On Mon, Jan 17, 2011 at 12:09 -0600, Paul Johnson wrote: > Can I escape Ubuntu to Debian? Sure. You are more than welcome to try and use Debian. > 1. Is Debian defaulting to the Unity Desktop too? (please say no) Unity has to my knowledge not even been packaged for Debian [4]. Given that Debian uses the Gnome desktop as standard desktop if you install the "desktop" task you will more or less end up with the Gnome version in testing [1] at the time of the release. I would like to note that it is easily possible to install *any* desktop environment or window manager on Debian (and probably Ubuntu) and that you don't have to use the default one. I typically don't install any tasks when I install a new system and add additional packages after the initial minimal installation. > 2. How can I make a transition to Debian from Ubuntu? So I need to > change my apt repositories and then do what else? If glibc or the > kernel headers are new, I'll have to recompile everything I've built, > but that's OK. You can not transform an Ubuntu system to a Debian system and you have to install Debian from scratch if you want to use it. Given that Squeeze will be released soonish I would recommend to install it instead of Lenny (on your personal machine!): http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/ http://www.debian.org/releases/squeeze/installmanual > 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? I understand that nouveau is > providing reasonable 2D for Nvidia cards, but my job requires the 3D > support that seems available only from the commercial driver. Nvidia drivers are available in Debian's non-free archive and well supported. 1. Enabling non-free sources in /etc/apt/sources.list 2. Installing kernel headers for your kernel: "aptitude install linux-headers-2.6-`uname -r |sed 's,.*-,,'` 3. Installing the drivers (DKMS flavour [2]) nvidia-glx nvidia-xconfig 4. Generating a suitable Xorg configuration file nvidia-xconfig -o /etc/X11/xorg.conf > I'm not trolling, not trying for a flame war here. If you like Unity, > more power to you. If you like Ubuntu, OK, it has been good for me > too. Your question was not perceived as trolling. I would like to point out that you can probably install a different desktop environment or window manager of your liking on Ubuntu as well and that you therefore don't necessarily need to install Debian. If you, however, decide to do so: Welcome and may you enjoy your stay! Further information on Debian can be found in the Debian Reference [3]. [1] See http://www.debian.org/releases/ for a short overview of "stable", "testing" and "unstable" [2] http://pkg-dkms.alioth.debian.org/ [3] http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/reference/ [4] http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=609278 -- .''`. Wolodja Wentland <wolodja.wentland@ed.ac.uk> : :' : `. `'` 4096R/CAF14EFC `- 081C B7CD FF04 2BA9 94EA 36B2 8B7F 7D30 CAF1 4EFC
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