9 ms·

Debian and I'm surprised more people aren't saying so. Ubuntu or Mint, which are built on Debian do not add much value these days, IMO and Ubuntu's 6 month rel

Debian and I'm surprised more people aren't saying so. Ubuntu or Mint, which are built on Debian do not add much value these days, IMO and Ubuntu's 6 month release cycle is intolerable. If you get behind with upgrades you are screwed. Even after all these years it's hard to beat apt-get. I think a lot of people dismiss Debian as unmodern or some how less than the distros built on it but that's hardly the case. Debian "testing" has all the latest software and yet is still very stable. Many people are scared away by the "testing" release but this is what Ubuntu and Mint are based off of. I find Arch, Gentoo and many others to be a lot of work. I don't have time to spend fiddling around with the OS. Don't get me started on Fedora/CentOS/RedHat. yum/rpm is just horrible if you've used nearly anything else. I think the only reason this OS family is still alive is because RedHat managed to sell so many copies to big corps and universities. I think people still use it mainly because they were exposed to it at school or work and don't know any better.

alexkavon 10y ago
100% agree with this. Debian is stable and highly supported.
dogismycopilot 10y ago
Yum has been replaced by dnf in Fedora.
- jcoffland 10y ago
  Is it any better?
  - vurpo 10y ago
    I never had problems using yum. dnf has the same interface but works faster, and does more things (e.g. Copr/repository management and `whatprovides`) and better.
    - jcoffland 10y ago
      I've found yum to be slow and prone to breaking. Part of the problem is that CentOS packages are often far behind. EPEL is a symptom of the problem more than it is a solution. Invariably, when building software which builds easily on Debian based systems, on CentOS, I end up compiling many packages from source because either they are not available or are horribly out of date.
      - agibsonccc 10y ago
        This was solved long ago: https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Developer_Toolset/1/html/User_Guide/sect-Red_Hat_Developer_Toolset-Install.html https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Develo...
josteink 10y ago
> Even after all these years it's hard to beat apt-get. I would say Fedora's dnf has it beat quite objectively, but to each their own.
- jcoffland 10y ago
  After almost 20 years Fedora is only just catching up with where apt-get was long ago.
  - jhasse 10y ago
    DNF uses delta updates, apt-get still doesn't AFAIK.
    - BuuQu9hu 10y ago
      See debdelta
- kasabali 10y ago
  > dnf has it beat quite objectively You mean even though the slightest care was not given to reliability while coding it? https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/devel@lists.fedoraproject.org/thread/7ULAG243UNGTOSL6URGNG23GC4B6X5GB/ https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/devel@lists.fe...
  - josteink 10y ago
    Depends on your definition of reliability I guess. If I have two scripts running in parallel which both wants to install packages, using apt will cause one of the scripts to fail, because apt is already locked. dnf however will be just fine, because instead of failing it will just queue and wait for the lock to be released. There's small things like that all over which to me, as an end user, makes relying on dnf feel much safer.
    - jcoffland 10y ago
      You can not safely install two packages concurrently. apt-get's choice to refuse to run is a much simpler solution that better adheres to the KISS principal and is therefore less prone to error. You could queue apt installs of you really wanted to with a simple for loop on the command line.
beambot 10y ago
> If you get behind with upgrades you are screwed. Why? You shouldn't rely on system files for development... you probably want a proper dev environment that can later be replicated into production or staging (eg. containerization, VMs, virtualenv, etc). Just stick with Ubuntu LTS releases, and enjoy the consistent updates (eg. security) and the massive support benefits (eg. forums) associated with running one of the most popular distros. Personally, I love the consistent Ubuntu updates. Granted... I always switch to xfce for the desktop environment.
