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mamamia88
July 30th, 2010, 05:01 PM
Which do you think is more suitable for a noob like me who has only used ubuntu really on a consistent basis? running off sidux live cd and am impressed by how fast it is with xcfe. but i prefer a gnome desktop

snowpine
July 30th, 2010, 05:11 PM
Sidux does not support Gnome and is definitely not a "noob" distro. Debian does support Gnome and is very, very stable; however you may find that the applications are a lot older (about 2 years) compared with Ubuntu (Firefox 3.0, OpenOffice 2.4, etc).

What's wrong with Ubuntu, I'm curious why you want to switch? ;) Have you considered Mint?

mamamia88
July 30th, 2010, 05:18 PM
no real reason i want to switch besides having just tried sidux off a live cd and am super impressed by how fast it is even off the cd.

snowpine
July 30th, 2010, 06:10 PM
no real reason i want to switch besides having just tried sidux off a live cd and am super impressed by how fast it is even off the cd.

I like sidux too (not currently using it, but have in the past). It is one of those distros where you absolutely 100% have to read the manual (http://manual.sidux.com/) and follow the instructions exactly. If that is your personality type, then sidux could be a good fit for you.

Remember that you can set up a dual boot (or triple boot if you have Windows too) and have 2 different Linux distros, one that is stable and familiar, and one that you are trying for fun. This is what I do. :)

mamamia88
July 30th, 2010, 06:28 PM
yeah i have a second harddrive bay in my laptop and a few spare harddrives laying around maybe i'll set up a dualboot

Zoot7
July 30th, 2010, 07:05 PM
Sidux is a good choice if you don't want to deal with the potential problems Debian Sid will present to you. (Mind you it has stabilized a bit since the Experimental repo was added) From what I hear, it does (for the most part) manage to adequately tame Sid.

khelben1979
July 30th, 2010, 07:06 PM
Sidux does not support Gnome and is definitely not a "noob" distro. Debian does support Gnome and is very, very stable; however you may find that the applications are a lot older (about 2 years) compared with Ubuntu (Firefox 3.0, OpenOffice 2.4, etc).

What's wrong with Ubuntu, I'm curious why you want to switch? ;) Have you considered Mint?

This old argument saying that Debian has old applications isn't really valid. It's easy to activate backports which gives you fresh applications even on the old Debian Lenny system.

Also, Debian testing "Squeeze" is in my opinion, more stable than any Ubuntu version.

XFCE can be installed and used with Debian as any other Linux distribution. My current squeeze installation on my old Powerbook G3 lombard lacks both Gnome and KDE and because of low RAM (128MB) I use XFCE as my main desktop enviroment at the present. Requires low RAM and runs just fine on this old machine.

snowpine
July 30th, 2010, 07:17 PM
This old argument saying that Debian has old applications isn't really valid. It's easy to activate backports which gives you fresh applications even on the old Debian Lenny system.

Also, Debian testing "Squeeze" is in my opinion, more stable than any Ubuntu version.

I am well aware of the different Debian "branches" (typing this from Sid) but I would definitely recommend Stable over Testing for a self-proclaimed Linux "noob." Stable + Backports is a great suggestion! :)

http://backports.org

harlan
July 30th, 2010, 09:31 PM
Which do you think is more suitable for a noob like me who has only used ubuntu really on a consistent basis? running off sidux live cd and am impressed by how fast it is with xcfe. but i prefer a gnome desktop

sidux is a really fast distro, but not for noobs because is debian sid based (that's the reason behind the sidux mascot, a scorpion, warning about the risks of using it).
Debian testing with xfce would suit your needs, and if you're a gnome fan, then a gnome-core install instead a complete gnome environment is also a good option.

Ewingo401
July 30th, 2010, 09:32 PM
I've been running sidux for the past few months. As long as you don't mind doing things the sidux way (and honestly, the things they ask you to do differently aren't all that extreme.) and don't mind checking the forums for warnings before doing a dist-upgrade, you should have a very enjoyable experience. It is much faster than Ubuntu, and in most cases has much more up to date software without having to add 3rd party repos.

