Hi, I am looking for a good excuse to switch to debian. As I am bored with FC4. I have a few questions to ask but first, is there any advantage of me upgrading from FC4 to debian?

Anyway, here are my questions:
1) Does it matter that debian uses XFree86 when newer distros now use x.org?
2) Is it easy to upgrade Sarge to use the 1.6 kernel?
3) Is is easy to upgrade debian to use openoffice 2 beta?
4) How many of the 1000s of programs that debian comes with do people use?

I know switching would cause me some extra work to do, but I would like to get a feel for a more known distro (not that FC4 is widely used). And would like the privilege of saying "I run Debian".

If there is anything that I should know about, could someone tell me?

Anyway, thanks in advace.
Buck

EDIT: Corrected spelling mistake in title

[Hi, I am looking for a good excuse to switch to debian. As I am bored with FC4. I have a few questions to ask but first, is there any advantage of me upgrading from FC4 to debian?]

--I strongly recommend switching from FC4 to debian, slackware, or even ubuntu. I haven't used FC since FC2 but when I switched to slackware over a year and a half ago it was great, I never new linux could be so good
A caveat - Switching from FC4 to slackware or debian would require that you actually LEARN linux not just click on pretty little GUIs. The installers are a lot different, text based, and if you want to install debian (i personally think) that it's even harder. Don't get me wrong, I think debian is the best distro out there. I love it. I love apt-get and aptitude. And all the packages ( ~ 15,000)! The community is excellent because it's a huge collaborative work of developers all over the world, not a corporation or a few people driving a distribution in one direction.

[Anyway, here are my questions:
1) Does it matter that debian uses XFree86 when newer distros now use x.org?
2) Is it easy to upgrade Sarge to use the 1.6 kernel?
3) Is is easy to upgrade debian to use openoffice 2 beta?
4) How many of the 1000s of programs that debian comes with do people use?]

--Let's see...
1. Probably not. I would prefer x.org but you probably wouldn't notice it. Anyways debian is on it's way to x.org.
2. Super easy! apt-get install kernel-2.6.8 (or whatever the package is called) and voila! it does all the magic for you!!! to search for a kernel type: apt-cache search kernel and then apt-get install kernelpackagename (of the one you want).
3. Sarge currently comes with 1.1.3, I upgraded to 1.1.4 (the currenst stable version). Not sure when this will get packaged...probably not a high priority. If you go to openoffice.org you can download the openoffice 2 beta and install it from the source (this is very easy to do). So this shouldn't be a problem either.
4. It all depends. It is amazing how many packages are out there. I can just type a package name using apt-cache search, find it, and install it in no time. You can download just about anything you could possibly think of via apt-get. I think this is the biggest plus of all!

[I know switching would cause me some extra work to do, but I would like to get a feel for a more known distro (not that FC4 is widely used). And would like the privilege of saying "I run Debian".

If there is anything that I should know about, could someone tell me?]

Well it would definitely be extra work. Things that might be a problem include editing your fstab file to get usb devices to work, printing, etc...but these are problems that are general to linux. I would recommend it. One thing to note is that the latest version of Debian Stable (Sarge) comes with KDE 3.3 and it probably won't have 3.4 for a while...well Sarge will probably never get it but Etch will. You can of course upgrade to Etch or Sid when you are feeling a little more crazy and learned in the debian artform.
Anyways I say go for it! Debian is great, definitely more work, but definitely worth it especially if you want to know a real distribution works and how linux works!
Cheers

Not really. XFree has been well maintained. Look for Xorg coming in Etch, though.

Easy as apt-get install ...

Sure. Add this to your sources.list file:
deb ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/ ../project/experimental main
Be forewarned; this is an experimental repository. If it breaks your system, don't come crying.

All of them.
Seriously, install Synaptic, browse the repos, and try to tell me there's nothing useful in there.

Yes, it gives a warm and fuzzy feeling everytime you say it, like peeing your pants but without the embarrassment. The extra work is damned worth it, too. And, if my crystal ball is correct, apt-get and Debian's repositories will become the method of choice for binary software installation on all Linux based operating systems. (Purely speculative.)

People say Debian is hard to install and maintain, but I've found exactly the opposite. Sarge installer is a snap and there are tools to do everything you'll need to do. However, there generally is no handholding and you must learn, search and sometimes discover things on your own. But it's rock solid, easy to maintain, and malleable in so many ways. I try others, but the bugs and quirks of more cutting edge distros keep me loyal to my Debian machine. It's great.

Maintainability and package quality are the top reasons. I've had this Debian install for ~6 years and while there have been bumps in the road, they're usually minor. Most can be avoided by having apt-listbugs installed, when you go to install/upgrade it'll check the BTS and list any open bugs for the selected packages and if any look like they affect you, you can either wait a few days or upgrade anyway and try to work around it. Either way you get warned before the damage is done =)

X.org is making it's way into sid right this minute, that means in a few weeks it'll be in etch. Personally for a desktop, I would highly recommend tracking either etch or sid because sarge is now 'stable' and will not be getting any new software, just security and bug fixes.

Debian has a DWN (Debian Weekly Newsletter) to which you can suscribe and that

gives you all useful info on the distro, who takes care of it, where it is headed and

what I love is that they don't try to hide problems. Instead they tackle them in an adult

way and don't find excuses when something does not work. They also point out the

obvious weak points to be addressed and who is in charge of the fix. Can't be clearer.

The philosophy behind it is great, too.

I thought sarge was the latest, oh well, I guess 'etch' is. Is it stable enough though to use for everyday use, and can I upgrade from the Sarge stable release I just downloaded

EDIT: How can I get hold of Etch, as I always like to be running the latest possible software available

Debian names their releases. Currently, stable is called sarge and testing is called etch. Stable is always called sid. It is not really necessary to know the names of the different trees to make use of them. Just call them stable, testing, and unstable.

I map to all three trees: stable, testing, and unstable using the /etc/apt/sources.list and the /etc/apt/preferences file, that decides from which tree the latest binary, that is non-broken, can be installed.

I picked this up from the internet somewhere (maybe from this board) and it works very well. Here's how you do it. Make your /etc/apt/sources.list and /etc/apt/preferences files look like this:

/etc/apt/sources.list
#Stable
deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian stable main contrib non-free
deb http://non-us.debian.org/debian-non-US stable/non-US main contrib non-free
deb http://security.debian.org stable/updates main contrib non-free

#Testing
deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian testing main non-free contrib

#Unstable
deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian unstable main non-free contrib


/etc/apt/preferences
Package: *
Pin: release a=stable
Pin-Priority: 700

Package: *
Pin: release a=testing
Pin-Priority: 650

Package: *
Pin: release a=unstable
Pin-Priority: 600

Every time you install a package, the preferences file is consulted and if the latest unbroken package is in unstable, that's what you get. If stable is broken, it checks testing, etc....

This way you get the latest without broken dependencies.

2 questions:

how does it work?
Have you ever had it download a broken or non-working package?

Cheers, Buck

1) As far as I can tell, it checks all trees for the latest available packages that have all dependencies met, and installs the requested program or programs.
2) It will occasionally break something, but it is rare.

If you want to just run one tree, I would suggest /testing. I have used it solely for about a year and didn't notice anything wrong.

Try it out. I have used many different distributions, but since I have tried Debian, there is no going back.