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Happy 17th Birthday, Debian!

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the august-is-interesting dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Debian turns 17 today. Yes it has really come a long way from being Murdock's pet project back in 1993 to being the distribution on which the most popular Linux distribution, Ubuntu, is now based."

76 of 225 comments (clear)

  1. Thank you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Thanks Murdock! This distro is still one of the easiest to maintain over a long period of time.

    1. Re:Thank you by Jurily · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Damn right it is. Debian is the distro you install on your mom's computer when you're moving 2000+ miles and don't want to fly home for tech support.

      Over the course of two years, I've had exactly one problem with that box, and all it needed was a phone call + ssh.

    2. Re:Thank you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      2003 called. It wants its dipshit back. It's sending a reply-paid time machine for you to get in.

    3. Re:Thank you by G3ckoG33k · · Score: 2, Informative

      "Damn right it is. Debian is the distro you install on your mom's computer when you're moving 2000+ miles and don't want to fly home for tech support."

      Last week I did just that. I installed it on your mom's compu... Nah, just kidding. But, I did install Debian on a relative's brand new box. He is 79 and was very satisifed. He has been using Debian for several years, and I upgrade once a year.

    4. Re:Thank you by Sudheer_BV · · Score: 2, Funny

      No. My favourite distro is the best distro.

      --
      Sudheer Satyanarayana
      www.techchorus.net
    5. Re:Thank you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Hmm, let me think about it... no, I still prefer the free Debian option to the $1000+ (not including mandatory upgrade cycle) Apple one.

  2. I remember my first Debian... by e065c8515d206cb0e190 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I was coming from Slackware and apt-get seemed magical. Never left the boat since.
    Long life to Debian!

    1. Re:I remember my first Debian... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      True enough! Debian was the best idea around when they started introducing the concept of dependency resolution and meta data. It has been one of my faves ever since.

    2. Re:I remember my first Debian... by hcpxvi · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I was coming from Slackware and apt-get seemed magical.
      I was coming from being an ordinary user on Solaris systems. Installing Debian (from a stack of floppies!) and finding myself logged on as root was magical. I also have stuck with Debian ever since. It's just excellent. A huge cheer for the vast crowd of people who make it possible.

    3. Re:I remember my first Debian... by marcosdumay · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I was comming from a broken Red Hat install, that succeded a broken Connectiva one, that succeded another broken Connectiva one, all of those refused to install my software due to dependency problems. Debian stable simply installed everything, and from the very few packages you couldn't install from testing, most become installable once you added the stable tree to sources.list, and most of the others just become installable a week or so after that. And it upgrades, and upgrades, and still you can install all those packages, even if you are using testing. That awesome.

      And, of course, after you feel what is like having a desktop system where it is easier to find new software at the repository list than on Google, there is no comming back. I once tried to switch my desktop to Suse, just to find that I'd need to install (and keep up to date) nearly all my software by hand. That and the fact that you can configure it all by ssh, without any GUI program changing the settings that you choosed later makes it way easier to maintain than Red Rat and Suse on a server.

      --
      Rethinking email
    4. Re:I remember my first Debian... by Jon+Abbott · · Score: 2, Informative

      Apt-get is magical. It has Super Cow Powers. ;^)

      --
      Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
  3. Debian or IE to last? by netsuhi.com · · Score: 2, Interesting

    So there are two important aprts of the internet with birthdays very close together. I wonder if Debian or IE will last the longest?

    1. Re:Debian or IE to last? by Kjella · · Score: 4, Interesting

      In terms of name, my bet would be on IE. If the Debian leaders manage to act retarded enough the community might have to fork and pick a new name but the project would live on. While with IE I figure there's a good chance Microsoft will eventually figure out that developing their own browser engine is a waste of resources and create their own Webkit-based browser, but still under the IE name. So one could have the same content with a different name, the other different content with the same name.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    2. Re:Debian or IE to last? by richdun · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Depends on what you mean by "last."

      Debian will probably be kicking around on someone's toy web server or overly complex but overly awesome home file server for as long as there is someone either willing to get the kernel working on whatever hardware is available or rig up a network protocol to talk to our future brain/computer overlords.

      IE will probably remain commercially relevant longer, sadly, for as long as there are corporations, there will be that one piece of mission critical software written X years ago that runs only on IE 6.0.

