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\noindent There are no exact numbers of the number of users and fans in the
Debian community. Some institutions and companies who swear by Debian have
published their reasons at \texttt{http://www.debian.org/users/}. With this
text, I would like to give you an overview of the advantages and disadvantages
of operating system Debian GNU/Linux.

Debian is a non-profit community that flourishes by word of mouth. I would
thus like to express my gratitude to you for giving me the opportunity to
speak to you today. I will do my best to not only concentrate on the
advantages, but also to give you a set of criteria that might help to decide
against Debian.

\section*{Advantages}

\begin{description}

\item[Free of Charge]

Linux is said to be free of charge. Most distributions, however, restrict this
free-ness to private or non-commercial usage. The usage in a commercial
environment has to be expensively licensed. In addition, the update service
included with the initial purchase is limited to one year most of the time.
Debian is free of charge, no matter whether you plan to use it privately, at
university, commercially, or in the government. Moreover, we guarantee a free
update service without limitations on time.

\item[Stable \& Secure]

Debian is not steered by the market. We publish our software when it is ready
to meet the high expectations of our users, not a second earlier. As a result
of this, Debian systems count as some of the most stable systems of the world.
Our competent and restless security team takes care to fix all security
problems in a flash and pays special attention not to endanger this stability
with security upgrades.

\item[Professional]

On a Debian system, nothing will happen unless the user has explicitly
requested it. This may not make it easy for beginners, but it establishes the
necessary foundation for the experienced to operate and understand a system
for years. Moreover, every package abides to strict rules (FHS), therefore
guaranteeing a tidy cleanliness of the system.

\item[Simple]

No system of the world makes software administration as simple as Debian. New
versions of programs may be seamlessly integrated into the system without
endangering or changing the previous configuration. Dependencies on other
programs are automatically resolved and installed straight via the internet,
if the user so desires. No matter how aged a Debian system may be, two
commands suffice to bring it up to date.

\item[Versatile]

The 1\,000 active developers come from all sectors of the industry. At Debian,
you can find subprojects that aim to provide specialised Debian releases for
e.g. the medical sector, education, research, law, as well as the children at
home. Over 12\,000 packages leave almost no wish ungranted. And Debian's
threefold version structure helps to meet all requirements: \texttt{stable}
for the productive environment, \texttt{testing} for the balance between
stability and timeliness, and \texttt{unstable} for those, who want to live on
the cutting edge and are willing to endure a problem here and there.

\item[Universal]

Debian is the only Linux system which supports eleven architectures equally
well. No matter whether your system is powered by x86, ia64, PowerPC, Sparc,
Alpha, m86k, ARM, MIPS/MIPSEL, HP-PA oder S/390, Debian will work the same on
each (Hitachi's SuperH architecture is currently being worked on).
Furthermore, Debian is independent of the Linux kernel. Instead of Linux, you
may use e.g. the GNU/Hurd micro kernel, or the kernels of the NetBSD and
FreeBSD (x86 only) projects.

\item[Supported]

Debian's community is mainly organised around mailing lists. On these lists,
we coordinate the project publicly, and here, most problems are quickly and
professionally solved. On the most popular list, \texttt{debian-user}, more
than 2\,000 people are discussing problems and improvements to the system on
a daily basis. Everybody is equal on these lists, and frequently, one can find
``advanced'' folks helping the ``newbies'' patiently in finding the solution
to their problems. No other forums exist on the Internet or Usenet to my
knowledge, which are as highly focused as Debian's mailing lists.

\item[Free]

You may do with Debian whatever you wish, as long as you do not offend the
basic principles of the project. You may use it, change it, embed it in your
own devices, professionally install and administer it for others, modify it,
and even sell it under your own name~\ldots

\item[Democratic]

Every decision at Debian is a democratic decision of the developers.
Furthermore, everybody may become a developer and thus take influence in the
future of the project.

\item[Open]

Debian keeps no secrets from its users. Be it administration and coordination
of the project, the development of software, or the disclosure of bugs,
concerning information about the project, everybody is equal -- user or
developer -- and has the same rights for information.

\item[International]

Debian is international. On the one hand it it translated into many different
language and thus can be used in areas, where English is not the preferred
language. On the other hand it is politically independent. No government of
this world can influence Debian. Furthermore, Debian honours all opinions, and
nobody is discriminated in any form.

\end{description}

\section*{Disadvantages}

\begin{description}

\item[Complexity]

One of the main arguments for Debian is also one of its main shortcomings.
Debian is a very complex system, which gives full control to the user.
Integrated management tools, such as known from RedHat and SuSE platforms do
not exist. Therefore, new users are frequently swamped with Debian's paradigms
of system administration. We recommend that users new to Linux first gain some
experience with another distribution (such as RedHat), but to not loose
contact with Debian. In our experience, most users will return to Debian
within 6 to 18 months on their own.

\item[Drowning]

Having 12,000 packages available for immediate installation may often drown
the user in a sea of choices. Experienced users do not bother with the entire
list but simply make use of the package management system to install whatever
they need on demand, rather than trying to decide what to install at
installation time. Nevertheless, often two solutions to one problem are too
much as the inexperienced frequently do not want to make decisions.

\item[Outdated]

Debian has the reputation of being out of date. While SuSE and RedHat jump
through hoops to have the newest software available on their systems, and try
to sell new cutting-edge revisions every ssix months, Debian's last official
release dates back to the summer of 2002, and we don't expect the next stable
release to take place before 2004. \texttt{testing} and \texttt{unstable}
offer more current versions of software, but due to our quality standards, it
may take a couple of weeks for a new version to even make it into unstable.
Those who want to ride the cutting edge and prefer not to compile the newest
versions themselves are probably better off with commercial distributions.
Debian ranks stability before timeliness.

\item[Incomplete]

There are a number of good programs for Linux, which Debian does not include
in its archive because of licensing issues. Pertinent examples include the
integrated video player \texttt{mplayer} as well as Sun's Java. Of course, one
may install these from third-party archives (\texttt{http::/apt-get.org}
provides an ever-growing list of software collections, which may be seamlessly
integrated into Debian's package management system), but many users opt
against such archives as the third parties are often not willing or capable to
abide to Debian's quality warranty.

\item[Sparse]

In comparison to consultants for Windows and professional supporters of Linux,
there are only a few out there advertising support for Debian. This is
improving every day, and you may find a comprehensive list of consultants for
Debian at \texttt{http://www.debian.org/consultants/}. These people offer
commercial and non-commercial support and help for Debian. Most of the time,
however, it is the people on the Debian mailing lists, who offer the fastest
and best support (at no cost). This has the added advantage of being
didactically more valuable.

\end{description}

\bigskip

\noindent This list may well be incomplete. In general, we recommend that you
simply try Debian and hope to facilitate this step with the CD that you should
find with this package. If you have further questions, do not hesitate to
contact me, or the \texttt{debian-user} mailing list.

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\Large I Thank You for Your Attention and Interest!

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