Debian=Rock Solid

[bwhite82]

I just switched from Feisty to Etch and wow am I impressed!

First off, let me make some things clear. I was using Ubuntu for quite a while before the switch, I still have love for Ubuntu and very much for the community (hence I'm still posting here on these forums :) ). Switching to Etch was a personal choice that works for ME. With that said here are some initial impressions:

-Stability- Hands down beats Ubuntu in just about every way, for obvious reasons. Debian's main focus is on stability which is the main reason it takes so long for a new stable release, these guys are SERIOUS about packages being completely stable with zero crashes and take pride in that fact. My install went without one single hitch.

-Ease-of-use- Hands down Ubuntu blows Debian out of the water on this one. Again, this comes down to the focus of the distros, Ubuntu focuses on ease-of-use and delivers very well on that fact. In Etch so far, I've had to configure many things that I wasn't bothered with in Ubuntu, they simply worked right away. Ironically, getting accelerated graphics with my Mobility x1400 was way easier on Debian, though. (You'd think the steps would be generally the same but they're not.)

I'm very new to Debian but thus far, the above mentioned points seem to be the only real things that separate these two distros (besides Ubuntu's community, which is clearly the superior over Debian's). They're both very similar in my eyes, my current Etch desktop is not much different from my what my Feisty desktop was. The difference now is that I am using slightly older package versions (the most stable according to Debian's very stringent stability policy).

But with that said, Debian delivers if you're not concerned with having the latest and greatest and you want something that is absolutely ROCK SOLID and don't mind getting your hands dirty (a little). Stability, at least for me, trumps having the latest and greatest. Feisty was beginning to become quite the burden with its stability issues for this laptop, E1505. Simply put, make whatever is the best choice for you, find out what works for you and stick with it.

[qpieus]

I installed etch in a virtualbox VM to try it out. I like it. It's easy to use and very familiar. I installed gnome, kde, xfce all without a hitch. I have an old computer set up as a file and printer server that is currently running breezy. With breezy being at end of life I need to redo that server. I may go with etch since my experience so far with it has been very good.

[Rodneyck]

If you think Etch is fast...try Sidux. I swear, in Debian world, there is nothing faster ...and better (the later is imho.)

[zetetic]

For me debian is better then ubuntu.

It's more stable and reliable, offers more security and it has not so frequent releases (in my opinion, releasing a new OS every 6 months is not good for people who use computers to work or in order to be productive, but only for people that use computers as an hobby or in order to spend some time, with no need to do anything productive with them).

Debian's development community is better than Ubuntu''s.
But Ubuntu's user's community is far better than any other linux community!

Just one more thing: Debian is free; Ubuntu is not (as a matter of fact, and as the time goes, Ubuntu's is getting less and less free).

[Rodneyck]

But Ubuntu's user's community is far better than any other linux community!



I hear this all the time and in some respects it is true. The sheer size and attention it draws to linux is its shining crown. As far as a resourceful pool of information, only as it pertains to Ubuntu. Which if you are running the OS, that is a good thing. But, and here is where I disagree...

I always refer to the *buntus as a leach off of Debian, unlike all the others who use her as a backbone. *buntus do not give anything back to the Debian community as a whole since their debs change the code to only work with *buntu. If something breaks, it is a fix for *buntu only.

If Sidux, Kanotix or one of the other's fix something, that is a plus for everyone, because it is trickled down the chain, even to *buntu. This is why there is so much animosity towards *buntu on other forums.

Attracting attention to Linux and unplugging those still connected to the M$S Matrix are its pluses, but that is pretty much where it stops.

[bwhite82]

If you think Etch is fast...try Sidux. I swear, in Debian world, there is nothing faster ...and better (the later is imho.)

While I don't discount that it may be a great distro, I personally am done with "spin-offs" of the real thing. This may change for me down the road, but right now I'm loving the solid foundation beneath my feet.

[Pobega]

But Ubuntu's user's community is far better than any other linux community!

Very untrue. Although the Ubuntu community may be large, I'd say 80% of them don't know too much about GNU/Linux; Although that may not be a bad thing, it isn't saying much about the community as a support center.

Debian's mailing lists are very active (2,300 messages per month or so), and only about 100 of those messages are off-topic.