    3. Re:Debian or IE to last? by MrHanky · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You seriously think Microsoft will embrace an LGPL browser engine? Originally from the KDE project?

    4. Re:Debian or IE to last? by wvmarle · · Score: 2, Interesting

      What? Apple's Safari also uses it! You're not going to suggest Microsoft to copy something from Apple do you? They would never do so!

      Oh, wait...

    5. Re:Debian or IE to last? by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 2, Interesting

      If it is the cheapest way to get developers churning out c# applications running on Server2008/MSSQL/Azure on the back and Silverlight on the front, yeah I could imagine them doing that.

      The horse has very much left the barn(for all but the most ossified projects that are also millstones around Microsoft's neck because they don't want to deal with IE6 anymore) when it comes to controlling the internet by being the de-facto HTML renderer and being a real oddball about it.

      If, however, MS can reduce HTML to the header and footer that you wrap around your XAMLtastic chunk of Silverlight, the could easily save considerable money and lose essentially no influence by putting trident on ice(as some "compatibility mode", enableable by group policy for the corporate types) and switching to cheaper webkit for embedding silverlight objects.

    6. Re:Debian or IE to last? by MrHanky · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Playing catch-up can be immensely profitable if you also sell web services that aren't as well supported by the competing browsers, especially if the competition's web services depend on other browsers: MS Web service users will be forced to use IE, IE users will choose MS Web services. Apple plays the same game with media formats. It's called lock-in.

    7. Re:Debian or IE to last? by Eunuchswear · · Score: 2, Insightful

      How could one forget the Hurd? Debian is the best Hurd distribution there is.

      Or did you think Debian was a Linux distro?

      --
      Watch this Heartland Institute video
  4. So next year... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    ... Debian can fsck all it wants ;)

  5. Ubuntu this and Ubuntu that by kwabbles · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's actually kind of sad that most people identify Debian solely as being "that one that Ubuntu's based on".

    --
    Just disrupt the deflector shield with a tachyon burst.
    1. Re:Ubuntu this and Ubuntu that by druke · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Anyone who really feels this way doesn't understand open source.

    2. Re:Ubuntu this and Ubuntu that by arkane1234 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Actually most base Ubuntu as "That one that's based on Debian".
      I refer to it as Red Hat on training wheels :)

      --
      -- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
    3. Re:Ubuntu this and Ubuntu that by e065c8515d206cb0e190 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Is it about understanding Open Source? Or giving credit where credit is due?

      I'm not saying the guys at Ubuntu just sit there and do nothing, but Debian deserves way more than being called "the distro Ubuntu is based on".

    4. Re:Ubuntu this and Ubuntu that by Kepesk · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's actually kind of sad that most people identify Debian solely as being "that one that Ubuntu's based on".

      Not really, I'd say that's a compliment to Debian. To create a basic system solid enough that the most popular Linux distribution is based on it? That rocks!

      --
      Help me fix my brother's injured butt!
    5. Re:Ubuntu this and Ubuntu that by kwabbles · · Score: 5, Funny

      Okay lemme make sure I have this straight...

      Premise 1:
      Being a Debian user for 15 years I'm sad to see it relegated to being only identified in the mainstream as something that a dumbed-down desktop distro is based on.

      Premise 2:
      Anyone who feels that way doesn't understand open source.

      Therefore:
      I don't understand open source.

      It's all crystal clear to me now. My eyes have been opened.

      --
      Just disrupt the deflector shield with a tachyon burst.
    6. Re:Ubuntu this and Ubuntu that by StormReaver · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's actually kind of sad that most people identify Debian solely as being "that one that Ubuntu's based on".

      Why? Debian is incapable of appealing to a mass audience. Ubuntu is a necessary extension that fills that need. Debian is exactly where its developers put it.

    7. Re:Ubuntu this and Ubuntu that by kwabbles · · Score: 3, Funny

      Did you just pose a question as a premise?

      --
      Just disrupt the deflector shield with a tachyon burst.
    8. Re:Ubuntu this and Ubuntu that by Abcd1234 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Being a Debian user for 15 years I'm sad to see it relegated to being only identified in the mainstream as something that a dumbed-down desktop distro is based on.

      As opposed to what?