- jcoffland 10y ago
  > Why? Because if you miss three releases then you have to do three upgrades. If you setup a system and then come back to it a couple of years later and find you need to upgrade you can plan on fighting through multiple system braking upgrades. Yes I know you can mitigate this with LTS but that's a big compromise.
  - beambot 10y ago
    But it's a dev machine, right...? So you just nuke the install and then `git pull` all your key configuration files and dev environment, and then you're right back up and running. Same as if you switched to a new machine or one whose harddrive died. I still don't see the problem.
    - jcoffland 10y ago
      Reinstalling is a sorry solution. I haven't had to reinstall my dev machine in about a decade.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
      - beambot 10y ago
        Where do you buy your HDDs? You're sitting a couple standard deviations beyond MTBF.
beambot 10y ago
> If you get behind with upgrades you are screwed. Why? You shouldn't rely on system files for development... you probably want a proper dev environment that can later be replicated into production or staging (eg. containerization, VMs, virtualenv, etc.) Personally, I love the consistent Ubuntu updates. Granted... I always switch to xfce for the desktop environment.
cellularmitosis 10y ago
The issues I had whenever I strayed from Debian weren't technical deficiencies of yum, etc, but rather the choices made by other distros. Installing "vim" and unexpectedly getting some sort of "minimal" version of vim. Packages which symlink or install large binary files or log files into /etc (suddenly grepping /etc becomes problematic). In general, lots of little decisions which make me exclaim the distro equivalent of "Did anyone even play-test this?"
- mschuster91 10y ago
  > Packages which symlink or install large binary files or log files into /etc wtf? who is actually incompetent enough to do something like this?
  - cellularmitosis 10y ago
    This was something like ~8 years ago, but here's an excerpt from my notes when using Redhat: # ls -l /etc/httpd/ conf conf.d logs -> ../../var/log/httpd modules -> ../../usr/lib/httpd/modules run -> ../../var/run Reactions: * Why is 'grep -r /etc' taking so long? * Why am I seeing log entries in the output? * Why am I seeing 'permission denied' on a bunch of socket files? Debian seems to have the most respect for the FHS. http://www.pathname.com/fhs/ http://www.pathname.com/fhs/
    - cellularmitosis 10y ago
      A few more, from my notes: These were the default permissions of the apache log dir: # ls -ld /var/log/httpd/ drwx------ 2 root root 4096 Jan 18 12:09 /var/log/httpd/ I guess their expectation is that only root should ever need to read a log file? Contrast this with Debian, which gives read access to admins: $ ls -ld /var/log/apache2 drwxr-x--- 2 root adm 4096 Jan 16 06:25 /var/log/apache2 Redhat also decided to stick wsgi sockets into the log dir. If you try to run a wsgi process as anyone other than root, you get a permissions error: (13)Permission denied: mod_wsgi (pid=31431): Unable to connect to WSGI daemon process 'bob' on '/etc/httpd/logs/wsgi.1965.3.1.sock' after multiple attempts. To fix this problem, you have to tell wsgi to stick its socket files somewhere more reasonable, like /var/run (which is what Debian does by default). When you look up the modwsgi "Common Problems" page, the very first entry describes exactly this issue... https://code.google.com/archive/p/modwsgi/wikis/ConfigurationIssues.wiki https://code.google.com/archive/p/modwsgi/wikis/Configuratio... 'cfdisk' was removed from the distro because it was "a pile of junk". Really? That's funny -- I've used it to create dozens of Debian partitions and never had a problem. https://partner-bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=53061 https://partner-bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=53061
vacri 10y ago
I use debian but I'm not sure I'd recommend it for devs who don't want to fiddle with their desktop. Stable is great for servers and simple desktop computing, but is too stale for developers. Testing and Sid are both rolling updates, so if you don't keep updated, things can break (or more usually, change in workflow) sometimes when you do update. Ubuntu and Mint are snapshots of these rolling setups, so they stay more consistent over time. If you don't like fiddling with your OS once you get set up, then you should be using some sort of LTS distro like Ubuntu or perhaps a BSD. Things like debian, arch, and fedora require a modicum of maintenance (not much, but it's there). If you don't mind (or like!) fiddling, then a rolling release distro is best.
