How do you see Debian gnu/Linux

[asifnaz]

I have installed Debian on a laptop with only 256 ram and PII .

I am amazed by sheer stability and smoothness of Debian it is less resource hungry and stable .

My Ubuntu machine crashes sometimes (rarely though ) but Debain never .

I really like this Linux distro ...

Your opinion ...

[Bapun007]

I never used debian but I think it dont support any closed source software and drivers . . . .

[blueturtl]

I usually try Ubuntu first and if it doesn't work, then Debian. Debian requires just a tad more manual set up, but is practically Ubuntu without a lot of the bugs.

[Spice Weasel]

It's a great distro. I just don't like/agree with the development team (calling software devs idiots, including insulting comments in patches etc).


I never used debian but I think it dont support any closed source software and drivers . . . .

http://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=flashplugin-nonfree

Not supported, but how do you apply patches to it if you don't have the source? The software is still available.

[kaldor]

Debian is fast, stable and has options. I can use Stable, Testing or Sid depending on my needs. If you want a stable OS, look no further than Debian. Testing and Sid make for good rolling releases, too. It's also great that they promote only free software. Installing is simple enough as well and not as hard as people seem to think. It's also kinda awesome to have a weekly updated download for Testing.

This is why I use LMDE. It's simply Debian Testing (Squeeze) with all the dirty work already done for you. Great distro if you want to use Debian but not waste time getting all the codecs, drivers etc working.

[K.Mandla]

Debian is fantastic stuff. A P2 with 256Mb is an easy job for Debian; my in-house server and torrent slave is a P1-MMX at 133Mhz with only 32Mb, plus a 120Gb drive and a RaLink-based wireless card. It's magical.

[fil_lif]

For 3 months before finding my way to ubuntu I'd cut straight from WinVista to debian; it looked as though it would be a comprehensive OS, and it was, but it definitely isn't a beginner's tool, ubuntu pretty much works off the bat

[lykwydchykyn]

I love Debian. It's like a basline standard for operating systems to me -- I tend to see all other distros and OS's in terms of what they offer that Debian doesn't. I've been using Debian or its derivatives since 2004 when I started using MEPIS.

[3Miro]

I was taken aback by the older version of the kernel that stable Debian comes with. I could have used unstable, but I didn't bother at the time.

Overall I love the philosophy, I think it contributes greatly to all of Linux. I just don't see it as being "for me".

[NMFTM]

I used Debian and it pretty much seemed like Ubuntu but with one difference. I don't like the release cycles. Stable is too outdated by the time a new stable is released and testing/unstable are too unstable. With testing if something breaks you have to wait 10 days for a fix. Stuff doesn't break all that often, but when it does it's trouble. Unstable (although I haven't personally tried it) is rolling release. So, you'd (likely) get a ton of bugs but they'd be fixed quickly.

Ubuntu's 6 month release cycle by comparison seems just right.

[gradinaruvasile]

I never used debian but I think it dont support any closed source software and drivers . . . .

Lol where did you get that? I run Debian on my desktop and my laptop with nvidia proprietary drivers, proprietary wireless, flash player, etc etc.
They dont include the nonfree stuff on the livecd, but they have it in their repos just like Ubuntu does.
Speaking of repos, Debian smokes Ubuntu in this regard - you can find 99% of the stuff that in Ubuntu requires PPAs and sometimes dependency headaches in the main Debian repositories, in 4 levels of develpment - stable, testing, unstable and experimental. If you want a newer version of something, just install the unstable or experimental variant (btw this works in testing best, stable is outdated but has backported most major projects).

I used Ubuntu since 7.10 until 9.10, now i use Debian - Ubuntu in fact is a Debian with some custom painting and bugs added (and recently the Ubuntu devs are busy changing under the hood, but i see more and more bugs coming from it...).
And Debian Testing is more stable and robust than Ubuntu "stable". I dont use Debian Stable because it is too old for me. Setting Debian up is a bit more work than Ubuntu, but not that much.