4 ms·

Unity was never the main reason people chose to use Ubuntu -- it was always (well, from when I first heard about it until I lost interest (5 years ago)) the cla

by Jedd 9y ago

Unity was never the main reason people chose to use Ubuntu -- it was always (well, from when I first heard about it until I lost interest (5 years ago)) the claim that Ubuntu is easier to install than Debian. I never understood the fixation about ease of installing, as that's something I either did once every few years on custom hardware, or had automated already using a CFM. For stuff I installed manually (laptops, occasional desktop rebuilds) partitioning was always the thing that gave me the most pause - and a graphical installer vs text installer didn't really impact that process. Picking a new hostname wasn't any easier with a GUI than a text interface either. The common claim was that Ubuntu had have better X, init (upstart), installer, and maybe some more recent exotic drivers -- but I was hard-pressed to identify the differentiating factors from Debian testing (what most of my friends & family were on, at my behest).

Dayshine 9y ago
>I never understood the fixation about ease of installing The only time I use linux is when I need a linux VM for something. This happens maybe 2/3 times a year, and I can never remember all the random linux specific installation stuff. Ubuntu goes into enough detail that I don't need to google it, Debian doesn't. My fixation is because I don't care about what version of linux I'm using, I'm not going to be using it for much, I just need a linux kernel and a reasonable package manager.
- Jedd 9y ago
  Are you re-installing, or re-starting, a VM for this? If you're re-installing from scratch each time you're possibly doing that wrong. An installation from scratch, in any case, should only ask you hostname, domain name, maybe wifi details (probably not for a VM), partitioning preference, and package / function (set of packages) --- none of this stuff benefits from a flashy / GUI installer. > ... I just need a linux kernel and a reasonable package manager. That last bit - that's kind of my point.
  - isostatic 9y ago
    The only graphical installed I've seen was the corporate 'build' of redhat, a 65 page mammouth document that talked about 'disabling telnet'. WTF? Why the hell is telnetd even on the machine? They also had X on there -- on a frickin server. That's when I spent some time doing an ubuntu build, which even as of 16.04 is ncurses based installer. Boot from pxe, give an IP address/gateway/dns/hostname etc, approve the automatic partitioning selection, select which support area looks after the machine (for user generation, monitoring, etc), and that's it. Everything gets the same base install, including things like active directory based logons (with ssh keys for those who want them), automatically adds itself to nagios. Build a dev installation (which you select form pxelinux) and auto patching gets enabled, and syslogs get fired off the the right location. On a VM this can of course be passed as part of the creation process, so it just take 5 minutes to build from scratch. When it comes to building on real hardware it's just a matter of typing the stuff into the boxes then going and making a cup of tea. After the base install is on, you can then either apply an ansible script to do various package installs, or do it old-skool with apt-get install $package. It's entirely possible that debian testing may work, however from a corporate signoff (and when you've got nearly 2,000 of these machines installed you need that) saying you're basing the company on 'Ubuntu LTS' is far better than basing it on "Debian Testing". We've run this way for over a decade over 6 continents, it just works.
  - Dayshine 9y ago
    >Are you re-installing, or re-starting, a VM for this? Yes, of course I am, as an amateur in linux it would be reckless for me reuse an existing linux installation in a different context. The only way I can safely re-use is docker. >An installation from scratch, in any case, should only ask you hostname, domain name Domain name has already lost me, I'm not a website, why do I need a domain? :) In practice, you're usually asked about root, usernames, home folders, etc, too. >none of this stuff benefits from a flashy / GUI installer No it doesn't need a flashy installer, but I'm equally talking about the Ubuntu Server edition's text installer. I'm not sure if you're talking about GUI vs CLI or "graphical" vs "text-based oldschool GUI". I would say totally vanilla CLI installers absolutely don't explain things well.
    - 9y ago
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 9y ago
  I honestly don't know what you're talking about with "random linux specific installation stuff". Installation of Linux hasn't really been any different from Windows since the early aughties as far as I can tell. Select keyboard layout, provide hostname, just let the partitioner use the whole disk automatically, configure the network, etc. As someone who frequently hates on Desktop Linux, I agree with the sentiment that the fixation over ease of installing is pretty silly. Only a few distros in recent memory have anything remotely difficult about their installation process, and it's usually that they don't bother with any wizards and just make you do everything by hand from the shell, but those were meant for experts anyway.
  - collyw 9y ago
