On Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 11:11 PM, francis picabia <fpica...@gmail.com>wrote:
I think you read something into that which wasn't stated. I never > mentioned openSUSE. > You might have never used that, that's why, I guess you didn't mention. > In Debian it requires only a quick couple of reboots to load the newer > kernel, etc. > That's a great thing. > Another thing that would make me hesitant is the future > of Suse. A distro which is owned by someone new > every few years comes with some uncertainty. > I didn't know this fact! But new persons too can handle the task smoothly provided they are perfect. > I've seen comments on many mailing lists and forums of people who > went through a series of distros, say any three of gentoo, ubuntu, > slackware, fedora, debian, cent os, mint, before settling on one they > preferred. > These where often users straight from Windows. > One of the easiest distro, I came to know is PCLinuxOS in this list, the list you are saying could be a little old, now a days PCLinuxOS (as someone points here too), is radically simply, simpler and more like Windows. > Personally, it took me several years and a second visit to using > Debian before it became my preferred distro. > > It can also be a question of documentation, bug handling, user community, > etc. All of those things you only know by trying it out and doing > "immersion". > You are from the technical field only so have a lot of time testing and trying other distros, but we are from other field, we need something good at this moment, like Debian/openSUSE/PCLinuxOS. When I got into Linux in 1996, searching for help in Alta Vista on Linux > was always returning info on Redhat, so this became my choice. > Today, it is nearly the opposite - Redhat information is barely out there. > Community support and documentation is a major factor in my view. Time changes many things, many new developments incorporated........(since then)..... On Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 11:06 PM, Anthony Campbell <a...@acampbell.org.uk>wrote: A distribution that does everything with the GUI certainly makes things > easier for beginners, but I think that unless you take the plunge and > become comfortable with the command line you are likely to progress > only slowly. I do agree with you. On Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 12:53 AM, francis picabia <fpica...@gmail.com>wrote: > Yes, however, if you are curious in addition to willing, the GUI front > end can be educational. Change something in GUI which impacts the > firewall, authentication, etc., and then look at the file system to > see what files it changes and with what content. This was me with > Redhat in '96 and it built knowledge I could take to Slackware, etc. > I guess this must have impact on the system files, GUI too asks for authentication (as for what I know....)! But more significantly, the older generation of Unix users were > introduced to stuff gradually. It was like going through school, but > we were introduced to each piece as it came into maturity. We were > not on the web, we probably didn't have email except to other users on > the same Unix system. We started with vt100-ish terminals, not any sort of > Windows. We did have > lots of time to experiment with shell scripting, regular expressions, > awk, tricks in vi (it was called fred when I first used it) etc. This > was our elementary school period we built up the basics of living and > working from the command line. Even when XFree86 came along, it was a > bit of research to find how to configure your particular video card, > monitor, mouse, etc. with the windowing system. > That was old times when email was not so common as it is now, but you have good experience. > For someone starting today, there is a mountain of information to > learn all at once. They have to sort out what is worth learning. I > don't know how they would go about it. Of course to me it makes sense > to learn it the same order it was developed, but really, a bunch of it > can be forgotten (e.g. uucp). > It is forgotten, today people learn only the things they require or want to work in, and that's why they take so long to grep perfection! > I think it is getting to the point where more and more, only the > developers (or people able to read and understand the code) will have > inside knowledge on changing > low level config. It is like that now for projects like Horde Webmail > or Mailman. > Of course, general people cannot do level of technical changes or editing such files...The general people only use the system which developers do provide them....! On Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 12:16 AM, Robert Blair Mason Jr. <r...@verizon.net>wrote: > Beyond just stability and freedom, I also didn't like the openSUSE way > of doing things. I find that debian's package management and system > administration tools are very robust. I haven't yet had a good > experience with YaST. For me it's always been slow, slightly clunky, > and annoying, like when YaST settings override settings in > configuration files. I always thought that if a user changed a config > file, that meant they wanted it changed. > Oh I see. But generally (what people say and I heard people saying that) YaST is good! However, it could be not good for somebody, it it fact is a personal choice. But with openSUSE also, there is nothing which you cannot do which you really can do with Debian and vice-versa too. There is nothing which Debian cannot do which openSUSE can do, so both are rock-solid like mountains of Linux and both are highly secured and versatile, for sure both of these give excellent learning opportunities and to be used widely ( ***I say according to what I read, and on the suggestions I get from the experts like you, and they cannot be wrong when many people say the same things***). Debian also has a much more centralized repository system (i.e. not > having to add a new repo every time you want to install something). > I view it as a convenience advantage - I can always add an extra repo > if I want to, but for standard packages I shouldn't have to mess with > that. > > Choose aptitude and dpkg and you can't go wrong. > > So yes, I'm one to blindly point to debian : D That's really great that Debian too is such a great distro, I agree with you but based on the experts' comments and people experiences, I cannot even deny the fact that openSUSE too is rock solid and nice (it might have not run well on your machine though). It could happen sometimes that Debian too gives some problem to somebody (might be driver issue with the latest hardware or anything) and then the users says that Debain is not good for him only. While it is Debian or it is openSUSE, both are excellent in my views (***now***) and with WHATEVER I go, I am sure that it would be highly exciting and for me it would not matter for how long I take to learn the Linux since I would have to spare the time from my other Job. Said that, now my mind is really knowing something regarding Linux. A typical scenario: "A general person is going to job (say like in Business and not related with computers at all). In the evening he comes to the home and want to use the computer without learning that all things required for Linux, but simultaneously he doesn't want any viruses too (of course) but want to use the system at the earliest for his personal purposes." In this typical scenario, I guess (again not sure) that openSUSE (being a better GUI then Debian) can give the person that all--if I am not wrong....Further after 18 months the person would again reinstall the next version and it doesn't involve (I guess) learning all that.....And simultaneously would get all that a typical Linux system could do except the things which only technical people use (like system administration or network administration....) However as suggested by someone here, PCLinuxOS too can give all that in GUI (like openSUSE). Being a person from other field, if I am wrong, please do let me know so that I can get the correct and accurate information. Thx.
