[Sussex] A rant on using different distributions

[G.J. Teale]

Simon Huggins <huggie at earth.li> writes:

> You say you installed "Damn Small Linux" and then you compare it to
> Debian.  Maybe the problems such as lack of dependencies are down to
> DSL's failings not Debian's.

Possibly, although I've seen these kinds of issues many times on
Debian itself and on other Debian derived distros.  More specifically
I think Matthew was taking issue with the rather poor error message
and the fact that he has to memorise many commands instead of one
command with many options.

I think the latter point is negligable although it remebering "man
emerge" is easier than remembering to look for multiple commands.

The former point is a serious usability issue though.

Moreover these issues are related to the debian package management
tools, not to a specific distro.

> I don't really understand why you obviously know that DSL isn't Debian
> and yet persist in labelling it Debian throughout your rant.

I would point out that the Debian community (or at least many members
of it, some present on this list) routinely refer to Distro's like
Knoppix and Ubuntu as "Debian" when it suits them.  In both cases they
are refering to the package management tools, not the core Debian
distro.  If everyone could move past that obvious point it would be
helpful.

I appreciate that the tone of the original e-mail was rather
agressive, but I think that everyone involved would benefit more from
this discussion if we don't reduce it to the level of a playground
squabble.

> If you want to bitch about Debian, why don't you at least install
> and test Debian first?

A fair point, I'd argue that Debian is likely to be far better tested
than DSL and as such would probably yeild more reliable results.  That
said the tools would be the same - useful hints in that direction
(i.e. the aptitude comment someone made previously) would be a
productive approach.

--
G. J. Teale