[Full-Disclosure] Fw: Red Hat Linux end-of-life update and transition planning

[Timothy J.Miller]

On Nov 3, 2003, at 2:22 PM, Jonathan A. Zdziarski wrote:

> To answer your question:
>
> Debian: 8 CDs of useless or outdated software, 2.2 kernel install,
> poorly designed install tool

ObPickNits:

Debian only needs one CD, if you have a network connection.  In fact, 
there's a 'netinst' Debian install CD that can be burned to a business 
card CDROM.

Debian maintains security fixes for all stable packages, so none are 
really outdated.  Interested people maintain 'backports' of important 
packages if a major package releases between Debian releases.  Finally, 
if you *must* have the "version released yesterday," you can install 
Debian stable and 'apt-get dist-upgrade' to Debian testing or Debian 
unstable, which usually work just fine.

Debian 3.0 CD3 uses a 2.4.18 boot kernel, so you can install under 2.4. 
  Regardless of which kernel you install, Debian stable maintains kernel 
packages for 2.4.16 & 18, and the 'make-kpkg' tool makes it trivial to 
compile and install your own kernel package from a later revision 
kernel source.

Finally, if "poorly designed" means you actually have to read the 
install prompts, then yes, I think you're probably right.  However, the 
neophyte I gave an install CD last week didn't have a problem, so that 
issue is overblown.

-- Cerebus