Yesterday I installed Debian on an old laptop I have. It went reasonably smoothly - installing it via the wireless NIC over the internet. But I didn't like debian.
I can't really put my finger on it. Everyone I know who uses debian raves about it. But for me it was a bitch. Maybe it was because I was using unstable/woody.
- It wouldn't recognise my touchpad in xf86cfg. And to this moment I still have no idea why it started working.
- It wouldn't give me the option of running gnome, despite getting it working.
- It has no options for configuring sound, that I could immediately find.
- It didn't autoconfigure my network card, despite installing from it just fine. I had to manually add it to /etc/network/interfaces.
- Fonts were still screwed up in X, despite installing the MS fonts.
- It wouldn't install evolution due to some module "not being available". WTF?
- It incorrectly setup my keyboard, despite me answering all the right questions.
- It gave me a kernel without apm support. HELLO! This one is incredible, as it meant the laptop switched off every time I touched the off button.
I think debian will make a great server OS. But I'm the kind of person who just wants to get his work done, and doesn't want the OS to get in the way.
In short, I'll be going back to Mandrake.
Re:Hmm, I got Debian on my laptop with less troubl
autarch on 2001-11-23T16:23:32
Hmm, I started by saying I did have trouble and then went on to say all the things that worked.
Where I _did_ have trouble was setting up X to use an external monitor or the laptop screen properly. But I can't imagine any other distro would handle this better.
But the actual Debian install process was very smooth.Re:Hmm, I got Debian on my laptop with less troubl
Matts on 2001-11-23T18:24:42
Sounds like you had similar problems to me, only I have higher expectations.
Yes, Mandrake got all this right (including sound - works right out of the box). But then I had the CD, rather than trying a funky network install. Maybe I should try a net install with Mandrake.
And no, I haven't compiled my own kernel since the early days when cdparanoia required SCSII emulation, which wasn't a default option. And I expect not to have to. Fixing OSes isn't my job. Hacking Perl is.Re:Hmm, I got Debian on my laptop with less troubl
autarch on 2001-11-23T19:26:09
Well, I like being able to use stuff like ext3 and other somewhat experimental bits.
Mandrake may be easier to install but how easy is it to maintain? Debian is a breeze. And its really easy to get nice new toys. Want Galeon? Simply grab it from unstable and go. And it knows that it needs Mozilla. And it also knows that it won't work with the latest Mozilla so you'll have to wait for the next galeon package (which is ok cause at least everything still works).
I don't think I've ever heard anybody really praise Debian's install process. It works well enough but its not terribly slick.
The reason people (like me) like it is because its so nice _after_ its installed.
-daveRe:Hmm, I got Debian on my laptop with less troubl
Matts on 2001-11-23T23:10:09
urpmi galeon
;-)
