Re: transition from Ubuntu -> Debian to avoid Unity Desktop?
On 2011-01-17 19:09 +0100, Paul Johnson wrote:
> On several laptops and desktops, I made the transition from Fedora ->
> Ubuntu about 3 years ago. I did that mainly because Fedora updates
> kept "breaking" the Nvidia proprietary video drivers and the
> developers openly said that they didn't really care whether or not
> their distribution had drivers that could work with the hardware.
I'm pretty sure Fedora cares about good hardware support, but it's true
that they do not held back new kernels and X versions to benefit
proprietary drivers; this is not their goal.
> Ubuntu developers at least recognized the problem and have a
> repository for commercial/addon drivers and they try to make sure the
> OS doesn't break the video drivers.
At least in released versions, yes. Development versions will usually
break proprietary drivers.
> Anyway, I just learned that in the next Ubuntu, they are adopting the
> "Unity Desktop". I did some checking on that and I totally hate it. I
> hate Mac GUI and am disgusted that the free/open movement pushes to
> imitate it. If I liked the look/feel of it, then I might be willing
> to put up with the pains of transition in the next Ubuntu, but, well,
> I don't. They say they will have other desktop options, but, in my
> experience, it will be tough to avoid the packaging and configuration
> changes that they enforce on everybody in order to make Unity work
> (maybe I'm too skeptical).
>
> Can I escape Ubuntu to Debian?
You can install Debian instead of Ubuntu or along with it.
> 1. Is Debian defaulting to the Unity Desktop too? (please say no)
AFAIK, there are no unity packages in Debian yet, so you're safe for the
moment. ;-)
> 2. How can I make a transition to Debian from Ubuntu? So I need to
> change my apt repositories and then do what else?
That will almost certainly lead to a broken system, since Ubuntu has
diverged far enough from Debian to make "side-grading" by just changes
sources.list and running "apt-get dist-upgrade" a very challenging task,
to put it mildly. Ubuntu has many packages in newer versions than
Debian, packages some important packages (e.g. udev) very differently,
uses a different init system etc.
Don't even try that, instead install Debian on a different partition and
remove Ubuntu when (if?) you're comfortable with Debian.
> 3. If I make this change Ubuntu -> Debian, will I end up back in
> "Nvidia Hell" where the OS updates frequently break the
> commercial/proprietary video drivers?
Depends on which Debian version you intend to use:
- In stable, the proprietary drivers never break. They may have
security flaws, though. Those can and will not be fixed. If your
hardware is new, it may not be supported by either free or proprietary
drivers.
- In testing, at least the Nvidia drivers had been broken most of the
time during the last few years. The packaging seems to have improved
in the last few months though.
- In unstable, the Nvidia drivers work most of the time, but you have to
build your own kernel module. Thanks to dkms this should be rather
easy these days. The legacy drivers will break more often, since
Nvidia does not update them timely for new kernels and Xorg releases.
Sven
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