4 ms·

Serious question: What are the advantages of Ubuntu on a server over, say, Debian?

cup-of-tea 8y ago
Ubuntu has more frequent releases, but since people are using Ubuntu LTS that's a very good question considering Debian also has LTS releases on the same frequency.
- qznc 8y ago
  Ubuntu constantly backports certain applications like Firefox for LTS so you don't have a two year old browser. Does Debian LTS provide that? Edit: Oh, server. Forgot that context.
  - stewbrew 8y ago
    Firefox on a server?
  - cup-of-tea 8y ago
    Probably not but is that relevant for Ubuntu Server?
  - based2 8y ago
    https://packages.debian.org/en/wheezy/firefox-esr https://packages.debian.org/en/wheezy/firefox-esr https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/
willtim 8y ago
From the article: "Canonical can deliver an OpenStack platform to an enterprise in two weeks with everything in place."
- spotinsun 8y ago
  Should delivering "OpenStack platform to an enterprise in two weeks with everything in place" even something that is considered an accomplishment? I have heard such statement from Canonical but I don't understand why it's something to talk about. Why not in an afternoon? One of their competitor products, Sardina FishOS, can be delivered in an afternoon. Our experience was that the whole process in FishOS was automated. From conversation with one of their customers (a European bank), we were told that in their case, they deployed a bank-wide OpenStack cloud in a day, including Ceph. With this in mind, Canonical's two weeks would seem 13 days too long? Of course, that would cut 13 days of services revenue for Canonical ...
pmontra 8y ago
In my experience Debian has considerably older packages. However if one installs everything with docker the underlying OS has very little importance. It stops at sshd, systemd and vim, anything else can be dockerized.
- cup-of-tea 8y ago
  A lot of people run Ubuntu inside the container. There are many libraries today that officially only support some Ubuntu LTS (Tensorflow, for example).
h1d 8y ago
Ubuntu has a more stable schedule of LTS that is 2 years apart but Debian is only "roughly" 2 years which makes it easier to plan when to make the upgrades. Also stuff like having root disabled and letting normal users use sudo by default and having had unattended-upgrades that does automatic security update installed by default makes you feel there's actually someone who cares doing the QA. And it has great number of packages along with PPA in case there isn't one pretty much allows you to handle most software without manual compile/install/update process which is a nightmare from admin perspective to do. And the fact it had worked great on me over the last 10 years against 100 or so servers makes me feel confident using it.

Ubuntu has more frequent releases, but since people are using Ubuntu LTS that's a very good question considering Debian also has LTS releases on the same frequency.

qznc 8y ago
Ubuntu constantly backports certain applications like Firefox for LTS so you don't have a two year old browser. Does Debian LTS provide that? Edit: Oh, server. Forgot that context.
- stewbrew 8y ago
  Firefox on a server?
- cup-of-tea 8y ago
  Probably not but is that relevant for Ubuntu Server?
- based2 8y ago
  https://packages.debian.org/en/wheezy/firefox-esr https://packages.debian.org/en/wheezy/firefox-esr https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/

willtim 8y ago

From the article: "Canonical can deliver an OpenStack platform to an enterprise in two weeks with everything in place."

spotinsun 8y ago
Should delivering "OpenStack platform to an enterprise in two weeks with everything in place" even something that is considered an accomplishment? I have heard such statement from Canonical but I don't understand why it's something to talk about. Why not in an afternoon? One of their competitor products, Sardina FishOS, can be delivered in an afternoon. Our experience was that the whole process in FishOS was automated. From conversation with one of their customers (a European bank), we were told that in their case, they deployed a bank-wide OpenStack cloud in a day, including Ceph. With this in mind, Canonical's two weeks would seem 13 days too long? Of course, that would cut 13 days of services revenue for Canonical ...

pmontra 8y ago

In my experience Debian has considerably older packages. However if one installs everything with docker the underlying OS has very little importance. It stops at sshd, systemd and vim, anything else can be dockerized.

cup-of-tea 8y ago
A lot of people run Ubuntu inside the container. There are many libraries today that officially only support some Ubuntu LTS (Tensorflow, for example).

h1d 8y ago

Ubuntu has a more stable schedule of LTS that is 2 years apart but Debian is only "roughly" 2 years which makes it easier to plan when to make the upgrades. Also stuff like having root disabled and letting normal users use sudo by default and having had unattended-upgrades that does automatic security update installed by default makes you feel there's actually someone who cares doing the QA. And it has great number of packages along with PPA in case there isn't one pretty much allows you to handle most software without manual compile/install/update process which is a nightmare from admin perspective to do. And the fact it had worked great on me over the last 10 years against 100 or so servers makes me feel confident using it.