My first experience with Debian was though its package format, when I was fed up with constant frustrations from RPM as a way to deliver software to an operatio

My first experience with Debian was though its package format, when I was fed up with constant frustrations from RPM as a way to deliver software to an operations team. (I had spent too many hours searching for format and behavior docs, only to find a couple of outdated text files full of ambiguities and omissions.) Given that Red Hat was widely considered the premier distro for businesses at the time, I didn't have high hopes for something better. Boy, was I in for a pleasant surprise. Debian's documentation was precise, comprehensive, and easy to find. It was clear from reading it that its authors were dedicated to creating a maintainable, sustainable system, even in the face of weird edge cases and failures. It went so far as to include versioned documentation and policy releases, with each one including clearly worded explanations of what changed since the previous version and (often) how to update existing packaging. Talk about exceeding expectations. This was better than any commercial software docs I had seen in ages. What a relief. The day or two I spent putting together my first Debian package was more than worth it in the long run. I migrated my servers as soon as I could, and it has served me well ever since. Nowadays, it's running my desktop/gaming systems, too. Thanks for the excellent work, Debian contributors. I feel fortunate to have found you.