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Ubuntu Beware: Installing Debian with Anaconda
Chris writes "Progeny Linux does Debian one step better. If you like Ubuntu you'll love Progeny. A slick GNOME desktop, a solid Debian core, and the Anaconda installer have made Progeny my new desktop of choice. Progeny has also recently become part of the Linux Core Consortium (LCC) to implement Linux Standard Base (LSB) 2.0. Watch your back Ubuntu for Progeny's new 'Progeny Debian 2.0 Developer Edition RC1' release. At OSDir we just had to install this distro, and take some screenshots. Our screenshot tour will take you from boot, through the installation, to the desktop. Then we'll have a look at the taskbar, menus, system configuration, and a few of the newly added features of this great distro."
Looks a lot like the installer for RedHat/Fedora... is this the same? If so, where's the torrent? All I see are screenshot links...
Looking at those screenshots, it's interesting how the installer, for instance, is essentially copied from RedHat. I suppose that's the pleasure of OSS - you can take the best of what's around, and if you know a better way to put it all together - do it.
Pardon me but I don't see much of a difference here . .
1) Debian
2) Gnome
3) Easy installation
4) Profit?
So it's got LSB standardization - Yay. With an hour of work I bet you could turn either into the other. Why the hard sell? I'm not a fanboy of either but bickering about distros does nothing but fragment the userbase at large.
In other news, by the time I'm done writing this someone will probably have posted why gentoo is superior to both of these.
To quote Sir Mix-A-Lot My anaconda don't want none unless you've got Ubuntu hon.
Not necessarily relevant, but, I find it interesting that Progeny was founded by the creator of Debian: Ian Murdock.
Their web site: http://www.progeny.com/
Progeny seems like it's a fairly good distro, but for me, I'd rather stick with Ubuntu if I'm going to stray from a pure Debian install.
Progeny's site (btw, a link in the article would have been nice, it's Progeny) calls themselves "the linux platform company" and has a very conservative, professional (in a business sense) look. That's not for me. Ubuntu, on the other hand, is very human oriented. Looking at their site (Ubuntu), the first thing they do is explain the name as, ""Ubuntu" is an ancient African word, meaning "humanity to others". Ubuntu also means "I am what I am because of who we all are". The Ubuntu Linux distribution brings the spirit of Ubuntu to the software world.".
From a pure philosophically aesthetic standpoint, Ubuntu is far more appealing to me than Progeny. Ubuntu is great, it's Debian (like Progeny) and it stays in parity with the most current GNOME releases. Anaconda is one of the last things on my checklist of why I'd switch distros.
That's not to say I dislike Progeny, or that I wouldn't want to run it. In fact, I probably wouldn't have made any of these points had the article not been so aggressive towards Ubuntu.
This isn't like your standard corporate system where you have to root for your competitors to lose. With this diversity, we all win. Good job, and best wishes to the Progeny team. Maybe some day I'll try your distro.
For now, though, it's Ubuntu for me.
Netcraft confirms it - Debian is Dead Old.
Move along, nothing to see here.
The only benefit I see in this is maybe an easier install, for new users, but for those who already have a distro they're happy with, it certainly isn't a reason to switch.
I had so many unwanted daemons on my machine, I had to hire a priest to cast them all out.
Anyone hosting a torrent of this?
-- http://thegirlorthecar.com funny dating game for guys
any humans install this yet ? the screenshot borgs dont dole out any real info ;) j/k
does it have nice "control panels" like mandrake,
suse and mepis have to setup various hardware and service options ?
selinux ? support options ? apt-get and debian source compatibility ?
visit the site right? already there. I'll let you know what I find..
ISOs
http://archive.progeny.com/progeny/linux/iso-i386
from the progeny website:
"aims to provide an unmatched "out of the box" environment for software
developers building applications for the Java, Mono/.NET and LAMP platforms."
Anyone who's installed Debian Sarge should realize that now Debian has the BEST tui in open source software. It was easy to use, gave me customizable options.
No WAY would I give up the power of the new debian-installer to get the feel of anaconda.
Jay | http://oldos.org
I installed debian this way when it with the first time progeny was mentioned on slashdot. it made it easyer to install than using the old installer, and you had a full os installed in no time.
With the new debian installer constantly being updated, i am starting to think progeny has missed it's chance. the new installer is far better than the old installer.
though debian does not have a good graphcal wizard based installer like anaconda, it is rapidly improveing, with a gtk+ based installer underway. making the debian port of anaconda a little less needed as it might have been if it where cereated a fiew years ago.
With all the griping about Debian's installer, I wonder how many times one actually installs a new distro on bare metal.
