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Why not Debian?

T

th3rmite

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 7, 2001
Messages
378
Now this is not meant as flame war, but I have been using Linux off and on for about 4 years now in my quest for a Desktop OS alternative to Windows. I have used many of the Distros out there, Mandrake, Red hat, Slack, Suse, Lycoris, Lindows, etc and I have finally settled on Debian Sarge.

My question really is why not Debian for a Desktop OS? Apt-get is just awesome and debian is streamlined if you do a Sarge net install. I talking about fairly modern hardware so niche distros don't count.
 
No big reasons. Other distros might get new software earlier, but that's about it. The rest is a matter of taste.
 
No reason. :) Debian just doesn't coddle new users by having everything set up out of the box. People that care to learn know what to do...

This is the same way I feel about FreeBSD. It makes a fine desktop cause it doesn't change things that don't need to be changed in the software you want to run...It doesn't make assumptions about how you want your desktop to look out of the box, etc.
 
Why not debian? Software availablilty. Unless you run unstable, you dont get the latest and greatest. When you do, half the time it comes down the pipe and breaks something else. :D

That aside... I run debian unstable, and I do love it. Its helped me out more than anything to finally get a grasp on linux as a whole.
 
shade91 said:
Why not debian? Because FreeBSD owns it hard.
Click to expand...

Oh wow, good and well thought out point. I'll have to change out my systems because of that. :rolleyes:

seriously.. define "owns it hard" in some objective terms. :)

There are a lot of people who wonder which one to use and why. :
 
I love Debian, and have used it on my home and work desktops for a long time. Right now I only use it at work, and I use FreeBSD 5.3 at home.

I only like Debian if I use unstable. Stable and testing are simply too far behind for my tastes. Testing is usually only a couple weeks behind unstable, but some particular packages are still far more outdated than that. For a desktop system, newer versions of software normally tend to have a lot of improvements that a desktop user would want, and I enjoy having the latest and greatest. For a server of course, that isn't always the case. Unstable is, in my experience, more stable than other "desktop oriented" distributions like Fedora. However, to run unstable, you do need to know how to fix it when it breaks, because breakage does happen occasionally. For that reason, I wouldn't recommend it to a noob. But for a Linux user who wants an awesome desktop, and an awesome package management system? Debian unstable is the way to go, in my opinion. Ubuntu is starting to look great also.

I also love Slackware as a desktop, because it is so simple, so rock solid stable, and it does stay up to date rather well. It just has such an awesome "feel" that only Slackware users will understand. It does take more effort to install software on than Debian, but it's nothing that a reasonably savvy Linux user should have any problem with.

As for FreeBSD, I love it as well. Ports are great, stability is great, simplicity is great. Like someone mentioned, it doesn't try to get in your way, just like Slack and Debian. I use it (4.x) for my home server, and my home desktop (I was using Slack 10, but I wanted to give 5.3 a whirl on my main computer when it came out) and I am enjoying it quite a bit so far. There are some areas in which Linux is superior for desktop use, but they aren't major issues.

For one, ALSA is superior to the OSS sound in FreeBSD. That's just a fact. Also, Java is easier to install on Linux, although it's definitely not impossible on FreeBSD. Also, Linux has a nicer framebuffer console. I loved my 1280x1024x32 console with Linux, and on FreeBSD, the VESA console looks good at 800x600, but it looks like ass if I make the resolution higher with vidcontrol. Also, I have a Radeon 9800 pro, and of course, there is no 3d to speak of for it under FreeBSD, thanks to Ati's ultrafaggotry. But I use XP for all my gaming, so it doesn't really matter.

In the end, I think FreeBSD, Slackware, and Debian unstable all make a superb desktop or workstation, and you absolutely cannot go wrong with any of the three. To be honest, those are the only 3 OS's I would even consider for my daily use. I hate Fedora, I hate Gentoo, I hate Mandrake, I hate SuSE, etc.

Just my two cents. :D
 
josh: "thanks to Ati's ultrafaggotry"

oh dear. And you were writing such a good post until then. Could you please find it in your heart to use a slightly less offensive term? What's wrong with obstinacy or stupidity? Why do you need to insult gay people in order to express frustration at ATI? As far as I know, ATI has never been caught in flagrante delicto with a hardware company of the same sex, but do please correct me if I'm wrong.
 
th3rmite said:
Now this is not meant as flame war, but I have been using Linux off and on for about 4 years now in my quest for a Desktop OS alternative to Windows. I have used many of the Distros out there, Mandrake, Red hat, Slack, Suse, Lycoris, Lindows, etc and I have finally settled on Debian Sarge.

