I could have fallen in love with Debian

[elija]

I am writing this from a re-install of Ubuntu, which should tell you that I didn't get
on with Debian that well. The problem is I have been spoilt, first by Windows making
things easier and easier and then by Ubuntu by making things even easier than that!

I am trying to be honest with myself and in doing so I have to at least consider that
the problem lies with me and not with Debian. These days, and as I get older the effect
is getting more and more noticable, I have neither the time nor patience to fight with
an operating system to get it doing what I want it to do. Frankly, I don't have to. I
just install Ubuntu and the extra software that I want and I am away.

With Debian, I have the choice of running Etch, which is stable but the software is
very old. In places it feels like it years out of date. You can't even run any software
that requires GTK > 2.8 without downloading and compiling a later version og the GTK.
Bye Bye Firefox 3 et al.

I also have the choice of running Lenny which I am convinced stands for Live Environment?
No Not Yet! The software in Lenny is bang up to date but it seems to be riddled with
little bugs. For example, my mouse pointer kept disappearing. It didn't matter what
graphical environment I was running so I suspect it was a problem with either the X
server or HAL. The only way to get my mouse back was to reboot.

Don't get me started about installing NVIDIA drivers!

I think that if I had discovered Debian about the time I was starting to get into Windows,
about 1993* and with the attitude I had then, I loved to play, tinker and break things, I
would have fallen deeply in love with the operating system. I might even have ended up
up with a better beard than RMS.

* I have just Googled it and it turns out that Debian was first released about that time. How's that for irony?

[scrarfussi]

you could try mint its based on ubuntu plus has all the codecs i'm an rpm man my self

[GNU-Fan]

I know what you mean,

dependencies for GUI-laden applications can be tricky to dissolve on ol-stable Etchy. I have been trying to compile the newest version of Evince for weeks now without luck.

Luckily, i'm not that unhappy with the remaining standard packages or succeeded in getting "up-to-dates" running without trouble.

But as you seem to be happy with Ubuntu again, I would say your story has a happy ending after a short adultery

[elija]

I have been trying to compile the newest version of Evince for weeks now without luck.

15 - 20 years ago that would have been me and I would have been loving it

I'm still cheating on Ubuntu though - Mint is on my laptop and Debian on my eeepc

[IsaacKuo]

I know both the cause and the fix for the mouse pointer disappearing. It's a problem with nVidia and the open source nv driver. Basically, you need to insert the following line in /etc/X11/xorg.conf:

Option "HWCursor" "off"

Put that in under Driver "nv", in the device section.

Ironically, I avoid Ubuntu because I'm too lazy to go through the effort to keep it working. With Debian Stable, it just plain works and I don't have to deal with some Ubuntu update breaking things or changing the behavior on software I'm already familiar with.

The tradeoff is that I don't have the latest versions of software. But I don't WANT the latest versions of software. I'll take software that's tried and true and WORKS, rather than get the latest/greatest/buggiest.

If you want to install the latest versions of software on Debian Stable, then you're using the wrong distribution. Debian Testing seems to be a popular choice, but I don't care for the frequent updates to the latest and greatest. Perhaps Debian Testing is less troublesome than Ubuntu, but I can't be bothered with it.

[geniuz]

I believe I share your opinion concerning debian lenny...
I've used it for about a year and I kinda got used to all the bugs in it from time to time. It was a real delight using though...

But now that I have Arch up and running I can really see the difference and I wouldn't trade it for the world !

[bigtomrodney]

I really like Debian and have a lot of respect for it. Though I know completely where you are coming from elija. The measure of an operating system is in my opinion how useable it is everyday. I came to Linux to learn and out of curiosity and like you I loved that stuff at the time. But what kept me here is giving me more power and the ability to do what I need.

I gave up on hobbyist distros that require you to put as much work in as a develope might. My sole measure now is whether or not it can do what I need with only reasonable interaction from me. If I (as a geek) find it to too much hassle then how are non-techies going to feel about it?

That's the main reason why over the years although I've been a distro-slut I've always run back to the shelter of Mandrake, SUSE and Ubuntu.

[elija]

I gave up on hobbyist distros that require you to put as much work in as a develope might. My sole measure now is whether or not it can do what I need with only reasonable interaction from me. If I (as a geek) find it to too much hassle then how are non-techies going to feel about it?

That's the main reason why over the years although I've been a distro-slut I've always run back to the shelter of Mandrake, SUSE and Ubuntu.

You put that very well. When I used to play with my PC, I would have loved it. Now
that I work with my PC I want easy.

I know both the cause and the fix for the mouse pointer disappearing. It's a problem with nVidia and the open source nv driver. Basically, you need to insert the following line in /etc/X11/xorg.conf:

Option "HWCursor" "off"

Put that in under Driver "nv", in the device section.

That doesn't sound like a distro specific problem, but Debian is the only one I have seen
it in, possibly because it is the only distro where I haven't had the Nvidia drivers going.

Ironically, I avoid Ubuntu because I'm too lazy to go through the effort to keep it working. With Debian Stable, it just plain works and I don't have to deal with some Ubuntu update breaking things or changing the behavior on software I'm already familiar with.

The tradeoff is that I don't have the latest versions of software. But I don't WANT the latest versions of software. I'll take software that's tried and true and WORKS, rather than get the latest/greatest/buggiest.

I know exactly where you are coming from. But having used OOO 2.4, going back to 2.0
feels primitive. And I already love Firefox 3 and don't want to lose it.

The hobbyist distros have their place as do the easy ones. And how can I not respect
what Debian has done. Without it there would be no Ubuntu or Mint distros for me to use.

Although I can't say for certain, if I hadn't already used more modern and significantly
improved versions of some software I think I would have been very happy with Debian
stable.

[bigtomrodney]

Isaac, I can agree with pretty much everything you said. If I was sysadmin for a company I'd most likely go with Debian because I'd get it working once and then deploy an image. It'd be ideal; rock solid and of course only needs to be configured once.

However day to day I like to have up to date and experimental stuff. For that Ubuntu does it for me. I get what I want with the least effort on all fronts. I think in this case we probably all agree on all points but just have different needs.

[IsaacKuo]

Isaac, I can agree with pretty much everything you said. If I was sysadmin for a company I'd most likely go with Debian because I'd get it working once and then deploy an image. It'd be ideal; rock solid and of course only needs to be configured once.

That's the reason why I use Debian Stable for my home computers also. Why would I want to go through more effort than I need to?

However day to day I like to have up to date and experimental stuff. For that Ubuntu does it for me. I get what I want with the least effort on all fronts. I think in this case we probably all agree on all points but just have different needs.

I think having up to date and experimental stuff to be the very definition of "hobbyist" distro. As far as I'm concerned, every distribution which has already deployed KDE4 as the default KDE install is clearly a "hobbyist" distro, and the quality of Ubuntu's latest LTS Hardy Heron proves it's also a "hobbyist" distro.

I don't think that's bad necessarily; these hobbyist distributions are following the wishes of their customer base. Most of their customers are hobbyists, after all, who want the latest versions of software even at the expense of reliability and stability.

But it's a bit sad that Ubuntu promises something different for LTS and still haven't been able to get their act together with LTS. I think the basic problem is that they feel they have to somehow distinguish themselves as "better" than Debian Stable with more up-to-date software, but that has so far meant buggier releases.