I think the problem is probably contributed to by a few things.  One thing that sticks out is the size of Debian.  Isn't the next release coming on something like 13 CDs?  That is just too damn large.  I like the structure of Fedora more.  Having a "Core" which keeps moving forward at a good pace and is quite small and have "Extras" that plug into the Core with little hassle.  Hell even FC could be smaller.  It could drop all the desktop/X packages and have a Fedora Desktop set etc.  That way you have sections of the whole OS advance at the pace that best suits that section.  For example Gnome and KDE have different release schedules so why force the users of a distro to upgrade their desktop in lock step to the rest of the OS.  Split the two out into separate releases/package sets and allow users to track them with yum/apt or whatever.

Of course its pointless discussing this in too much detail as we don't have much (read any) influence over distro packaging unless we get involved with those efforts.

Regard

On Sun, 2004-04-04 at 06:50, Greig McGill wrote: 
I used to agree, but after the couple of weeks I've had trying to get
certain things (maia mailguard, web stuff using PEAR, web stuff using
freetype, etc) I have decided that Debian needs to get with the program a
bit more as far as up-to-date releases are concerned.

A server is only as good as the applications you need to serve, and if they
won't work due to out of date libraries, ancient versions of php, poorly
packaged PEAR, whatever...then it's not a very good server platform.

I was discussing this with Craig at work, and his idea is that perhaps
Debian should stop trying to run on so many platforms, and instead focus on
what Linux was originally intended to be - a Free Unix-alike on x86.  x86 is
what the majority of linux users run after all.  Alternatively, perhaps they
could take a leaf out of the BSDers book, and have platform tiers, with
certain platforms being more up-to-date than others.

Any alternative suggestions for fixing this problem?

G.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "A. Pagaltzis" <pagaltzis@gmx.de>
To: <wlug@list.waikato.ac.nz>
Sent: Sunday, April 04, 2004 1:41 AM
Subject: Re: [wlug] [Fwd: End of Life for Red Hat Linux 9]


> * Kyle Carter <kyle@feet.net.nz> [2004-04-03 15:16]:
> > id love to use debian if it wasnt so last year (if not even
> > older) maybe this is my chance to find something else.
>
> On a server, this matters.. why? The security updates are very
> current, even if the version numbers are not. I wouldn't run
> Debian on a desktop, but for servers it's my #1 choice by far.
>
> -- 
> Regards,
> Aristotle
>
> "If you can't laugh at yourself, you don't take life seriously enough."
> _______________________________________________
> wlug mailing list | wlug@list.waikato.ac.nz
> Unsubscribe: http://list.waikato.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/wlug
>
>
>

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