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HOME SWEET HOME
My previous article was about Red Hat Linux and how simple and user friendly it is. Well after using it as my primary system for about a week, I felt compelled to write this one. Why one week? Well, it just does not feel the same as my first system - Debian Woody 3.0.
So, here is a brief description of what it feels to be working on a Debian system. Mind you, I am comparing a well setup Debian with a well setup RH distro. Also, I have a comparitively slow processor - a AMD 500 with 128 MB of RAM.
First the boot process. Red Hat makes you go to the kitchen and hunt around for something to ruminate on (pun intended). Debian on the other hand makes you feel sad that you left your seat (if at all you do). In about 30 seconds, I have the screen asking me for the username and password.
Now KDE starts loading. On RH Linux, it's time for another visit to the kitchen. If you are on Debian, I would
seriously recommend a visit to the bathroom; after this, you are not going
to like getting up. Once you come back, the system is ready for you (at least
on Debian). So I fire up my Xemacs to add today's entries to the diary. On
the RH system, this takes about half a minute. On the Debian, I have already
started typing todays diary entries by that time. For those who are not familiar
with emacs (Editor MACroS), it is supposed to be a text editor. But it is
also a IDE (Integrated development environment) complete with a debugger
interface for all languages I am familiar with, a wordprocessor supporting
rich text, html, TeX and possibly more, a info browser, a manual page
viewer, a mail client, a news client, a web browser, a ICQ client,
a calculator, a unix shell interface, a file manager, a 'vi' emulator, a
VHDL editor, etc. Hey, they should call it osmacs!
Ok, now I quit emacs and fire up the file manager - konqueror. 5 seconds
on the Debian, more than 10 on RH. One major feature I see lacking I see
in the KDE 2 (Debian Woody Stable) as compared to KDE 3 (RH) is tabbed
browsing. Then I realise that I have got used to using xchat for chatting
on IRC in the last week (it's much better than the other clients I had been
using). So I set out to install it. I fire up a terminal, su as root. Then
I type 'apt-get install xchat'. Well, as usual, it does everything required
and in about a minute I have xchat installed.
Then I want to send mail. So I press 'Alt-F2' and then type 'mailto:<mail-address>'.
A mail composer window of kmail pops up almost instantly on the Debian. Time
for a stretch if you are using RH. Then I type the message and leave it in
the outbox for sending later.
Along comes my brother. He wants to type a mail and I don't want to logout.
So I go to the console. He logs in starts his own X session (For beginners,
a console is text mode and X is the graphical display server. The GUIs in
Linux are not integrated with the OS ... so you can have more than one or
none running at a time.) He then types a mail and stops his work and logs
out. Mind you, I can lock my screen while he is working. On a debian, it
doesn't make a noticable difference in performance when you are running two
X sessions. On a RH, you just can't wait to press "Ctrl-Alt-Backspace" (which
terminates the xsession instantly). It's a good thing that Linux is a multi-user
system. Otherwise I would have to stop and restart everything if someone
else wants to work for a couple of minutes or so. Ummm ... do I remember
someone telling me that WinXP is multiuser? ;-)
After working around for some time on the Debian system, I shut down. The
next time, LILO (the bootloader) presents me with two options - Debian and
RedHat. I think for a second. The stunning beauty of RH and KDE 3 or the
speed, efficiency and stability of Debian? Well, after flirting with the
beauty for a week, I realise that there is nothing like your own home.
"Debain, I'm home".
"Kernel panic ... user has not logged in for too long.
Dropping to a maintainance shell - [you_idiot@debian]# " :-)
HOME SWEET HOME
My previous article was about Red Hat Linux and how simple and user friendly it is. Well after using it as my primary system for about a week, I felt compelled to write this one. Why one week? Well, it just does not feel the same as my first system - Debian Woody 3.0.
So, here is a brief description of what it feels to be working on a Debian system. Mind you, I am comparing a well setup Debian with a well setup RH distro. Also, I have a comparitively slow processor - a AMD 500 with 128 MB of RAM.
First the boot process. Red Hat makes you go to the kitchen and hunt around for something to ruminate on (pun intended). Debian on the other hand makes you feel sad that you left your seat (if at all you do). In about 30 seconds, I have the screen asking me for the username and password.
Now KDE starts loading. On RH Linux, it's time for another visit to the kitchen. If you are on Debian, I would
seriously recommend a visit to the bathroom; after this, you are not going
to like getting up. Once you come back, the system is ready for you (at least
on Debian). So I fire up my Xemacs to add today's entries to the diary. On
the RH system, this takes about half a minute. On the Debian, I have already
started typing todays diary entries by that time. For those who are not familiar
with emacs (Editor MACroS), it is supposed to be a text editor. But it is
also a IDE (Integrated development environment) complete with a debugger
interface for all languages I am familiar with, a wordprocessor supporting
rich text, html, TeX and possibly more, a info browser, a manual page
viewer, a mail client, a news client, a web browser, a ICQ client,
a calculator, a unix shell interface, a file manager, a 'vi' emulator, a
VHDL editor, etc. Hey, they should call it osmacs!
Ok, now I quit emacs and fire up the file manager - konqueror. 5 seconds
on the Debian, more than 10 on RH. One major feature I see lacking I see
in the KDE 2 (Debian Woody Stable) as compared to KDE 3 (RH) is tabbed
browsing. Then I realise that I have got used to using xchat for chatting
on IRC in the last week (it's much better than the other clients I had been
using). So I set out to install it. I fire up a terminal, su as root. Then
I type 'apt-get install xchat'. Well, as usual, it does everything required
and in about a minute I have xchat installed.
Then I want to send mail. So I press 'Alt-F2' and then type 'mailto:<mail-address>'.
A mail composer window of kmail pops up almost instantly on the Debian. Time
for a stretch if you are using RH. Then I type the message and leave it in
the outbox for sending later.
Along comes my brother. He wants to type a mail and I don't want to logout.
So I go to the console. He logs in starts his own X session (For beginners,
a console is text mode and X is the graphical display server. The GUIs in
Linux are not integrated with the OS ... so you can have more than one or
none running at a time.) He then types a mail and stops his work and logs
out. Mind you, I can lock my screen while he is working. On a debian, it
doesn't make a noticable difference in performance when you are running two
X sessions. On a RH, you just can't wait to press "Ctrl-Alt-Backspace" (which
terminates the xsession instantly). It's a good thing that Linux is a multi-user
system. Otherwise I would have to stop and restart everything if someone
else wants to work for a couple of minutes or so. Ummm ... do I remember
someone telling me that WinXP is multiuser? ;-)
After working around for some time on the Debian system, I shut down. The
next time, LILO (the bootloader) presents me with two options - Debian and
RedHat. I think for a second. The stunning beauty of RH and KDE 3 or the
speed, efficiency and stability of Debian? Well, after flirting with the
beauty for a week, I realise that there is nothing like your own home.
"Debain, I'm home".
"Kernel panic ... user has not logged in for too long.
Dropping to a maintainance shell - [you_idiot@debian]# " :-)