No distro diva drama here: Penguinista favourite Debian turns 20 Today Debian marks a milestone not many pieces of software last long enough to see: its 20-year anniversary. Debian has become the foundation of dozens of other Linux distros. It’s the basis of all manner of embedded systems – which means many of the uninitiated use it without knowing – and it boasts a customers list spanning …
I switched to Debian about 3 months ago, and I've been impressed with it. I didn't think I would be, but I see myself as a refugee of Fedora - I gave it so many chances, but it just changed far too much and became far too different with each release.
The article hits the nail on the head, in terms of how people get in to free software etc, and eventually find their way to Debian. Its human nature to want to be part of something, but to also have something stable. Debian offers this, and offers it well.
Happy Birthday Deb!
I often wonder why some people have a problem with others being genuinely satisfied with the decisions they've made. It's almost as if the idea that a person can be happy is somehow evil.
I just moved into a new flat. It is exactly what I want. I have never been happier.
Is there a difference between that and a user getting the distro they want?
No.
Let the man be happy.
Ahh!, because you are basically a passive aggressive type. Getting people to emote is potential leverage. The original poster went there, but you went there, planted a flag, and then down thumbed raped your way to up thumb success. I hope your flat is nice though, (honestly, it did sound nice because you said so).
It's when you start compiling your own kernels because the ones in the distro are too bloated that you know you are hooked, and you will be spending long evenings ignoring your family while you find that perfect combination of options which will give you exactly what you need and no more...
I started my computing life on RISC OS then moved to Windows 98 (but had run Windows 95 on my RiscPC's PC card). I finally left Windows after years of XP. I switched between distros (mainly OpenSUSE) for a while and then settled on Ubuntu for a few years, and then move on to Debian Testing. I love the rolling updates, I've never had to do a reinstall in the time (3 years now?) I've been running it. Debian packaging is more solid then anything else I've used. Even the build depenencies and source packaging are solid (making development quick and easy to get going). Multi arch is the best 32/64bit resolution I've come across. Debian supports lots of architectures, at home I run x86 and AMD64 and three flavors of ARM at home too (armhf, armel and Raspbian). On top of all the technical excelences, it's political entity is of considerable moral standing. It's like some crazy dream, only it's real.
Wrote :- "Debian packaging is more solid then anything else I've used."
Yes, but what some might not realise is that the Debian package system, repositories (and many of its other good features) are also available in the many Debian based distros :-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Debian-based_distributions
... most of which were born out of frustration with Debian's "political" characteristics which you mention.
"it's political entity is of considerable moral standing"
Maybe, but many trying it (as I did once) will be turned off by eg the absence of codecs for common media formats, the replacement of Firefox by Iceweasel, and other "political" issues about which they may not have strong feelings. Yes, this stuff can be installed afterwards, but it all takes time and research.
I use Mepis, one of the Debian derivative distros created specifically to cut the frustration.
I remember good old 1997 when Debian was but a babe, swaddled in nappies (ok, pull-on Pampers) and one of my friends decided that he'd abandon RedHat for this new distro.
But back then I was still a Slackware junkie and Redhat 4 was still a mess... I moved on to BSD, but you know what, lately I'm faffing about with CentOS and Ubuntu, and it's still fun.
Happy birthday, babe.
Previous commenters on this thread have already indicated, not all distros are created equal. People will argue "Debian is better than Ubuntu", Slackware is better than Fedora", or whatever.
One of the arguments I keep reading is "Windows is s**t, use Linux cos it's better, and so your life will be better". OK, but does that not just set me towards the dilemma of picking the right Linux?
If I pick the wrong one, I'll be missing something and my non-WIndows life won't be as good as it could be.
If it doesn't matter which one I pick, then why do we need all these different distros?
Given the effort that must go into maintaining all of the different distros, can't the penguintards combine their effort to make one super-duper, rule-them-all version?
Not trolling, just asking....
