Why Debian?

Gomer_X · Post by **Gomer_X** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 10:07 am

Hey everybody. I'm thinking about switching my number 2 PC (my primary desktop) to something different. I've never run any flavor of Debian and want to give it a shot. (This system currently runs Gentoo, but I've mostly been a Fedora guy)

Could the Debian users out there tell me why you use the distro? Why Debian and not Ubuntu? If you've run Debian as a desktop, what did you think?

This is on an Athlon XP 1700+ with 768 megs of RAM and an old GeForce 4 era video card. I don't need Compiz/beryl/whatever. I just need a system that works for a little coding, reading mail, web development and a few old-school games. I also have zero tolerance for KDE.

allix · Post by **allix** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 4:24 pm

I am running Debian testing because i want newer packages using stock gnome , it runs well, there are no wizards like ubuntu. I would not say i use it because its better or worse than ubuntu, its just a raw distro.

Wally Balljacker · Post by **Wally Balljacker** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 5:56 pm

The reasons I can see using Debian over Ubuntu are IMO:

Availability of testing/unstable distributions
Wide architecture support
Vanilla packages and desktops
No non-free drivers or firmware included in the installation

Ultimately it just comes down to preference, and whether you like a frozen, polished release like Feisty or Gutsy, or a bleeding edge, rolling release like testing or unstable that is fairly vanilla and non-customized, which can be continually updated over months or even years without reinstalling, a la Gentoo.

Obviously, Debian stable is frozen, and fairly polished, but it's too old for desktop use IMO.

jaz · Post by **jaz** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 6:16 pm

I am a bit weird by Linux standards, I like Debian because it has a long release cycle. Debian Stable is stable. This is because Debian does not feel it neccessary to come out with a half baked product every 6 months. Debian also has good documentation but maybe not as good as Gentoo.

mowestusa · Post by **mowestusa** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 7:33 pm

Personally, when I switched my desktop from Ubuntu to Debian (of course, I'm now a Fedora 7 user on my main work desktop) I felt that Debian was cleaner, faster on boot, and yes you don't have the brown theme. I also like building off of testing, which I feel is very stable, I have even run unstable which was great except during the x86free to xorg switch, that was rocky. Testing is rock solid stable. Easy upgrades of the distro. I will admit that I have not gotten into aptitude (that is new since I left the Debian distros), but that seems like that would be the package management you would want to use.

I'm looking into alternate desktops too right now. I plan to try Foresight to see the new Gnome 2.20. I plan to try Wolvix, and I am also seriously considering making Damn Small Linux my preferred back up distro since I know that I can get DSL to boot almost anywhere and on any machine I come across when I'm on vacation. This would keep the computers at home and out of the trunk of the car taking up space. Also I've been really impressed by the book, "The Official Damn Small Linux Book" written by the developers of DSL. They give you all the goods to make DSL what you want it to be as your mobile or desktop distro.

Have fun with Debian, or its siblings.

Gomer_X · Post by **Gomer_X** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 7:11 am

Thanks, guys. Please keep it up if anyone else has comments.

I've continued to read the Debian documentation and find it very good. I've read a lot of the Gentoo documentation, and although it has a good reputation I think it's slipping. I had trouble finding a lot of what I needed.

I'm impressed by the overall level of polish with Debian. They've been around long enough that they've pretty much thought of everything. I do like the idea of having a more vanilla system and customizing it my way.

I'd considered running stable although the version of Gnome is so old I don't know if I could handle it. I'm encouraged by hearing how solid "testing" is. The only question I have is since only stable gets security updates, how do people deal with that? I'm certainly not going to run a server off Debian testing, but do people have security concerns running testing on a desktop?

Post by **Patrick** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 7:13 am

I like Debian and the distros based on it. After running Slackware for 2 years I decided to give Debian a go and absolutely loved it. Apt-get still rocks after all these years!

greggh · Post by **greggh** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 8:30 am

Gomer_X wrote:The only question I have is since only stable gets security updates, how do people deal with that? I'm certainly not going to run a server off Debian testing, but do people have security concerns running testing on a desktop?

This is quickly going to become less of a problem and maybe even a non-issue for running testing with the recent launch of the official Debian testing security team...

http://secure-testing-master.debian.net/

Goals

The Debian testing security team is a group of Debian developers and users who are working to improve the state of security in Debian's testing branch. Lack of security support for testing has long been one of the key problems to using testing, and we aim to eventually provide full security support for testing.

Activities

The team's first activity was to check all security holes since the release of Debian 3.0, to ensure that all the holes are fixed in sarge and to provide a baseline for future work.

Now the team is tracking new holes on an ongoing basis, making sure maintainers are informed of them and that there are bugs in the Debian BTS, writing patches and doing NMUs as necessary, and tracking the fixed packages and working with the Debian Release Managers to make sure fixes reach testing quickly. Thanks to this work we now have a web page, that tracks open security holes in testing and other branches of Debian.

The team is in the process of beginning full security support for testing by providing security advisories and fixes built against testing without the usual delays sometimes involved in getting a security fix into testing. These will be announced on the secure-testing-announce@lists.alioth.debian.org mailing list, and will be available in the following apt repository:

deb http://security.debian.org lenny/updates main contrib non-free
deb-src http://security.debian.org lenny/updates main contrib non-free

I'm preparing to make the switch from Ubuntu to Debian testing soon too.

davijordan · Post by **davijordan** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 2:50 pm

I love debian for older systems and the nslu2,

Wally Balljacker · Post by **Wally Balljacker** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 3:22 pm

I'm sure Debian veterans around here are already well aware, but the Debian netinstall method is extremely useful for older hardware, like davijordan pointed out. It's quite easy to do a basic install and build it up as you go to conserve hard drive space and resources. Ubuntu is a little bit more cumbersome in that regard.

snarkout · Post by **snarkout** » Sat Oct 13, 2007 10:31 am

I had debian installed on my soekris for quite a while, and it did what it needed to quite well. The main reason I had it there is because of the already mentioned net install, though. The HDD in that guy died a few months ago, though. It's been a bad few months for hardware in the Snarkout residence. Thankfully, so far nothing that's failed has been critical or even really all that important.

davijordan · Post by **davijordan** » Sat Oct 13, 2007 10:41 am

if the soekris is x86 compatible and the unit can pxe boot, you can always use iut as a thin client. Some hard drives unless they are clicking real bad, you can get the software from the hd mfg and do a low level format. then you can in some cases reuse the drive afre a normat format. ..

MagnumIP · Post by **MagnumIP** » Sun Oct 14, 2007 12:05 am

I was waiting for Ubuntu 7.10 to be released to install on my Vaio but if Debian is just like Ubuntu except without all the wizards and customization that Ubuntu does, should I just install Debian testing? I'm sure if I can't figure out how to get a piece of hardware to work I can find the info online somewhere or ask here.

greggh · Post by **greggh** » Sun Oct 14, 2007 2:26 am

MagnumIP wrote:I was waiting for Ubuntu 7.10 to be released to install on my Vaio but if Debian is just like Ubuntu except without all the wizards and customization that Ubuntu does, should I just install Debian testing? I'm sure if I can't figure out how to get a piece of hardware to work I can find the info online somewhere or ask here.

If you do decide to go with Debian this would be a better place to ask any questions about any problems you run into...

http://forums.debian.net/

MagnumIP · Post by **MagnumIP** » Sun Oct 14, 2007 9:46 am

I got another question (sorry to sort of hijack the thread...). If I run Debian Testing, can I upgrade to the latest and greatest packages? And how do you deal with the security updates for testing?