4 ms·

Debian for server, definitely. Ubuntu for desktop, which is similar to Debian. Openwrt for devices that has limited RAM. FreeRTOS for MCUs with real-time nee

by ausjke 9y ago

Debian for server, definitely. Ubuntu for desktop, which is similar to Debian. Openwrt for devices that has limited RAM. FreeRTOS for MCUs with real-time needs. That covers the universe for me, enjoy them all.

shp0ngle 9y ago
I started installing Debian on desktop. It is far more stable than Ubuntu. And if you install the non-free Debian, there are usually no issues with wifi or graphic drivers (you need the non-free version though). There was time where Ubuntu on desktop made sense, but now Debian is just better and more stable.
- simula67 9y ago
  Has things changed ? Debian stable was too old and testing used to break something every time I updated. I moved to ArchLinux since then
  - tetraodonpuffer 9y ago
    From my perspective the mindset with Debian is that distribution packages are never going to be the super latest, but are going to usually work well. If I need something bleeding edge it's straightforward to just download the source from wherever and install it myself with stow in /usr/local, which makes it easy to remove/upgrade if needed. I anyways do pretty much everything in VMs, so package availability for my "base" system (which I mostly use only to run VMs) is not that big of a deal. If I need bleeding edge I can always spin up an arch linux VM...
  - nerdponx 9y ago
    Been running Debian with XFCE on Testing lately. No problems here.
  - eadmund 9y ago
    Debian stable has never been terribly old for several generations now. Does what you do with your computer matter? Then you probably want to consider doing it on a stable platform. Do you want to experiment? Sure thing, have fun — but be aware that you may lose data as a result. Debian stable has been an excellent platform for me for the better part of a decade. But I'm unafraid to install newer version of some software where appropriate (e.g. emacs, or graphics drivers).
  - squarefoot 9y ago
    Debian testing hardly breaks anything unless one does a blind dist-upgrade instead of upgrade. The normal "apt-get upgrade" attempts to install the latest software versions unless the process requires the removal of other software (except the older version of course) so that (newer versions bugs aside) it won't break the system. The "apt-get dist-upgrade" will attempt to install the latest version even though it could force the removal of other packages, which can completely bork the system in many ways (missing libraries, etc). When I use it I often do a normal upgrade followed by a dist-upgrade and check all packages it would uninstall before allowing it to proceed, if I do. I've burned myself multiple times before learning this:) Ironically, the "dist-upgrade" must be explicitly called on the command line, but is the default setting in Synaptic (called "smart upgrade" there). Synaptic is a GUI package manager most newbies would probably use in place of the command line, so I would expect its default settings to be more on the safe side.
- tetraodonpuffer 9y ago
  same here: see my profile for how I set up from scratch debian for desktop and debian for xen+kubernetes. I personally like to have complete control of what gets installed in my system in terms of packages, have been running debian for years and it's been serving me very well. I do think it's good to have Ubuntu to compete in the "turn key" / "new linux user" / "enterprise support" spaces, but it's good to be able to run plain debian without issues these days.
- _jal 9y ago
  That's my experience, too. I have nothing against Ubuntu, but when I've had issues with it, they're always... some Ubuntu addon to Debian, and it turns out that I don't care about whatever feature that is. So last time I had reason to reinstall the OS for the main desktop machine, I just went back to Debian. Haven't had any regrets. (All of my experiments with Docker/K8s/Terraform/etc. are running on VMs under FreeBSD/BHyve, another OS I'm solidly back to loving after being distracted by shiny objects, but that's a different story.)
  - tbrock 9y ago