Which distro depends on what you are using it for. There are different distros because a server user has different needs to a desktop user who just wants something simple, whose needs are different from someone who wants a desktop where they can dig around in internals. A super-duper rule-them-all would be a jack-of-all-trades,master-of-none. Also people are arseholes and like to argue a lot.
For a desktop user who wants a simple journey away from windows I would suggest one of the *ubuntu distros - lubuntu or xubuntu for a slow machine, kubuntu or ubuntu gnome for a fast one. Try using a live disc, so you don't invest much if you don't like it.
"If I pick the wrong one, I'll be missing something and my non-WIndows life won't be as good as it could be."
Stop worrying about an optimum world at the start, that is Windows top down thinking.
Just jump in and start iterating. That is the Linux/Free Software/ bottom up way. Others have suggested practical first steps.
The tramp: I have the beard!
YACA = Yet Another Car Analogy.
What you do not get its this: "All distros are the same operating system" In the same way that all cars are cars in the end.
Some people prefers BMW, while other people prefers Audi. Other people just like a car they can tinkle with.
Other people just like to try new cars all the time, tune them up a bit then change it for another.
In the end it is all the same operating system with different degrees of conservationism (Stability).
Hmmm...that makes it sound like the Linux "marketplace" (if that's the right word) is fragmented to f***.
Is it even correct to refer to this thing called "Linux" as something you can use, i.e. "Windows vs Linux", when it should be "Windows vs Debian vs Mint vs Ubuntu vs Redhat vs.....".?
Call me old-fashioned, but the old-skule way is still the best.
1. What do you want to do with your computer?
2. What software do you need to do this?
3. What hardware/OS do you need to run this software?
If you're mainly emailing, web surfing and a little light office-ing, any of the mainstream distros will do equally well. If you're a media creator, look at AVLinux, Dream Studio, Ubuntu Studio etc. If you want a secure server, also consider the BSDs. Distrowatch is your friend here.
Most people try several distros before they commit. You can multi-boot several distros if you have a decent sized HDD. Use a different user name for each, and put /home on its own partition, and they will remain independent of each other but will be able to read(-only) the home directory of other distros. DON'T use the same user name for multiple distros unless you really know what you're doing, because the shared home directory will get filled with conflicting configuration files, causing endless grief and confusion.
There are different versions of Linux for the the same reason that there are different cars, there can never be a super-duper fits all version.
Haver fun, and don't take it too seriously, it's only a distro.
If you are interested in working on something more than just the OS, then I heartily reccommend Ubuntu. I am using it now and I am very happy with it. It is not all that much of a change from MacOSX or Windows and the new OpenOffice/Libreoffice package is more than a match for MSOffice. The only drawback that I can see about it is that I can no longer play Myst on my main computer, but then I am one of those people who get lost in the Myst Universe and stay there for days on end so you might say that not being able to run on Ubuntu is a good thing, right? It stops me from wasting all those hours on unproductive puzzle solving.
Spent a lot of time distro hopping, sampling the various flavors of Linux, a few years ago. One day I found Mint 7 and was shocked at how well done it was. Mint 7 was actually a viable desktop replacement for Windows. In those days Mint was only based on Ubuntu, though a much improved version of Ubuntu. After Mint 8, I thought I'd try Debian as both Ubuntu, and consequently Mint, were based off that. Its the only distro I use now and has put the fun back into computing for me. I like being able to totally customize my desktop and use strictly XFCE.
Happy birthday Debian!
Seems I made the opposite progression is the author would imply. I started out customizing kernels and hand selecting packages. Of course, in 1995 and Slackware (from floppies!) you kinda had to. Gentoo and several others along the way, I got to Ubuntu and ran that for quite awhile (2008-2012 or so). I got to the point that I didn't want to bother with all that any more. Why, when it just works? I moved to Mint after getting fed up with Unity, but I could see going with plain GNOME3 after using it for awhile on a few project systems. Work is almost entirely RHEL/CentOS.
I'd say an Advanced User is the one that knows how to spend time wisely. :)
I can remember a case, where full compile was a necessity. A laptop with a mobile P4, and about the best money could buy.