Gentoo's forums rival the size of Ubuntu's, but the difference is that there are more people there who know their way around a GNU/Linux system than here; Getting support on the Gentoo forum is a lot easier than Ubuntu to be honest. Most of the threads here end up getting ignored and covered up by threads about "Does Ubuntu have an easy way to install programs?" and "How do I install <something>?".

[Rodneyck]

I agree. A large part of this is because Ubuntu has dumbed down everything, much like M$S, which explains why it is so popular and many migrate from it to *buntus.

[Rodneyck]

While I don't discount that it may be a great distro, I personally am done with "spin-offs" of the real thing. This may change for me down the road, but right now I'm loving the solid foundation beneath my feet.

I don't know if I would classify it as a spin-off, as it is pure Debian Sid (unstable) with checks in place through a wonderful script (du-fixes) and the intervention of the active devs themselves, that makes it stable.

It is always a good thing to run Debian Etch just to get to know pure Debian. When you are ready to test the waters...Sidux is there. Have fun!

[chakkaradeep]

Just one suggestion, If you intend to say Debian is RockSolid, you should have written the title of the post as,
Debain==RockSolid :guitar:

P.S
===
Programming syndrome :)

[bwhite82]

Just one suggestion, If you intend to say Debian is RockSolid, you should have written the title of the post as,
Debain==RockSolid :guitar:

P.S
===
Programming syndrome :)

OIC, quite right. How about this? Ubuntu!=RockSolid

[FuturePilot]

I found some things that were somewhat odd. First I wasn't allowed to use sudo and for the life of me I couldn't figure it out. Second I couldn't install the Nvidia driver. I tried but it wanted to remove the entire Gnome desktop:shock: How did you do that? I might give Debian another shot if I could figure those things out.

[seshomaru samma]

I don't know about Gnome ,but Ii installed Debian with IceWM and I needed to apt-get sudo first then add myself to the sudoers with visudo
don't know anything about nvidia since i can't afford one

[kerry_s]

Hey, do you all have any problems with lots of zombies in debian etch? I'm running a etch minimal+fluxbox and i seem to get a lot of zombie processes after awhile, things like xterm, rox-filer seem to always zombie with every use, so eventually i'll see all zombies in my conky.

[Pobega]

I found some things that were somewhat odd. First I wasn't allowed to use sudo and for the life of me I couldn't figure it out. Second I couldn't install the Nvidia driver. I tried but it wanted to remove the entire Gnome desktop:shock: How did you do that? I might give Debian another shot if I could figure those things out.

apt-get install sudo
vim /etc/sudoers
Change the defaults line to:

Defaults !lecture,tty_tickets,!fqdn,timestamp_timeout=0,exe mpt_group="",insults

And add

USERNAME ALL=(ALL) ALL

under

root ALL=(ALL) ALL

It's as simple as that, and it's a very nice setup in my opinion. I also like having the root account enabled, so I can su into root once in a while :D


And no, I've never had any problems with zombie processes; I'd report is as a bug if I were you, or maybe mail debian-user@lists.debian.org and ask them to help you out.

[plb]

Wow, another Staten Islander? Whereabouts?

[Method9455]

I got Etch because I couldn't get Feisty to run on my computer (damn JMIcron issue) and I have Etch working rather well so no need to bother with the change into Ubuntu. I have hard drive room so I will probably try it out, but there is nothing I see that would make me want to change. I have everything working in Debian which I was never able to accomplish before with any other distro (Started with Dapper moved into Slackware 11 when I got a new computer that Ubuntu didn't support, then into Etch).

No comment on Ubuntu giving back to debian, I think it has been hashed out a million times already.

Use su instead of sudo and it works out, I don't know the pros/cons of it but it was teh standard for slackware and it works in debian too.

It doesn't want to delete Gnome when you want to install your nvidia driver, but you have to exit the X window (much like how in windows it shuts off the screen and then clicks it on again when you install a nvidia driver), which is easy enough. Just search for gdm shutdown (thats the gnome login manager, kdm is the KDE login manager) and nvidia install and it works rather flawlessly. You also need to apt-get the source for your kernel which is easy but just something you have to do prior to starting. I got it on my 2nd try, I forgot the source the first time.

I agree with the stability, I've had one crash so far and it was my mistake. (I minimized Counter Strike Source in WINE which is a documented WINE error).

I'll probably switch back to Ubuntu when Gutsy comes out because Etch will be getting a little stale by then on their 3 year release cycle.

