Re: Debian or Ubuntu Dilemma
On Sat, 16 Jul 2005 14:15:16 -0400, Hal Vaughan wrote:
> On Saturday 16 July 2005 12:10 pm, Carl Fink wrote:
>> On Sat, Jul 16, 2005 at 11:59:21AM -0400, Hal Vaughan wrote:
>> > Yes and no. ?Ubuntu is a flavor of Debian and uses the Sarge installer,
>> > but they use their own packages. ?In Debian, if you use the Stable
>> > (currently Sarge) branch, you get packages that have been tested about as
>> > thouroughly as any in computerdom. ?Ubuntu does not follow branches, so
>> > you can't count on their packages to be as stable as Debian's. ...
>>
>> What's with the question marks? (Non-ASCII characters?)
>
> Don't know. They didn't show up when I was typing it, and didn't show up on
> my post when it came through the list, but show up in your response. It was
> written on KMail, and I've never changed the character set. I use a standard
> 2 spaces after a period at the end of the sentence and it seems your mail
> reader is converting the 2nd space after a period into a question mark.
>
>> Ubuntu doesn't use "branches" but they do use "versions". The current
>> Ubuntu version has undergone serious testing, and since they're still
>> feeding from Debian any problems discovered by us Debian users will be
>> fixed in Ubuntu as well.
>
> But does Ubuntu take packages from Stable, Testing, or Unstable? If they take
> from Unstable, even if their people test it, there is still no way they will
> get the amount of testing a package gets when it reaches Debian Stable.
>
>> I'm not endorsing Ubuntu for everyone, but your criticism isn't really
>> fair.
>
> I think it is more than fair. Aside from reports that Ubuntu packages can
> break dependencies if mixed with pure Debian packages, they are taking Debian
> packages, and they are modifying them to work by the Ubuntu rules, which are
> not always the same as Debian rules. That means taking a package that has
> been proven to work to a certain degree under a Debian system, making
> changes, and expecting it to be as stable as it was. It doesn't work that
> way -- whenever you make a change in a program or package, you can't count on
> that change making it more stable.
For sure. Because of Ubuntu hype, I felt safe in creating a
Ubuntu/Sarge(stable) system... What a mistake. Not a complete disaster
but bad enough to make me almost dispise ubuntu. Case in point... I got my DSL activated so went to town upgrading packages. Of coures I used
my Sarge DVD's and a variety of stable repositories. First 'f' up was
xmms and alsa... Geesshhh... thought I'd never have sound again. Then it went to Gnome... Holy sh$t, everything under the sun went wrong. Even just
starting gnome from gdm only worked 1/10 of the time (maybe) and when it DID start, don't dare clik on anything and expect it to work... More
than likely it would just die for no apparent reason and leave no trace of the
cause... Well... I ALMOST diped into sid to get 2.10 but decided to try another approach. Replaced xfree with x.org but didn't have any virtual terminals
(ctl+alt+F1 etc) so reinstalled xfree. Damn if that didn't seem to clear
up the Gnome trouble. WHY? Hell if I know. All I know now is my system seems to be stable again and I'll be damned if I'll ever mix/match
debians' again. Well, MAYBE Libranet. I've chatted with a fellow in this group that is a libranet tester and he 'swears' it's 100% compatible with
debian packages... If anyone knows better, let me know before I make mistake numero-two-oh..
>Any programmer or program packager can
> tell about scads of cases where they made a change to fix a bug or improve
> something and instead of the program being more stable, it got worse.
>
>> I think Ubuntu (or other Debian-derived distributions like, oh, Mepis or
>> Libranet) might be somewhat easier for a Linux newbie. Debian requires
>> more knowledge to configure and use. IMO.
>
> Yes, they might be. At this point I'd recommend Mepis, with the LiveCD and an
> extremely easy install program. That's not to say Ubuntu is bad. I've had
> limited experience, since when I had to pick a distro, I tried Ubuntu's
> LiveCD (forgot the version, but it was months ago), and it didn't work with
> my Logitech optical & cordless mouse. There's also Knoppix and Kanotix.
> There's a few Debian based distros you can buy, but there are so many good
> ones that are free now, I can't see how I could justify spending the money on
> them. Other people's mileage may differ.
>
> However, like many Debian based distros, Mepis uses mixed sources that are
> neither Stable, Unstable, or Testing. At one time that didn't mean that much
> to me, but now I really value the dependability of the Stable branch. I'm
> gradually switching all my systems over to pure Debian. My servers will be
> Stable, and I may make my workstation Unstable, with the ability to boot a
> Stable partition in case something goes wrong. That way I can play around
> with new eye-candy and stuff, but still count on being able to get it up and
> running.
>
> Hal
>
>
> --
>> Carl Fink carl@fink.to
>> If you attempt to fix something that isn't broken, it will be.
>> -Bruce Tognazzini
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