My question really is why not Debian for a Desktop OS? Apt-get is just awesome and debian is streamlined if you do a Sarge net install. I talking about fairly modern hardware so niche distros don't count.
Click to expand...

What are you talking about? Me, my roommate, my bestfriend, and my roommate from freshman year all use Debian or Ubuntu (based off debian) on our desktops. Hell I have three computers all running Debian. I've tried all types of distros, and OSes including FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Ubuntu, and just about everything else, and I always end up reinstalling Debian Unstable. Greatest OS out there in my opinion.

-zac
 
Personally, the reason I don't use Debian is that the following does not work; "apt-get nvidia-kernel" (that used to work, but doesn't any longer, which makes me mad in and of itself). That and the older packages, as mentioned earlier. Oh, yeah, by default the only non-X11 runlevel is 1, which makes the NVidia drivers very difficult to install. No 3D acceleration=no OS IMO.

Currently running Gentoo. The package manager is as good as apt-get, except it compiles most everything instead of running i386 binaries. The Portage package tree has alot more programs, and is more up-to-date(even on stable compared to Debian unstable) than apt-get's tree too. I installed Gentoo using the Vida-Linux installer, which uses the Red Hat Anaconda installer to set you up with a minimal setup with Gnome.

Debian is nice, but Gentoo is better.
 
tom61 said:
Personally, the reason I don't use Debian is that the following does not work; "apt-get nvidia-kernel" (that used to work, but doesn't any longer, which makes me mad in and of itself). That and the older packages, as mentioned earlier. Oh, yeah, by default the only non-X11 runlevel is 1, which makes the NVidia drivers very difficult to install. No 3D acceleration=no OS IMO.

Currently running Gentoo. The package manager is as good as apt-get, except it compiles most everything instead of running i386 binaries. The Portage package tree has alot more programs, and is more up-to-date(even on stable compared to Debian unstable) than apt-get's tree too. I installed Gentoo using the Vida-Linux installer, which uses the Red Hat Anaconda installer to set you up with a minimal setup with Gentoo.

Debian is nice, but Gentoo is better.
Click to expand...


Did you try "apt-get install nvidia-kernel"? Works just fine over here. I personally didn't like the way Gentoo does everything. Just so many damn annoyances and things that need setting up. On top of that portage is slow as all hell to install something. I like using apt-get, waiting 20 seconds then using the program, as opposed to using emerge, going to watch a movie, going to sleep, going to class, coming back and then maybe be able to use the program if I didn't have too much else running on my computer taking up CPU cycles. Also, many many many hours to install gentoo vs debian installed and running in 2. Then again, I grew up on Debian, and its what I'm used to, and the one distro vs another argument is really all opinion. To each their own.

-zac
 
AdamW said:
josh: "thanks to Ati's ultrafaggotry"

oh dear. And you were writing such a good post until then. Could you please find it in your heart to use a slightly less offensive term? What's wrong with obstinacy or stupidity? Why do you need to insult gay people in order to express frustration at ATI? As far as I know, ATI has never been caught in flagrante delicto with a hardware company of the same sex, but do please correct me if I'm wrong.
Click to expand...

Heh, sorry about that. I wasn't using to the term literally in an attempt to insult gay people, and my apologies for any offense.
 
tom61 said:
Personally, the reason I don't use Debian is that the following does not work; "apt-get nvidia-kernel" (that used to work, but doesn't any longer, which makes me mad in and of itself). That and the older packages, as mentioned earlier. Oh, yeah, by default the only non-X11 runlevel is 1, which makes the NVidia drivers very difficult to install. No 3D acceleration=no OS IMO.

Currently running Gentoo. The package manager is as good as apt-get, except it compiles most everything instead of running i386 binaries. The Portage package tree has alot more programs, and is more up-to-date(even on stable compared to Debian unstable) than apt-get's tree too. I installed Gentoo using the Vida-Linux installer, which uses the Red Hat Anaconda installer to set you up with a minimal setup with Gnome.

Debian is nice, but Gentoo is better.
Click to expand...

