[Nottingham] Debian devotion [was: OE Reply Fixer]

[James Gibbon]

Martin wrote:

> I must confess that its taken three NLUG meetings for me to
> stumble upon why Debian attracts the ferver amongst devotees that
> it does. However, I'll be staying with Mandrake for a while longer
> until the learning curve eases off a little.
> 

I tried Debian (3.0, I think) a few months ago - it wouldn't
recognise my DAT drive or network card, so I reverted to either RH
or Mandy, whichever had been the most recent Linux Format magazine
freebie at the time.  The installation procedure had already given
a fairly poor impression in any case - it seemed crude and
error-prone.

So I'd be interested to hear why Debian devotees are so fond of it
- is it the pure no-profit motive or something inherent to the
actual product?  If it's the latter, what does it give you that 
you can't get from Mandrake, RH or Suse (say)?

James