    I’ve had numerous colleagues pitch Debian testing for desktop as stable has absolutely ancient packages. It’s never worked as well as Arch. This is the new stack: Desktop/Laptop: Arch Server: CentOS/Amazon Small footprint: Alpine I’ve had my Arch install for 5 years and it still works with no issue. Latest packages, runs like a dream.
    - alexktz 9y ago
      Docker makes the base OS largely irrelevant for testing in my workflows.
    - lfam 9y ago
      It's better to use Debian Unstable because Testing doesn't get timely security updates.
      - StudentStuff 9y ago
        Unstable (aka Sid) rarely lives up to its name, having ran it as my daily driver for a few years. Comparatively, the months I spent on Arch were marred by packaging issues resulting in me switching back to Debian. I want the maintainer to hold back an update and write patches when there are noteworthy regressions that hurt my workflow. The Debian package maintainers consistently act in my best interest, not that of the developer's or outside political interests. Turns out I find that really useful.
- Thaxll 9y ago
  "better and more stable." How so? I never had any issue on the desktop using Ubuntu and it has better driver support. Debian has only old packages and the only way to get new one is to use testing / unstable.
- marcosdumay 9y ago
  When I tried changing into Ubuntu on the desktop (many years ago) the packages it added on the default installation kept breaking everything. I am pretty sure that if you have a very standard machine and stay mostly focused on the GUI Ubuntu gives you a pretty good experience, but I did give up on it already.
benbristow 9y ago
Ubuntu's best on servers IMHO. Can't beat PPAs for installing stuff. It's just the easiest.
- krutzger 9y ago
  Snaps are even better, but probably not worth the extra memory usage on servers
- dozzie 9y ago
  I concur, it's very hard to beat the diversity of package retention policies of all the different PPAs. There's no other solution among the package managers that allows you to get your system to the state that you can't replicate on some other server because the versions went missing.
- stephenr 9y ago
  Well, you can. "PPAs" are just ubuntu-hosted Apt repos. I've yet to find a server-focussed package that is both not sufficiently up-to-date in the main or back ports repos and there isn't a vendor repo for it. Sure, adding a 1 line text file in `/etc/apt/sources.list.d` and a gpg keyring to `/etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d` is probably slightly more work than running `apt-add-repository`, but if that's what defines how you pick a server distro, I'd like to very much never work with you please.
  - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
    PPAs make me very nervous. They're often on Launchpad (which appears to offer credibility) but AFAIK there are no checks on them, they're private repos the owner has given access to. Sure there are some, like inkscape-dev that I've can trust without too much issue. AIUI installed packages get to run scripts with superuser privileges. This to me says "Danger Will Robinson!".
    - stephenr 9y ago
      This is kind of my view. Some are definitely operated by smart people e.g. Ondřej Surý offers his PHP packages for Ubuntu via a PPA (and via a regular apt repo for Debian). As for the packages: they're literally just regular .deb packages, which means they're installed as root, which means yes they could do anything. Of course you can also examine/extract them just like with a regular repo, but it's definitely an issue of trust for most people. I trust that e.g the Varnish project, or Percona or the aforementioned Ondřej Surý are not putting shifty shit in their packages. I can't trust JimmyB on Launchpad the same way.
raziel2p 9y ago
For the same reasons I don't run Ubuntu on a server, I won't run it on my desktop, either. Too many times my Ubuntu systems have gotten themselves into some weird state where I can't keep using it and have to reinstall from scratch. For situations where I need more modern versions of stuff, there are either third-party apt repositories, there are static binaries I can download, or I can compile them myself and install them into /opt.
11235813213455 9y ago
I love lubuntu, on my laptop

