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If you want an easy to learn to use distrobution, then pay your $40 for Mandrake Discovery or $60 for Mandrake power pack. Unfortunately, you will need to spend money every 12 months to keep your Mandrake system current with the latest software.

Learning to use Debian is a royal pain in the rear end. Still, once you learn some of the basics of Debian, you will never want to return to a different operating system. Your choices are limitless with Debian.

Because Debian is a noncomercial distrobution, I trust it more than other operating systems. I know that Debian places my interests above all other interests.

pradeepyamujala

As far as me concern Debian is for advance users who really want play with TUX. This is the only Distro (i check ed 10 varied Distros) where, as a programmer i got better feelings. This distro bundilled with 6000+ packages for further needs. It is Grate if u capable to install and configure it.

Don;t expect any HiFy graphics becaous the latest distro Debian 3.1 is using KDE 3.2 there FC4 is using 3.4. comes with no theme manager. But one good thing is u can instal any pakage which is made for ant distr like .rpm using alien command. So no need to search for debian pakage.

If u r a programmer personally i recommend Debian.

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Working With WinXP and Exploring LINUX since 19th AUG 2000. Both r grate at their pros. Atlast They r OSs.

Erik_the_Red

I used Debian 3.1 on a Dell Latitude D800 that was essentially fully loaded.

Compared to Ubuntu I would say that Debian is made better. There seem to be less bugs, and the binaries seem to operate more smoothly.

cddesjar

I have been running linux now for a year and half. I started with Fedora, then Slackware, and now I have arrived at Debian. I have only been using Debian for a few months but it was worth the switch from Slackware. Apt-get is an incredible tool. It works wonders. The 15,000 packages in the debian repository makes getting a program super easy (apt-get install <package>). The team at irc.freenode.net #debian are super helpful and will answer any question (there are usually around 800 people just hanging out).
Granted Sarge is a little out of date already. It comes with KDE 3.3 while the rest of the distros coming out have KDE 3.4 but if you upgrade to Etch or Sid then you'll be able to keep up to date on software.
I hope this helps and I recommend Debian with no reservations to anyone looking for a great, extremely stable distribution with a great package manager.
Cheers!

sarajevo

First I used Suse 9.1 and it was easy to install for me, after Suse I have used Knnopix and then Ubuntu.
Six months ago I tryed Debian Woody 3.0, and I was amazed how good it is.Last month I installed Debian Sarge on my computer adn I think it is the best operating system I ever installed on my computer.

I also recomended Debian to all my friends as best distro(in my opinion), and many of them now use it.

Finally Debian is the best, or simpy the best

crazymulgogi

I wanted to try Debian Sarge because it is supposed to be stable, because it has a good multilingual support and because I got annoyed with the fact that my SuSE system crashed a couple of apps now and then. I printed out a very detailed install and post-install manual, but after the basic install I didn't get to know what kind of desktop Debian was installing. It was rather vague at that point. I got into a black screen in which Debian simply didn't recognize my root password, which I carefully typed, anyway I got frustrated and I reinstalled my SuSE Linux 9.1 system, now considering to update that. I wonder if Debian is really only for expert users (which I'm not), because the entire basic install was good, everything was detected perfectly. A little vague menu on the partitioning however. The installer lets the DVDs scan themselves carefully for failures, which I like.

JeanBrownHarrel

Loved the product as it is usually great on regular desktop computers but not too good on laptops as it has a problem with the sound card on my Dell Latitude C600 and it would sometimes crash when I would use a certain feature on my desktop and my laptop or go crazy after using the same feature on my laptop. Also discovered that the 64-bit version of Sarge and Etch have a memory leak the size of Texas. I leave either one on for more than 20 minutes and it hogs all of my 1 GB RAM. Apparently it is the Xserver/Xwindow system. Not sure which. Ubuntu Hoary Hedgehog does not have this memory leak and neither does FC2-i386. I leave either one on for days and no memory leak. One time it logged out unexpectedly due to some unknown bug; this has happened a couple of times. The sound card is an ESS Maestro3 brand and it would not work with this Distro but it would with FC2 & FC4 and Ubuntu and Red Hat Linux 7.3. Also it would download program updates but REFUSED to install them as it said the public key was invalid or the updates were unsigned (no public key) and it did NOT have any option to choose to go ahead and install the updates without invalid or nonexistent public keys; fixed this problem; I just don't install deb-sig(?). Also Debian refused to up the resolution of my screen to at least 1024x768 on my big computer and also on my laptop; fixed this problem too; I just use dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86 or xserver-xorg to reset the low resolution. It insisted on 800x600 on both my laptop and my big computer. Ridiculous as my big computer has a Viewsonic VE510b LCD monitor with a resolution of 1024x768 and video card Nvidia GeForce FX 5200 agp8x with 256 MB of video RAM. My laptop will go up to more than 1400+x1000+ with Ubuntu so another reason that I could not use Debian. I could never figure out how to up the resolution. If I tried it still reverted to 800x600. That's why FC2-i386. Superb hardware detection for monitor and graphics card. Other than that Debian was a great distro. Would have loved it tho. Ubuntu has the same problem with unsigned/unverified updates and refuses to install them. Great distro too and no sound card problem and no blank screen on my laptop. Debian was stable and fixed the blank screen problem on my laptop but when the sound card would not work and could only install 500 updates manually one by one I then decided to go back to FC2 [the 32-bit version-the most stable of Fedora Core versions]. A little tweaking and I fixed the blank screen problem. FC4 has apt and synaptic but they won't work right. They want to remove the core of my FC4-x86_64 system and leave it unusable and even want to remove themselves as well. I installed yumex on my big computer as it is a gui for yum. I still prefer apt and synaptic. That is why FC2 [32-bit version] will stay on my laptop. Debian is a great distro if you get accustomed to the installer. The installer is somewhat difficult to use but once you figure it out it is OK. I had planned on migrating to Debian in the future but now I have decided to stay with Fedora Core 2 and/or Red Hat Linux 9. For a 64-bit processor I had to install FC4-x86_64 as the 64-bit version of FC2 crashes on me as soon as I install it so that it is totally unusable and I hate FC3 and refuse to use it. So there you are. Sure loved Debian, though. May even try it one more time on my AMD64 system just to see if it works better than FC4. Real shame as Fedora Core & Red Hat Linux used to be good distros but no longer are. Also tried Mandrake as well. Blank screen on my laptop, etc. Mandrake is a joke. It is the worst of all.

