Digby Tarvin wrote: > > My personal experience has been that it us much easier and faster to get > a workable system installed using Ubuntu, but Debian is the more versatile > once you have spent the time getting it setup correctly. > That has not been my experience at all. I can get a "workable system" installed just as fast or faster with Debian as with Ubuntu. I really see no difference in this respect. > Ubuntu is certainly much better at providing a quick indication of how > well supported your hardware is. > How so? > I have both installed on my notebook currently. Ubuntu installed very easily, > although didn't manage to get Xorg configured optimally. Debian's installer > did not detect my CD-ROM drive till I moved to the latest testing installer, > and used a problem workaround from the web site. When the install completed I > still had to manually configure and install the X system before I had a > workable X server, but now it is working even better than the Ubuntu > installed server. Ubuntu configured and used my wireless interface correctly > during install, but Debian don't support using it for installation, and the > installation does not install what is needed because of licensing/openness > concerns. Having gone to the Intel web site and downloaded the firmware > manuall, it now works. But as a user this is an inconvenience - I don't > think many people are going to decide not to use some key piece of hardware > on their computer even though a driver is available, purely on the grounds of > open source philosophy. And once you have bought the machine, it is no skin > off the manufacturers nose either way. > > Consequently I think Debian's more restrictive policy on hardware support > during and after installation is a disadvantage. By all means give preference > to free and open software where there are alternatives, but the time to worry > about the open source friendlyness of the hardware is when making the original > purchase, not during the install. > Then Debian's goal of a completely free and unecumbered operating system are not completely in sync with your goals of a system with maximum functionality. Basically there is a tradeoff to be made. Take Java for example. Debian cannot distribute the Sun JVM. This is because part of Sun's terms for distributing their JVM is that you don't simultaneously distribute anyone else's. Thus, if Debian agreed to those terms, it would not be possible to have Kaffe, SableVM and other free Java implementations officially as part of the distro. Additionally, it would be doubtful that the license to redistribute would be extended to users as well. That is, today you can take all the CDs of the Debian distribution and copy/distribute them to your heart's content. However, if Debian started uncluded "not-so-open" components, then this would not be possible. For example, look at SuSE and Mandrake. They have "open" or "community" editions and "professional" editions. The "professional" editions are restricted from further distribution becuase they usually contain proprietary components. Hopefully this helps somewhat clear it up for you. > I think I will keep both OSs side by side for a while, at least until I > have Debian configured as a strict superset of what Ubuntu could do out > of the box. If I share the common directories (home, tmp, swap etc) it > should only cost me about an extra 3GB (5%) of my disk space to have > the choice. > -Roberto -- Roberto C. Sanchez http://familiasanchez.net/~roberto
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