Why Ubuntu And Not Debian

[Khakilang]

I have seen some Distro like Linux Mint, Crunch Bang and among others are base on Ubuntu and not Debian. Since Ubuntu is Debian base why other Distro does not use Debian? Anyone want to comment on that?:confused::confused::confused:

[Tristam Green]

Because going upstream is for salmon.

[dragos240]

I use ubuntu because I like debian better.

Oh wait......

[Berk]

Crunchbang is moving to Debian with their new alpha of Crunchbang Statler.

[koleoptero]

Because going upstream is for salmon.

:lolflag:

A lot of projects prefer ubuntu because of the huge repositories. Others because they don't actually change much, just appearance and some default apps.

[Laxman_prodigy]

I have seen some Distro like Linux Mint, Crunch Bang and among others are base on Ubuntu and not Debian. Since Ubuntu is Debian base why other Distro does not use Debian? Anyone want to comment on that?:confused::confused::confused:

Start from the "User-friendly" distro and try to make it better by correcting flaws to some extent.

I really think where would all Debian-based distros would go if Debian developers direct some of their effort in polishing the desktop environment.:lolflag:


I would like to have "Debian testing" being branded as "Debian desktop" and "Debian stable" as "Debian server".

[donkyhotay]

The biggest reason I use ubuntu over debian is because debian focuses to heavily on being RMS compatible. While I agree with that philosophically, at the end of the day I need to use *some* proprietary tools like 3D graphics drivers, flash player, and proprietary codecs. That is easier for me to setup and use with ubuntu then debian (espcially the video card drivers). If I could do all that as FOSS and it was integrated into the debian repo's then I'd probably run debian testing/sid.

[swoll1980]

Because other than the easier installation, and more polished experience, most can't tell the difference between the two. Ubuntu has put alot of work into it's distro whether people want to acknowledge it or not. It saves the new distros developer alot of hassle.

[lovinglinux]

Because going upstream is for salmon.

:lolflag:

[snowpine]

Crunchbang's developer explains why he switched the distro from Ubuntu to Debian:

http://reddevil62-techhead.blogspot.com/2010/03/interview-crunchbang-creator-explains.html

[jrusso2]

No thanks on Debian I don't want to struggle to install "non Free" software.

[agnes]

OpenGEU will also switch to Debian Testing as a base (there was a poll if they should, people voted for this decision).

Their main developer gave some reasons, why he presented the poll:

For this release we had to work a lot, really a lot, on the iso, because of problems with Ubuntu Karmic. Ubuntu is going in a strange direction: it not only uses experimental features like XSplash, but often they choose to patch entire pieces of code just to make it work, specially when building the iso. To customize it we really had an hard time for Quarto di Luna, believe me, it never seemed to reach an end.
In the future we'll have bigger problems too: reconstructor is dead, well, not really, but it's gone online with an unusable payment method for every upload / download you make. Try and see for yourself! If we had to build a future release using reconstructor we'd have to pay a lot of money, keep in mind that this iso has been built for something like 30 times before we reached an usable point!!
In Debian there are some really good things to consider if we'll use Debian as we imagine: very updated software, more than Ubuntu actually, fresh and stable system, not fully patched and slowed down like Ubuntu... and no workarounds.
[src (http://opengeu.intilinux.com/news/opengeus-future-and-ubuntu-vs-debian)]

[-humanaut-]

I like to bounce between ubuntu and debian 'testing'

[Laxman_prodigy]

I am done with inconsistencies with Ubuntu.

Though it takes a little time to setup, it is worth the wait for Debian. Great system. :guitar:

[aysiu]

It's actually a good question. I don't think there's a clear answer. As someone else mentioned, Crunchbang is currently based on Ubuntu but will be moving to being Debian-based soon.

At one point, Mepis was basing itself on Ubuntu, but it quickly switched back to being directly Debian-based, too.

It's really just a matter of personal preference or familiarity.

[keiichidono]

It seems like using Ubuntu is easy for most users but developing on top of it is very hard. That is why a lot of users like Ubuntu, but developers are defecting to Debian.

[hhh]

It's actually a good question.
I completely disagree. The question begs (and gets answered by) another question... If Ubuntu is based on Debian, why did it ever get developed?

[swoll1980]

I completely disagree. The question begs (and gets answered by) another question... If Ubuntu is based on Debian, why did it ever get developed?

