[Eug-lug] Free O'Reilly book

[Alan]

Ben Barrett wrote:

> 
> It *seems* different, but I'm probably missing your meaning.  
> Differences to me, being among:  subscription/binary  vs. 
> roll-your-own/compilation, bootloader and module configuration, etc.

(Which is why I don't get involved in distribution debates, I'm bad at 
them. )
By no different, I meant, if you don't like the stock kernel you can 
easily change it with a simple apt-get, this is comparable to updating a 
RedHat rpm, or going to kernel.org and rolling your own.

> 
> Most other distro's do not use kernel 2.2 by default... this is a big 
> issue for many folks.  Default security, is ideal of course...

Well, one thing I've never claimed is that Debian is the right choice 
for "many folks". heh.
However, for those concerned about such things - use the bf24 option, 
then you'll have 2.4 out of the gate without even having to apt-get a 
kernel.

> 
> but OTOH, to address one of Joseph's concern about lengthy compiles on 
> old platforms:  I *imagine* and *hope* that these folks are 
> cross-compiling!  Maybe they aren't, and you seem to know more about 
> it.  But the need to cover so many platforms, from devs around the 
> world, would obviously increase the time to release... do you know if 
> people with Atari's are actually compiling X on their Atari's, for 
> instance?

They do cross-compile for a lot( I hesitate to say all, because I don't 
know it for a fact) of the platforms.
The main reason Debian is slow about things though, is the 
organizational structure.
It's aggressively democratic and "consensus oriented" which means having 
decisions made is....difficult(to put it very nicely). heh. Plus the 
main developers can have trouble with human interactions, as Joseph 
related above.

But hey, if you like things to be cutting-edge, there's always unstable.

-ajb