Debain vs. Redhat

[Mazarin]

I've been using redhat 6.2 for a while now. But I've heard a lot of people say that debian is really good.

Can someone give me soem comparison between the two?

I'm still kind of new to linux so I'd rather not screw up my computer (too badly).

[MovingTarget]

everywhere i go i hear redhat is crap
so thats just for a general idea

everywhere i go i hear great things about debain,slackware(i started with slack still here)

debain is clearly one of the hotest flavors out right now

slack is one of the classic linux distro's and is still da shiznit heh http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/smile.gif

and people say mandrake is good for noobs
( but i didnt like it)

but to answer your question from all that i have heard debain stomps all over redhat like a hillbilly in a linedance http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/smile.gif

but for me slack is the way to go http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/smile.gif
thats my 2 cents

[pbharris]

hello,
i DO NOT want to turn this into a Debian VS. RedHat thread. That said:
Debian has apt-get and truckloads of applications precompiled. apt-get is much better than RPMs, much better. I needed to to more of a setup on the hardware side (little things, like creating some links, installing a couple of drivers for my NVidea video card and my soundcard. there is a wee bit more work to be doen with network setting, but it is not too bad. inittab is much differnet in debian and i like redhats better (just because I am more used to it), but both work well

on the redhat side there is RPM, not bad but not real good either. there are many applications in RPM format too and applications may be easier to find. My sound card was detected right of the bat, though i did need to set upo the video card here too, i am running xfree86 4.01 i hate linuxconf except for a couple of things, and redhat uses linuxconf. both of my cdroms were setup and entries made in fstab, which i can't remember if debian did, but it seems like it did not.

for me both have been rock solid, and after i have them setup i have no idea of which i am using. i use kernel 2.2.17 and have complied in USB support with both, and both give me a seti@home time of about 4.75 hours per data unit, I will say that before compiling the kernel the default redhat kernel took longer to process a seti@home data unit. i have no idea of why...

the said: They are both good!!!!



[This message has been edited by pbharris (edited 09 December 2000).]

[klamath]

Search the forum archives. This topic has been flamed to death literally hundreds of times.

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- Klamath
Get my GnuPG Key Here (http://klamath.dyndns.org/mykey.asc)
Looking for an open source project to contribute to? Check out the Better Bulletin Board (http://bbb.sourceforge.net)

[Unruly]

Debian is probably better for you if you want to cut the fat, and run on minimal fluff. Lets just say it's a bit of a struggle to set it up first (for the uninitatied), but once it's there, you learn 10x as fast as you would with redhat.

Not to mention apt-get rules! No more dependancy problems!! http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/biggrin.gif

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Nathan
Q: How many existentialists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: Two. One to screw it in and one to observe how the lightbulb itself symbolizes a single incandescent beacon of subjective reality in a netherworld of endless absurdity reaching out toward a maudlin cosmos of nothingness.

[Gaccm]

preach it pbharris. I went from rhat 6.2 -> 7.0 -> debian (i went to deb cause of 7.0). I was using rhat 6.2 and i liked it, it did run a little slow, even at CLI (P200 32megs), but it was still useable. What i did dislike is it never told me anything. If i was lucky it might say "running program X" but never why, where or for what. It installed lots of stuff, and gnome was bad (i was a newbie, didn't know how to change) when 7.0 came out, it was even worse, and that was why i went to redhat. Debian's install was very easy for me, no probs what so ever. and now that i use it i LOVE apt. "dang i don't have prog X. apt-get install X. woohoo" no more searches on freshmeat for me http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/smile.gif In conclusion: rhat and deb are quite similar, but while rhat is working on (making money and) wizards and help boxes and simple things, deb is working on easy management, (dselect and rpm-equivilent are close, but i dselect gives more info, and easier)

[RageAHolic]

I love a good Linux Vs. Linux thread http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/tongue.gif http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/biggrin.gif

Apt-get good...rpm good, but dependencies!!!

apt-get Vs. rpm...apt-get hands-down

apt-get + rpm...


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...your friendly neighborhood RageAHolic (http://www.angelfire.com/electronic/RageAHolic/index.html)

Rage fueled by: AMD Athlon

[A_Lawn_GNOME]

All I will say is that when I tried to install Debian using the normal base->apt-get the rest, it didn't detect my network card and promptly stopped.

Red Hat has never failed to detect my hardware. The biggest problem I had was recognizing my nvidia card was working properly (hehe, oops).

[evil_roy]

both great. Apt-get makes the difference and is worth the switch.

