Debian vs Suse

[Karl Schmidt]

I was writing to a friend of mine about the differences and I thought I 
would share it here.

I've tried Suse and found it lacking. There was a major problem with the 
default file system rieserFS working with NFS. It has lots of pretty GUI 
gadgets for setting things up, but unfortunately the file placement is 
not standard nor rational.  I found lots of "default" options that were 
not easy to fix and would have to go back every time I wanted to 
upgrade. The default install was supposed to work via DVD, but that 
failed to work and their support didn't have a clue - but on the 
Internet I found others with the same problem and no answers.

The other thing I did not like about SuSe is that it has too much of the 
feel of M$ windows in that you do it the SuSe way and if you want to do 
it your way, it is not easy. (I spent a huge amount of time just trying 
to set up logging to help debug the NFS problem - something that would 
have taken just minutes with Redhat).  I also found that there was just 
too much stuff that looked good but was buggy.

I also tested Mandrake and I'm now testing Debian (using the libranet 
install). I like debian for several reasons.

First, it is the most Linux "community" oriented in that it really is 
where the other distributions get their parts. Security fixes always 
seem to be available for debian before even Redhat and I believe that 
redhat basically just grabs the patches from the debian distribution as 
they have their fixes out always a few hours after the debian fix.

Debian follows the much more rational and standard locations for file 
placement which means more scripts/programs will work with out having to 
fix file paths.

There are three versions of Debian at anyone time Unstable, Testing and 
  stable. The "stable" version of Debian is ultra stable - but for 
desktops lots of people use testing as it has a more recent Kernel and 
would be similar in stability to redhat9 (verses the older enterprise 
products they are pushing now)

Debian needs only to be installed once, after that all upgrades are via 
and update program called "apt-get". There is no charge for apt-get. 
Apt-get also seems to have the best handle on dependency problems.

I have also noticed that a large portion of developers use debian as 
their platform so problems with specific applications should occur less 
often.

Debian has more than 8,710 software packages included with it at this time.

Debian is also where the heart of the Linux community is - they include 
no software that has even questionable licenses - that means that you 
won't get hooked on some program that will cost money or have propriety 
file formats to keep you from your files later in life. This may not 
seem like a big deal, but it is. (I have gotten married to some CAD 
software where the support to keep it working with OS upgrades now costs 
$1,500/year).

The down side of debian is that the install software is a bit rough ( 
they are porting anaconda (redhat's install software). I had problems 
with the standard install because of a CD-Rom drive. So I went and 
bought  Libranet (Libranet is debian). Libranet seems quite nice and of 
course all one has to do is set up apt-get afterwords to get (and keep 
up to date) what ever version of Debian and installed packages. (Apt-Get 
allows full control of which software (unstable-testing-stable) to 
update from.) Remember you only need to install debian once!

I'm still very new to debian and may change my mind, but I don't want 
another RedHat that puts commercial agendas ahead of Linux/GPL.

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Karl Schmidt EMail    Karl at xtronics.com
Transtronics, Inc.    WEB http://xtronics.com
3209 West 9th Street  Ph(785) 841-3089
Lawrence, KS 66049    FAX(785) 841-0434

Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.
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