Because those stubborn Debian devs just refused to let Canonical take over their project for some reason. :rolleyes:

[aysiu]

I completely disagree. The question begs (and gets answered by) another question... If Ubuntu is based on Debian, why did it ever get developed?
Their aims aren't the same. Debian aims to be more solid and stable. Ubuntu aims to be more cutting edge. That's why Debian has more of a "release when it's ready" approach (which can mean up to five years sometimes), and Ubuntu has more of a "release when planned" approach (which usually means every six months, except for Ubuntu 6.06, which got delayed by two months).

Debian seems to cherish Free software "purity" more by including (or at least making more difficult to install) fewer proprietary drivers and such. Ubuntu has a hardware driver utility that seeks out proprietary drivers for you.

Ubuntu comes with one CD for simplicity's sake. Debian has 14 CDs of software.

Ubuntu has as its goal to unseat Microsoft from consumer computing dominance.

There are other differences, too, but those are the few I can come up with off the top of my head.

[snowpine]

There are other differences, too, but those are the few I can come up with off the top of my head.

Ubuntu releases are named after African animals, and Debian releases are named after characters in Toy Story.

[hhh]

Their aims... ...of my head.
Right, so doesn't that answer the question, "Why base a distro on Ubuntu instead of Debian?"

[hhh]

Ubuntu releases are named after African animals, and Debian releases are named after characters in Toy Story.
Koalas are African?

[snowpine]

Right, so doesn't that answer the question, "Why base a distro on Ubuntu instead of Debian?"

Can you spell it out for those of us who are a little slow? :)

[doas777]

It seems like using Ubuntu is easy for most users but developing on top of it is very hard. That is why a lot of users like Ubuntu, but developers are defecting to Debian.

I think developing "on top of" ubuntu is easy enough. developing "within" ubuntu that is more of a problem however. writting a GTK/python client app is easy, but interacting with the underneath stuff like XSplash as was mentioned in crunchbangs case can be a crap shoot since ubuntu moves to new middleware objects/subsystems every couple of releases.

[snowpine]

Koalas are African?

I'm a New Yorker... animals fall into two categories:

1. Pigeon/squirrel/rat/dog/cat
2. Zoo

;)

[aysiu]

Right, so doesn't that answer the question, "Why base a distro on Ubuntu instead of Debian?"
Well, if I were to release my own remix, I would probably pick Ubuntu for a few reasons:

1. Even though conventional wisdom has it that Debian stable is rock solid, I had a terrible experience trying to use Debian "stable" on my netbook (http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntucat/debian-stable-on-the-hp-mini/).

2. I'm more familiar with Ubuntu, so it's easier for me to customize it to my liking.

3. Ubuntu comes as live CD that's also an installer CD. For us netbook users, this is key to a relatively painless installation. Now that Crunchbang has moved to being Debian-based, I basically cannot install it on my netbook. If I "burn" it to USB using UNetBootIn, I just get some error message about how the Debian installer can't find the CD source. Any Ubuntu-based remix can be "burnt" to USB with UNetBootIn and both tried out and installed on any netbook within minutes.

Since my Linux-unfriendly network card (yes, it is a Linux-preinstalled netbook, too) isn't recognized by Debian, doing the Debian netinstall isn't much fun either.

[snowpine]

3. Ubuntu comes as live CD that's also an installer CD. For us netbook users, this is key to a relatively painless installation. Now that Crunchbang has moved to being Debian-based, I basically cannot install it on my netbook. If I "burn" it to USB using UNetBootIn, I just get some error message about how the Debian installer can't find the CD source.

It is true that CrunchBang no longer supports Unetbootin or the Ubiquity installer. :) Respectfully, however, the rest of your comment is misinformation: CrunchBang Statler combines both a Live mode and installer onto the same .iso (just like Ubuntu).

I have successfully tested the new CrunchBang on both my Dell Mini and Asus eee netbooks using a USB thumb drive, following these instructions: http://crunchbanglinux.org/wiki/statler_usb_installation

(In my experience, the "dd" method gives more consistently reliable results than Unetbootin across a wider range of distros.)

Furthermore the CrunchBang developer has stated that easy USB install is a high priority for the final release. It is only the current Alpha that suffers from the USB install bug, which is easily bypassed by telling the installer that /dev/sdb is the "CD-ROM" (see the link above for details).

[aysiu]

I don't really want to overwrite my MP3 player with the dd command. The nice thing about UNetBootIn is that it can make my Sansa Clip a bootable Linux distro while also retaining all my music and podcasts.

