<personal story> I hate Windows (1995-now) so I start to get interested in Linux. (1997) but I don't have the adequate attitude/knowledge (1998. Debian 2.0 install ok but problems with Winblows, still needed at the time). I keep on trying (1999. RedHat, but flakey electrical installation make lots of kernel panics. W9X simply crashes a lot). I solve the electricity issue. Corel stinks (2000) I go to a basic course of Linux (I learn Slackware).
I return to home, and I think about what distro do I choose. </personal story> <reasons> I am Catalan, and Mandrake is the best Catalanised distro. Here we have to defend our language _every day_. But I think and think and I decide Debian is the only solution for me and to work for: freedom. I agree 100% on the main/contrib/non-free model. Frankly speaking if Debian was not the technically best Linux distro in the world, I wouldn't care and I'd continue with it, only for the political reasons. Debian can be Catalanised, but I don't think Mandrake can transform in a non-profit organisation. About the technical reasons, I like Debian because -Very flexible: from 386 to PIIIII. -Stable. 0 undocumented crashes. -Honesty (unstable/stable branches) -A thing that I hate and it's very common today it's that you can get your work done easily but loosing flexibility. But because the program is bad made, if you run into a problem... Good luck! Of course, Debian is 'harder, but safer'. The ocasionally really easy stuff like pppconfig works... And no more headaches. -debian lists. debian-user is my #1 solution provider (by reading archives 90% of the times). Sure I miss something, but... Hope it's interesting, Ignasi P.S. Ah, I missed something. </reasons> :) _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com