      Look, my path to Linux took me through Slackware 15 years ago (wow I don't miss installing Linux from dozens of floppies) through RedHat, and then Debian. And I was happy for a while. Sure, Debian packages are decidedly archaic, but you couldn't ask for a more stable Linux distribution. Everything just seemed to work.

      And then I tried Ubuntu. Suddenly things I just assumed wouldn't work out of the box (basic crap like wireless, USB printers and mass storage devices just working and integrating with the desktop, and god knows what else) just... did. I mean, sure, I could always get Debian there eventually, with enough tinkering. But dear god, Ubuntu did all the tinkering for me! And I got a more modern package set to boot. Not to mention PPAs, which make taking on non-standard repositories dead simple.

      So, because Ubuntu took the rather rough diamond that is Debian and polished it up, it's somehow "dumbed down"? Really?

      Frankly, it seems to me there is a choice: either you run a rough distro that forces the user to roll up their sleeves and get dirty, and then you can feel all smart and superior, or you can make something that actually works for your average user, and lets us power users just fucking get on with it already, and then get labeled "dumbed down". Which is, frankly, pretty fucking stupid, but such is the world of tech geeks who feel its cool to have to manually hack files in /etc in order to get their god damned printer to just print already.

    9. Re:Ubuntu this and Ubuntu that by CrkHead · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I think you summed it up fairly well.

      As a project, Debian is most interested in Freedom and stability. Although someone coming from a *nix back ground shouldn't have much trouble, someone new to computers or coming over from one of the dark sides is likely to.

      Enter Ubuntu. Their primary interest is getting Linux on the desktop. Debian is an ideal base because it has everything, so you just need to keep current on the unstable version and put some chrome on it.

      Grey beards keep their Debian and the whipper snappers stay off the lawn.

    10. Re:Ubuntu this and Ubuntu that by kwabbles · · Score: 4, Informative

      "So, because Ubuntu took the rather rough diamond that is Debian and polished it up, it's somehow "dumbed down"? Really?"

      Why does everyone think that what Debian is trying to be is a polished up desktop OS? I hear this time and time again "Ubuntu is a polished up Debian" or "Ubuntu took Debian and finished the job" blah blah... or that Debian is somehow some unfinished rough draft of a project that needed Mark Shuttleworth to come around and complete.

      Debian is a general purpose GNU/Linux - server OS, appliance OS, embedded OS... you name it - Debian can be used for it. Ubuntu is a desktop OS. That's it - plain and simple... Ubuntu is made from the ground up with the end user in mind for a rich DESKTOP experience. It just HAPPENS to be BASED on Debian. Yes, there is a "server" version of Ubuntu (which I find silly and is a topic for another conversation) but not even that is meant to be as flexible as vanilla Debian.

      Personally I think it's silly to "roll up your sleeves and get dirty" to use Debian as your desktop OS. When I want to install an operating system on my desktop for general purpose use I get out the Ubuntu or the Fedora CD. My firewall at home? Debian. My streaming media box? Debian. My servers at work? Debian. Each distro is tailored to excel at one or a set of different jobs. Those that have a limited understanding of computers in general have a myopic view of the whole thing and expect that Linux is something for a personal computer - and that any distro that doesn't make a PC sing and dance out of the box is simply "unfinished" and "needs work". I'm sorry, but my Debian doesn't need any work or any polishing. It does perfectly well doing what it's meant to do.

      --
      Just disrupt the deflector shield with a tachyon burst.
    11. Re:Ubuntu this and Ubuntu that by Abcd1234 · · Score: 4, Informative

      I'm sorry, but my Debian doesn't need any work or any polishing. It does perfectly well doing what it's meant to do.

      I couldn't agree more, actually.

      The only reason I might consider giving Debian a shot, again, is their stability, particularly across upgrades, is largely unparalleled in any other distro, which is rather nice on a machine that you use day-to-day, but want to keep up-to-date.

    12. Re:Ubuntu this and Ubuntu that by kwabbles · · Score: 4, Funny

      Dammit, you're supposed to keep arguing with me. Now what am I supposed to do with my Monday morning at work? Parse my syslogs?

      --
      Just disrupt the deflector shield with a tachyon burst.
    13. Re:Ubuntu this and Ubuntu that by Tubal-Cain · · Score: 2, Interesting

      ...if Debian dies?