Everything was dog slow - all Windows versions to date, all widespread Linux distros. P4 was never good at running i386-optimized code. Every pipeline stall resulted in a looong wait for a memory fetch.
So Gentoo compiled with i686 options was pretty much the only OS to run well there.
I can do anything I want on my Linux box except gaming and I do a lot of that.
Set up Debian so I can play Far Cry 3, Skyrim, Dishonored, Metro First Light, etc. and I will move to that distro permanently instead of the dual boot I have now. Wine is OK, but not perfect so I still have Win7 for the moment.
Ah, da da da da Debian
Da da da da Debian
-----
Oh Debian, take my hand
Debian
You got me surfin' and a-Snortin'
Surfin' and a-portin'
Debian da da
da Debian
-----
Package expanse, stable elegance
Thats Debian, so I thought I'd take a chance
With Debian, Debian
Take my hand
You got me surfin' and a-Snortin'
(Oh! Oh!)
Surfin' and a-portin'
Debian da da
da da da da stays free
-----
Da da da da Debian
Da da da da Debian
-----
Debian, take my hand
Debian
You got me surfin' and a-Snortin'
Surfin' and a-portin'
Debian da da
da Debian
-----
Tried Suse Sue
Tried Fedora too
Tried ev'ry *buntu
But I knew they wouldn't do
Debian, Debian
Take my hand
Debian
Debian
You got me surfin' and a-Snortin'
Surfin' and a-portin'
Debian da da
da Debian
-----
Da da da da Debian
Da da da da Debian
Debian
Take my hand
Debian
You got me surfin' and a-Snortin'
Surfin' and a-portin'
Debian da da
da Debian
-----
ermm ... mine's the wetsuit with the surfboard
I remember about 2007 getting fed up of Windows and asking a Linux-using friend to set me up. He chose Debian, and threw me in at the deep end. Hooked up my MP3 player...wouldn't mount..had to learn about fstab, permissions, etc; installing packages, missing dependencies, etc...it was totally frustrating. Eventually moved over to Ubuntu for a while, and am now using Mint XFCE and am very happy with it. Yes, it was all very frustrating, but thoroughly educational.
For me, Debian is the Gold Standard for a workable, ethical ecosystem. I have had to use downstream distros like Ubuntu or other distros like CentOS for various reasons, but I am now moving to Debian and hope to shift everything over there.
Debian has rock-solid integrity. As the years go by and more of your work accumulates on systems, the more important this basic integrity becomes.
Right now I work on Win7 for desktop and notebook,Android for tablet, iOS for phone, Ubuntu, Windows 2008R2 and Windows Server 2003 for local servers and CentOS, Win2008R2, Win2003 and whatever mutant variants of Linux or Window is currently running on Amazon. I want to shift all of those to Debian based distros and to only use Debian stuff wherever possible.
I trust Debian. I do not trust any of the rest of them. To me, anything that cannot drop back to a vanilla Debian release is a risk and I hate being exposed like this.
Took me many slow, small steps, lots of time reading man pages and mailing lists and so on, but now it's so familiar it's like home.
Derivative distros like *buntu/mint/etc will come and go (anyone remember Knoppix?) but Debian is always there and always dependable. I don't always run it on my machines (although always on servers) but it's nice to know it's there.
Cheers, Debian, and thanks for all the awesome. Here's to another 20 years.
Whereas I started with Slackware, found rpm a better packaging medium (Around RedHat 2, IIRC) and (obviously) gravitated to CentOS once RHN went payware.
Also, RH was more System-Vy whereas Slackware was more BSD/SunOSy around the init stuff, which I felt more at home with having learnt SVR2 in depth in '84.
