[Glastonbury] Linux's latest...

[tim hall]

Damon,

On Monday 26 April 2004 11:58 am, Damon Chaplin wrote:
> I tried to install Debian 3 yesterday, since I've been thinking of
> switching to Debian for a while.

What's Debian 3? do you mean 3.0 (i.e 'Woody') or 3.1('Sarge/Testing')

> I think I've changed my mind! I had nothing but trouble, and still can't
> get X running (with an nvidia geforce 5200 - not exactly a rare card!)

Yes, but nvdia don't release their source/specs, so they make it almost 
impossible to write decent 3rd party drivers. They produce their own closed 
source drivers, which are great if you don't want to watch DVDs (heh!-). I'd 
personally lay the blame with nvidia. Seriously, I'd get a different make of 
Video card.

> I wish they'd focus on quality rather than quantity a bit more. (They
> try to support too many packages on too many architectures, and fail.)

You should get a Mac Damon, they only support one architecture :].

The whole point  of Debian is that it will work on any hardware [1] and be as 
configurable as possible without resorting to proprietary software, it 
succeeds famously in that respect. If that isn't what you need, try another 
distro (e.g. SusE / Mandrake?) or, if you can't be bothered with configuring 
things but you still want to try a Debian based system, try Knoppix, it works 
well on relatively standard (i486+) hardware.

Either that or get an asbestos suit ;-)

cheers

tim hall
[1] Any hardware, that is, whose manufacturers release their specs.