      Then many of the Debian-originated tools (apt) get spun off as independent projects. Ubuntu becomes a standalone distro (and probably chokes for a release or two). Due to the sudden influx of Debian users and developers, Ubuntu would also probably start that permanently-unstable Grumpy Groundhog idea (basically an Ubuntu sid) that they've been considering.

    14. Re:Ubuntu this and Ubuntu that by lawpoop · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Is it about understanding Open Source? Or giving credit where credit is due?

      Do you call it Debian GNU/Linux?

      --
      Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
      -- Pablo Picasso
  6. Props to Debian, father of Mepis! by darealpat · · Score: 3, Interesting

    So far as being easy to use goes, I give Mepis more marks than its more popular cousin Ubuntu. Those that have tried it will understand. And I am not a KDE fan boy, not with my fond memories of RH 7.2

    --
    For every present, there is a past
  7. apt-get install love by doublebackslash · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Debian, making installing dependencies a reflex rather than a compulsory chore. That alone would have gotten my praise. Then they also bolted on an incredibly stable and useful kernel and software stack on top of that.

    Good show! (I know I got the order wrong, but thats the order of importance to me)

    --
    md5sum /boot/vmlinuz
    d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e /boot/vmlinuz
    1. Re:apt-get install love by marsu_k · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I really, really wish people would stop comparing Apt and RPM, the actual comparison would be dpkg vs RPM. And just as pretty much nobody uses dpkg directly, the same applies to RPM. People use one of the various frontends (yum, urpmi, what have you). While at one time automatically resolving dependencies was godsend, it's nothing special now.

      (I'm quite impartial to the debate, pacman is where it's at. It would be nice to see an actual apples to apples comparison for a change though)

    2. Re:apt-get install love by jimicus · · Score: 2, Informative

      Thing is, yum and urpmi were fairly late to the game in Redhat - yum originated in YellowDog and urpmi originated in Mandrake. I went from Slakware to Redhat and - when I learned about urpmi - to Mandrake. When I went back to redhat a few years later, I couldn't believe that RedHat still couldn't automatically install dependencies in order.

  8. Damn you slashdot by Spyware23 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Is there -any- possible reason for this ./ article to link to http://digitizor.com/2010/08/16/happy-17th-birthday-debian-and-some-interesting-history/ instead of linking to the _official_ birthday page: http://thank.debian.net/ Also, like kwebbles mentioned, it's really sad you sad to bring up Ubuntu. It's Debian's birthday, you insensitive clods.

    1. Re:Damn you slashdot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Maybe because the article has useful info and is interesting to read, while the 'official page' you linked feels like it belongs on geocities in the age of the blink tag?

    2. Re:Damn you slashdot by Spyware23 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Useful info? That digitizor website included a useless "trivia" list to make the article seem bigger. Seem. Fine, if there has to be a news-post, link to the official debian.net post: http://news.debian.net/2010/08/16/happy-birthday-debian-2/

  9. Happy birthday by drunkennewfiemidget · · Score: 4, Insightful

    To the distro I keep crawling back to. I always go off searching for the next great thing, and realise debian was the great thing all along.

    And ubuntu is second rate (at best) compared to debian. Ubuntu's got severe stability problems. debian almost never fails me.

    1. Re:Happy birthday by IrquiM · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Why are you always going off to search for the next great thing if Debian is so good?

      I've dual booted myself, but only to try out different distros (like debian, ubuntu, etc) - I've never been "off to search for the next great thing". If you're happy with what you've got - stick with it. New distros tend to be either specialised in one field, or tweaked beyond useful (read ubuntu). Stick with the good old ones, that you know work, and try to help them instead! :o)

      (Personally, I'm sticking with Slackware)

      --
      This is blinging
    2. Re:Happy birthday by interval1066 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "Ubuntu's got severe stability problems."

      Such a bald-ass simple statement really requires back up. I've not had ANY stability problems, much less severe. And I've been running this distro since Feisty Fawn. The worst thing about Ubuntu that I've ever experienced is its ridiculous desktop color schemes, and they never seem to get any better, but that's easily changed.

      --
      Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
    3. Re:Happy birthday by drunkennewfiemidget · · Score: 2, Informative

      This is /. I'm all about the hyperbole.

      In all seriousness, though, there's plenty of documented issues. Many of which have bitten me or a friend/colleague:

      - Pressing the 'wireless lock' button on a coworker's netbook would kernel panic.
      - My wife's netbook would randomly crash, and on reboot have lost half its filesystem.
      - Major (recent) releases have shipped without working WPA.

