Debian lenny preview

[arctic]

It's been some time since I posted the last review and I got a few PMs from users who awaited new reviews. So here we go. I wrote a preview on Debian lenny. You can read it at my blog.

 

Have fun. :)

[David Batson]

Have fun. :)

Thanks, but no.

 

Very interesting read, but I think I'll just stick with Mandriva for now. :D

[ianw1974]

Me too, only installed it on Sunday, so definitely keeping it also :)

[jkerr82508]

My experience with lenny has been very different from arctic's.

 

I used the Beta2 CD1 to install on my test system. The first screen displayed a range of installation options, one of which was the graphical installer.

 

I found the installation to be straight-forward. It allowed me to put the boot loader on the root partition (I wanted to keep Mandriva's boot loader in the MBR).

 

On booting into debian, I was presented with the Gnome login screen and after setting up sources, was able to install KDE3. I have been running it for several weeks now, with updates applied regularly, and find it to be stable and reliable.

 

Debian, IMHO, is not a distro for someone new to linux, (the learning curve is pretty steep) but for anyone with a reasonable understanding of "how things work" on a linux system, it is a viable option.

 

Jim

Edited September 23, 2008 by jkerr82508

[arctic]

My experience with lenny has been very different from arctic's.

I really hope that not everyone will run into the problems that I experienced. As I said in my review: I was quite shocked as I found Debian to be quite goodand rock-stable in the past (I have used it repeatedly since Woody was released). I simply don't know what happened in the last nine months to this fine distro. :unsure:

I used the Beta2 CD1 to install on my test system. The first screen displayed a range of installation options, one of which was the graphical installer.

Funny, the daily snaphot image does not show these options... for whatever reason.

It allowed me to put the boot loader on the root partition (I wanted to keep Mandriva's boot loader in the MBR).

Question is not wehter it allows to install the bootloader but whether it allows to install the bootloader on the harddisk that you want/select, in my case the secondary 160 GB harddisk. ;)

I have been running it for several weeks now, with updates applied regularly, and find it to be stable and reliable.

Apart from the issues I pointed out in my review, everything else was quite stable. But the issues I had were sadly really frustrating.

Debian, IMHO, is not a distro for someone new to linux, (the learning curve is pretty steep) but for anyone with a reasonable understanding of "how things work" on a linux system, it is a viable option.

Of course it is not something for someone who is completely new to linux. But I wondered why some things are/were hidden from the end-user. Debian is not the only one here. Fedoras installer only allows you to use the ext2 or ext3 filesystems during system-setup - unless you know the trick to enable e.g. jfs at the bootprompt. IMHO there is no need to hide options like these from the more experienced users. :)

[Artificial Intelligence]

Good read :)

I always looked forward reading your reviews, Arctic. Looking forward for the next.