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Debian is still considerably more solid. However, improvements and software development has outpaced the Debian release cycle. In order to be "competitive" fo

by ismarc 17y ago

Debian is still considerably more solid. However, improvements and software development has outpaced the Debian release cycle. In order to be "competitive" for what a large number of people want on the desktop side, unstable or testing are the repo's they should be pulling from rather than stable. However, unstable and testing are exactly that, unstable and testing, and it can be pretty frustrating for unfamiliar users to have to deal with kinks that haven't been worked out yet.

nearestneighbor 17y ago
I didn't do any statistical survey of thousands of users, but I am using Debian5 and Ubuntu8.04. The former feels and acts considerably more broken, in my experience. This is in addition to being more pain to install. Just my $0.02.
- ismarc 17y ago
  The way Debian manages it, only bugfixes are added once something hit's "stable" (current Debian 5). This means that drivers and new versions of applications are typically frozen except for bug patches only. Debian 5 was released a little over a year ago, leading to the software being outdated by standard desktop/consumer use compared to the number of improvements and bugs fixed in the mean time (most applications provide feature+bug releases which are not added to Debian once it hits stable). For servers, this is reliable and actually wonderful to deal with. For desktop/laptop systems, it can be frustrating because the code exists, and it should be nice, easy and non-broken for applications and drivers, but in reality it's not, because the release is behind. Ubuntu's goal is to have a much quicker release cycle to keep this from happening, but in the mean time never get a system that's really 100% stable and usable. Ubuntu also does some weird crazy hacks to get things to appear smooth to the user, when in reality they have pre-programmed guesses you can't override. So if it doesn't work, the only recovery is seasoned Linux experience. Debian, on the other hand, gives a large number of options making the installation not seem as smooth, but is recoverable with quick Google searches or reading of the explanations.
  - nearestneighbor 17y ago
    I know all this, as I've been using Debian/Ubuntu for years, but I think that far fewer people are using Debian now than Ubuntu, resulting in less testing. Developers probably migrated as well. People vote with their feet.

by ismarc 17y ago

nearestneighbor 17y ago

I didn't do any statistical survey of thousands of users, but I am using Debian5 and Ubuntu8.04. The former feels and acts considerably more broken, in my experience. This is in addition to being more pain to install. Just my $0.02.

ismarc 17y ago
The way Debian manages it, only bugfixes are added once something hit's "stable" (current Debian 5). This means that drivers and new versions of applications are typically frozen except for bug patches only. Debian 5 was released a little over a year ago, leading to the software being outdated by standard desktop/consumer use compared to the number of improvements and bugs fixed in the mean time (most applications provide feature+bug releases which are not added to Debian once it hits stable). For servers, this is reliable and actually wonderful to deal with. For desktop/laptop systems, it can be frustrating because the code exists, and it should be nice, easy and non-broken for applications and drivers, but in reality it's not, because the release is behind. Ubuntu's goal is to have a much quicker release cycle to keep this from happening, but in the mean time never get a system that's really 100% stable and usable. Ubuntu also does some weird crazy hacks to get things to appear smooth to the user, when in reality they have pre-programmed guesses you can't override. So if it doesn't work, the only recovery is seasoned Linux experience. Debian, on the other hand, gives a large number of options making the installation not seem as smooth, but is recoverable with quick Google searches or reading of the explanations.
- nearestneighbor 17y ago
  I know all this, as I've been using Debian/Ubuntu for years, but I think that far fewer people are using Debian now than Ubuntu, resulting in less testing. Developers probably migrated as well. People vote with their feet.