by ausjke 9y ago

shp0ngle 9y ago

I started installing Debian on desktop. It is far more stable than Ubuntu. And if you install the non-free Debian, there are usually no issues with wifi or graphic drivers (you need the non-free version though). There was time where Ubuntu on desktop made sense, but now Debian is just better and more stable.

simula67 9y ago
Has things changed ? Debian stable was too old and testing used to break something every time I updated. I moved to ArchLinux since then
- tetraodonpuffer 9y ago
  From my perspective the mindset with Debian is that distribution packages are never going to be the super latest, but are going to usually work well. If I need something bleeding edge it's straightforward to just download the source from wherever and install it myself with stow in /usr/local, which makes it easy to remove/upgrade if needed. I anyways do pretty much everything in VMs, so package availability for my "base" system (which I mostly use only to run VMs) is not that big of a deal. If I need bleeding edge I can always spin up an arch linux VM...
- nerdponx 9y ago
  Been running Debian with XFCE on Testing lately. No problems here.
- eadmund 9y ago
  Debian stable has never been terribly old for several generations now. Does what you do with your computer matter? Then you probably want to consider doing it on a stable platform. Do you want to experiment? Sure thing, have fun — but be aware that you may lose data as a result. Debian stable has been an excellent platform for me for the better part of a decade. But I'm unafraid to install newer version of some software where appropriate (e.g. emacs, or graphics drivers).
- squarefoot 9y ago
  Debian testing hardly breaks anything unless one does a blind dist-upgrade instead of upgrade. The normal "apt-get upgrade" attempts to install the latest software versions unless the process requires the removal of other software (except the older version of course) so that (newer versions bugs aside) it won't break the system. The "apt-get dist-upgrade" will attempt to install the latest version even though it could force the removal of other packages, which can completely bork the system in many ways (missing libraries, etc). When I use it I often do a normal upgrade followed by a dist-upgrade and check all packages it would uninstall before allowing it to proceed, if I do. I've burned myself multiple times before learning this:) Ironically, the "dist-upgrade" must be explicitly called on the command line, but is the default setting in Synaptic (called "smart upgrade" there). Synaptic is a GUI package manager most newbies would probably use in place of the command line, so I would expect its default settings to be more on the safe side.
tetraodonpuffer 9y ago
same here: see my profile for how I set up from scratch debian for desktop and debian for xen+kubernetes. I personally like to have complete control of what gets installed in my system in terms of packages, have been running debian for years and it's been serving me very well. I do think it's good to have Ubuntu to compete in the "turn key" / "new linux user" / "enterprise support" spaces, but it's good to be able to run plain debian without issues these days.
_jal 9y ago
That's my experience, too. I have nothing against Ubuntu, but when I've had issues with it, they're always... some Ubuntu addon to Debian, and it turns out that I don't care about whatever feature that is. So last time I had reason to reinstall the OS for the main desktop machine, I just went back to Debian. Haven't had any regrets. (All of my experiments with Docker/K8s/Terraform/etc. are running on VMs under FreeBSD/BHyve, another OS I'm solidly back to loving after being distracted by shiny objects, but that's a different story.)
- tbrock 9y ago
  I’ve had numerous colleagues pitch Debian testing for desktop as stable has absolutely ancient packages. It’s never worked as well as Arch. This is the new stack: Desktop/Laptop: Arch Server: CentOS/Amazon Small footprint: Alpine I’ve had my Arch install for 5 years and it still works with no issue. Latest packages, runs like a dream.
  - alexktz 9y ago
    Docker makes the base OS largely irrelevant for testing in my workflows.
  - lfam 9y ago
    It's better to use Debian Unstable because Testing doesn't get timely security updates.
    - StudentStuff 9y ago
      Unstable (aka Sid) rarely lives up to its name, having ran it as my daily driver for a few years. Comparatively, the months I spent on Arch were marred by packaging issues resulting in me switching back to Debian. I want the maintainer to hold back an update and write patches when there are noteworthy regressions that hurt my workflow. The Debian package maintainers consistently act in my best interest, not that of the developer's or outside political interests. Turns out I find that really useful.
Thaxll 9y ago
"better and more stable." How so? I never had any issue on the desktop using Ubuntu and it has better driver support. Debian has only old packages and the only way to get new one is to use testing / unstable.
marcosdumay 9y ago
When I tried changing into Ubuntu on the desktop (many years ago) the packages it added on the default installation kept breaking everything. I am pretty sure that if you have a very standard machine and stay mostly focused on the GUI Ubuntu gives you a pretty good experience, but I did give up on it already.

benbristow 9y ago

Ubuntu's best on servers IMHO. Can't beat PPAs for installing stuff. It's just the easiest.

krutzger 9y ago
Snaps are even better, but probably not worth the extra memory usage on servers
dozzie 9y ago
I concur, it's very hard to beat the diversity of package retention policies of all the different PPAs. There's no other solution among the package managers that allows you to get your system to the state that you can't replicate on some other server because the versions went missing.
stephenr 9y ago
Well, you can. "PPAs" are just ubuntu-hosted Apt repos. I've yet to find a server-focussed package that is both not sufficiently up-to-date in the main or back ports repos and there isn't a vendor repo for it. Sure, adding a 1 line text file in `/etc/apt/sources.list.d` and a gpg keyring to `/etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d` is probably slightly more work than running `apt-add-repository`, but if that's what defines how you pick a server distro, I'd like to very much never work with you please.
- pbhjpbhj 9y ago
  PPAs make me very nervous. They're often on Launchpad (which appears to offer credibility) but AFAIK there are no checks on them, they're private repos the owner has given access to. Sure there are some, like inkscape-dev that I've can trust without too much issue. AIUI installed packages get to run scripts with superuser privileges. This to me says "Danger Will Robinson!".
  - stephenr 9y ago
    This is kind of my view. Some are definitely operated by smart people e.g. Ondřej Surý offers his PHP packages for Ubuntu via a PPA (and via a regular apt repo for Debian). As for the packages: they're literally just regular .deb packages, which means they're installed as root, which means yes they could do anything. Of course you can also examine/extract them just like with a regular repo, but it's definitely an issue of trust for most people. I trust that e.g the Varnish project, or Percona or the aforementioned Ondřej Surý are not putting shifty shit in their packages. I can't trust JimmyB on Launchpad the same way.

raziel2p 9y ago

For the same reasons I don't run Ubuntu on a server, I won't run it on my desktop, either. Too many times my Ubuntu systems have gotten themselves into some weird state where I can't keep using it and have to reinstall from scratch. For situations where I need more modern versions of stuff, there are either third-party apt repositories, there are static binaries I can download, or I can compile them myself and install them into /opt.

11235813213455 9y ago

I love lubuntu, on my laptop