You don't need to change your runlevel to exit X, whatever gave you that idea? Also, Debian has several thousand more packages available than Gentoo has in Portage. I believe Debian has upwards of 10,000, and Gentoo has somewhere around 6,500.
 
for answer to the question, see thread 'Linux Newb needs help with install'. :)
 
Oh, yeah, by default the only non-X11 runlevel is 1, which makes the NVidia drivers very difficult to install.
Click to expand...


Not to flame, but this bugs me. You can't edit a the runlevel to not start X on startup, but you can install Gentoo. What's with all these people saying Gentoo teaches you real stuff about Linux and how it runs? You complain about changing S to K in /etc/rc(put runlevel here).d?!

No dissing Gentoo. It's grown a bunch and people like it. I've never tried it, but I've never needed to leave debian. Sarge for my workstation, woody for my servers, and mepis for my laptop.
 
I believe thats what this discussion is about. I like debian, I cut my teeth on Mandrake a few years back was persuaded to try debian.

What other things about other distros would entice me away from debian?

FreeBSD "owns" but the only thing I've found interest in is the network stack. However.I was used to IPTables format, and I worry about hardware configuration.
 
pr0zac said:
Did you try "apt-get install nvidia-kernel"?
Click to expand...

Perhaps it has been re-added since then, but yes, that is the command I used. "apt-cache search nvidia" turned up only a utility for overclocking nvidia cards.


You can't edit a the runlevel to not start X on startup, but you can install Gentoo.
Click to expand...

I cheated and used the Vida Linux installer. Once installed, Gentoo is very easy to use. If I wanted to go through all the normal steps to install Gentoo, I'd do Linux From Scratch instead.


Also, Debian has several thousand more packages available than Gentoo has in Portage. I believe Debian has upwards of 10,000, and Gentoo has somewhere around 6,500.
Click to expand...

Sorry, did not check the actual numbers. I based it on the fact that some things I can emerge now in Gentoo, I couldn't apt-get when I was using Debian. (mplayer springs to mind).

Has Debian had an upgrade recently? I seems some of my complaints have been resolved since I last tried it.
 
Debian is currently in the final steps of preparing Sarge (the upgrade to woody) and the installer and packages are much more recent. Personally the hardware detection for me is the killer app for sarge.
 
"What other things about other distros would entice me away from debian?"

If you're happy and confident using debian? I honestly can't think of a thing.
 
gentoo has almost 11,000 packages in portage. please dont crap on gentoo without knowing whats comming outa your butt.

compiling isnt a problem if you have a fast enough computer.
 
derkmerkin said:
gentoo has almost 11,000 packages in portage. please dont crap on gentoo without knowing whats comming outa your butt.

compiling isnt a problem if you have a fast enough computer.
Click to expand...


and a quick apt-cache search of debian sarge is listing out at 14,854...what's your point?
 
Thusfar, debian has been the only linux that I couldn't get to install. I think that I wouldnt mind using it, its just that imo it has the worst installer ever conceived. That and the rampant politics in debian simply annoy me. Except for the hot babe debate, that was just flat out comical.
 
You don't need to change your runlevel to exit X, whatever gave you that idea?
Click to expand...

Sorry, missed this earlier. What gave me that idea is no matter what I tried, short of runlevel 1, GDM (which uses X11) kept respawning. It'd go away for a few seconds, but before I could invoke the nvidia run file, it'd be back. For future reference, what is a way that works to kill X/GDM without changing the runlevel?
 
deuce868 said:
and a quick apt-cache search of debian sarge is listing out at 14,854...what's your point?
Click to expand...

all i was saying is that it had more than the 6,000 packages someone else stated. is it that hard to understand?
 
derkmerkin said:
all i was saying is that it had more than the 6,000 packages someone else stated. is it that hard to understand?
Click to expand...

Naw, I thought you might take a hint and make your posts a bit more polite if someone were to take a look and "know whats comming outa your butt"

Guess it was too hard for you to understand. ;)
 
tom61 said:
Sorry, missed this earlier. What gave me that idea is no matter what I tried, short of runlevel 1, GDM (which uses X11) kept respawning. It'd go away for a few seconds, but before I could invoke the nvidia run file, it'd be back. For future reference, what is a way that works to kill X/GDM without changing the runlevel?
Click to expand...

