[SlugBug] Intro and distro choice discussion.

[Philippe B échamp]

Hi all,

Just a short intro message.. I'm here not as a disenchanted SheffLuger but
rather because I spent some time in Sheffield last summer, made friends
and one of them suggested I join. So here I am.

I live in Montreal, Canada. I work for an NGO called AMARC, the World
Association of Community Radio Broadcasters, which often works with
Community Media Association in Sheffield.

I use Linux only except when I'm forced to handle some users on Win.

I use Debian currently but am kind of dissatisfied, at least as a desktop
OS. Running debian stable is a pain because of the extreme update delai.
Running testing isn't all that current either, for instance, it uses the
same version of XFree86 as stable. Running unstable isn't to my liking, it
too, umm, unstable and sometimes breaks. I don't have the kind of job
where I can use a broken distro as an excuse for handing in work late.

Problem is I strongly believe that a Linux distro should not need
upgrading like RH or MDK do. That is, I do not see why a distro cannot be
dynamically upgraded a la Debian. I've tried to figure why other distros
don't do like debian and allow their users to simply apt-rpm their way to
a fully current system instead of having to re-install. The only answer I
have come up with is that corps like RH or MDK need to keep this upgrade
mindset for financial reasons.

So next, I will try Gentoo. It is dynamically upgradable, quite current,
has an interesting community around it. Only problem is install time. But
I'll overcome that and give it a spin. I will keep Debian on servers
though. Servers don't need to be as current, they need stability and
security.

Any thoughts on all of this, anyone have bad/good experience w Gentoo ?

Cheers to all.

Philippe.

-- 
Philippe Béchamp
bechamp at web.net