      And yes, I understand many of these may be upstream's fault, or someone outside of the Ubuntu world, but these same issues didn't impact other distros.

      Ubuntu seems to put more effort into making it pretty and changing the UI than making it stable.

    4. Re:Happy birthday by mikael_j · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You should check out the Ubuntu forums after a new release, it's obvious that they tend to overlook things they shouldn't be overlooking.

      Over the years they've managed some pretty neat fuck-ups such as replacing the disk encryption system without testing if it was possible to migrate encrypted volumes (it wasn't, not without serious pains anyway) and randomly breaking all sorts of "little" things.

      And I have no idead what they've done with the networking subsystem but I'd love to know why Ubuntu is the only OS/distro I'm consistently having network issues with (if I enable IPv6 on an interface using the GUI tools it nukes the entire interface and sometimes the only thing that helps is wiping the config for that interface and either rebooting or restarting everything but the kernel). This is on several machines and networks and a problem I have not had with Debian, Slackware, FreeBSD, OS X or any other OS with IPv6 support...

      Oh, and I just loved how my Ubuntu 9.10 desktop decided that since I already had a font package it wanted to install installed when upgrading to 10.04 LTS it should deinstall the xserver-xorg-core package without telling me...

      Yes, Ubuntu has issues since it tries to stay bleeding edge and isn't nearly as concerned with stability as many more mature distros are.

      --
      Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
  10. Thank You for Debian by samoht · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you want to say thanks:

    http://thank.debian.net/

    1. Re:Thank You for Debian by Qzukk · · Score: 3, Funny

      That was the first thing I tried when I loaded the page.

      --
      If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
  11. They grow up so fast by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    When did having birthday parties for software programs become all the rage? It's almost as disturbing as how so many of these programs are now teenagers. Here's some of the drama we'll be able to look forward to over the next year:

    - Internet Explorer will get its driver's license and crash its first car, because everyone knows how unstable it is.
    - Debian will join the Army rather than go to college, as mandated by the Debian Constitution. And because it has no friends.
    - OS X will pick a fight with Firefox on the elementary school playground after Firefox steals on WebKit's lunch money.
    - Windows will be that creepy adult chaperone that hangs around at, like, every high school dance because it wants to be cool.

    1. Re:They grow up so fast by dgatwood · · Score: 3, Funny

      It's just that next year, Debian will be legal. :)

      Yeah, and then we can share images of Debian all over the internet... no, wait....

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    2. Re:They grow up so fast by AliasMarlowe · · Score: 2, Funny

      It's just that next year, Debian will be legal. :)

      Hey, I can't wait that long! Gotta fsck it fairly regularly...

      --
      Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
  12. Re:Almost by arkane1234 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Better... Windows doesn't run Linux code right.

    --
    -- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
  13. Wrong about one of those by temojen · · Score: 4, Informative

    Windows NT was first released in 1993, making it the same age as Debian. Before NT, windows was a user interface on top of DOS, not an OS on it's own (although it was doing VM as of 3.1 and networking as of 3.11, but not it's own filesystem management).

  14. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 5, Funny

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  15. DFSG by vlm · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The main advantage I got out of Debian rapidly approaching 15 years ago was the DFSG Debian Free Software Guidelines

    http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines

    That saved me from a mighty holy war being brewed up by the IT department. They tolerated it and left the engineering department alone, which worked pretty well.

    --
    "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
  16. You mean Iceweasel? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    It's at 3.0.6, and in stable (lenny).

    http://packages.debian.net/lenny/iceweasel

    HTH

  17. Happy Birthday, Manifesto! by volkerdi · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Anyone who was actually using Linux in 1993 knows the manifesto came a couple of years before anything else.

  18. Google by phrostie · · Score: 5, Funny

    What, and no custom page from Google?

    I feel unloved.

  19. Don't knock Ubuntu by rueger · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I don't entirely get all of the Ubuntu complaints.

    Over the years I tried maybe fifteen or twenty different Linux distros. (back to the days of buying boxed sets of Mandrake floppy disks!) Each time I went back to Windows because I invariably ran into some problem that I just didn't have the time to figure out and fix. You know, little things like printers, modems, and video.

