On Mon, Feb 05, 2007 at 03:24:56PM -0500, Michael Pobega wrote:
Andrew Sackville-West wrote:
On Mon, Feb 05, 2007 at 02:07:39PM -0500, Michael Pobega wrote:
The one thing I really don't understand, though, is why people use
Ubuntu.
bleh. responsing anyway...
I return to the example of my mom. Many people don't want to "update"
their system. They want it to just work and stay that way. Many users,
especially novices, don't deal well with change and don't want
it. Ubuntu, if you don't upgrade, is perfect in this respect. At the
time it is released, it just works. If you leave it there, if will, of
course, just work forever.
[...]
But it's the same way with Debian Stable/Testing. If you want a system
that just /works/, you can run Stable. If Stable is too outdated/doesn't
support your hardware, give Testing a run. If you really need a few
programs (For me running Testing, I'll use checkinstall as an example)
and don't mind a few bugs you can always install from source (Since
everything in the repositories is GPL/BSD anyway).
okay, clarification. and this is no defense of ubuntu. I am
indifferent. Ubuntu has a default environment that just works and is
fully implemented. Debian does too, but its not so obvious as you have
to select it at the last stage of installation. So, yes running debian
stable (or frankly just not upgrading any install of debian at some
point where you're satisfied with it) is effectively the same
thing. But getting there is not as direct as with ubuntu. ubuntu
caters to the windows user who wants to plug in the disk and have a
full blown working desktop without any real intervening stuff. (I know
this is not reality...). In debian you can do that, but you have to
know to pick that selection at the end. If you don't you end up here
with the "I think I did something wrong because all I get is 'login:'"
emails.
Alright, I'm losing track of my thoughts now. bleh. let it go. We all
agree, it needs to be easier for newbs without giving up the soul of
debian ;)
A