> OK, so the two leading distros are redhat and debian. debian, on the one > hand, is run as a voluntary organisation etc, whereas redhat is (or is going > the way of) a corporation, in the sense that it employs programmers, is very > far ahead of any of the competition and (arguably although I think) > sacrifices reliability over commercial factors. (eg rushing distros to get > them out to coincide with the marketers strategy). > I know that redhat have done a good job in promoting linux for the masses > etc, but does redhat seem like the next MS to you?
I think that the main reason for redhats success in numbers has more to do with the installation program. Many of us can peice together a broken install and get it working. But we are now venturing into a different and larger world. We are attracting windows users and they come to us with no linux experience. I tryed debian a while ago and (I run an ISP and have about 6 years experience with linux) became so frustrated with dselect that I gave up twice. I have heard that work is being done to help this, and I hope that the new installation program will be tested on at least some novices. I have noticed that developers do not have the same expectations that a novice would have and do not create systems that are easy to use. I do hope that dselects replacement will be much more friendly. The second reason that RedHat was popular (at least around here) was its packaging system, and having a book published about it does not hurt. But I must say that their install is very easy, sort of like buying a japanese car, pick option group a,b,c,d,e,f and if you realy want go and look whats in there. They have had their problems and to some extent they do have presures to get the new stuff out more than debian would, and being commercial ha a lot to do with that. However because they are commercial they can do some things that debian cannot. Ok lets say they have a lot of complaints about package x and the management decides to fix it right now. They can put all the developers in one room and sort it out. Thats not so easy when people are in 7 timezones and all around the globe. I wish Red Hat well but I think those prices for supported (24x7) packages are way out of line. But only time will tell if they are a money pit or a boon. I wish debian well as well I like some of what is happening but can't stand that dselect.
