Linux Harbour

Debian GNU/Linux becomes our favourite Linux distribution for a year, we like its management system for software packages as known as APT (Advanced Package Tool) very much.

Distribution upgrading

Unlike other rpm-based Linux distributions we tried before, APT provides reliable distribution upgrade, and we did few distro upgrades from Debian/GNU 3.1 to 4.0 (aka Etch). $ apt-get dist-upgrade

Menu-driven management system

We like to work system administration on CLI (Command Line Interface) because it is the most easy way to administrate a computer on-site or remotely. But it is not convenience for us to check the huge Debian software repository, Debian got a menu-driven management system.

$ aptitude

Huge software repository

Full set of Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 got 21 CDs, but we got first disc only for server installation, because other software on 20 CD remains can be installed through internet when they are needed.

We got a experience as follows and feel this huge software repository is great.

When we still used Fedora/Centos as our first choice on Linux distro, one day we were installing a Linux system for client to run their webapp (purchased from a 3rd party vendor) written in perl, and they prefer Fedora for their daily administration, so we go on. We found that this perl applications requires over 150 additional perl modules, and around 70% required perl modules are not provided by fedora file repository, we tried to install from CPAN but some of them are incompatible to fedora perl version. Finally, we tried to install it on Debian GNU/Linux, yeap, we did a success installation, over 90% required perl modules are found in debian software repository.

Reference

Debian on Wikipedia

Debian Administration