GDM is a pain, that's for sure. You could either turn off the service from starting with /usr/sbin/update-rc.d (or apt-get install rcconf, run it, and unselect gdm), or you could simply keep hitting control-alt-backspace until stops respawning. I think it takes about 10 kills or so, I'm not sure. I'm a startx guy, personally. ;)
 
Isn't there a gdmctl or gdm-control or something? ISTR that you can do "gdmctl stop" or some variant.
(I'm a kdm-guy myself, and "disable it in /etc/ttys and reboot" is the easiest way.)
 
A bit off topic, but I saw this thread before I was going to start my own on this very matter.

I just purchased a new Dell server that will serve as my home media/backup/web/gaming/whatever server(no, they all won't be running at the same time lol) I currently have a "decent" install of Gentoo on there. One thing that has been frustrating me over my Gentoo install was demystifying the use of Portage.

I have also had a hard time getting Apache to work, long story so Ill go straight to my point. I am not exactly a linux newbie or new to computers in general, I use Solaris at work on a daily basis, so I am pretty comfortable in a *nix environment. The root of my problem is now lying with choices as to which distro I should ultimately use and keep on there.

For the record, I hate Mandrake and I hate Red Hat. I have used both and was not impressed with either one, I chose Gentoo because of choices. I like to get under the hood and tinker a bit, but I am definitely no guru when it comes to solving time consuming frustrating problems like I am experiencing now. I really like Portage and all it's ebuild glory, however, I am finding that some packages are just a bit too buggy and don't install correctly. Apache2 is one of those packages.

I am considering the switch to Debian, however, I don't want to face some of the same problems I am facing now. I, for whatever reason, have never been able to use Grub, I had to resort to LILO instead, which by all accounts, doesn't really matter to me because this box will be a server only. I also had a problem with using Genkernel, which they claim is "good for newbies who aren't comfortable compiling their own kernel" Well, that didn't work for me either, I got kernel panics halfway through init.

So I switched to gentoo-dev-sources, that seems to be working well so far, however, I wasn't real familiar with compiling my own kernel and a lot of it was trial and error. Took me about 3 times to get everything just right and finally getting a working system. I did a stage 1 install, I felt that would be the best way for me to get my hands dirty learning the innards of linux.

So now I am at my crossroad, is Debian robust enough yet easy to install for a semi-experienced newbie? I want the flexibility and customazation of Gentoo with the ease of installation of Red Hat or Mandrake.
 
In the end you can only say "Give it a try". Personally I tried many times to get debian working on a desktop with no success. It wasn't until I set up a headless server without all the complications of X and such on it that I learned to like it for it's bare, simple, and powerful nature. Over time you learn more and more on it and now I have it on a laptop, desktop, and servers.

Like anything it's a learning process. I know dell servers can be ok with linux support. I actually got a debian disk that had a pre-compiled kernel from somone on a linux-dell mailing list which made my life easier because the network card was not found by default and I had no clue about kernel compiling at the time.
 
deuce868 said:
It wasn't until I set up a headless server without all the complications of X and such on it that I learned to like it for it's bare, simple, and powerful nature. Over time you learn more and more on it and now I have it on a laptop, desktop, and servers.
Click to expand...

That has got to perfectly mirror my experience with debian and X. I'll have to say its easy as hell to get it working with a vanilla framebuffer, but throw X in there, it gets overly complicated for the newbie (or those of us who never bothered with X).

I have to say that tasksel works to an extent, but by default its not as easy as "apt-get install my-friggin-GUI" However, once you sit down and think, it was a moment of clarity. I needed an X-server, a display manager and the clients... Duuhh.. I just wish tasksel wasnt borked all the time. :D
 
digilink: If you got gentoo up and running, FreeBSD isn't a challenge. It's customizable and rather lean, and the package system is nice. Try it sometime and see if you like it, perhaps especially if debian doesn't work out for you.

That said, debian ought to work. The slightly conservative approach does pay off.
 
Thanks, Ive hemmed and hawed about FreeBSD, I tried it many years ago, but didn't do much with it. As I understand it, isn't portage similar to FreeBSD's package management system?
 
Portage is definitely "inspired by", yes. I'm not all that familiar with it, so I can't say just how close they are (There's an introduction to ports here).