PS: I re-installed FC2-the 32-bit version on my big computer as well as it is the only version of Fedora Core that works right. Had too many problems with all the 64-bit versions of all these distros. So I have to use a 32-bit operating system on my 64-bit processor-an AMD Athlon64 3400. Well, I guess FC2-i386 is the only good distro there is out of all distros in existence. Also my brother agrees with me on this more or less.

ChristianNerds.com

For a user like me, who loves the concept behind linux, but just wants a distrobution that you set up once and leave it that way, Debian tends to be one of the best Linux distrobutions.

There's an ever-expanding number of packages that you can download and install by using one simple command: 'apt-get install <packagename>' and there are pretty-constant updates.

If you're not one who likes to wait for all packages to become entirely stable, there are also testing and unstable branhes of Debian. Debian has the reputation of being behind the times because they wait for all of their programs to become rock-solid before letting them get into their stable branch of their distrobution, but that is a great advantage to those running that distrobution as a server.

It truely holds to that distrobution, as many people claim that even the testing and unstable brances of Debian are more stable than many, but be forewarned. The unstanble branch can truely be unstable sometimes, so if you use that branch, don't just blindly update packages just because there are new ones available. It may break your system.

Personally, I stick with the stable branch, because I don't want to worry about that stuff.

Anyway, Debian is rock=solid, and wonderful. For a basic user, it's great. Not quite as user-friendly as Mandrake, but alot easier to keep updated too.

Chuck Strut

I have been using off Windows since 1998. I have Debian to thank for helping in to my sobreity. As I take my 12 steps everyday I have millions who hold my hand.

I have tried many Linux distros Turbo linux, Suse 7.1,7.2,8.0,9.1,9.3 Red Hat 7.0, 8.0 ,9.0. Ubuntu, Damm small, Gentoo, Mandrake, Coral, Knoppix, Xandros, Slackware and Fedora Core 2 all good in there own right but as good as Debians lastest child.

While running all these otheres over the years I have alway had a Debian PC and Server close at hand.
They have people who are very helpful and professional.
You only need to download Debian once in your life and just update it. It dose not release very 6months but only when its ready. So you dont have a imature realse like Windows always dose. There fixes are fast and upgrade are easy. Apt-get is better than YOU or RPM packages
Its one of a very few that have not gone some how commecial.What a wonderful set of guys to work with.
Its no wonder some of the best distro's out there are based on Debain.
This should have 10 but I give it a 9 because they are not attempting to make it a desktop O/S.
Now a stand with my fellow man Mad Dog when he says that Linux is not ready for the desktop. But keep tring.
I have one other small thing with Debain is qmail.Why not have qmail? The two go together like pees in a pod. If you use Debian as a mail server use qmail not the default.Much more stable and faster.
All software is work in progress, nothing is perfect but Debian is almost there.

zvonSully

this line installs all the kde(with dependencies)
apt-get install kde

AllenM

Everything had workedfine in Auguset of this year when I installed debian on a cd from a book called Linux Bible eddition 05. I had deleted it while trying to update kernal. I have not been able to suceessfully install in October and November. I have noticed e2fsprogs would look apt-get up. I have wasted almost a day trying to install the testing version.

robkey

I installed played with Debian 3.1rc having used Fedora Core since it was released. I used it for a week and then changed to it permanently for the following reasons:
- I found all development libraries/packages I needed on the 2 dvds

- The config files like modules.conf were very complete. You can comment/uncomment what you need. Fedora only gave you what they thought you needed.

- the package manages dpkg, synaptic, apt-get are much more powerfull than rpm. Solving of dependencies works very well under Debian.

- docs are easy to find. It took 20 mins to build my first deb package. I could not build a working rpm package in a long time.

The install is a bit time consuming. You only have to install once.

Thanks,
Rob Key

ewlabonte

I tried to install debian back in the woody days and I could never get the sound to work. This time the only thing that I needed to do was tweak XF86Config-4 a little. I am really impressed. Debian is much more responsive than Ubuntu. Running Gnome in Debian is faster than xfce in (X)Ubuntu. There simply is no better package manager than apt-get, and it works better under debian than under any of the debian knock-offs.

MbowerARA

Great distro
It really is a toss up between Gentoo and Debian for me. I would really go with either one.

QuickSHADOWMAN