Re: Sugestions for New Releases of Debian
On Sat, 9 Jun 2012 10:13:34 +0530
ARAVIND CHAK <arachk31@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm new here but presume that this will be circulated in THE Deb-LIST.
>
> I have slowly got used to Ubuntu, being a Linuxer for the last two
> years, but find now that with the new Ubuntu desktop-environment,
> particularly UNITY, Ubuntu is going the William way - make the user
> dependent and confused. It will definitely be difficult to use by new
> possible users.
>
> The Launchers/panels/drawers/applets system was designed by
> first-class planners who understood that the Linux user wants order,
> access and control -- which is freedom.
>
> So please think whether you would like to widely support/disseminate
> five thoughts:
> 1) That the classic Debian desktop with
> Panels/launchers/drawers/applets remains - always.
Ubuntu is a specific instance of the much more general Debian system,
as are many other distributions. There is no 'classic' Debian desktop,
there is a default set of components which the installer sets up if
you ask for 'desktop', but this is usually different from one version of
Debian to the next. There are two major desktop environments, two
smaller but fairly comprehensive ones, and various window managers. All
will offer different features and drawbacks, and all are available to
you, even in Ubuntu. There is no difficulty in having a variety of these
options installed, and picking a different one every time you login.
The two major desktop environments, Gnome and KDE, are enormous and
most people fully install one or the other. Programs from one can be
used in the other without usually installing too much of the entire
environment. But older and more limited computers can use one of the
lightweight desktops, or even just a window manager on top of X.
Servers will not normally use any GUI components, not even X.
>
> 2) That the software repositories for Synaptic and Software-Centre
> are kept as up-to-date as possible to give access to the latest
> versions of software e.g. Eclipse, Scribus, I understand that these
> are maintained by dedicated people as volunteers.
Mostly, though some are paid. There is a coin with two sides here:
'latest' also means 'most buggy'. Debian Stable uses software which has
normally been in use for at least six months before the release of the
distribution, and is likely to have few serious bugs. Debian Testing
acquires new software which has not broken badly after about ten days
of use in Unstable. Unstable uses software which has just been released
by the developers after minor tweaks to make it work in a Debian
environment... take your pick.
>
> 3) That software be developed to make a "Remaster" type backup on
> larger than the ISO for a 4.7GB DVD.
It will take you a month to learn the advantages and disadvantages of
the many backup systems available to Debian. I don't do image backups
but I would be extremely surprised if none of the backup systems can
handle more than 4.7GB. Most will restore to bare metal. Clonezilla
currently doesn't do multiple DVDs, but that is one of the easiest
backup systems to use, not necessarily the most powerful.
My workstation system software is about 11GB but I wouldn't bother with
an image backup as a) my system uses LVM, which has its own backup
method and b) I backup /etc and parts of /var, and keep a very recent
dpkg --get-selections, so I'd restore that way. An image backup may
well not restore easily to different hardware. If you expect a need to
restore frequently, especially to different hardware, it's probably
worth going to a virtual installation.
Or dd will image each of your partitions, and the resulting files can
be split across multiple media. It's tedious doing it by hand, but not
difficult. Don't forget to keep a record of your partition sizes.
But the use of optical media for backup is dying out, helped on its
way by Windows. I deal with a small company with an under-utilised
Windows Server based on XP, and the full backup size is now almost 70GB,
about 10GB of that being data. There's no way I'd even think about
optical media.
>
> 4) That the .deb packages for all installations be kept in a separate
> folder (other than /var/apt/cache/bin??) as a back-up local repository
> folder which can be ported to a new installation e.g. after a
> re-installation/re-formatting. This will save Internet time and
> expense.
It is possible to maintain a complete repository mirror if you wish. I
used to use the same distribution on two computers, and I maintained a
cache to avoid downloading it all twice, so only software I was
actually using on at least one machine was cached. This is probably
nearer to what you want. Look at the various apt-xxxx packages, there
are at least three which manage some form of local .deb storage.
>
> 5) That detailed help panels/pop-ups happen which tell you what each
> option implies during Debian installation
There is plenty of documentation for the current installer, but This
Isn't Windows. Pop-ups won't teach you why you might want multiple
partitions, or what filing system to use on each. That sort of thing
comes only with experience, there's rarely a definite answer, and
everyone must decide for themselves, mostly on the basis of the bad
things that have happened to them in the past.
Ubuntu offers a frequently-changed distribution with just about
everything done for you, but with the flexibility of the underlying
Debian. If you want to change it, you can, but you don't have to. Debian
itself expects you to do rather more work, it isn't really aimed at
current Windows users as is Ubuntu. Debian Unstable in particular will
give you the latest software, but you can expect to learn quickly how
to fix things that don't work. You also imply that Internet bandwidth is
important to you, and a typical Unstable probably needs 50-100MB per day
of updates, or at least my system has over the last few months.
If there's something you want to do, almost certainly someone else has
wanted to do it already, and may well have created software to do it.
Do not assume that what's in the Ubuntu menus is all there is. Try
spending a day or so with Synaptic, looking through the package
descriptions to see what is available, and remember that many other
writers make .debs which are not included in any official Debian
repository. You can also use most .rpms intended for Red Hat/Fedora,
and if you're really desperate, some Windows software will run under
Wine. Synaptic on my Unstable currently shows over 38,000 packages, of
which I have around 3,300 installed.
And if there really isn't anything available to do what you want,
nobody will stop you writing it yourself or modifying something that is
nearly right. This Isn't Windows.
--
Joe
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