The one downside is that breakage is much more likely than in a distro like Ubuntu, that's just the nature of a rolling release distro. That's not to say that breakage is frequent, but it can and does happen occasionally. Fixes however, are usually very swift.

Zoot7
July 30th, 2010, 10:32 PM
a gnome-core install instead a complete gnome environment is also a good option.
I fell into that trap before with those ugly metapackages like gnome and gnome-desktop-environment, just look at all the crud the former metapackage would pull in:

mark@mark-xps:~$ apt-cache depends gnome
gnome
Depends: gnome-desktop-environment
|Depends: gdm3
Depends: gdm-themes
Depends: gnome-themes-extras
Depends: gnome-games
Depends: libpam-gnome-keyring
Depends: gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly
Depends: gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg
|Depends: rhythmbox-plugins
Depends: banshee
|Depends: rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
Depends: banshee
Depends: synaptic
Depends: system-config-printer
Depends: totem-mozilla
Depends: epiphany-extensions
Depends: gedit-plugins
Depends: evolution-plugins
|Depends: evolution-exchange
Depends: <evolution-mapi>
Depends: evolution-webcal
Depends: software-center
Depends: gnome-codec-install
Depends: transmission-gtk
Depends: arj
Depends: avahi-daemon
|Depends: tomboy
Depends: gnote
Suggests: gnome-dbg
Suggests: openoffice.org-gnome
Suggests: openoffice.org-evolution
Recommends: gnome-games-extra-data
Recommends: network-manager-gnome
Recommends: gnome-office
Recommends: update-notifier
Recommends: remmina
Recommends: hal-cups-utils
Recommends: gthumb
|Recommends: liferea
|Recommends: evolution-rss
Recommends: blam
Recommends: menu-xdg
Recommends: gdebi
Recommends: mozilla-plugin-gnash
Conflicts: <gnome-cups-manager>

harlan
July 31st, 2010, 12:09 PM
I fell into that trap before with those ugly metapackages like gnome and gnome-desktop-environment, just look at all the crud the former metapackage would pull in:

mark@mark-xps:~$ apt-cache depends gnome
gnome
Depends: gnome-desktop-environment
|Depends: gdm3
Depends: gdm-themes
Depends: gnome-themes-extras
Depends: gnome-games
Depends: libpam-gnome-keyring
Depends: gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly
Depends: gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg
|Depends: rhythmbox-plugins
Depends: banshee
|Depends: rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
Depends: banshee
Depends: synaptic
Depends: system-config-printer
Depends: totem-mozilla
Depends: epiphany-extensions
Depends: gedit-plugins
Depends: evolution-plugins
|Depends: evolution-exchange
Depends: <evolution-mapi>
Depends: evolution-webcal
Depends: software-center
Depends: gnome-codec-install
Depends: transmission-gtk
Depends: arj
Depends: avahi-daemon
|Depends: tomboy
Depends: gnote
Suggests: gnome-dbg
Suggests: openoffice.org-gnome
Suggests: openoffice.org-evolution
Recommends: gnome-games-extra-data
Recommends: network-manager-gnome
Recommends: gnome-office
Recommends: update-notifier
Recommends: remmina
Recommends: hal-cups-utils
Recommends: gthumb
|Recommends: liferea
|Recommends: evolution-rss
Recommends: blam
Recommends: menu-xdg
Recommends: gdebi
Recommends: mozilla-plugin-gnash
Conflicts: <gnome-cups-manager>


gnome-core has less dependencies than gnome metapackage

# apt-cache depends gnome-core
gnome-core
Depende: eog
Depende: gedit
Depende: gnome-applets
Depende: gnome-control-center
Depende: gnome-icon-theme
Depende: gnome-menus
Depende: gnome-panel
Depende: gnome-power-manager
Depende: gnome-session
Depende: gnome-settings-daemon
Depende: gnome-terminal
Depende: gvfs
|Depende: metacity
Depende: mutter
Depende: nautilus
Depende: yelp
Sugiere: gnome-desktop-environment

Zoot7
August 1st, 2010, 10:28 PM
gnome-core has less dependencies than gnome metapackage

And gnome-core is all you really need.