency, 
installer/configurator code that doesn't handle unusual cases well, and 
added layers of abstraction.  It's a dilemma that all distributions have 
to face and attempt to resolve.  Have you looked at Sorcerer Linux?

Regards,
Robert

Tom Allison wrote:

> I guess this is really just a vent/rant but...
>
> I am a current user of Debian.
> I picked it from Slackware because I was in favor of a faster install 
> process than slackwares.  Of course I had fewer questions in Slackware 
> because I was always RTMing.  Debian makes it easier to not do that.
>
> I also picked it because the defaults were more secure (than other 
> options at the time) and it was an excellent choice for getting 
> notebooks configured with apm & pcmcia.
>
> But there are a few specifics that are really bothering me and now I'm 
> wondering if there are not other distros which would keep me happy.
>
> ALSA, or any realiable sound support is probably the one thing that 
> has never worked on this IBM A21m.
>
> At this point I'm actually thinking of going back to SlackWare or 
> possibly looking into RedHat because of the extensive bloat that 
> Debian has shown and the latency of the distributions.
>
> One thing that I'm really frustrated in right now is that the Debian 
> Stable is whoefully behind everything else on the internet. 
> Technically, I cannot run the XFree 3.3.6 that is provided.
>
> But migration to Testing has resulted in a cascade of updated 
> packages, many of whom overwrite my existing configurations.  This 
> really pisses me off to no end.  Combine this with the continued 
> abstraction levels of Debian and it is now getting harder to use 
> Debian and understand other distributions as well.  This niche 
> specialization may have won arguements with Debian, but it's at a high 
> price with respect to interchangeable configurations.  I may be able 
> to fix something on Debian, but not on any other distro.
>
> Is this a common digression between the distros?
>
> I know that years ago, when I used Suse, I saw the same level of 
> abstraction creeping in and promptly dumped it when I was unable to 
> keep anything configured with the Suse Configurator.  I don't know how 
> this has changed in the three years.
>
> RedHat had a similar problem.  Slackware was just very hand-rolled.
>
>
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