Paul Benjamin wrote:
Well having spend far to much time converting my notebook/test system to Debian Sid from Libranet 2.7 because I didn't want to pay another $50 to for Libernet 2.8, I would have to say that Debian may have a great package manager but other things are weird. The tangle of scripts that sets up networking and a PC Card Wi-Fi makes me want to cry right now. The whole apt-get, dpkg system is stricter than Yast2 and RPM on doing it their way. Debian just as dependant on tools to install things as is SuSE. The problem is if there is something that goes wrong there isn't a second lines of tools to fix things like there is in Yast2. So you are left to Goole and reverse engineering the scripts to run down what went wrong.
Interesting perspective. I wonder if pure Debian is much differenet from Libranet.
If you truly want a system that says out of your way then Slackware is probably your best bet. I haven't had on my PC for more than a few days at a time. The setup doesn't seem to have as many convoluted scripts doing things. You get a tarball and a text editor, yea it does have a package system but it is fairly basic. If you are serious about ditching the tools download a Slackware ISO and give that a try.
I think that you will be back for SuSE in a couple of months but you will have better skills at making SuSE work when thinks go wrong. Just when I think that Linux may be ready for the desktop you run in to some snag and realize that if Linux works at all it is amazing for a project of a thousand separate programs written by thousands of people who have never met in one place at one time. Oh Well maybe SuSE 10 will be ready for the Window users, that should be a couple of years down the road.
I ran Slackware for about 5 years from the kernel 1.0.x days. I have been at this for a pretty long time. In those days I had to wade through HOWTOs just to get delete and backspace, and home and end keys to work. Actually I liked Slackware. I changed to Suse because as I began to use Linux more in my profession as a desktop OS, I just didn't want to have to waste countless hours anymore figuring out how to configure things. I'm all for choice, but it doesn't mean that there shouldn't be a sensible default configuration. Perhaps it would be better to figure out what some of the other folks who responded meant by their comments which seem to imply that it is possible to have Yast *not* do the things I am complaining about. Thanks for the input. Good day! -- _____________________ Christopher R. Carlen crobc@earthlink.net Suse 8.1 Linux 2.4.19