deb/apt vs rpm/yum - was Re: preferred linux distro for workstation usage?

[Ben Eisenbraun]

On Mon, Sep 13, 2010 at 02:12:55PM -0400, Ryan Pugatch wrote:
> This is another thing I've been thinking of (and a huge reason to choose 
> Fedora vs Ubuntu).  Personally, I have had my fair share of problems 
> with deb/apt and prefer rpm/yum.  But I'd love to see a solid pro/con 
> list between the two because I don't have any reason to back that up 
> aside from personal preference and past experience.

The huge win for deb/APT in my eyes is the option to upgrade from release
to release without reinstalling.

I have done this using Yum on Fedora, but it's not a straightforward
process the way it is on Debian/Ubuntu.  The twice yearly reinstallation of
Fedora is a bit tiresome.

Debian's package maintainers do base some of their policies on their
particular dogma, but the Fedora maintainers do the same.  They just have a
different set of dogmas.  I like Ubuntu because 'aptitude install
flashplugin-installer' just works.  Same for Sun Java.

Red Hat/CentOS is a lovely server distribution, but has rather stale
packages for a desktop machine.  I suppose Red Hat 6 will solve this for a
while.  It has some of the same problems with proprietary software though.

My two cents, etc.

-ben

--
there is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the 
proportion.                                        <francis bacon>