Good for Debian?
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| jimf Mar 20, 2007 6:07 AM EDT |
I used to have a rather high opinion of Ian Murdock. Certainly founding Debian was one of the great events of the Linux world. But after watching the projects that he's since become involved with, and Blurb like: "I think the fundamental mistake was this adoption of a democratic process, which happened after my time and I was opposed to." I'm awfully glad he left when he did.... |
| ELF Mar 20, 2007 6:38 AM EDT |
He does have a point. While I like the Debian way of doing things I moved away from Debian proper to Kubuntu and Sidux on my desktops & laptop mostly because of stale stable Debian releases. Etch has not been released stable and is already outdated. However, for a server workhorse nothing beats Debian. I am afraid that a bit less democracy as in *ubuntu yields better (in terms of timely AND pretty stable) results. |
| jimf Mar 20, 2007 6:59 AM EDT |
> He does have a point. On top of his head maybe? Yes, there are advantages to running a business like a business, but, Debian has become far more than that. The democratic process, while cumbersome, is what makes Debian unique. Without it... just another also ran. > While I like the Debian way of doing things I moved away from Debian proper to Kubuntu and Sidux on my desktops & laptop mostly because of stale stable Debian releases. You gotta be daft. I'm running a combination of Debian testing/unstable/experimental, and it has 'far more' stability than anything I'm seeing in any of the buntus and just as much (actually more) cutting edge as in Sidux. |
| bigg Mar 20, 2007 7:37 AM EDT |
> 'far more' stability than anything I'm seeing in any of the buntus and just as much (actually more) cutting edge as in Sidux I've got to say that Debian Etch is the most stable OS I've used. There are lots of packages for *buntu that are messed up, yet remain in the repositories. The stable Debian releases are just that, stable. If you want a near guarantee against problems, use Debian stable. But I'm using the Etch repositories and have Iceweasel 2.0.0.2 on my machine along with the latest versions of most apps. Although something is labeled as a release, like Ubuntu 6.10, that is not the equivalent of a stable Debian distribution. I use a wide variety of packages and Debian testing has given them all to me and they've worked. I also refer to *buntu as Debian slow, because there is a huge difference in speed. As for the democratic process: Debian seems pretty good to me. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. We'll see how Shuttleworth fares as he slowly forces users to do things. Debian doesn't force anything on you. And as for a specific release date I don't think you have to look far past the debacle that was opensuse 10.1 to see the problems with that approach. And that was after a significant delay. |
| Sander_Marechal Mar 20, 2007 7:45 AM EDT |
Bigg, I agree 100% with you. |
| richo123 Mar 20, 2007 8:36 AM EDT |
bigg two points: 1) I have installed Debian etch and Ubuntu edgy side by side and do not notice a "huge difference" in speed. I think you need to show some hard evidence for this. 2) While it is fine to stick to stable distros and I agree etch is more stable than edgy, there is another issue as well. Linux is getting globally more stable from my experience as time goes on. I have far fewer crashes with freshly minted distros than I did even a year ago. Thus having the "latest and greatest" may sometimes pay stability dividends if you do it sensibly. Case in point: kde app krusader had all sorts of issues with 1.6 but 1.7 is much more stable. An awful lot of linux apps are approaching "1.0" or higher and a lot of the higher releases are bugfixes..... |
| hackmeister Mar 20, 2007 8:48 AM EDT |
Ian is a stand up guy and makes some very valid points regarding Debian. I wish him all the best. |
| jimf Mar 20, 2007 8:57 AM EDT |
> I think you need to show some hard evidence for this. I don't know what kind of benchmarking you propose richo, but, everyone running Debian that I talk to seems to note the speed and stability of Debian over buntu. And yes, everything in Linux is, for the most part, getting better, but, Debian remains far more stable in whatever version. Debian is still nothing I'd recommend for a noob to learn, but, neither is buntu. |
| dinotrac Mar 20, 2007 9:05 AM EDT |
Though I'm a reformed Debian users, I think it's nice that people who are into all of that have some place to play. A linux world without Debian would be a poorer place, and I think that applies even to those of us using something else. |
| jdixon Mar 20, 2007 9:30 AM EDT |
> Though I'm a reformed Debian users... Aha, Dino has multiple personalities. That explains a lot. :) > A linux world without Debian would be a poorer place,... Agreed. |
| bigg Mar 20, 2007 9:38 AM EDT |
> I have installed Debian etch and Ubuntu edgy side by side and do not notice a "huge difference" in speed. I think you need to show some hard evidence for this. I hear that a lot from *buntu users. I have done some comparisons across distributions related to my work, but those aren't really relevant to most people. Debian consistently did its work about 12-15% faster on the same machine. Where the speed difference really matters is with hardware that is not cutting edge. I have a laptop with 256 mb ram, 1 ghz processor. Ubuntu/Kubuntu, forget it. You want to open a menu, you click the button, go make coffee, and when you are halfway through the second cup, the menu will open up. Xubuntu is better but not by much. I run Etch with Gnome and the system flies. (It also sets up the touchpad correctly and suspends to disk if I'm logged in as root, I still have to figure out how to do that as a non-root user. There is no suspend to disk with *buntu and the touchpad sucks). I have a 233 mhz box that serves as a standby, and Etch runs fairly well even on that machine. |
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