4 ms·

Debian is an amazing project. I love how it's so fundamental but doesn't call attention or hype to itself. It's used by millions but doesn't try to be sexy or g

Debian is an amazing project. I love how it's so fundamental but doesn't call attention or hype to itself. It's used by millions but doesn't try to be sexy or glamorous. Even the website is minimal.

edoceo 6y ago
Also, it "just works". It's so reliable that I almost forget it's there. 10+ years in production and not once an OS/distro bang-up.
- mbreese 6y ago
  As an outsider, it's not the reliability of the software that is amazing to me. It's the governance and management of the project. The distro has managed to be amazingly consistent and stable for years. But the reason for this is how the project is run. It's hard to do that for so long with minimal drama and they deserve tons for kudos for that effort. Like some others, where CentOS was my go-to distro, I've started moving over to Debian as my distro of choice when I can. Thus far, I've been very happy with this choice.
  - edoceo 6y ago
    100%. That management makes it happen. I think we all (who can afford it) should send them a few bucks.
    - ce4 6y ago
      You're right. I just did that.
  - shmerl 6y ago
    There is some fun drama though, but overall it's indeed minimal. See: http://aaonline.fr/search.php?search&criteria[sequenceId-is]=6512_en_Debian%20init%20case http://aaonline.fr/search.php?search&criteria[sequenceId-is]... 1. http://aaonline.fr/player.php?trial_id=57684 http://aaonline.fr/player.php?trial_id=57684 2. http://aaonline.fr/player.php?trial_id=57899 http://aaonline.fr/player.php?trial_id=57899 3. http://aaonline.fr/player.php?trial_id=58428 http://aaonline.fr/player.php?trial_id=58428 4. http://aaonline.fr/player.php?trial_id=60363 http://aaonline.fr/player.php?trial_id=60363 5. http://aaonline.fr/player.php?trial_id=69970 http://aaonline.fr/player.php?trial_id=69970 6. http://aaonline.fr/player.php?trial_id=70639 http://aaonline.fr/player.php?trial_id=70639 7. http://aaonline.fr/player.php?trial_id=71040 http://aaonline.fr/player.php?trial_id=71040 8. http://aaonline.fr/player.php?trial_id=71116 http://aaonline.fr/player.php?trial_id=71116 9. http://aaonline.fr/player.php?trial_id=71715 http://aaonline.fr/player.php?trial_id=71715
  - autocorr 6y ago
    Yes! One of the things that stands out to me about Debian is that it is community governed and not underwritten by a specific large corporation. There are a special few huge open source projects that can boast that kind of stable, persistent governance.
- bayindirh 6y ago
  I love to tell that, I forgot to check on a Debian server for a year. I also forgot its physical location in our server room (it's one of the many identical servers amongst the racks). When I remembered its existence, I logged in and it was just doing its thing happily, with all its security updates applied automatically. You can set up and forget a well set up Debian Stable installation. It'll just truck along without complaining. With a little bit of work, you can make it tell you if it needs any attention but, it's very unlikely.
pabs3 6y ago
Hmm, popcon says only 199127 submitters, I wonder how many Debian systems there actually are. https://popcon.debian.org/ https://popcon.debian.org/
- devmunchies 6y ago
  would ubuntu also count?
- xgbi 6y ago
  We have hundreds, if not thousands of vms running Debian in our datacenter, none of them have popcon installed. So yeah, I think this statistic is orders of magnitude lower than in reality. What I like about Debian is that they don’t really force you to install this.
- bayindirh 6y ago
  I only enable popcon on long-living personal servers to prevent transient noise in the system. I bet popcon is enabled at most 10% of the systems since its default state is disabled (at least in expert install, anyway).

Debian is an amazing project. I love how it's so fundamental but doesn't call attention or hype to itself. It's used by millions but doesn't try to be sexy or glamorous. Even the website is minimal.

edoceo 6y ago

Also, it "just works". It's so reliable that I almost forget it's there. 10+ years in production and not once an OS/distro bang-up.

mbreese 6y ago
As an outsider, it's not the reliability of the software that is amazing to me. It's the governance and management of the project. The distro has managed to be amazingly consistent and stable for years. But the reason for this is how the project is run. It's hard to do that for so long with minimal drama and they deserve tons for kudos for that effort. Like some others, where CentOS was my go-to distro, I've started moving over to Debian as my distro of choice when I can. Thus far, I've been very happy with this choice.
- edoceo 6y ago
  100%. That management makes it happen. I think we all (who can afford it) should send them a few bucks.
  - ce4 6y ago
    You're right. I just did that.
- shmerl 6y ago
  There is some fun drama though, but overall it's indeed minimal. See: http://aaonline.fr/search.php?search&criteria[sequenceId-is]=6512_en_Debian%20init%20case http://aaonline.fr/search.php?search&criteria[sequenceId-is]... 1. http://aaonline.fr/player.php?trial_id=57684 http://aaonline.fr/player.php?trial_id=57684 2. http://aaonline.fr/player.php?trial_id=57899 http://aaonline.fr/player.php?trial_id=57899 3. http://aaonline.fr/player.php?trial_id=58428 http://aaonline.fr/player.php?trial_id=58428 4. http://aaonline.fr/player.php?trial_id=60363 http://aaonline.fr/player.php?trial_id=60363 5. http://aaonline.fr/player.php?trial_id=69970 http://aaonline.fr/player.php?trial_id=69970 6. http://aaonline.fr/player.php?trial_id=70639 http://aaonline.fr/player.php?trial_id=70639 7. http://aaonline.fr/player.php?trial_id=71040 http://aaonline.fr/player.php?trial_id=71040 8. http://aaonline.fr/player.php?trial_id=71116 http://aaonline.fr/player.php?trial_id=71116 9. http://aaonline.fr/player.php?trial_id=71715 http://aaonline.fr/player.php?trial_id=71715
- autocorr 6y ago
  Yes! One of the things that stands out to me about Debian is that it is community governed and not underwritten by a specific large corporation. There are a special few huge open source projects that can boast that kind of stable, persistent governance.
bayindirh 6y ago
I love to tell that, I forgot to check on a Debian server for a year. I also forgot its physical location in our server room (it's one of the many identical servers amongst the racks). When I remembered its existence, I logged in and it was just doing its thing happily, with all its security updates applied automatically. You can set up and forget a well set up Debian Stable installation. It'll just truck along without complaining. With a little bit of work, you can make it tell you if it needs any attention but, it's very unlikely.

pabs3 6y ago

Hmm, popcon says only 199127 submitters, I wonder how many Debian systems there actually are. https://popcon.debian.org/ https://popcon.debian.org/

devmunchies 6y ago
would ubuntu also count?
xgbi 6y ago
We have hundreds, if not thousands of vms running Debian in our datacenter, none of them have popcon installed. So yeah, I think this statistic is orders of magnitude lower than in reality. What I like about Debian is that they don’t really force you to install this.
bayindirh 6y ago
I only enable popcon on long-living personal servers to prevent transient noise in the system. I bet popcon is enabled at most 10% of the systems since its default state is disabled (at least in expert install, anyway).