[ale] Debian 3.0 as a server platform?

[Geoffrey]

James Sumners wrote:
> On 6/2/05, Geoffrey <esoteric at 3times25.net> wrote:
> 
>>Robert L. Harris wrote:
>>
>>>I concur completely.  As I posted previously, we run 750+ servers on
>>>Debian Stable because taht way we don't have to run regression tests on
>>>every app every week to keep it "up to date" but we know it's stable and
>>>secure, exactly what I want on my server.
>>
>>I can say the same for SuSE or Red Hat.  The main difference I see is
>>how far behind the standard 'stable' Debian install is.  I suspect it's
>>more to do with the fact that it's an all volunteer distro, but yet,
>>Slackware is ahead of Debian with the packages it provides.
> 
> Why do you need bleeding edge packages on your server? Do you not
> prefer known working, secure, packages?

I didn't say they were bleeding edge packages.  That's what Fedora gives 
you.  Once it's stable, it then moves to Enterprise.  I don't know that 
SuSE has any equivalent, but Mandrake has it's cooker series.

So you're telling me that SuSE and Red Hat are putting out non-working 
and/or insecure packages in their production distros?  I don't think so.

> I have used all the distributions you mention (Slackware not so much
> though). None of them are as easy to maintain as a Debian stable box.

That is purely your opinion.  I find SuSE and Mandrake are easily 
maintained.  No problems with dependencies because both have solutions 
for this.  Red Hat is also easily maintained, my main problem with Red 
Hat is there's no easy way to search for packages you want to install. 
Both SuSE and Mandrake offer such solutions.

> In fact, I wrote a script to check for new updates daily and emails me
> when they need to be applied.

Wow, I don't have to do that with SuSE, Mandrake OR Red Hat, they all 
provide that functionality already.

> Applying those updates is as simple as
> logging in via ssh and running on command -- `apt-get upgrade`. Since
> I wrote the script about six months ago it has only emailed me twice;
> I even have two backports set up, one for bittorrent [useless now] and
> one for awstats [hardly ever used].

I can do much the same with any of the rpm based packages.

> I just don't buy the "Debian is too slow" line when the talk is about
> a server environment.

I've not got a lot of experience with Debian, but the last time I looked 
at 'stable' the stock kernel was 2.2.  That is WAY behind everyone else. 
  At that time SuSE, Mandrake, Red Hat and Slackware came with both 2.4 
and 2.6.  2.2 kernel?  Come on, that is old.

Looking at what's to come with the release of the next stable (sarge) 
due June 6th and SuSE 9.3 which came out over a month ago, here's a 
comparison:

Debian                  Suse 9.3
OpenOffice 1.1          OpenOffice 2.0
kde 3.3                 kde 3.4
gnome 2.8               gnome 2.10

-- 
Until later, Geoffrey