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Try getting Debian working on a laptop. Those "non-free" packages in Ubuntu make a huge difference. On servers, not so much difference. Well unless you are usi

Try getting Debian working on a laptop. Those "non-free" packages in Ubuntu make a huge difference. On servers, not so much difference. Well unless you are using k8s, etcd, juju and all that jazz

diffeomorphism 7y ago
I am using it on my laptops without any trouble. You simply enable the non-free repo and the only difference becomes how much purple you have in the default themes.
jlgaddis 7y ago
> Try getting Debian working on a laptop. Those "non-free" packages in Ubuntu make a huge difference. I'm typing this on my "workstation" but, sitting here on my desk, there's a laptop running Debian on either side of it (and there's another one across the room). I can't read your mind so I'm not sure what issues you've encountered attempting to run Debian on a laptop. Apparently I have already figured out how to workaround them (but I've also been using Debian for ~23 years so perhaps that has something to do with it).
- panpanna 7y ago
  Getting things like wifi and GPU acceleration working on laptops can be problematic with pure Debian. You _can_ do it but on Ubuntu it just works.
int_19h 7y ago
I have several laptops, all of which run vanilla Debian. "non-free" is an official Debian repo. It's not enabled by default, but that's a single line edit in sources.list. And it has all those non-free video drivers etc. There's also an unofficial Debian CD image that includes non-free packages, for those cases where you need that stuff during installation time.
thaumaturgy 7y ago
? I'm typing this from an LG Gram 17 laptop running current Debian. Before this laptop, I used a Dell Inspiron N7110 for many years, also running Debian stable. I basically never need to use anything else to get work done. I will grant that a few things are a bit fiddly -- touchpads are iffy sometimes (and infuriating on the LG Gram because it's got a new one) and function keys sometimes don't work. The Gram had a booting problem that has since been resolved (https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=203617 https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=203617) but also had workarounds pretty quickly. So for some hardware, yeah, it's not a good experience for people used to just running Windows. But there's also lots of hardware for which it works just fine out of the box, and for experienced Linux people, it's not usually that hard to deal with the sharp edges. And modern KDE is brilliant.
geofft 7y ago
I bought a cheap Dell laptop in 2017 and installed Debian stable on it and it worked out of the box.
ori_b 7y ago
> Try getting Debian working on a laptop. Those "non-free" packages in Ubuntu make a huge difference. Ah, you mean the ones in the Debian non-free apt repo?

Try getting Debian working on a laptop. Those "non-free" packages in Ubuntu make a huge difference. On servers, not so much difference. Well unless you are using k8s, etcd, juju and all that jazz

diffeomorphism 7y ago

I am using it on my laptops without any trouble. You simply enable the non-free repo and the only difference becomes how much purple you have in the default themes.

jlgaddis 7y ago

> Try getting Debian working on a laptop. Those "non-free" packages in Ubuntu make a huge difference. I'm typing this on my "workstation" but, sitting here on my desk, there's a laptop running Debian on either side of it (and there's another one across the room). I can't read your mind so I'm not sure what issues you've encountered attempting to run Debian on a laptop. Apparently I have already figured out how to workaround them (but I've also been using Debian for ~23 years so perhaps that has something to do with it).

panpanna 7y ago
Getting things like wifi and GPU acceleration working on laptops can be problematic with pure Debian. You _can_ do it but on Ubuntu it just works.

int_19h 7y ago

I have several laptops, all of which run vanilla Debian. "non-free" is an official Debian repo. It's not enabled by default, but that's a single line edit in sources.list. And it has all those non-free video drivers etc. There's also an unofficial Debian CD image that includes non-free packages, for those cases where you need that stuff during installation time.

thaumaturgy 7y ago

? I'm typing this from an LG Gram 17 laptop running current Debian. Before this laptop, I used a Dell Inspiron N7110 for many years, also running Debian stable. I basically never need to use anything else to get work done. I will grant that a few things are a bit fiddly -- touchpads are iffy sometimes (and infuriating on the LG Gram because it's got a new one) and function keys sometimes don't work. The Gram had a booting problem that has since been resolved (https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=203617 https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=203617) but also had workarounds pretty quickly. So for some hardware, yeah, it's not a good experience for people used to just running Windows. But there's also lots of hardware for which it works just fine out of the box, and for experienced Linux people, it's not usually that hard to deal with the sharp edges. And modern KDE is brilliant.

geofft 7y ago

I bought a cheap Dell laptop in 2017 and installed Debian stable on it and it worked out of the box.

ori_b 7y ago

> Try getting Debian working on a laptop. Those "non-free" packages in Ubuntu make a huge difference. Ah, you mean the ones in the Debian non-free apt repo?