    It's not that I don't like fixing things, or even learning new stuff, just that with Linux it was always so damned painful.

    Two months ago I installed Ubuntu using their little Windows installer app, and I haven't looked back. Aside from one occasion when a specific Windows program wouldn't run under WINE, I have had no reason to fire up Windows. And when I did.. well, yuck.

    You may call Ubuntu "dumbed down", but it's honestly the first distro I've seen that worked flawlessly out of the box with virtually no fiddling.

    And of course you can still fire up a terminal window and enjoy the command line.

    --
    Three Squirrels
    1. Re:Don't knock Ubuntu by bsDaemon · · Score: 2, Funny

      I once had to patch the vfat file system driver in a development kernel so that I could save my History paper to disk and take it in to school because that was easier than getting my non-postscript printer to work. Screw printers.

    2. Re:Don't knock Ubuntu by Abcd1234 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Simple: geeks like to justify their superiority complex.

      No, really. I started off in the bad old Slackware days, and you couldn't help but feel hardcore when you got your damned printer to work after fiddling with lpd and magic filters. But guess what happens as you get a little older? You stop giving a shit about that stuff. You just want to get on with it, already. Suddenly tweaking and fiddling with config files in /etc doesn't feel hardcore, it feels really fucking boring.

      So while the rest of us pick a distro that just works out of the box, and so is labeled "dumbed down" because we don't have to manually edit config files, the young geeks can go on showing off how awesome they are because they switched to Gentoo and get to fiddle with their compiler flags.

      As an aside, I still think Debian kicks ass. But no one would ever claim its a polished desktop Linux distribution (it can certainly become one with a bit of effort, but I've gotten past enjoying that kind of effort)... for a server, though, it's peerless, IMHO.

    3. Re:Don't knock Ubuntu by vlm · · Score: 2, Insightful

      But guess what happens as you get a little older? You stop giving a shit about that stuff. You just want to get on with it, already. Suddenly tweaking and fiddling with config files in /etc doesn't feel hardcore, it feels really fucking boring.

      You fix that problem at the start by by purchasing the correct hardware, not installing the correct distribution. I've been doing that since '93, its really quite easy.

      Also in the past two decades or so I've noticed that the "stuff that only runs under windows" like winmodems, winprinters, winscanners, is generally, garbage and a complete waste of time under any OS, when compared to "standardized real stuff".

      I was never able to buy and use a winmodem in the 90s, but I don't feel it was much of a loss.

      --
      "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
    4. Re:Don't knock Ubuntu by Abcd1234 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You fix that problem at the start by by purchasing the correct hardware, not installing the correct distribution. I've been doing that since '93, its really quite easy.

      Yeah, I've been attempting it since 94', and people like you have been claiming it's "really quite easy" for the last 16 years.

      Obviously step 1 is "buy supported hardware". But for years, basic wifi didn't work out of the box in most Linux distros. That had absolutely nothing to do with driver support, and everything to do with the application stack either being insufficient to the task, and the distros doing a crappy job of integrating it properly (wifi before NetworkManager == hell on earth). Similarly, printer support used to be a sore spot, not because the drivers weren't available, but because the software made it an enormous pain in the ass to install them.

      Distros like Ubuntu, focused on the user experience, finally polished this crap up (largely thanks to work by others, like RedHat (NetworkManager) and Apple (cups)), so now I don't have to manually fuck around with iwconfig or lpd in order to get a fully-functioning Linux desktop. And thank god for that, because, like I said, I'm *way* over finding that kind of thing fun/cool.

      But, of course, the uber-geeks around here would have me believe that the distro I've chosen is "dumbed down" because, god forbid, I don't *have* to mess around with the bowels of my distro in order to get basic functionality to work. Which is weird, because it strikes me that it's far more dumb to waste time fiddling around with config files, when I could be getting real work done, instead...

    5. Re:Don't knock Ubuntu by Abcd1234 · · Score: 2, Informative

      BTW, on CUPS, credit should actually go to Michael Sweet and Easy Software Products, who is the real progenitor of the product (though, like KHTML, Apple has done a good job of taking that project and building on the work of the original authors, who I hope are now very well off for their efforts).