As an example, you can install apache 1.3 with
"pkg_add -r apache13" to download it (and dependencies) as packages,
"pkg_add apache13" if you've already downloaded the package to the current directory ,
"cd /usr/ports/www/apache13 ; make install clean" to have ports download/compile/install it and dependencies,
"portinstall apache13" will do the same if you have the "portupgrade"-port installed, and
"portinstall -P apache13" will use a package if one exists, otherwise it's compile time.

The common way to update the ports tree itself is with cvsup ("cvsup path/to/ports-supfile", usually). There's also tools for updating installed ports, of course.
 
I really like Portage and all it's ebuild glory, however, I am finding that some packages are just a bit too buggy and don't install correctly. Apache2 is one of those packages.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that is definately a problem. The good news that the troubles are usually fixed in the next release of the ebuild.

"pkg_add -r apache13" to download it (and dependencies) as packages,
"pkg_add apache13" if you've already downloaded the package to the current directory ,
"cd /usr/ports/www/apache13 ; make install clean" to have ports download/compile/install it and dependencies,
"portinstall apache13" will do the same if you have the "portupgrade"-port installed, and
Click to expand...

In gentoo all that is done with "emerge apache"

"portinstall -P apache13" will use a package if one exists, otherwise it's compile time.
Click to expand...

There's a way to install binary packages under Gentoo too, forgot the command line for emerge though.

The common way to update the ports tree itself is with cvsup ("cvsup path/to/ports-supfile", usually). There's also tools for updating installed ports, of course.
Click to expand...

'emerge --sync'
'emerge world'
 
Yeah, that is definately a problem. The good news that the troubles are usually fixed in the next release of the ebuild.
Sounds much like ports, yes. (Though the ports people are usually a touch more conservative than their portage counterparts, so breakage seems to be a slightly smaller problem.)

In gentoo all that is done with "emerge apache"
I merely gave examples of different ways of doing it. All of these lines will, alone, install apache. Some of then will download a precompiled package, and some will compile it. Some use the tools in the base system, some use portupgrade for extra functionality. It's just a question of which method you prefer.

There's a way to install binary packages under Gentoo too, forgot the command line for emerge though.
That makes them fairly similar, yeah. (I don't know which system has the most, and most up to date, packages, but I'd guess FreeBSD.)

'emerge --sync'
'emerge world'
"cvsup /root/ports-supfile"
"portupgrade -aR"
(or -aRP for "packages if they're as new as the port, otherwise compile", or "-aRPP" for "packages if they're newer than what's installed, don't compile anything")

Now, the fun is in the system upgrades. For a new kernel and base system (the basic userland and tools):
"cvsup standard-supfile"
Look over the kernel config file in case something has changed
export KERNCONFIG=SOMEKERNEL (whatever the name of the kernel config file)
"cd /usr/src; make buildworld; make buildkernel; make installkernel; make installworld"
(a "mergemaster" to go go through the changes in system config files and choose what to keep/merge in/overwrite is recommended here.)
Of course, you have the choice of what cvs branch you put in the supfile. RELENG_4, RELENG_5 and . (HEAD, which is 6-CURRENT right now) are the common choices.
It's quite possible to go from, say, 4.8 to 6.0 with a little care, the equivalent of going from Linux 2.4 to 2.7 (and a new userland).

Oh, and to clarify my choice of words:
a "package" is always "binary, precompiled package"
a "port" is the parallel to an ebuild; a few textfiles about how to get/compile/install a piece of software.
 
I was just curious as to why not Debian, you know like serious discussion. Technical reasons why, not just "because freebsd owns it" or because apt doesn't have the latest and greatest software. Of course it wouldn't just do to the nature of making debs and not just jumping on the band wagon to post the newest alpha revision of software or even the latest release. I wanted to know other than the package manager, maybe I should have explained myself, that why not Debian? Is it inherently different than the other Distros?
 
Is it inherently different than the other Distros?
Click to expand...

Other than the odd default run-levels, no, not really. The only real differences between distros is the optimisation level (Mandrake is i586, Gentoo is whatever you're running) and the package manager. Optimisation level on Debian is i386(unless that has changed recently) on x86 platforms, and you gain a little performance by going with a more optimised distro. Mandrake won't give a very noticeable boost. Gentoo will probably give you a noticable boost (if you have newer processor), but the trade-off is that you have to compile everything (which takes a long time for bigger items, like KDE).
 
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