P.S. I had the same problem with Debian, and I haven't had any luck telling the installer /dev/sdb is the CD-ROM.

[snowpine]

I don't really want to overwrite my MP3 player with the dd command. The nice thing about UNetBootIn is that it can make my Sansa Clip a bootable Linux distro while also retaining all my music and podcasts.

P.S. I had the same problem with Debian, and I haven't had any luck telling the installer /dev/sdb is the CD-ROM.

Fair enough--I just didn't want anyone to misinterpret your previous post as saying "CrunchBang no longer supports netbooks." ;)

CrunchBang has always been one of my favorite netbook distros (I've been using it since 8.04) due to its minimalist interface and frugal use of resources.

[aysiu]

Fair enough--I just didn't want anyone to misinterpret your previous post as saying "CrunchBang no longer supports netbooks." ;)
Thanks for the clarification, actually. It isn't going to make me switch over to Debian any time soon, but I want others to have as much an informed decision as possible.

[c00lwaterz]

I have tried downloading debian 5.04 last 3 weeks. It feels like ubuntu. hehe i mean ubuntu fiesty. all same same. only some splash and boot loader design is different (for me).

[cascade9]

Their aims aren't the same. Debian aims to be more solid and stable. Ubuntu aims to be more cutting edge. That's why Debian has more of a "release when it's ready" approach (which can mean up to five years sometimes), and Ubuntu has more of a "release when planned" approach (which usually means every six months, except for Ubuntu 6.06, which got delayed by two months).

For the 'stable' release, then yeah, debian does aim at stablity. Thats the point of calling it 'stable'. Sid (and to some degree even testing) is more up to date than ubuntu. Ubuntu aims at a compromise position between 'stable' and the rolling release of 'sid'.

5 years between releases? Never. The longest period between stable releases was just under 3 years (3.0 'woody' to 3.1 'sarge').



Debian seems to cherish Free software "purity" more by including (or at least making more difficult to install) fewer proprietary drivers and such. Ubuntu has a hardware driver utility that seeks out proprietary drivers for you.

I dont think its 'purity'. (after all, debian doesn't even appear on the FSF 'approved OS' list, they have non-free software for sure). Ubuntu's hardware driver was one of the original 'drawcards' for ubuntu, but as I've found out recently, its rather more flawed than I knew, some older cards that will run just fine with debian have major problems with ubuntu, see the following thread-

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1448196



Ubuntu comes with one CD for simplicity's sake. Debian has 14 CDs of software.

Debian installs more than fine on the 1st CD (or even the tiny business card install CD). You dont have to d/l the whole 31 CDs (yes, thats 31), or 5 DVDs, thats is just an option provided for various reasons. Reasons like running the whole system totally offline, debian is far better suited to offline installation than ubuntu.



Ubuntu has as its goal to unseat Microsoft from consumer computing dominance.

There are other differences, too, but those are the few I can come up with off the top of my head.

I thought that ubuntus stated goal was to 'promote free software' with an unstated, but fairly obvious, goal of making money at some point?

[Uncle Spellbinder]

I would love to get Debian Testing or Unstable running. But noe of my keyboards are recognized when attempting to install. I have three wireless keyboards. One, Microsoft (currently using) and two others (one Logitech and one HP). When ever I've tried to install, I have no control and cannot navigate at all. They all work on other distros I've installed (Fedora, OpenSUSE and several Ubuntu flavors).

[hhh]

@Unclespellbinder,

Why not give one of the sidux Live CD's a try?

[Uncle Spellbinder]

@Unclespellbinder,

Why not give one of the sidux Live CD's a try?

Gnome all the way for me. I just kan't stomach all the KDE apps. Though they do have and XFCE version I might be willing to give a spin. But I'd really like to get Debian running. Maybe I'll spend 10 bucks for a cheap wired keyboard and see if I can get it going. Strange that Debian won't recognize any of three wireless keyboards, though.

[hhh]

Gotcha. You can install Gnome on sidux, they just don't officially support it. I'm using the Xfce version, though I'm running a standalone Openbox session. The Xfce session is completely usable too though, very fast. and under 500MB to download.

[Uncle Spellbinder]

Thanks, hhh. Might give it a shot next weekend.

[Uncle Spellbinder]

...

[sudoer541]

to me ubuntu is appealing cuz its created by a company...therefore branding matters!!!