    6. Re:Don't knock Ubuntu by Abcd1234 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      because obviously the command-line is still there and easily accessible, but it's still a dumbed down distro

      Why on earth do you equate "accessible" with "dumbed down"? It's not like those configuration files magically vanish when you install Ubuntu. If you want to go hack config files, go nuts, it's basically Debian underneath (minus upstart, these days).

      Truly I find this baffling. Apparently complex, difficult-to-use systems are good, but easy-to-use systems are "dumb"... funny, I would've thought the opposite, that any software which makes using the computer *harder than necessary* is dumb, as in poorly written. But no, inaccessibly complex software is good, and accessible software is bad.

      It's just bizarre.

  20. PS. Debian, seriously, you guys rock. by Abcd1234 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    'course, I just realized my post makes it seem like I think Debian sucks.

    Frankly, Debian kicks ass. For a server, I'd consider nothing else. I've long believed that apt is, hands down, the best package management system ever invented. And Debian has done a truly marvelous job of ensuring that upgrades Just Work... unlike Ubuntu or Redhat, I have never feared doing a full distro update on Debian. Their package quality is simply through the roof (well, minus that pesky sshd bug they introduced ;).

    Heck, I should given Debian a try again. It's been a couple years since I made the leap to Ubuntu, and it may be that Debian unstable could now fill the roll that Ubuntu fills for me today (as a modern desktop distro)... particularly given how incredibly painful Ubuntu in-place upgrades can be. OTOH, I am spoiled by the fact that Ubuntu has the nVidia blob drivers incorporated into their software repo...

  21. This from a debian user by SmallFurryCreature · · Score: 5, Funny

    Men use Gentoo. REAL Men use Linux from scratch. REALLY REAL MEN, write their own OS.

    Debian is for wussies. Ubuntu is for wussies who at least have the balls to admit they are wussies.

    --

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    You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.

  22. If they consider that, they'll consider anything. by itomato · · Score: 2, Funny

    MS would rather step over them all to where they estimate things will go rather than resign to being an late starting also-ran.

    If those guys are all occupied with WebKit, it frees MS to do something bold.

  23. Eh? Flip those.. by itomato · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Mass audiences are incapable of finding appeal in Debian. ..for good reason.

    What appeal could they find in a well organized toolbox, when all they really want is a shiny red hammer?

  24. Re:PS. Debian, seriously, you guys rock. by ffreeloader · · Score: 3, Informative

    To get the fglrx and nvidia proprietary drivers in Debian all you have to do is add "non-free" to the urls in your sources.list file. Those drivers have been available in non-free for far longer than you've been using Ubuntu.

    You're knocking Debian for what amounts to your own ignorance.

    --
    "while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude." de Tocqueville
  25. Re:PS. Debian, seriously, you guys rock. by Abcd1234 · · Score: 2, Informative

    I'm not "knocking" Debian at all. Quit being a defensive jackass.

    Thanks for the tip, when I was using Debian (which was a couple years ago), I had no need for non-free drivers, and it's unquestionable that Ubuntu integrates them into their system more directly. That said, adding another repo to apt is simple enough, so maybe it is time I test-drive unstable again (particularly since my laptop is now a few years old, and so driver support is no longer an issue).

  26. Re: Incredibly painful Ubuntu upgrades by TaoPhoenix · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This.

    I just giggled at these comments, where everyone's saying "Ubuntu just works" ... except in upgrades. It's like a fancy haircut from a stylist that just works, except you can't duplicate it the following evening for your date.

    Just updating things like Open Office and Firefox caused dependency clashes - sorry, that's totally unacceptable. I met my share of the version upgrade bugs too.

    --
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  27. Re:Eh? Flip those.. by AusIV · · Score: 2, Informative

    Well, okay, that's not true. Ubuntu has bungled the last couple upgrades to the point where I'm no longer willing to perform an in-place upgrade,

    Really? I've been an Ubuntu user for about five years now, and the last three or four releases are the only ones that haven't been bungled. I realize this is just my personal experience, but I was under the impression they were getting better.

  28. Re: Incredibly painful Ubuntu upgrades by Albatrosses · · Score: 2, Funny

    My latest upgrade went along just fine.
    [Four paragraph description of things that went wrong]

    Wow, at first I thought you were being sarcastic, but... now I'm not so sure.

  29. Whoa! by TangoMargarine · · Score: 2, Funny

    So weird to hear "insensitive clod" used around here in a context where it's actually totally true...

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