I have been a Debian user for several years now. The first time I loaded it was before the "Bo" version. I compared it to what was available at the time and chose Debian mainly because of the installation control it offered via dpkg and dselect. But I also preferred just about everything else specific to Debian. I felt Debian provided me with a distribution oriented towards the power user and have stuck with it since. My system works exactly the way I want it to and only with Debian could I have tailored it so thoroughly. It pleases me greatly every time I work with it.
Although dselect is becoming unruly with the huge number of packages that have become available in recent versions, I still prefer it over other package tools because of the two things that are becoming more scarce every day with modern software, that is control and flexibility. There seems to be a wave of opinion, in the software industry, that the value of software should be primarily gauged by its level of "grandmatization" (the unrealistic practice of engineering software so that even grandma can install and use it). The important measures of its value such as content, stability, capability, and flexibility are being placed secondary. This counter productive philosophy, started by the biggest and best example of what software should not be and you know who I'm talking about, is propagating at the expense of the truly important measures. Extrapolated to the end result, it's computer fascism. I will have no choices when I install software and will not be able to change anything after I do. Some operating systems and applications are almost to that point already. After reading the last few months worth of newsletters at debian.org, I am concerned that the Debian project may be buying into this foolishness. My hope is that Debian sticks to their guns as a distribution for power users and does not jump on the grandmatization bandwagon. To the Debian organization; please don't worry about the unimportant aspects and concentra te on the important ones. I want control, flexibility, stability, and content. I DO NOT care how difficult or time consuming (barring problematic) an installation process is. If my refusal to compromise any of these important aspects means I have to spend more time answering questions and entering configuration choices during an installation process or even editing configuration files by hand, then so be it!
