How good is debian pls tell me

[rustam_singh]

finally i have decided to switch over to linux from windows... Debian is the distro i always wanted... in simple words pls tell me how good debian is as compared to other distros ?... the main reason i am switching over to linux is that most of the work that i do is "C" oriented... i just need windows to run visual studio.net 2005 and oracle 9i(because of the training else i would have killed this tooo) for that i have a seperate hdd i was worndering if one can install debian in one partition without dedicating an entire hdd for it... Does debian support rpm's ? Do software developers provide binaries for debian ? Pls help me out...

Thanks in advance...

[praka123]

Originally Posted by rustam_singh

finally i have decided to switch over to linux from windows... Debian is the distro i always wanted... in simple words pls tell me how good debian is as compared to other distros ?... the main reason i am switching over to linux is that most of the work that i do is "C" oriented... i just need windows to run visual studio.net 2005 and oracle 9i(because of the training else i would have killed this tooo) for that i have a seperate hdd i was worndering if one can install debian in one partition without dedicating an entire hdd for it... Does debian support rpm's ? Do software developers provide binaries for debian ? Pls help me out...

Thanks in advance...

Use Debian testing(Etch) GNU/Linux.It simply overrules other distros.Thanks to dpkg(.deb) package manager of Debian compared to rpm(.rpm) in other distros.it contains more upto date packages like firefox 1.5**,Gnome-2.14 etc.just now i finished installing Etch via netinstall method.Yes you can make a ~7/8 GB partn and install debian.There exists few IDE's for C/C++ programming in Linux,the One which I use is Anjuta.you can select and install packages in Debian using Synaptic Package Manager.Debian for x86 is having most packages made for i386 for all intel 32-bit processors.Only Kernel is having optimizations for individual types like i686 smp etc.below is my /etc/apt/sources.list:

root@sputnik:~# cat /etc/apt/sources.list
#
# deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux testing _Etch_ - Official Snapshot i386 Binary-1 (20060622)]/ etch main


deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux testing _Etch_ - Official Snapshot i386 Binary-1 (20060622)]/ etch main


# Line commented out by installer because it failed to verify:
deb http://security.debian.org/ etch/updates main  contrib non-free
# Line commented out by installer because it failed to verify:
#deb-src http://security.debian.org/ etch/updates main

# Testing Etch
#deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian/ testing main contrib non-free
deb http://debian.linux.org.tw/debian/ testing main contrib non-free
# Testing Proposed updates
#deb http://debian.linux.org.tw/debian/dists/etch-proposed-updates/ testing main contrib non-free
# Testing Sources
#deb-src http://http.us.debian.org/debian/ testing main contrib non-free

# Marillat For info visit http://www.debian-multimedia.org
deb http://www.debian-multimedia.org etch main

# WINE
deb http://wine.sourceforge.net/apt/ binary/

# The Opera Web Browser Official packages.
deb http://deb.opera.com/opera/ testing non-free

Best of Lux

[tuxfan]

Now-a-days, people are preferring Ubuntu over debian. Debian's development have been pretty slow. Contact GNUrag for more info

[GNUrag]

Debian is ``THE'' distro
As of right now, there are 17,000+ packaged, precompiled binaries available with latest testing release `Etch' With these many number of packages available, you'll never need to get hold of any RPMs ever. Imagine, the entire Stable distribution of Debian `Sarge' spans 14CD sets.

In case you are going to install something on say, your laptop/home desktop where you want things to ``Just Work (TM)'' then give Ubuntu `Dapper' a try ... The only issue with Ubuntu is it needs an active internet connection to bring it to full throttle.

[JGuru]

Debian is very good distro. It's very secure. Also comes with lots of applications like
GNurag told you. Debian uses '.deb' package manager, not RPM. You can also try
Ubuntu , which is also based on Debian. Using the 'Synaptic Package Manager' you
can download lots of software from their repositories.

[gary4gar]

ya ubuntu is a cool distro installing new softwares is very easy.

[mehulved]

Also you have Oracle for Linux. And .Net can be done by mono compiler though you will miss intellisence there.

[gary4gar]

any links for oracle??

[mehulved]

You can download Oracle Express Edition for free from here http://www.oracle.com/technology/pro.../xe/index.html
Here's the home page of Oracle Databases http://www.oracle.com/database/index.html

[mediator]

Yea heard so much about debain now....but still dont wanna give up my Fedora box! It rocks too!

[kalpik]

^^ I gave up my FC5 box for kubuntu!

[rustam_singh]

thank you all... if i have anymore querries realted to debian or any other open source software, will put em up inn here... once again thank you all, i have chosen debian...