On Sat, 24 May 2003, Scot Jenkins wrote:

> I don't want to start a distro war, but how about representing other 
> distros besides RedHat?  I think one of the great things about linux and
> open source is that you're not locked into one vendor's distro.  I think
> it's important to get that message out so people don't get the idea that
> RedHat = Linux.  There are always alternatives...

yes there are, but several factors need to be considered,

1. most of the people taking these CDs are "Suits" debian is a geeks 
distro and does not fit well within their mindset

(plus if people had the bandwidth to install a whole system from the net, 
they would just download the ISOs)

2. User Friendlyness, (no not the comic) I am not saying the 
debian/slackware is not userfriendly... but they are not Newbie Friendly

newbies like shiny things... (think the crow in the Secret of NIMH)... X 
installers are shiny and attract newbies

3. hardware support. Debian and slackware are power users distros, with 
stability in mind and as such they do not come with bleeding else hardware 
support that many people want. 

4. why not SuSE or Mandrake then?  Market penetration , name brand 
recognition. most people heard of SuSE and Mandrake but they know redhat 
(not in the biblical sense)

so it boils down to a "what people want" question and here in the US it is 
RedHat Linux 9...

before you label me as a RedHat bigot, over half my computers are running 
Debian and i am working on putting even more in. I am very satisfied with 
Debian and generally i prefer the way Debian does things.

Munir Nassar
RedConcepts.NET

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