- _callcc 10y ago
  Having spent years on debian, and having run stable and sid, the only really sustainable arrangement is to use stable+backports. Don't run sid! Gradually your system will become a mess and you'll end up doing a reinstall. If you need a library that isn't in backports, just compile from source and install to /usr/local, it's not hard!
  - vacri 10y ago
    Datapoint to support you: this conversation reminded me to do an update on this debian sid laptop, which is a couple of months un-updated. about a gig of downloaded updates... and I came back to my lockscreen which had a whole new look, and my desktop wallpaper had changed (I think I was just using the default before, so understandable). It's fine because I understand what Sid is about and this is to be expected, but I wouldn't suggest this to a naive user. And since Testing gets these changes in short order, I'd stay away from that as well if the user isn't comfortable fiddling. So yes, stable + backports, unless you're comfortable with change/fiddling (same with any rolling distro).
tornadoboy55 10y ago
> Debian and I'm surprised more people aren't saying so. Ubuntu or Mint, which are built on Debian do not add much value these days, IMO and Ubuntu's 6 month release cycle is intolerable. If you get behind with upgrades you are screwed. Ever tried to install Debian on a Macbook without an Ethernet-to-USB cable? I take it not, because then you would know how completely retarded it is that you need a second USB stick with the broadcom-wl driver on it to do a proper install. Debian's 'free software' zealotry makes for a horrible UX. Edit: and here come the 'free software' zealots. Keep downvoting, but everyone out of your echo chamber can see how rabidly sticking to ideology completely destroys usability.
- jcoffland 10y ago
  Actually, one of my main machines is a Macbook running Debian. Works great. Admittedly, I had a few driver issues in the beginning but that is common with cutting edge hardware with any OS that was not shipped with the hardware. Now I'm running stock Debian with no issues.
- diegoprzl 10y ago
  You can use these images. https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware/ https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-in...
eikenberry 10y ago
I agree that Debian is a great developer platform, I use it myself. But as a note on the Ubuntu's 6 month cycle, it is easy to just ignore it and only use the LTS releases and upgrade every 2 years. This makes it very similar to Debian stable in release cadence and the LTS releases tend to be of better quality.
richmattes 10y ago
> Don't get me started on Fedora/CentOS/RedHat. yum/rpm is just horrible if you've used nearly anything else. Your experience may support such a statement, but without any context it doesn't really help the question at hand. Sharing specific criticisms of rpm-based distributions or rpm package managers would go a lot further towards arguing why they would be a poor choice for a development laptop. > I think the only reason this OS family is still alive is because RedHat managed to sell so many copies to big corps and universities. I think people still use it mainly because they were exposed to it at school or work and don't know any better. Do you really think there are no situations where running Red Hat/CentOS or Fedora would be a suitable choice?
- josteink 10y ago
  > Do you really think there are no situations where running Red Hat/CentOS or Fedora would be a suitable choice? Fedora is IMO a great desktop distro, but for some reason consistently underrated in the wider community.
AlexAMEEE 10y ago
> I find Arch, Gentoo and many others to be a lot of work. I don't have time to spend fiddling around with the OS. I agree, first install was boring and confusing. I installed it once and didn't touch it since then, haven't touched it for 6 years, it's still running. In fact that's the last time I installed an OS. edit: I'm running Arch.