    I would really like to run Arch, but last time I checked it was a manual process (so I am on Majaro). The docs are really good. I am expert enough to get a lot of benefit from that amount of detail, but not expert enough to be bothered with the manual install process. One thing that gets me is ~12 years ago I used to install distros all the time. There was a semi standard way to partition your drive, / home and swap. Now I look at the partitions that are produced and a lot of the time I have no idea what is going on. And please stop moving the bloody usb drive mount location about.
    - nobleach 9y ago
      I feel the same. 12-20 years ago, I was installing Linux distros (and NetBSD, FreeBSD, OpenBSD...) multiple times in a week. It was such a wonderful playground. As a software developer, now days, I just want something to work without fiddling with it for days. That said, I just installed Arch again a week or so ago. I have 2 observations: 1. Getting it bootstrapped and running is downright annoying. I see little value in it other than teaching someone what an installer _would_ do for them. Do you know how to chroot? mkinitrd? fdisk? install a bootloader? ensure that you have the right drivers/modules to run your WiFi chipset? manually configure everything??? The end product _does_ give you a feeling of accomplishment... but, I'm still not sure it's worth the cost. 2. ArchLinux docs are about the best I've seen. Kudos to the community for doing such a fine job.
    - 9y ago
gnode 9y ago
For people who have little / no experience with Linux, an easy low-expertise required install makes all the difference.
- freehunter 9y ago
  Yup. If you can't get it installed, you can never try it, which means you can never be wowed and never switch to it full time. Installing Linux used to be a huge problem, and that's why Ubuntu became popular. Other distros caught up, but it was really Ubuntu that pushed it.
  - collyw 9y ago
    To be fair there were other distros with good installers, where Ubuntu shone was with drivers and non free packages. Though I seem to remember installing scripts to install mp3 decoders, dvd readers and flash plugins all in one go.
- Jedd 9y ago
  This may be the case, but I expect it applies for a tiny percentage of (potential) users. For a long time, anyone interested in dipping their toe into GNU/Linux would either use a live CD (Knoppix was huge) or they'd be encouraged by someone that would assist them. At the risk of sounding dismissive, I'd suggest if someone couldn't summon the patience to follow a fairly straightforward keyboard/location/pick-a-host-name/yeah-use-my-whole-disk sequence of steps, then actually using a GNU/Linux operating system for more than a few days was probably not on the cards. I'm not suggesting it was ever an intentional gating process, but it probably did help to save some people from being even more frustrated.
ebiester 9y ago
I went with it because if a project had binaries at all, there was likely a .deb tested with ubuntu. If there were drivers for linux, they were likely tested against ubuntu. Ease of installation is rarely talking about the install screen; it's talking about everything just working without having to dig around the internet, and installation is a good proxy for that.
- Jedd 8y ago
  > I went with it because if a project had binaries at all, there was likely a .deb tested with ubuntu. Given that each release of Ubuntu starts as a fresh fork from Debian's testing branch, this is not a compelling case for Ubuntu over Debian. > If there were drivers for linux, they were likely tested against ubuntu. As above, and it doesn't really matter if you meant drivers for Linux (the kernel), or GNU/Linux (a distro). I've never heard of any drivers that work on Debian but not on Ubuntu, or vice versa. > Ease of installation is rarely talking about the install screen; it's talking about everything just working without having to dig around the internet, and installation is a good proxy for that. When people talk about the ease of installation, they are almost definitely talking about the ease of installation. "Just works" is a useful phrase to describe a range of (other) user experiences, but again it's not clear how Ubuntu has (and arguably had) any significant advantages over Debian.
skocznymroczny 9y ago
Big thing about distros like Ubuntu and Linux Mint is that they don't hide the "non-free" drivers and software from you, and actively ask you to install them during installation process or initial setup. Meanwhile in other distros, I imagine Debian too, it would probably require adding some software sources through apt, which is beyond casual PC user already.
simion314 9y ago
You get more then a basic install, like in Arch you had to search then read the wiki then install packages from AUR(not a safe repo of scripts) to get good looking fonts. So in Ubuntu fonts just work on some other distros you need to do extra work to get better looking fonts, get flash, get codecs, get proprietary drivers. There is a very good reason Ubuntu got popular and it is not because the installer look good.
FrozenVoid 9y ago
When people say "easy to install" they mean easier to install and configure to their environment. Providing intuitive interfaces and making everything more automated. For example my 'hostname' was automatically set to motherboard model during install.
choward 9y ago
> CFM What is that? Pretty hard to search for.
- Jedd 9y ago
  Whoops, a bit dated abbreviation. Sorry. I usually spell things out as I appreciate this can be annoying. Configuration Management. The f was often shown as lowercase, as Cf is short for Configuration (don't look for a middle word :) No one knows why.