As far as learning goes..that's up to you. You can learn as much as you want with any distro. Anyone who tells you different is a tosser

[Mikenell]

I used Red Hat and switched to Debian pretty quickly, apt-get is excellent but Slackware is also cool http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/smile.gif That's what I'm using right now.
Mikenell

[milanuk]

None of us want to see this degenerate into a flame war. After all, we all run Linux, or a *BSD, something other than M$.

That said, the Debian apt-get system seems to work pretty darn well. A little more of a PITA if you don't have a good network connection, though there are tools to work around even that. W/ something like 6000 packages in Woody, the odds are good that there is a package there that will fit the bill. Of course, repositories like rpmfind.net are nothing to sneeze at, though the differences btwn RedHat, SuSE, Mandrake, Caldera, etc. rpms knocks down the numbers available for any one rpm-based distro a lot.
What I'm drooling for is rpm-apt, or rpm-get, whatever it's called. This will hopefully allow users of 'commercially' developed rpm distros like RedHat and SuSE to have the comfort of relatively painless installs (as compared to setting things up on Debian) _and_ reap the package-management benefits of apt. God that would be awesome!

Monte

[rayh]

Hummm ... a bit unbalanced ...

There seems to be a big difference in ease of setup. Just following the rap on Lnube the last year I've seen many, MANY failed Debian installs commented, and almost NO failed RedHat installs ( except for HW ).

... so if ya gotta life or a girlfriend ta bi* at go RedHat, otherwiz ... APtgEt

[ColdPack]

Originally posted by milanuk:
None of us want to see this degenerate into a flame war. After all, we all run Linux, or a *BSD, something other than M$.

That said, the Debian apt-get system seems to work pretty darn well. A little more of a PITA if you don't have a good network connection, though there are tools to work around even that. W/ something like 6000 packages in Woody, the odds are good that there is a package there that will fit the bill. Of course, repositories like rpmfind.net are nothing to sneeze at, though the differences btwn RedHat, SuSE, Mandrake, Caldera, etc. rpms knocks down the numbers available for any one rpm-based distro a lot.
What I'm drooling for is rpm-apt, or rpm-get, whatever it's called. This will hopefully allow users of 'commercially' developed rpm distros like RedHat and SuSE to have the comfort of relatively painless installs (as compared to setting things up on Debian) _and_ reap the package-management benefits of apt. God that would be awesome!

Monte

There are commercially developed versions of debian like Storm, Libranet, Corel (ick) and (soon) Progeny. They all work nicely with apt... no worries (usually) about using different distros and how apt may "act up" because they all essentially run with the same trees (potato, woody...).
I've been working a bit with the apt for rpms and there are LOTS of bugs... mostly because what works for RH6.2 won't work for RH7, as well and Mandrake, Suse, etc... So, there is no "apt-get dist-upgrade" to get your 6.2 butt up to 7.0 (yet). You CAN do that with Debian and any of it's commercial counterparts. So one can go from Storm "Rain" (based on Debian Slink) to Storm "Hail" (based on Debian Potato) or even go further and upgrade to Debian Woody from that original Storm "Rain". There will likely be a few wrinkles to iron out but it will still take you less time to work with that iron that it will to figure out the multitude of dependency problems trying to install the latest release of xchat on your RedHat 6.2 system.
And while there may be some probs with installing a pure Debian system for some, they don't far outnumber those who have a helluva time getting rh7.0 on their system.
I run debian (and slack and conectiva, too!) on my box at home and they all work well. And I baked some Christmas cookies at home with my wife over the weekend, too. So it doesn't take any more time out from your "life" than any other linux distro might.
Actually, after all is said and done, my debian system is the one that makes the most sense. (Still trying to sort out some "issues" with my Slack install... those I'll post later. http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/smile.gif )
Til then, ta ta!
(By the way, I went with Conectiva 6.0 because they are the ones heavily developing apt for rpm and have it included in their distro... and, quite honestly, was easier to install and configure than rh7.0. It's not a bad little distro, really. Still some tweaking, though, in that "Where's that? What's going on here?"-Mandrake-Suse-Redhat sort of way.) http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/wink.gif Some of it just makes absolutely no sense.


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"What do people mean when they say the computer went down on them?"
---Marilyn Pittman

[This message has been edited by ColdPack (edited 11 December 2000).]

[hip]

i haven't been here for about a year now, just getting back to linux .... i have been lost .... anyways isn't there a way to have it possible to get multiple os's including multiple linux distros bootable, as well as solaris i386??? this would end this arguement ... this is something i wanna try to do with my system..... any replies would help

[ColdPack]

I can't say for solaris (don't see why not) but right now my box has windy95, Debian (Storm), Slackware 7.1 and Conectiva6.0. I boot up to all of them (but slack because of an oops I haven't corrected) with lilo (used by Storm). So yes, more than possible and done by many here on LNO.

