3 ms·

Ubuntu packages get updated on a much faster cadence then Debian in my experience.

by XorNot 4y ago

JohnFen 4y ago
By design, yes. Debian prioritizes stability over being on the cutting edge. If you always want the latest and greatest, Debian isn't the right distro for you.
- cld8483 4y ago
  Debian Sid makes a pretty good "rolling release" distro for home/hobby use at least, although I prefer OpenSUSE Tumbleweed for this.
  - kelnos 4y ago
    Sid is unstable (by definition and design)b wouldn't recommend as a daily driver. Testing is a decent rolling release distro, though.
    - matthews2 4y ago
      Testing isn't rolling release. Every 2 years, testing becomes stable, and stable becomes oldstable.
      - abenga 4y ago
        Not if you explicitly use the word "testing" in your apt config though, no? But yeah, after the hard freeze, changes do slow down until it stable is released, then there is a flood of changes.
  - WastingMyTime89 4y ago
    But you will still be subjected to Debian crazy rules regarding applied patch sets. Nowadays you can get a full featured, well integrated and properly working user land on Linux with next to zero customisation with systemd and Gnome. I really recommend using a distribution which stays as close to vanilla as possible.
    - JohnFen 4y ago
      Sure, if you find Gnome to your tastes. I can (just barely) live with systemd, but I am very allergic to Gnome.
      - WastingMyTime89 4y ago
        It's the same with any DE nowadays. Switch Gnome by KDE or any other. The base system is uniform enough that things just fit together. Debian would still patch far too much to my taste without the integration anyway. They remove/rebrand what they don't find free enough, want to make things "modular", want to split development and base packages, want to support a ton of architectures upstream doesn't care about and want to integrate things in their historic tooling. It has introduced some severe bugs in the past.
  - kombine 4y ago
    I recently put Tumbleweed on my laptop and am pleasantly surprised. You get new packages very fast thanks to automated testing, built-in btrfs snapshots allow you to undo a problematic update. Will be moving my main Ubuntu desktop to it soon.
metadat 4y ago
Is this still true today? 15 years ago it was a different story, but nowadays I haven't noticed a difference in update cadence between the two. Edit: I just checked for the classic case of latest Python (3.11), and the answer for Debian is to build from source, which is annoying (not difficult to compile, but then future updates can't be pulled in via apt). Does Debian not have a vibrant PPA community to fill the gaps like Ubuntu? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31643316 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31643316
- wizzwizz4 4y ago
  > Does Debian not have a vibrant PPA community to fill the gaps like Ubuntu? Yeah, it does: the Ubuntu PPA community. (See https://wiki.debian.org/CreatePackageFromPPA https://wiki.debian.org/CreatePackageFromPPA, and similar.)
ohazi 4y ago
Ubuntu is cut from Debian testing, not Debian stable. If you want to move upstream, you should be looking at testing, not stable. In my experience, the stability concerns are overblown, and it makes for a really nice rolling release system. I've had individual systems run for over a decade on a Debian testing install with rolling updates, and it's generally been far less of a headache than Ubuntu releases.
- wankle 4y ago
  I ran Debian on some of my systems for a while and ran into issues with stable that end up not getting fixed for a long time. I agree if you want to run Debian, run testing.

Ubuntu packages get updated on a much faster cadence then Debian in my experience.

by XorNot 4y ago

Ubuntu packages get updated on a much faster cadence then Debian in my experience.

By design, yes. Debian prioritizes stability over being on the cutting edge. If you always want the latest and greatest, Debian isn't the right distro for you.

cld8483 4y ago
Debian Sid makes a pretty good "rolling release" distro for home/hobby use at least, although I prefer OpenSUSE Tumbleweed for this.
- kelnos 4y ago
  Sid is unstable (by definition and design)b wouldn't recommend as a daily driver. Testing is a decent rolling release distro, though.
  - matthews2 4y ago
    Testing isn't rolling release. Every 2 years, testing becomes stable, and stable becomes oldstable.
    - abenga 4y ago
      Not if you explicitly use the word "testing" in your apt config though, no? But yeah, after the hard freeze, changes do slow down until it stable is released, then there is a flood of changes.
- WastingMyTime89 4y ago
  But you will still be subjected to Debian crazy rules regarding applied patch sets. Nowadays you can get a full featured, well integrated and properly working user land on Linux with next to zero customisation with systemd and Gnome. I really recommend using a distribution which stays as close to vanilla as possible.
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    Sure, if you find Gnome to your tastes. I can (just barely) live with systemd, but I am very allergic to Gnome.
    - WastingMyTime89 4y ago
      It's the same with any DE nowadays. Switch Gnome by KDE or any other. The base system is uniform enough that things just fit together. Debian would still patch far too much to my taste without the integration anyway. They remove/rebrand what they don't find free enough, want to make things "modular", want to split development and base packages, want to support a ton of architectures upstream doesn't care about and want to integrate things in their historic tooling. It has introduced some severe bugs in the past.
- kombine 4y ago
  I recently put Tumbleweed on my laptop and am pleasantly surprised. You get new packages very fast thanks to automated testing, built-in btrfs snapshots allow you to undo a problematic update. Will be moving my main Ubuntu desktop to it soon.

metadat 4y ago

Is this still true today? 15 years ago it was a different story, but nowadays I haven't noticed a difference in update cadence between the two. Edit: I just checked for the classic case of latest Python (3.11), and the answer for Debian is to build from source, which is annoying (not difficult to compile, but then future updates can't be pulled in via apt). Does Debian not have a vibrant PPA community to fill the gaps like Ubuntu? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31643316 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31643316

wizzwizz4 4y ago
> Does Debian not have a vibrant PPA community to fill the gaps like Ubuntu? Yeah, it does: the Ubuntu PPA community. (See https://wiki.debian.org/CreatePackageFromPPA https://wiki.debian.org/CreatePackageFromPPA, and similar.)

ohazi 4y ago

Ubuntu is cut from Debian testing, not Debian stable. If you want to move upstream, you should be looking at testing, not stable. In my experience, the stability concerns are overblown, and it makes for a really nice rolling release system. I've had individual systems run for over a decade on a Debian testing install with rolling updates, and it's generally been far less of a headache than Ubuntu releases.

wankle 4y ago
I ran Debian on some of my systems for a while and ran into issues with stable that end up not getting fixed for a long time. I agree if you want to run Debian, run testing.