alexkavon 10y ago

100% agree with this. Debian is stable and highly supported.

dogismycopilot 10y ago

Yum has been replaced by dnf in Fedora.

jcoffland 10y ago
Is it any better?
- vurpo 10y ago
  I never had problems using yum. dnf has the same interface but works faster, and does more things (e.g. Copr/repository management and `whatprovides`) and better.
  - jcoffland 10y ago
    I've found yum to be slow and prone to breaking. Part of the problem is that CentOS packages are often far behind. EPEL is a symptom of the problem more than it is a solution. Invariably, when building software which builds easily on Debian based systems, on CentOS, I end up compiling many packages from source because either they are not available or are horribly out of date.
    - agibsonccc 10y ago
      This was solved long ago: https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Developer_Toolset/1/html/User_Guide/sect-Red_Hat_Developer_Toolset-Install.html https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Develo...

josteink 10y ago

> Even after all these years it's hard to beat apt-get. I would say Fedora's dnf has it beat quite objectively, but to each their own.

jcoffland 10y ago
After almost 20 years Fedora is only just catching up with where apt-get was long ago.
- jhasse 10y ago
  DNF uses delta updates, apt-get still doesn't AFAIK.
  - BuuQu9hu 10y ago
    See debdelta
kasabali 10y ago
> dnf has it beat quite objectively You mean even though the slightest care was not given to reliability while coding it? https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/devel@lists.fedoraproject.org/thread/7ULAG243UNGTOSL6URGNG23GC4B6X5GB/ https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/devel@lists.fe...
- josteink 10y ago
  Depends on your definition of reliability I guess. If I have two scripts running in parallel which both wants to install packages, using apt will cause one of the scripts to fail, because apt is already locked. dnf however will be just fine, because instead of failing it will just queue and wait for the lock to be released. There's small things like that all over which to me, as an end user, makes relying on dnf feel much safer.
  - jcoffland 10y ago
    You can not safely install two packages concurrently. apt-get's choice to refuse to run is a much simpler solution that better adheres to the KISS principal and is therefore less prone to error. You could queue apt installs of you really wanted to with a simple for loop on the command line.

beambot 10y ago

> If you get behind with upgrades you are screwed. Why? You shouldn't rely on system files for development... you probably want a proper dev environment that can later be replicated into production or staging (eg. containerization, VMs, virtualenv, etc). Just stick with Ubuntu LTS releases, and enjoy the consistent updates (eg. security) and the massive support benefits (eg. forums) associated with running one of the most popular distros. Personally, I love the consistent Ubuntu updates. Granted... I always switch to xfce for the desktop environment.

jcoffland 10y ago
> Why? Because if you miss three releases then you have to do three upgrades. If you setup a system and then come back to it a couple of years later and find you need to upgrade you can plan on fighting through multiple system braking upgrades. Yes I know you can mitigate this with LTS but that's a big compromise.
- beambot 10y ago
  But it's a dev machine, right...? So you just nuke the install and then `git pull` all your key configuration files and dev environment, and then you're right back up and running. Same as if you switched to a new machine or one whose harddrive died. I still don't see the problem.
  - jcoffland 10y ago
    Reinstalling is a sorry solution. I haven't had to reinstall my dev machine in about a decade.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - beambot 10y ago
      Where do you buy your HDDs? You're sitting a couple standard deviations beyond MTBF.

beambot 10y ago

cellularmitosis 10y ago

The issues I had whenever I strayed from Debian weren't technical deficiencies of yum, etc, but rather the choices made by other distros. Installing "vim" and unexpectedly getting some sort of "minimal" version of vim. Packages which symlink or install large binary files or log files into /etc (suddenly grepping /etc becomes problematic). In general, lots of little decisions which make me exclaim the distro equivalent of "Did anyone even play-test this?"

mschuster91 10y ago
> Packages which symlink or install large binary files or log files into /etc wtf? who is actually incompetent enough to do something like this?
- cellularmitosis 10y ago
  This was something like ~8 years ago, but here's an excerpt from my notes when using Redhat: # ls -l /etc/httpd/ conf conf.d logs -> ../../var/log/httpd modules -> ../../usr/lib/httpd/modules run -> ../../var/run Reactions: * Why is 'grep -r /etc' taking so long? * Why am I seeing log entries in the output? * Why am I seeing 'permission denied' on a bunch of socket files? Debian seems to have the most respect for the FHS. http://www.pathname.com/fhs/ http://www.pathname.com/fhs/
  - cellularmitosis 10y ago
    A few more, from my notes: These were the default permissions of the apache log dir: # ls -ld /var/log/httpd/ drwx------ 2 root root 4096 Jan 18 12:09 /var/log/httpd/ I guess their expectation is that only root should ever need to read a log file? Contrast this with Debian, which gives read access to admins: $ ls -ld /var/log/apache2 drwxr-x--- 2 root adm 4096 Jan 16 06:25 /var/log/apache2 Redhat also decided to stick wsgi sockets into the log dir. If you try to run a wsgi process as anyone other than root, you get a permissions error: (13)Permission denied: mod_wsgi (pid=31431): Unable to connect to WSGI daemon process 'bob' on '/etc/httpd/logs/wsgi.1965.3.1.sock' after multiple attempts. To fix this problem, you have to tell wsgi to stick its socket files somewhere more reasonable, like /var/run (which is what Debian does by default). When you look up the modwsgi "Common Problems" page, the very first entry describes exactly this issue... https://code.google.com/archive/p/modwsgi/wikis/ConfigurationIssues.wiki https://code.google.com/archive/p/modwsgi/wikis/Configuratio... 'cfdisk' was removed from the distro because it was "a pile of junk". Really? That's funny -- I've used it to create dozens of Debian partitions and never had a problem. https://partner-bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=53061 https://partner-bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=53061