by Jedd 9y ago

Dayshine 9y ago

>I never understood the fixation about ease of installing The only time I use linux is when I need a linux VM for something. This happens maybe 2/3 times a year, and I can never remember all the random linux specific installation stuff. Ubuntu goes into enough detail that I don't need to google it, Debian doesn't. My fixation is because I don't care about what version of linux I'm using, I'm not going to be using it for much, I just need a linux kernel and a reasonable package manager.

Jedd 9y ago
Are you re-installing, or re-starting, a VM for this? If you're re-installing from scratch each time you're possibly doing that wrong. An installation from scratch, in any case, should only ask you hostname, domain name, maybe wifi details (probably not for a VM), partitioning preference, and package / function (set of packages) --- none of this stuff benefits from a flashy / GUI installer. > ... I just need a linux kernel and a reasonable package manager. That last bit - that's kind of my point.
- isostatic 9y ago
  The only graphical installed I've seen was the corporate 'build' of redhat, a 65 page mammouth document that talked about 'disabling telnet'. WTF? Why the hell is telnetd even on the machine? They also had X on there -- on a frickin server. That's when I spent some time doing an ubuntu build, which even as of 16.04 is ncurses based installer. Boot from pxe, give an IP address/gateway/dns/hostname etc, approve the automatic partitioning selection, select which support area looks after the machine (for user generation, monitoring, etc), and that's it. Everything gets the same base install, including things like active directory based logons (with ssh keys for those who want them), automatically adds itself to nagios. Build a dev installation (which you select form pxelinux) and auto patching gets enabled, and syslogs get fired off the the right location. On a VM this can of course be passed as part of the creation process, so it just take 5 minutes to build from scratch. When it comes to building on real hardware it's just a matter of typing the stuff into the boxes then going and making a cup of tea. After the base install is on, you can then either apply an ansible script to do various package installs, or do it old-skool with apt-get install $package. It's entirely possible that debian testing may work, however from a corporate signoff (and when you've got nearly 2,000 of these machines installed you need that) saying you're basing the company on 'Ubuntu LTS' is far better than basing it on "Debian Testing". We've run this way for over a decade over 6 continents, it just works.
- Dayshine 9y ago
  >Are you re-installing, or re-starting, a VM for this? Yes, of course I am, as an amateur in linux it would be reckless for me reuse an existing linux installation in a different context. The only way I can safely re-use is docker. >An installation from scratch, in any case, should only ask you hostname, domain name Domain name has already lost me, I'm not a website, why do I need a domain? :) In practice, you're usually asked about root, usernames, home folders, etc, too. >none of this stuff benefits from a flashy / GUI installer No it doesn't need a flashy installer, but I'm equally talking about the Ubuntu Server edition's text installer. I'm not sure if you're talking about GUI vs CLI or "graphical" vs "text-based oldschool GUI". I would say totally vanilla CLI installers absolutely don't explain things well.
  - 9y ago
AnIdiotOnTheNet 9y ago
I honestly don't know what you're talking about with "random linux specific installation stuff". Installation of Linux hasn't really been any different from Windows since the early aughties as far as I can tell. Select keyboard layout, provide hostname, just let the partitioner use the whole disk automatically, configure the network, etc. As someone who frequently hates on Desktop Linux, I agree with the sentiment that the fixation over ease of installing is pretty silly. Only a few distros in recent memory have anything remotely difficult about their installation process, and it's usually that they don't bother with any wizards and just make you do everything by hand from the shell, but those were meant for experts anyway.
- collyw 9y ago
  I would really like to run Arch, but last time I checked it was a manual process (so I am on Majaro). The docs are really good. I am expert enough to get a lot of benefit from that amount of detail, but not expert enough to be bothered with the manual install process. One thing that gets me is ~12 years ago I used to install distros all the time. There was a semi standard way to partition your drive, / home and swap. Now I look at the partitions that are produced and a lot of the time I have no idea what is going on. And please stop moving the bloody usb drive mount location about.
  - nobleach 9y ago
    I feel the same. 12-20 years ago, I was installing Linux distros (and NetBSD, FreeBSD, OpenBSD...) multiple times in a week. It was such a wonderful playground. As a software developer, now days, I just want something to work without fiddling with it for days. That said, I just installed Arch again a week or so ago. I have 2 observations: 1. Getting it bootstrapped and running is downright annoying. I see little value in it other than teaching someone what an installer _would_ do for them. Do you know how to chroot? mkinitrd? fdisk? install a bootloader? ensure that you have the right drivers/modules to run your WiFi chipset? manually configure everything??? The end product _does_ give you a feeling of accomplishment... but, I'm still not sure it's worth the cost. 2. ArchLinux docs are about the best I've seen. Kudos to the community for doing such a fine job.
  - 9y ago

