Peter wrote:

>> The problem with Slackware is that managing any software that isn't a 
>> Slackware
>> package isn't easy. I've in fact switched virtually all of my machines 
>> from
>> Slackware to one Debian variant or another precisely because of 
>> package management.
> 
> 
> I beg to disagree. I was in 'dependency hell' with Linux exactly once, 
> and that was with Debian. I have previously used Slackware, Suse, Red 
> Hat, and several flavors of *BSD, and am currently on a hevily modified 
> Debian base (at least my workstation is). The only time I got bitten was 
> with Debian.

Were you using Debian STABLE or something else?

Almost every story I hear about this always ends up leaving out that the 
person was running TESTING or UNSTABLE, which as their names actually 
state -- are not going to be without problems.

The other common story is that the person was using non-Debian packages.

If you stick with STABLE and Debian-supplied packages, it's quite rare 
to have any dependency issues with any of the released packages.

Additionally, since it's a community-created distro, and you get it for 
free, did you take the time to document exactly what you did that caused 
the problem, and turn in a bugreport at bugs.debian.org?

That way if there really is a problem, at least a workaround might be 
found and others might avoid the same problem you tripped over.

Nate
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