Re: Why Debian

[berenger.morel@neutralite.org]

Le 19.11.2013 03:04, Tamer Higazi a écrit :
> Serious answer "Why Debian and Not Ubuntu" ?!
>
> 1. Because I don't like a commercial sponsored operating system.
> How knows on what kind of stupid idea they come to collect data.

This one is a valid point.

> 2. As well, specially the Gnome3 system ubuntu delivers by default 
> makes
> me puke!

This one is not. Ubuntu uses Unity as default DE, not gnome3. There was 
a lot of noise about that new DE when the first version appeared.

> 3. The installer is full of advertising, and what they allready have
> preinstalled, specially their cloud stuff....

That's an argument, but, honestly, a poor one. You do the installation 
only once, right?
And I guess it looks like the advertisements there are when you install 
windows, or lot of other softwares. I do not see any problem with ads, 
if and only if it is not invasive.

About preinstalled stuff, again, nothing wrong here. If you choose a 
standard Debian installation, you will have a lot of crap you will 
probably never need, depending on your hardware.
Some example, which will fit, or not, depending on your usages:
_ scanners and printers related packages
_ desktop environment (I said, the default installation, right? I 
perfectly know that they can be avoided)
_ command-line tools
_ ssh
etc.

They are here because they are used by lot of people, but you are free 
to remove them.

> On my Notebook I was lazy to set up a new Debian version because it 
> came
> with ubuntu preinstalled.
>
> But honestly, I think when I have more time, I'll set up on my corei7
> notebook a new debian version.

You could probably change the sources, and try an "upgrade" from Ubuntu 
to Debian, too. This would probably need some tinkering or web 
searching, but I bet it is doable.

> Do you know with how much headache it was connected to get gnome2 
> (mate
> desktop) to install again ????

As other people said, mate is not gnome2. Plus, can you provide us some 
real problems you had? Having an example could help us understanding 
your argument, because some of us do not use Ubuntu.

> And installing from "untrusted" sources.....

What tool did you used?
With my usual aptitude, I have to download keys to make external 
repositories trusted, or to say "yes, I trust that package" at each 
upgrade/installation of the external packages. I also had the same 
"problem" with Debian's official repositories, once, because I had 
removed the keys (I was learning my system by tinkering at that time).

So, I think that the problems you had with untrusted packages can be:
1) your fault: did you install the key?
2) mate developer's fault, if they did not provided one.
3) your package management software's fault.

But, I strongly doubt that the problem comes from Ubuntu, which uses 
the same package management as Debian, and so provides apt-get/aptitude. 
Probably some graphical interfaces too, but since I do not use them, I 
do not know the problems they can have.
Excepted if you used one only developed by Ubuntu, indeed. So, what 
tool did you had, and with which problems?


Do not take me wrong, I do not say that Debian is not as good or better 
that Ubuntu (I think it is better, especially in terms of flexibility: 
there are more than one DE maintained in the distribution, instead of 
having a distro fork for each DE... this approach is just ugly for me, 
but is interesting for simple users not used to have choice. Choice 
costs time, and some people do not want it for that reason.). It's 
simply that your argumentation lacks strength, and should never convince 
any user which knows Debian and Ubuntu.