OSNews

[NOTE: I didn't realise this was so long. Lol - oh well, I think it's reasonably on topic, and I've written it now so I might as well post it. <shrug>]

"Debian is no use for this because it is so ancient. The standard debian party line is "track unstable", but the problem there, see, is that its unstable. I don't want to update and find that the package is broken or a bunch of dependencies are messed up. I used to run debian unstable but it kept on breaking my system completely, so no thanks."

"Party line"? Oh great, another "Open Source developers are Communists!" troll. :-P

Try installing apt-listbugs (http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/apt-listbugs.html). It will warn you if you're about to install a package with a serious bug filed against it. It will then display the bug and ask whether you wish to proceed (it might be filed against a different architecture, or whatever). For what it's worth, I've experienced remarkably little breakage, and certainly nothing severe enough to bork my system. In addition, the Release Manager plans to reduce the amount of churn in Unstable by encouraging developers to upload the *really* bleeding-edge stuff (which tends to be what causes most of the breakage) to Experimental instead. Get it from the horses mouth if you're interested (http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2003/debian-devel-ann...).

Besides, different strokes for different folks, and all that. Personally, until Fedora has a packaging policy to rival that of the Debian Policy Manual (http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/), an equivalent number of packages (10,000+) and a QA process of a similar quality to that of the triple-tiered Unstable-->Testing--> Stable release process, then perhaps I'd be willing to see it as being in the same league. Those with different priorities will no doubt see things in a different light.

While I run Unstable on my desktop and laptop, and am entirely happy with it in said capacities, it's important to remember that Unstable and Testing are (whilst fully-functional in themselves, as well) really only there as a means to an end for producing the next release. And the end product rocks! Debian Stable is, IMO, the best distribution for a server or workstation.

It's incredibly low-maintenance, has timely security updates, is rock-solid, and supports seamless on-the-fly upgrading from one stable release to the next. Since the only updates allowed in are security patches, it really does practically maintain itself; after the initial setup and securing of the box, install cron-apt (http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/cron-apt.html) and have it poll for updates daily from security.debian.org. Best practice would be to give the updates a once-over first (and indeed, apt-cron's default behaviour is to download without installing, and notify the sysadmin via email) but I've personally had no problems with having it install the updates automatically.

[Aside: whoever complained about security.debian.org sometimes being down made a good point. There are *still* no official mirrors, and an unofficial mirror would be highly suspect by definition. Hopefully this will be fixed soon.]

Anyway, I don't think Fedora's going to be rivalling Debian in the server/workstation department in the foreseeable future, and meanwhile Debian is actively seeking to remedy some of its biggest shortcomings with regard to the desktop end-users, as well. The new installer is probably the most visible example of this, and is on-track for being included in the next release. There are plenty of other efforts underway, as well, e.g. a "tags" database for packages which will allow a much more flexible approach to browsing the package tree - an end user will be able to view just the KDE/QT applications, for instance.

To conclude: Debian's already pretty much a sysadmin's dream (IMO) for the workstation/server sector, and in the future it's going to be a whole lot more appealing on the desktop and to the end user as well. In the end, though, there's always going to be a trade-off between having the very latest software and having *stable* software, even in Unstable, and Debian most definitely makes the latter its priority. Those that don't like it can either a) be patient b) pitch in and help fix the issues that are preventing the software from migrating to Testing (and thus the next Stable) or even from entering Unstable in the first place, as was the case with KDE 3 or c) find a different distribution with different focus/priorities. Fedora sounds like it will be perfect for those who would opt for category c) and thus don't share Debian's focus on quality control, or at least not to the same degree.