Noah Meyerhans wrote:
> <sarcasm>
> Because of course, Debian doesn't ship with a compiler or anything like
> that.
> </sarcasm>
>
> The failure of a pre-compiled binary package to meet a given user's
> needs (even if the only reason they're having problems is user-error) is
> hardly a reason to switch operating systems.
The problem, of course, is that debian is subtly different from the rest
of the linuxes in several weird and wonderful ways.
Antique versions of libraries, that may require quite a few patches /
backports to compile binaries, a packaging system that, while quite
stable and hassle free, doesn't really play well with hand compiled
binaries (making your own debian packages would be an alternative), and
configuration files with completely different / non default names and in
completely different directories, so that they play nice with debconf ..
Debian users coming in here asking about problems with outdated exim
versions and nonstandard configuration mechanisms could well be talking
greek and latin for the most part. And a lot of them seem to think
something just doesnt exist if it isnt available as a debian package,
and appear to be quite scared of compiling their own code.
Nonstandard config - like for example insisting that exim starts from
inetd, or talking about a config file split into several tiny files
scattered all over a directory .. if I wanted that, I'd go install qmail.
Last but not the least (though not here) there's the perpetual gnu
advocacy and license warring that a whole lot of debian users keep
engaging in .. claiming that debian is the one true OS and perpetually
parroting the "GNU/Linux" and "Linux is the kernel, GNU/Linux is the OS"
catchphrases ..
There are a whole lot of things that kind of make me allergic to debian
as a distro. Sure, there are a lot of clued debian users (I know quite
a few of them) and in their hands, debian is useful, powerful and
stable, but at least for newbies, it is a distro that gives them little
or no independence in configuration, or inclination to experiment /
learn anything beyond apt-get and eximconfig.
This is getting way OT for exim-users so I'll stop here.
srs