My only issue is the somewhat overzealous nature of the free software people in Debian, I agree with them in principle but in practice it becomes kind of a hassle. I booted up the system and had IceWeasel and I was like "what is this crap - uninstall" and then went searching for firefox, only to learn that whole story. It just seems unnecessary really, FireFox is one of the only things that is migrating from the linux world into the windows world that we can point to and say here is open source! (although firefox is kind of moving away from linux, but we'll see) so I'm not sure if that was a great decision.

Either way, each has its strengths. I just wish that less energy of the community was expended on so many competing software distros and more was spent on the software used on each distro. Do we really need 50+? There are like 6 or 7 main ones, if we could cut that down to 3 or 4, that would be awesome. Unforanetly the primary motion of the community is to fork rather than combine - but I like how compiz/beryl just came back together so maybe there is hope.

[Pobega]

Etch's stability is nice, but as a home user you really SHOULD be tracking testing. In my opinion and experience testing offers the best of both worlds, it gives you thoroughly tested software, while still actually GIVING you new software. I use Debian Lenny myself, and it's pretty nice.

And as for the zealous nature of Debian, I think it is a strength; The reason for the Firefox rebranding wasn't Debian's fault at all, but rather the fact that mozilla.org refuses to adhere to the general OSS standards. I don't even use Firefox/Iceweasel myself, but as far as I know they're really the same program; Just a name rebranding, and a few extra patches on Debian's version (Mainly for stability, and better blending with GTK+).

[plb]

I'm really beginning to dislike firefox these days. When it first started out, it was a great little browser. No bloat, no nothing just a lightweight browser. It grew in the open source community. Windows users knew nothing about it. These days they have turned their back on us and prioritize Windows over *nix which is kind of like a big slap in the face. I guess they figure that all Linux users are using firefox anyway so screw em.

[Pobega]

I'm really beginning to dislike firefox these days. When it first started out, it was a great little browser. No bloat, no nothing just a lightweight browser. It grew in the open source community. Windows users knew nothing about it. These days they have turned their back on us and prioritize Windows over *nix which is kind of like a big slap in the face. I guess they figure that all Linux users are using firefox anyway so screw em.

Although this is a bit OT, I completely agree. I remember when Firefox first came out, it was a speed demon; Now it seems to have attracted a lot of overhead and runs slowly. If you want a Mozilla based browser similar to what Firefox was, give Galeon a try. You won't be disappointed.

[ThinkBuntu]

I would love to be able to spurn Firefox (or any other browser) as easily as you guys get to switch distros, but what stinks about being a web designer is that you're restricted to a mainstream browser. I like to test in the same browser I use regularly, so I use Firefox (IE would be too much of a damper on productivity and security, although the majority still is on IE6).

[Pobega]

I would love to be able to spurn Firefox (or any other browser) as easily as you guys get to switch distros, but what stinks about being a web designer is that you're restricted to a mainstream browser. I like to test in the same browser I use regularly, so I use Firefox (IE would be too much of a damper on productivity and security, although the majority still is on IE6).

I'm a web developer too, and I have to say Galeon is the best browser to design on. Some things that work in Firefox don't work in Galeon, since it seems to stick more towards the standards.

[deanjm1963]

I have to agree, Etch is rock solid. It might not have the latest and greatest of everything, but that's what great about Debian, everything is "stable" before it's released. I have been a long time Ubuntu user, and still recommend and install it on friends machines, it's easy to setup, configure, and use, but it can be a little flakey at times, e.g. xserver breakages, poor quality control of packages, etc. but it's still very very good.

I changed over to Etch a week ago, I had a glitch with sound, but once that was easily fixed, no problems whatsoever. I've found Etch to be what Dapper should be, stable, a few updated programs, e.g. firefox (iceweasel), gaim, to name a few, installing nvidia drivers was just as easy as dapper, and multimedia is just as good, I used to use the seveas packages for multimeda and they were based on the debian multimedia packages, not the PLF or medibuntu packages. Etch installs GnomeBaker, I've not had one new coffee coaster, it just works, Dapper was another story, don't get me started on Edgy with its CD/DVD burning problems.

For those who want a stable system and are not concerned about having the latest packages, you can't go past Etch. It might take another 20mins of your time to setup properly, time well worth spent.