Debian 2.2r3's installer runs very smoothly. All that's required of the 
user is to read what's on the screen before pressing enter a zillion times 
like your everyday impatient Windows user. And if someone isn't willing and 
understanding that they will be learning a brand new system when they first 
switch to linux, then that person should think twice about what they're 
doing and just stick with their Windows install.

I think the best way to say it is, "Debian is not for beginners who are 
expecting Linux to be just like Windows". It could truthfully be said that 
if someone wants to learn Linux to be an effective sysadmin/technician, 
they should start with Debian. Debian makes you do a lot of things manually 
and as a result, you learn more about how the system works without having 
it wrapped up in pretty conf scripts. The *configurator scripts are there 
for the people that don't know what they are doing (nothing wrong with 
ignorance), and the sysadmin is there for when those scripts fail to do 
their job. "Oh no! Xconfigurator doesn't work! Whatever shall I do? 
Wherever shall I go?" If you want to be one of the people that fixes that 
and does it well, I believe you should start with Debian.

If you want to have Linux just for playing around or maybe write a bit of 
code, or just so you can tell your friends how much of a hax0r you are 
because you discovered the NETCONF and set up your linux box without any 
help from anyone, then you should use Mandrake or RedHat. Those 
distributions seem targeted for (and created by.. <g>) those who really 
don't know too much about Linux and have little to no desire to learn.

Other than that, and my continuing praise for Debian's speed, reliability, 
and consistency across distributions, I will cease contributing to the 
distribution argument.

-----Original Message-----
From:	Douglas Jerome [SMTP:jerome@primenet.com]
Sent:	Friday, July 20, 2001 12:14 AM
To:	plug-discuss@lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us
Subject:	Re: Introductions

OK, I just joined this list, but I'll jump right in.

I'm an experienced s/w engineer; I've been hacking on
unices for 10 years, and I've been using various Linux for
several years.

The Debian installer is a mess. It is not for a beginner.
apt-get is great when you learn it, but I've seen too many
people give up on Linux because they tried Debian first.

If someone who worked for me made a program like the last
Debian installer I tried, I'd fire him. Installtion options
that conflict with each other, and let you do just that,
are brain damage. Having to go through an incredibly long
rolling command line configuration of everything that you
installed (even if you dont want to configure/startup them)
with obscure options is brain damage. Pardon me, but
if I did that to my customers then I would be fired.

There's absolutely nothing about redhat or mandrake that
keeps anyone from "getting under the hood". And they are
a WHOLE HECK OF A LOT easier for a beginner to install.

--
Douglas Jerome
http://www.primenet.com/~jerome
http://hackerlabs.sourceforge.net
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