Re: linux distro recommendations?

[Graham Percival]

On Fri, May 08, 2009 at 09:56:26AM -0500, Jonathan Kulp wrote:
> Graham Percival wrote:
>> [1]  I consider the "package system" to be the package manager
>> software -- which I admit is (virtually) identical in Debian and
>> Ubuntu -- plus the community of package maintainers.  Debian's
>> package maintainers are miles ahead of ubuntu's, redhat's,
>> freebsd's, etc.
>
> Does this mean that, for instance, Debian's repo will have more  
> up-to-date versions of things like texi2html and fontforge?  I've had  
> problems with outdated versions of certain packages on Ubuntu.

Dunno what version Ubuntu has, but Debian's at texi2html 1.78 and
fontforge 20080429 and 20090408 (unstable).


> I'm much more advanced now and am considering something like
> Arch or Debian.  

Given that Valentin is the only person in the world that uses
Arch, use Debian.  You'll like it.  :)

> BTW I hear that Linux Mint (an Ubuntu derivative) is even more  
> noob-friendly b/c it contains all the proprietary drivers and media  
> codecs already and you don't have to go hunting around for them.  Grab  
> the (indecent) Live CD and give it a spin. ;)

That's only possible because Mint is small enought that nobody
cares that they're breaking the law.  There's a reason that
proprietary drivers and media codecs aren't included in the base
system of (most) Linux distros: it's because it's illegal to
distribute them in certain parts of the world, notably the US.
That takes indecency to the next level!

Gotta love the "shoot yourself in the foot" notion that makes
hardware companies copyright their drivers.  "No, we do not want
people using our products!  We only want consumers to *buy* them,
not *use* them!  Video cards should be placed on a shelf and
admired, not used to generate graphics in a computer!"

Cheers,
- Graham