[Discuss] Debian "Newbie" Questions

[Deryk Barker]

Murray Strome wrote:

>
> Second, Debian (sarge) has REALLY OLD versions of most applications 
> that I use regularly (like OpenOffice, GIMP, K3B and 
> Mozilla/Firefox/Thunderbird).  I am not sure what is the best/safest 
> way to install the latest stable releases of applications like these 
> in Debian.  With Mandriva, I usually tried to find a suitable .rpm 
> file as a first step, then used either the command line or the 
> Mandriva software package manager.  In some cases (I think Acroread 
> was one) I just used the installer that was downloaded from the 
> website.  However, in those latter cases, the package manager didn't 
> seem to be aware of them.

I used to run debian testing at home- it's a damned sight more stable 
than anything I'ev ever seen from msoft - and still do at work. Packages 
are much more up to date - I've got firefox 1.5 and openoffice 2.

I run kubuntu at home (and my wife does on her laptop). Their packages 
are more up to date than in stable too, although firefox 1.5 is not yet 
there (I did find a web page with simple instructions for installing it 
on a debian system alongside 1.0.x and, when copied and pasted from the 
site, they worked flawlessly).

Personally I'm prepared to put up with a good deal (not that I have to) 
to avoid rpms and 'dependency hell'.