Just debian with a gnome default
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| helios May 03, 2005 9:31 AM EDT |
No...this is simply bandwagon reporting, lazy and popularist. I installed Ubuntu just to familiarize myself with Gnome because I heard Ubuntu is Gnome done right. I can agree with that, but aside from getting Gnome right, it just isn't all that. Multimedia is still somewhat crippled and what of the great app improvements we have been promised by Mr. Shuttleworth. They are non-existant in 5.04. If you want an up to date debian box, just go debian sarge. I don't see anything WRONG with (K)Ubuntu...I just don't see anything to justify the hype. Until they match PCLinuxOS in New user friendliness and "out of the box" readiness, it's just another well done distro. helios |
| sbergman27 May 03, 2005 12:14 PM EDT |
Could you clarify a point about Debian for me? I hear many people recommending others to use Debian Testing. But when I go to the Debian site, I see security updates only for the ancient Debian Stable, and a notice saying that timely security updates for Testing and Unstable are not guaranteed. What do people who run Testing on servers do? Pray? |
| carpy May 03, 2005 12:20 PM EDT |
I believe the key point Helios is missing is this:
User Friendliness. K/Ubuntu may be very much based on Debian Sarge, but the Ubuntu Community (including web sites and related communications) is what makes this special. Ubuntu is very friendly to newcomers. Debian, whether still warranted or not, has a stigma of FY.RTFM. And with the release of Kubuntu, Ubuntu's friendliness is yet furthered. Between a simple and well-thought-out software selection base, and a great, warm community, K/Ubuntu will go far. I only hope Debian is not lost in the shuffle. There is no denying that Sarge has played a big roll in their success. We'll see what the future holds. One thing is for certain. K/Ubuntu is the highlight of Debian-based distros at the moment. I'm writing from one right now. |
| chalex May 03, 2005 12:36 PM EDT |
sbergman27: people don't generally run the "testing" distribution on servers. "stable" is what it's all about. Yes, stable is currently very outdated. Yes, using backports to stable is a bitch. Hopefully, everything will change soon. |
| helios May 03, 2005 2:25 PM EDT |
A note to Carpy...you and I can agree on award-winning forum support for Ubuntu, but aside from that one significant positive, I can't see anything special about it. Now I don't dislike it particularly and I certainly do not want to enter into a distro war with you, but this is my point....in fact Devnet said it much better than I do. There are two distros that most things "just work" when you get them installed, those are PCLinuxOS and Mepis. With the former, you can install an ATI version, an NvIdia version or a vanilla version and your respective video card is hot without any tweaking, dropping to init 3 and installing anything, no chmod a+x anything. Streaming works immediately and there is mp3 support without any problem. The ONLY thing I have found lacking is the libdvdcss file and that is readily available via synaptic. AND, it has the most comprehensive software selection I have ever seen in a fresh install. Apt-get/apt-cache works just as well as it does in debian and I have yet to have dependany problems. PCLinuxOS is as well, developed for the new user/desktop user and remember...it is still in "development" stage. In my opinion, it kicks Suse and FC/whatever to the curb. I too share your concern over package fragmentation between Ubuntu and debian...that could be a real problem. I am just wondering why if one or two distros can do everything out of the box, why cant the (K)Ubuntu projects. To be honest with you, my opinion is that this is the only real factor holding it back from being darn near perfect. I know, I know...they are worried about the legalities. Thats a shame. BTW...I have my 12 yo daughter set up with both Ubuntu and the kde desktop option on her computer. She can manipulate the grep commands better than me. Sheesh. helios |
| salparadise May 04, 2005 12:10 AM EDT |
Yeah,
I've got Simply Mepis at home.
I fire up the OS Control app, tell it to install the nvidia driver, reboot and x fails to load. What follows is 20 minutes of messing around with dpkg-reconfigure and conf file hacking and it still doesn't work. Whereas on Ubuntu, I do the same, reboot and my card works. The simple truth is you can't have free open source software with non-free closed source codecs. So in the end it comes down to philosophy. It's not just about "out of the box" functionality. It's also about the philosophy behind the source and the attitude of certain companies. I don't want to get into a right/wrong debate. The bottom line is that you can't have everything for free. Somewhere along the line you either have to pay money or put some effort in yourself. This is not wrong, it's just a fact. For most of us, an OS that required absolutely no tweaking or installing would be boring beyond belief. Most Windows users I know can't cope with adding drivers, uninstalling unwanted apps, installing wanted apps or any kind of maintenance. There is no real difference between Windows and Linux in this regard. It's a lazy, frightened user thing not a bad design thing. People have been led to believe , partly correctly, that their pc is horrendously complex and that if they try to do anything other than surf and click that they'll screw everything up. People need to learn about/how to use, their tools. Not blame the tool maker for not creating the perfect, maintenance free tools. |
| helios May 04, 2005 4:34 AM EDT |
The bottom line is that you can't have everything for free. Somewhere along the line you either have to pay money or put some effort in yourself. ...and I wonder if this magnificent truism isn't the base of Linux's ultimate failure as a desktop competitor. Linux Users have had a free ride for years and have come to expect it as a matter of fact...asking them to pay for something aside from an entire distribution will create system shock in many. (read k3b, $49.95 usd) Windows Users have had their hands held and their butts powdered for so long, its difficult to get them to defrag their own hard drives. Whether you realize it or not, your above statement may be the cornerstone to "the Linux Solution" if we can just find a way to reconcile the two. If I may and with giving you proper credit, I would like to use your point on the soon-to-open Lobby4Linux.com. |
| salparadise May 04, 2005 11:40 AM EDT |
Be my guest. |
| mapnjd May 05, 2005 5:28 AM EDT |
To describe Ubuntu as just Debian with GNOME is a bit of a disservice. Yes, it is fully based off sarge, but the gluing together to make sure it works is unbelievable. Let's face it, Debian is neither newbie-friendly, nor as up-to-date as Ubuntu. GNOME 2.8 was available in Ubuntu 04.10 before it even got added to unstable. It's not in stable yet is it? 2.8 included many things that made it better than 2.6. GNOME 2.10 is still only in experimental in debian. It's stable as heck on Ubuntu 5.04. As a seasoned Red Hat bigot (over 8 years of having it as my desktop) I've switched 2 of my 3 machines to Ubuntu 5.04: my work machine (must work all the time and talk to Exchange properly - which Evolution 2.2 rocks at) and my aging laptop - which Ubuntu can spin the disks down on, hibernate (Software Suspend), etc. etc, which neither Fedora Core 3 nor Mandr[...] 10.x/2005LE can do. Even the fricking power button works (so-called user-friendly Mandr[...] couldn't work that out). As an extra point, why does Ubuntu's GNOME run so much faster than Fedora's on the same hardware? Ubuntu does "just work". For someone like me who doesn't really understand debian/dpkg/apt - I just downloaded haih from some ubuntu site/wiki/forum and it set up all the extra repos to get non-supported and non-free stuff. What was hard about that? (I hope mono is included in the core of Ubuntu next time...) I would give my Dad Ubuntu - it's that good (he's 70 this year and "gets by" under Windows). The only thing wrong with Ubuntu is that the support cycle is 18 months which makes it useless for servers. We can't kick customers off an OS just because it's "old" - we are currently moving our last Solaris 2.6 customer onto RHEL 4. That's why we still use RHEL at work - 7 years worth of updates (Solaris is c. 6.5 years of updates + 3 years extra "support"). Apart from that, Ubuntu just rocks. I'm not knocking debian - I'm sure it's great on servers, but on the desktop, they've lost their way. |
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