ARM systems ('specially the slug) got me familiar with Debian, certainly came to understand and like the philosophy, Now that CentOS 6 is a full re-install rather than an upgrade (despite remaining at 2.x kernel, whereas squeeze to wheezy is 2.x to 3.x kernel, but only needs an upgrade), the inertia keeping me on CentOS on the '86 architecture is gone. Despite being a long time RH/.rpm guy, I'm sold on Debian/.deb now. Overall, it definitely does it better - maybe even "right". Wheezy multiarch is neat, too.
Started with NetBSD on my Amiga4000 and tried Linux for the M68K when it became available in the development kernels in '98. At that time I only had two choices, Watchtower or Debian. Debian was simple enough and I really appreciated the main / contrib / non-free structure.
It also made me lazy, I found over time that I was downloading less and less .tar.gz files and instead just installing and using software, I actually started spending more time doing things on my machines rather then just prepare them to do things.
I've used SunOS/Solaris and AIX for longer as part of my job but they are proprietary and I'm at the mercy of their support processes/bug fix teams. With Debian Main I know I have access to everything, every last bit of source code and that has been useful.
So fifteen years on and multiple architectures later and it just keeps on delivering and I expect it to do so for many more to come.
"when the lure of app stores and all manner of tightly controlled development encroaches on Linux from all sides"
The only thing that encroaches on Linux are the cancers of "IP" litigation: passive-aggressive muttering about "patents" and "I own everything" copyright wankjobs like Daryl's SCO. Ok, you also have the hegemonistic/opportunistic Marshmallow Man that is Oracle.
Indeed. Linux in general and Debian in particular has had app store-like functionality since long before the smart phone market brought them to the mainstream. We call them 'software repositories'.
Open Synaptic, search for what you want, click the checkbox next to the appropriate software, click install, done. When I first moved to Debian there was no easier software installation process on any platform. The only real difference (in other words, not just cosmetic) between this basic concept and Google Play or the iTunes App Store is that those two have a payment system. With the software repositories for Debian and other Linux distros it's all FOSS, so there's no need for such a system.
I started my journey into Linux with Red Hat (which was the #1 distro at the time) then switched to Mandrake because I was thoroughly unimpressed when Fedora came along and replaced the community version of Red Hat. Then I switched from Mandrake to Debian after about six months on the recommendation of a good friend. Yes, Mandrake, not Mandriva, which should give you an idea of how long I've been running Debian. I've tried a few other distros over the years but I keep coming back to Debian. No other distro I've tried comes close for intermediate - advanced Linux users in my opinion, though I don't give it to Linux noobs (I get them set up with Mint or Zorin, depending on my mood).
As a 20 year Linux veteran and a 30+ year Unix veteran, I have to say that over the last couple of years I've come to depend on Debian as the Linux distribution that will always be there, always be dependable, and isn't going to suddenly turn itself into a bad smartphone. It's my standard now.
The only significant bug is in the name. For some reason they insist upon calling it "GNU/Linux" -- an operating system which exists only in Richard Stallman's imagination. Debian is, in reality, a Linux operating system running on the Linux kernel.
In the sense that is is such a good foundation... Or if one is so inclined as a distro all by itself.
I am going on 15 years of using it... started with red hat 4.1 Linux leaving MS Windows for good, And I will thank Intel for the heads up on the viability of Linux... At Intel CV lab 6 Jones Farm Campus, Intel Oregon
Hillsboro, OR... Linux was the future. Yes it was a task to install once long ago... Those days are gone forever now... Linux pretty much installs itself, if you give it a chance... Debian rocks
Then tried SUSE Linux for a little while and then straight up Debian.
now... I use aptosid - a Debian, SID distro variant and it does everything I want... well this says it all:
michael@Eyland0:~$ infobash -v3
Host/Kernel/OS "Eyland0" running Linux 3.10-7.slh.1-aptosid-amd64 x86_64 [ aptosid 2013-01 Ἑσπερίδες - kde-lite - (201305050307) ]
CPU Info 8x AMD FX-8120 Eight-Core 2048 KB cache flags( sse3 ht nx lm svm ) clocked at [ 1400.000 MHz ]
Debian, 20 years... nothing but growth forward... great software, the best.
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