[milanuk]

Coldpack,

maybe you (other feel free to jump in here, too) can help me a bit here. I _really_ think the idea of apt-get makes a lot of sense, but there are some things that I would just rather not have to spend a lot of time jacking around w/ right now just to get basic functionality... namely sound and printing. In most of the rpm-based distros, sound is almost effortless to configure (still having an issue w/ 'popping' on RH 6.2, but that's a separate deal), as is printing. The tool sndconfig is now available in Woody, but I _really_ don't want to let 'unstable' near my main desktops that _have_ to be functional for day to day use.

Do Storm or Libranet make this portion of setup and config any easier? Also, how do people deal w/ updates from Libranet since they don't seem to allow open downloading of their stuff like Storm does?

Monte

[ColdPack]

Originally posted by milanuk:
Coldpack,

maybe you (other feel free to jump in here, too) can help me a bit here. I _really_ think the idea of apt-get makes a lot of sense, but there are some things that I would just rather not have to spend a lot of time jacking around w/ right now just to get basic functionality... namely sound and printing. In most of the rpm-based distros, sound is almost effortless to configure (still having an issue w/ 'popping' on RH 6.2, but that's a separate deal), as is printing. The tool sndconfig is now available in Woody, but I _really_ don't want to let 'unstable' near my main desktops that _have_ to be functional for day to day use.

Do Storm or Libranet make this portion of setup and config any easier? Also, how do people deal w/ updates from Libranet since they don't seem to allow open downloading of their stuff like Storm does?

Monte

First of all, downloading some select things from woody shouldn't cause any problems. If you do the apt-get install sndconfig and it says it needs to remove a dozen packages and install everything from xfree4.0 to *****x then I would reply with a "No" to the "Do you wish to continue?" prompt.
Otherwise, you should be fine. People run with their systems entirely based on woody/unstable and have little or no problems to installing a program like sndconfig shouldn't be tough. (It may want something like the alsa driver program or whatever... I don't know.)
Yes, Storm has its SAT or SAS (Storm Administratin System or Tool or something) and overall it works pretty well.
I would look at their website and, in particular, their stormlinux users maillist... pretty helpful and if you scan the last couple of months you may find some things dealing with getting sound and printing to work and perhaps get ahead of the game in getting it configured that way.
I know very little about Libranet. I wouldn't expect, though, for Storm's SAT to work on a mostly pure Debian system... Although Storm's SPM (Storm Package Manager) has been included on the Debian Woody tree.
Hope this helps a bit.




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"What do people mean when they say the computer went down on them?"
---Marilyn Pittman

[milanuk]

Originally posted by ColdPack:
First of all, downloading some select things from woody shouldn't cause any problems. If you do the apt-get install sndconfig and it says it needs to remove a dozen packages and install everything from xfree4.0 to *****x then I would reply with a "No" to the "Do you wish to continue?" prompt.
Otherwise, you should be fine. People run with their systems entirely based on woody/unstable and have little or no problems to installing a program like sndconfig shouldn't be tough. (It may want something like the alsa driver program or whatever... I don't know.)



Well, I'm less concerned w/ it removing things than I am with it wanting to install everything from the core 'unstable' branch when I want to install one little package. Right now, I am limited to a _very_ slow link to the internet (rural Nebraska) that tops out around 19.2-21.6k. I have a separate line, so I could conceivably do the upgrades overnite (every night) at will, but it's kind of self defeating... by the time I get one set of upgrades downloaded, a whole new set is out http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/wink.gif I just have bad memories of my first Debian experience: 2.1r4, which was bad enough considering the installer, and then trying to update to 'frozen', which cited something like a 70-80 hour download. Yikes!! Plus, one serious glitch, and all those packages have to be downloaded again to reinstall. I think I will just stick w/ stable for now for that reason.

Thanks,

Monte

[Butros]

Here's my .02,

I think they are both OK... they each have ups and downs (as with everything) I use Red Hat for any time I do a install at a business. It is easier to get working and support. It also helps that it is like the only distro that any business knows of.

For the home user it depends. On one hand if you would simply like to get you feet wet with the least amount of sleepless nights I'd say Red Hat... If you value a good sleepless night and hours of hair pulling, but you reap the benefits of learning your way more solidly go Debian.

I don't like (personally) the "we only throw in gpl only stuff" deban attitude... I understand the stance but it is just a pain to have to go and get realplayer and the likes.

Good Luck, no matter your choice and more importantly have fun!

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Error: Keyboard not attached. Press F1 to continue.

