[Rd] Why not in Debian distro?

Telford telford@progsoc.uts.edu.au
Sun, 21 Oct 2001 02:33:51 +0000


On Thu, Jul 26, 2001 at 07:04:42AM -0700, A.J. Rossini wrote:
> >>>>> "PD" == Peter Dalgaard <BSA <p.dalgaard@biostat.ku.dk>> writes:
>     PD> later. Whatever happened to the internal Debian discussions on
>     PD> creating a faster upgrade path for applications?
> 
> They created Woody/testing, which is a broken nightmare.

Sorry to jump in rather late on a topic which is bordering off topic
but if Debian people are interested I was working for a while distributing
Linux in Australia and I'm still in touch with the industry, I'll point
out a few observations:

* Debian `potato' CDs were popular when they came out but now they are far 
  too out of date to sell.

* Distributers don't want to make up their own unofficial Debian CDs they
  want something complete, tested and ready to stamp CDs.

* The various minibook/pocketbooks have are always popular and I don't think
  that Debian has ever been included on one of these (various combinations
  of RedHat, Mandrake, and TurboLinux have been).

* The RedHat 7.1 CDs (GPL set) are still popular and the `PowerTools' CD
  includes R-base-1.2.0 and RedHat now have quite low prices on their 
  low-end offerings so people aren't being scared off by the boxed-set premium.

Basically the Australian market is very interested in getting distributions
on CD because not many people have the tinme and money to download the entire
Debian sid down a modem. This is not in any way a comment on the quality of
the Debian product but an observation that current Debian packaging is not
doing much for the distribution of that product.

	- Tel


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