I have the same debian installation going for the past three years. Sure, I've upgraded the distribution to the latest stable release, but it didn't require a reinstallation, only an apt-get dist-upgrade.
The debian installer may not be the easiest installer around, but it works on all the platforms out there, and the main objection -- dselect -- isn't difficult if you RTFM
Here's their actual download page for the ISOs, and the distro description page. It mentions a bit more about what you're getting -- for one, this is RC-1 (not the release yet). More detail: I'm probably going to try it out (I'm a Java and LAMP developer..); I might wait for the release, though.
>> "This isn't like your standard corporate system where you have to root for your competitors to lose. With this diversity, we all win."
Geez, I bet you feel so warm and fuzzy all over. Remind me never to hire you.
Get a clue: Ubuntu is a product of the Canonical Corporation, as in "Corporation". It is backed by South African Mark Shuttlesworth, a rather wealthy guy you may have heard about when he bought a $20 million joyride to orbit. I have no reason to doubt his sincerity about all this "ubuntu philosophy" stuff, but it is a common advertising hook in South Africa.
Linux distributions should be judged on their technical and aesthetic merits, not on the pseudo-philosophical image they project for PR purposes. (You do understand that Progeny's site is designed to appeal to the market they want to sell to, and that Ubuntu's site is designed to appeal to people like you? You're being manipulated in either case.)
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Ubuntu has a pretty transparent development process (yeah for mailing lists and development sources lists for apt) and is promising a regular (and reasonably frequent) release cycle.
I don't see mention of anything like this for Progeny yet. So its less attractive then Ubuntu to me right now.
Geez, I bet you feel so warm and fuzzy all over. Remind me never to hire you.
Yes, I do feel "warm and fuzzy all over". Most of my personal use of computers is because I *ENJOY* it, not because it's some tool that I *must* use.
As for hiring me, don't worry about it, if you're such an asshole, I'd quickly correct any such mistake if it were ever to occur.
Get a clue: Ubuntu is a product of the Canonical Corporation, as in "Corporation". It is backed by South African Mark Shuttlesworth, a rather wealthy guy you may have heard about when he bought a $20 million joyride to orbit. I have no reason to doubt his sincerity about all this "ubuntu philosophy" stuff, but it is a common advertising hook in South Africa.
Don't be such a simpleton. I never said Ubuntu wasn't backed by a corporation. The distro itself is designed and run in a human-centered fashion. I don't care if it's backed by a corporation as long as that corporation is run by people who want first and foremost to change the world for the better, and only secondarily want to bilk that world for all it can. I don't know about the man ultimately behind Ubuntu, but I do know about the way the distro itself is designed, and I like that very much. It's also one of the things that makes Apple such a great corporation, and the lack of this virtue is what makes Microsoft so awful.
Linux distributions should be judged on their technical and aesthetic merits, not on the pseudo-philosophical image they project for PR purposes. (You do understand that Progeny's site is designed to appeal to the market they want to sell to, and that Ubuntu's site is designed to appeal to people like you? You're being manipulated in either case.)
I do realize all of that. But the point is their site design tends to show the philosophy they follow, and the philosophy they follow will manifest itself in the choices they make.
This isn't like some huge corporation who has their site design so divorced from their product design that the two are wholly unrelated. Even large corporations have to maintain some parity in the image they wish to portray and the reality of their product. Progeny and Ubuntu have both chosen to take on different focii. Progeny seems to want to be your company's Linux, and Ubuntu wants to be your home Linux.
But you even realize this (without appearing to understand the implications) when you say, "Linux distributions should be judged on their technical and aesthetic merits".
Technically, Ubuntu is Debian, as is Progeny. For me, the best (technically) distro is Debian, so from that point of view, there's little to differentiate them. However, Progeny has chosen to go the LSB 2.0 and Anaconda route. Yawn, I really don't care about those two features (not enough to switch distros). Ubuntu differentiates itself by basing it's release schedule to GNOME's. This is a plus that actually affects my computer experience directly.
Maybe this is all an illusion, but for now, Ubuntu is technically superior and aesthetically superior (which you admit are your two criteria). When things change enough to make a difference, and it's a good time to do so, I'll switch distros. No big deal.
That's all. They're essentially the same, but a little different. If I'm going to choose between the two, I'm going to pick the one that's different in the ways that I care about. What's your problem with that?
Actually, I know what your problem with it is: you don't fully grasp that it's not enough for something to be "technically superior" without also being "human centric". For you, it's enough to be "technically superior" and "human compatible". Once you integrate "human centric" into your definition of "technically superior", you'll begin to understand. Certainly there are cases where human-centricity is not so important, or when technical differences are enough to overshadow usability/aesthetics/comfort, etc., but the choice in Linux distros for my desktop is not one of them.