[NCLUG] Hello All.

[Michael Dwyer]

siegel wrote:
> I guess the question is: Is Debian any less up to date with hardware ssupport
> than other distros? Hope thats not too general.

You're in luck!  There are some very powerful Debian figures in the area
-- I believe that is the distro that HP is collaborating on. 
Personally,  I've only tried Debian once... But I'm going to try to
answer your question anyway...

Debian tries to maintain the most stable and secure system they possibly
can.  To that end, they are often not the earliest adopter of new
features.  They tend to take a 'wait and see' attitude to new features. 
After they have been proven, Debian will take the new features into the
main distro.

That said, Debian does support an entire 'experimental' tree to support
the new features that the base tree doesn't.  

So I guess the answer is that Debian may not be the most up to date out
of the box, but it is easy enough to get it there.

A few days earlier, Sean recommended that if you are a newbie, you
choose a distro based upon what your friends use.  In that case, Debian
is a fine choice... you may also have luck with RedHat and the local
flavor, Krud (http://www.tummy.com/krud).  Also, though I don't think
there are any developers in the area, there are certainly users of
Mandrake linux in the area.

Good luck!  Welcome to the area!