[Tfug] Re: Newbie Follow-Up Question

[Tom Rini]

On Fri, Jul 05, 2002 at 10:22:21AM -0700, Harry McGregor wrote:
> On Fri, 5 Jul 2002, Tom Rini wrote:
> 
> > On Fri, Jul 05, 2002 at 03:07:42AM -0700, Bowie J. Poag wrote:
> >
> > > > All of the software is up to date, and very stable, as well as being
> > > > tracked in the package management database.
> > >
> > > Ahhhhhhh, okay. Now I get it. So Debian "stable" ___isn't___.
> >
> > No.  Someone just told Chris to go and install woody, which is on it's
> > way to being stable, for some unknown reason.
> 
> Well, I am that someone, and the reason I recomended it was that _I_ was
> the person who would be helping him install.  The only problems I have run
> into with woody for over a year and a half are install related.

Yeap.  ~95% of the problems with woody usually are install.  The next 4%
are ego or a package from unstable needing to be moved up, and the rest
are actual bugs.  But having the installer not correctly install really
is a problem.

> > The biggest problem with Debian is all of the people telling newbies to
> > go and use woody, which is almost but not quite sane (IIRC, the bit
> > where it will install woody and then try and grab 'stable' (-> currently
> > potato) packages was known and intentional.  I'm not sure if it was/will
> > be changed) instead of potato which really is stable & solid.  woody is
> > fine, as long as you remember the half dozen caviats and tricks for a
> > beta install.  Like Red Hat's LIMBO. :)
> 
> Well, the CD Snapshot two months ago did not have the problem...

Yeah.  And then since woody will be stable, someone decided to make it
attempt to install stable stuff.  And I'm almost positive there's a big
thread on debian-devel or something about it too.

> > > > Yes, the debian install is a little more painful the first 10-20 times you
> > > > install, but the ease of management in the long run pays for itself in no
> > > > time at all.
> > >
> > > Uhhhh...10 to 20?  Harry? Helllooooo.....
> >
> > Yes, the debian/potato installer isn't nearly as purty or automatic as Red Hat
> > 7.x (or Mandrake 8.x or current SuSE).
> 
> But it is just as effective, and gives the user more "power" over the
> install.

It's always a trade-off.  If you can click a few buttons and get a setup
that only needs minor changes for the "power" user, why not do it?  I
just recently threw RH7.2 on a scrap disk for some work-related testing
and it was kind of nice to click, click, ... wait ..., click and have a
rather reasonable setup.  I think the post-woody installer is supposed
to be easier for the average user to use.

-- 
Tom Rini (TR1265)
http://gate.crashing.org/~trini/