Personal computing discussed
Moderators: renee, SecretSquirrel, notfred
guilmon14 wrote:I use to use Ubuntu, but just got sick of all the work and switched to mint. Yes it may be based on Ubuntu but the implementation is much better. Plus, mints debian rolling release is great, you don't have to reinstall your distro every time a new major update comes out.
bthylafh wrote:The most obvious one is that Debian doesn't use graphical-sudo by default for installing updates, etc., and wants the root password instead.
This may be a preference thing, but I think the sudo approach is better.
just brew it! wrote:guilmon14 wrote:I use to use Ubuntu, but just got sick of all the work and switched to mint. Yes it may be based on Ubuntu but the implementation is much better. Plus, mints debian rolling release is great, you don't have to reinstall your distro every time a new major update comes out.
What are the advantages of Mint over straight Debian Testing (or Unstable)?
just brew it! wrote:guilmon14 wrote:I use to use Ubuntu, but just got sick of all the work and switched to mint. Yes it may be based on Ubuntu but the implementation is much better. Plus, mints debian rolling release is great, you don't have to reinstall your distro every time a new major update comes out.
What are the advantages of Mint over straight Debian Testing (or Unstable)?
uni-mitation wrote:All distros are pretty much the same. What they vary are in what they try to set themselves apart is the packaging that they use for their software, how it is distributed (binary, or source), the kernel they use (linux, although you can have another kernel like Hurd from FSF), the utilities that come by default, the compiler, etc. You list all of those, and you have a "recipe", which is a "distro".
uni-mitation wrote:What matters to me is more about the software philosophy where "release only when it is the right time" and not "release and let the poor bastards do the job we are supposed to be doing". Bug hunting is the most under-rated part of software development yet the most important I'd argue.Don't release beta software to your customers to do your job!!!
uni-mitation wrote:So, for a total newbie, or someone not interested in system administration, and the serious duties that it entails, stick with debian stable, or do only Ubuntu Long-Term Releases if you are afraid of debian.
uni-mitation wrote:All distros are pretty much the same.
What matters to me is more about the software philosophy where "release only when it is the right time" and not "release and let the poor bastards do the job we are supposed to be doing".
If someone desires a very limited amount of system administration, there is nothing better than running Debian stable and only running the security updates, and carefully back-porting the must-have drivers that you need, and applications. The worse thing you can do is to run a mixed system where some unstable package is introduced haphazardly and end breaking some very important stuff and you end with a big mess to sort through.
So, for a total newbie, or someone not interested in system administration, and the serious duties that it entails, stick with Debian stable, or do only Ubuntu Long-Term Releases if you are afraid of Debian.
if you want to run Debian unstable or testing and be adventurous, you must take precautions like probably running it on a virtual machine, or in a different partition. If your box is mission-critical, stay away from unstable and testing!!!
Flatland_Spider wrote:I wouldn't suggest Debian to anyone, but the seriously hardcore. It's cryptic, obtuse, and generally a pain.
just brew it! wrote:Flatland_Spider wrote:I wouldn't suggest Debian to anyone, but the seriously hardcore. It's cryptic, obtuse, and generally a pain.
I find it a lot less confusing than I used to. Ubuntu served as a good introduction since it is Debian-based but with some extra hand-holding. I am actually considering switching to Debian for my next OS upgrade.
thegtproject wrote:it takes a week to boot!
thegtproject wrote:I started on Ubuntu too. But quickly I've come to dislike it and many distros like it. I am very tired of having distributions deciding what software I want installed on my machine. I mean c'mon, this is why we hate Windows and ESPECIALLY hate buying those Dell or eMachine type desktops from BestBuy- they have 30 apps installed on there- it takes a week to boot!
bthylafh wrote:...and then they'll switch out a major part of the distro (SysVinit to systemd, for example) & unless you've kept up with the news by visiting their website, your next run of pacman will hose your system & require manual fixing because pacman doesn't warn you about these things.
End User wrote:It has been ages since I've had to complained about slow OS boot times. I'd have to go farther back than my 2.4Ghz P4 from over 10 years ago. Modern systems should not have a problem with something as lightweight as Ubuntu. Even my ASUS 1201N with its slow 5400 rpm drive boots Ubuntu in a decent amount of time.
thegtproject wrote:But really, as a general rule of thumb, is it really that difficult to fire up archlinux.org and read a headline before running 'pacman -Syu' ?
thegtproject wrote:In fact it'll teach you to become a better Linux administrator. Hell, it'll teach you WHY Linux is awesome.
thegtproject wrote:But really, as a general rule of thumb, is it really that difficult to fire up archlinux.org and read a headline before running 'pacman -Syu' ?
Flatland_Spider wrote:
I wouldn't suggest Debian to anyone, but the seriously hardcore. It's cryptic, obtuse, and generally a pain.
PenGun wrote:Wow, I always thought it worked just fine with almost no work required. All that apt-get package goodness works very well.
Now my distribution is Slackware and yes, all *nixes are the same to me.
>Makes cat noise and invokes Kipling.
http://www.boop.org/jan/justso/cat.htm