gnode 9y ago

For people who have little / no experience with Linux, an easy low-expertise required install makes all the difference.

freehunter 9y ago
Yup. If you can't get it installed, you can never try it, which means you can never be wowed and never switch to it full time. Installing Linux used to be a huge problem, and that's why Ubuntu became popular. Other distros caught up, but it was really Ubuntu that pushed it.
- collyw 9y ago
  To be fair there were other distros with good installers, where Ubuntu shone was with drivers and non free packages. Though I seem to remember installing scripts to install mp3 decoders, dvd readers and flash plugins all in one go.
Jedd 9y ago
This may be the case, but I expect it applies for a tiny percentage of (potential) users. For a long time, anyone interested in dipping their toe into GNU/Linux would either use a live CD (Knoppix was huge) or they'd be encouraged by someone that would assist them. At the risk of sounding dismissive, I'd suggest if someone couldn't summon the patience to follow a fairly straightforward keyboard/location/pick-a-host-name/yeah-use-my-whole-disk sequence of steps, then actually using a GNU/Linux operating system for more than a few days was probably not on the cards. I'm not suggesting it was ever an intentional gating process, but it probably did help to save some people from being even more frustrated.

ebiester 9y ago

I went with it because if a project had binaries at all, there was likely a .deb tested with ubuntu. If there were drivers for linux, they were likely tested against ubuntu. Ease of installation is rarely talking about the install screen; it's talking about everything just working without having to dig around the internet, and installation is a good proxy for that.

Jedd 8y ago
> I went with it because if a project had binaries at all, there was likely a .deb tested with ubuntu. Given that each release of Ubuntu starts as a fresh fork from Debian's testing branch, this is not a compelling case for Ubuntu over Debian. > If there were drivers for linux, they were likely tested against ubuntu. As above, and it doesn't really matter if you meant drivers for Linux (the kernel), or GNU/Linux (a distro). I've never heard of any drivers that work on Debian but not on Ubuntu, or vice versa. > Ease of installation is rarely talking about the install screen; it's talking about everything just working without having to dig around the internet, and installation is a good proxy for that. When people talk about the ease of installation, they are almost definitely talking about the ease of installation. "Just works" is a useful phrase to describe a range of (other) user experiences, but again it's not clear how Ubuntu has (and arguably had) any significant advantages over Debian.

skocznymroczny 9y ago

Big thing about distros like Ubuntu and Linux Mint is that they don't hide the "non-free" drivers and software from you, and actively ask you to install them during installation process or initial setup. Meanwhile in other distros, I imagine Debian too, it would probably require adding some software sources through apt, which is beyond casual PC user already.

simion314 9y ago

You get more then a basic install, like in Arch you had to search then read the wiki then install packages from AUR(not a safe repo of scripts) to get good looking fonts. So in Ubuntu fonts just work on some other distros you need to do extra work to get better looking fonts, get flash, get codecs, get proprietary drivers. There is a very good reason Ubuntu got popular and it is not because the installer look good.

FrozenVoid 9y ago

When people say "easy to install" they mean easier to install and configure to their environment. Providing intuitive interfaces and making everything more automated. For example my 'hostname' was automatically set to motherboard model during install.

choward 9y ago

> CFM What is that? Pretty hard to search for.

Jedd 9y ago
Whoops, a bit dated abbreviation. Sorry. I usually spell things out as I appreciate this can be annoying. Configuration Management. The f was often shown as lowercase, as Cf is short for Configuration (don't look for a middle word :) No one knows why.