vacri 10y ago

I use debian but I'm not sure I'd recommend it for devs who don't want to fiddle with their desktop. Stable is great for servers and simple desktop computing, but is too stale for developers. Testing and Sid are both rolling updates, so if you don't keep updated, things can break (or more usually, change in workflow) sometimes when you do update. Ubuntu and Mint are snapshots of these rolling setups, so they stay more consistent over time. If you don't like fiddling with your OS once you get set up, then you should be using some sort of LTS distro like Ubuntu or perhaps a BSD. Things like debian, arch, and fedora require a modicum of maintenance (not much, but it's there). If you don't mind (or like!) fiddling, then a rolling release distro is best.

_callcc 10y ago
Having spent years on debian, and having run stable and sid, the only really sustainable arrangement is to use stable+backports. Don't run sid! Gradually your system will become a mess and you'll end up doing a reinstall. If you need a library that isn't in backports, just compile from source and install to /usr/local, it's not hard!
- vacri 10y ago
  Datapoint to support you: this conversation reminded me to do an update on this debian sid laptop, which is a couple of months un-updated. about a gig of downloaded updates... and I came back to my lockscreen which had a whole new look, and my desktop wallpaper had changed (I think I was just using the default before, so understandable). It's fine because I understand what Sid is about and this is to be expected, but I wouldn't suggest this to a naive user. And since Testing gets these changes in short order, I'd stay away from that as well if the user isn't comfortable fiddling. So yes, stable + backports, unless you're comfortable with change/fiddling (same with any rolling distro).

tornadoboy55 10y ago

> Debian and I'm surprised more people aren't saying so. Ubuntu or Mint, which are built on Debian do not add much value these days, IMO and Ubuntu's 6 month release cycle is intolerable. If you get behind with upgrades you are screwed. Ever tried to install Debian on a Macbook without an Ethernet-to-USB cable? I take it not, because then you would know how completely retarded it is that you need a second USB stick with the broadcom-wl driver on it to do a proper install. Debian's 'free software' zealotry makes for a horrible UX. Edit: and here come the 'free software' zealots. Keep downvoting, but everyone out of your echo chamber can see how rabidly sticking to ideology completely destroys usability.

jcoffland 10y ago
Actually, one of my main machines is a Macbook running Debian. Works great. Admittedly, I had a few driver issues in the beginning but that is common with cutting edge hardware with any OS that was not shipped with the hardware. Now I'm running stock Debian with no issues.
diegoprzl 10y ago
You can use these images. https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware/ https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-in...

eikenberry 10y ago

I agree that Debian is a great developer platform, I use it myself. But as a note on the Ubuntu's 6 month cycle, it is easy to just ignore it and only use the LTS releases and upgrade every 2 years. This makes it very similar to Debian stable in release cadence and the LTS releases tend to be of better quality.

richmattes 10y ago

> Don't get me started on Fedora/CentOS/RedHat. yum/rpm is just horrible if you've used nearly anything else. Your experience may support such a statement, but without any context it doesn't really help the question at hand. Sharing specific criticisms of rpm-based distributions or rpm package managers would go a lot further towards arguing why they would be a poor choice for a development laptop. > I think the only reason this OS family is still alive is because RedHat managed to sell so many copies to big corps and universities. I think people still use it mainly because they were exposed to it at school or work and don't know any better. Do you really think there are no situations where running Red Hat/CentOS or Fedora would be a suitable choice?

josteink 10y ago
> Do you really think there are no situations where running Red Hat/CentOS or Fedora would be a suitable choice? Fedora is IMO a great desktop distro, but for some reason consistently underrated in the wider community.

AlexAMEEE 10y ago

> I find Arch, Gentoo and many others to be a lot of work. I don't have time to spend fiddling around with the OS. I agree, first install was boring and confusing. I installed it once and didn't touch it since then, haven't touched it for 6 years, it's still running. In fact that's the last time I installed an OS. edit: I'm running Arch.