[ColdPack]

Originally posted by Butros:
Here's my .02,

I think they are both OK... they each have ups and downs (as with everything) I use Red Hat for any time I do a install at a business. It is easier to get working and support. It also helps that it is like the only distro that any business knows of.

For the home user it depends. On one hand if you would simply like to get you feet wet with the least amount of sleepless nights I'd say Red Hat... If you value a good sleepless night and hours of hair pulling, but you reap the benefits of learning your way more solidly go Debian.

I don't like (personally) the "we only throw in gpl only stuff" deban attitude... I understand the stance but it is just a pain to have to go and get realplayer and the likes.

Good Luck, no matter your choice and more importantly have fun!


I guess that would be true but even a still relative newbie like myself, I've never had one sleepless night over Debian.
Things configured pretty painlessly.
Actually, the things that make me frustrated are the little things like "My backspace suddenly doesn't work! Why?!" in Debian and the "Why is everything I type in uppercase even when the caps lock is off?" in Mandrake to "Why didn't you ask me where I want lilo installed instead of "choosing" for me?" with Mandrake again (I know, next time choose Custom or Expert...).
My point is, I have seen no reason why RedHat is so much easier than Debian except for the installer. Post installation configuration can be (and often is) just as difficult with any distro you're using.
And I use a 33.6 modem and at best get 3-5Kb a second so, as you see, when I used apt-get to install kde2 and all of it's goodies, I did it before I went to bed and it was set in the morning. Fun to play with over coffee. http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/smile.gif
And the gpl-only stuff is not included as a part of their iso/discs. You can get the other stuff (netscape, blah blah blah) with apt-get. It's that easy.
Better than rpm -Uvh blah.rpm ... what?! I need that too?! Cripes, why didn't it tell me that in the first place? (Apt-get tells you that stuff and asks if you'd like it to install those, too. http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/smile.gif Good boy!)


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"What do people mean when they say the computer went down on them?"
---Marilyn Pittman

[MADHATter7]

Well, for what it is worth, I have run RedHat 7, Mandrake 7.0 & 7.2 (based on RedHat) & now Debian. I like Debian MUCH better, and it has a lot to do with apt-get. It also has a lot to do with setting things up my way and learning what I am doing and why. I have learned more in Debian in just a short time than I ever did on RedHat or Mandrake combined.

As food for thought, back when I first tried Mandrake 7.0, I decided to get every single rpm I needed and update it to 7.2 (a dist-upgrade so to speak) WHAT A MESS THAT TURNED OUT TO BE !!!! Very strongly do not recommend this ...

My final thought ???? I like Debian much better, I guess it just suits me better. I enjoy digging into things, configuring them, breaking them (sometimes) & fixing them again.

That being said,

http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/cool.gif DEBIAN http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/cool.gif

<EDIT> BTW, I had absolutely NO installing Debian at all. Wasn't at all hard to me....</EDIT>

MADHATter7 http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/biggrin.gif

[This message has been edited by MADHATter7 (edited 11 December 2000).]

[ColdPack]

Originally posted by MADHATter7:
Well, for what it is worth, I have run RedHat 7, Mandrake 7.0 & 7.2 (based on RedHat) & now Debian. I like Debian MUCH better, and it has a lot to do with apt-get. It also has a lot to do with setting things up my way and learning what I am doing and why. I have learned more in Debian in just a short time than I ever did on RedHat or Mandrake combined.

As food for thought, back when I first tried Mandrake 7.0, I decided to get every single rpm I needed and update it to 7.2 (a dist-upgrade so to speak) WHAT A MESS THAT TURNED OUT TO BE !!!! Very strongly do not recommend this ...

My final thought ???? I like Debian much better, I guess it just suits me better. I enjoy digging into things, configuring them, breaking them (sometimes) & fixing them again.

That being said,

http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/cool.gif DEBIAN http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/cool.gif

<EDIT> BTW, I had absolutely NO installing Debian at all. Wasn't at all hard to me....</EDIT>

MADHATter7 http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/biggrin.gif

[This message has been edited by MADHATter7 (edited 11 December 2000).]

AMEN! (To all of that stuff you said! http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/wink.gif )

[veloctTX]

I am also coming to Debian (storm) from Mandrake. I did learn a lot in Mandrake because I chose to use the command line as much as possible. I really like debian and apt-get, dselect and dpkg are very cool. I dont even use the storm packager very much, mainly command line. It's a little hard figuring out the small differences is file structure but overall it's been very easy to setup. I did mine from ftp. BTW, I've been installing things from the unstable tree without any problems at all. I really like it more than Mandrake.

http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/biggrin.gif DEBIAN http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/biggrin.gif