Thoughts on Debian Linux?

Carlwill · 2011-02-14 22:38:07

I was wondering if any Arch users are Debian fans or have used it in the past for any particular reasons? I started my Linux career using Debian Linux (Woody) & it's the only distribution I've kept with from the beginning. I'm not a Ubuntu or Fedora Linux fan but I understand each distribution has it's place for end users. Obviously Arch Linux isn't well suited for production servers at my work so we elected to have all our servers run Debian Linux. It's been a great distribution and I love everything about it with small exceptions which a few being the Debian community seems very arrogant and snobby as well as their Wiki page and documentation is nowhere close to Arch Linux.

I just wanted to discuss things about Debian you like and don't like...or just any comments you have about the distribution in general.

arinlares · 2011-02-15 00:23:45

Aside from Arch, Debian is my favorite distribution. It's not quite as flexible as Arch, probably because I don't know everything about Debian, whereas Arch is rather transparent. The only issues I have with Debian are due to it's abstractions (update-alternatives, dpkg-reconfigure, etc). But, I've learned to work with or avoid those tools. I also like how they take into account how every program interacts with others, unlike what I think (please, I beg, correct me if I'm wrong), Arch's way of taking vanilla packages and trusting upstream mostly (which I also like, as it's much simpler). I mostly use Debian for stuff I can't really do in Arch for whatever currently unsolveable reason (Zynaddsubfx and Jack don't work, for instance, on top of needing an -rt or the Liquorix kernel, which I use in Debian anyway). I do as much as I can in Arch, and pick up the slack in Debian.

I've noticed that every distro community, with the exception of a few, has a few bad eggs. Fortunately, I only see the really bad ones that don't even try to help anybody on sites like Youtube, or else trolling on blogs, but they are enough to give any distribution a bad rap. In the end, however, they provide one of the best distributions ever, I think, so it's all worth putting up with and looking past.

Last edited by arinlares (2011-02-15 00:24:47)

Anonymo · 2011-02-15 01:26:24

I definitely prefer Arch, but if I was to install Debian, it would be the Linux Mint Debian Edition. I've been on their forums; they are friendly and informative. I also noticed that they are working on a lot of improvements.

Inxsible · 2011-02-15 01:39:30

used Debian before I moved to Arch. Overall I liked everything about it because I always used the minimal installs called the business isos and used to build up my system. No bloat that way.

but in all honesty, I learned more about linux by switching to Arch than I ever did with Debian. I am not sure what the status is now, but Debian's insistence on having all open source or FOSS software only was a bit tedious, since most users want a usable system and that would be a deterrent for newbies if you had to configure your codecs for basic mp3 and video files.

mikesd · 2011-02-15 06:55:23

Arch on the desktop, Debian on my servers. Have used Debian on my desktop a couple of times but always found some of the packages were too out of date. Would like to check it out again one day, perhaps aptosid or Debian testing.

na12 · 2011-02-15 09:37:27

Debian is good for servers, but for desktop is not even close to the arch.
I tried out several times debian, but I was not satisfied with it. Debian stable is very outdated, and Sid and testing are very unstable compared to the arch.

SeanM · 2011-02-15 11:29:38

I have to agree with the majority of those above. Debian is the only distro I ever install on servers anymore. There are several reasons for this, but the one that really shines through is their awesome stability and flare for security. With the one notable exception of their openSSH flaw, they are on the ball when it comes to security releases.

People's number one complaint has to do with packages being out of date. While this can be a little frustrating (for instance, MoinMoin in stable is set at 1.7.1 last I checked), I really stopped caring about that after I asked myself why I cared. Honestly... The vast, VAST, majority of server tasks are not cutting edge. I would rather have the most stable and reliable Apache available, compared to the newest build. Debian does this for me. They test the **** out of everything that makes it to stable. It's the only distro I can ever say I have never encountered a non-trivial bug in.

As someone pointed out above, they do the best job of making sure everything works with everything. Yes, this does result in packages being delayed up to a year, but if you are running a mission critical server, you want that.

So yes. Debian rocks at what it does. Hands down my favourite server OS.

----

Side note regarding licensing stance (personal opinion):
Yes, they insist on only distributing FREE (as in speach) software with their OS. That is among the reasons I like them so much. I strongly support free software, and will go out of my way (and put up with limited features, if needed) to use it. Friends of mine have come to the opinion I'm an RMS-style nutjob ... I am totally okay with that! I believe that every time we choose non-free over free, we hurt society as a whole. Sounds preachy, but hell, if you have the skills to do it, why not keep your freedom?

lifeafter2am · 2011-02-15 15:24:27

Meh, never was a Debian fan. I've always installed BSD on servers, so didn't need it there. The only other distro I will use is Gentoo. It's just my personal taste, I know tons of people that love Debian, just not my thing. I never felt like it gave me enough control; Arch was my first binary based distribution in almost 10 years.

Last edited by lifeafter2am (2011-02-15 15:26:27)

kost147 · 2011-02-15 21:40:13

Debian was my first distro in the university. After that I never come back, mainly because I run Linux as desktop and programing OS and prefer an up-to-date OS.
Still I think that Debian is a great and I have some memories with it.

Last edited by kost147 (2011-02-15 21:41:08)

IncredibleLaser · 2011-02-15 23:41:53

I don't like debian too much. It's my opinion that it's upstream's task to make software more secure. I always feel that debian's policy is "old=stable". But even then, the packages are old. Take wine: 1.1.32 is their newest version. Why? Why should a new version, released by the people who know the software best - the developers themselves - be any less stable /secure / reliable than any old version packaged by the debian folks? I see that they backport security fixes, but the SSL problem proved that the debian approach CAN fail. And btw, I use Arch for my private homeserver and I have much less trouble than with any debian-based system I ever had.

Misfit138 · 2011-02-16 00:21:50

If there were no Arch, I would be tempted to use Debian testing..but would probably end up with Fedora. Which is to say, if I were to stick with GNU/Linux as my main OS.

adee · 2011-02-16 12:00:53

IncredibleLaser wrote:

the SSL problem proved that the debian approach CAN fail.

This is why I like the Arch policy of patching software: just do that when absolutely necessary. Debian and it's derived distros often break some software because of endless patching by some packagers, who's not always know what they're doing (proven by the openSSL madness)

JohannesSM64 · 2011-02-16 13:33:45

No, I dislike Debian because the megafreeze development model is broken, they have a long history of patched broken packages and huge install scripts. It's also not at all KISS, has no ABS-alike, plus the rather convoluted SysV init. Arch is superior for my taste in almost every way.

(On a kind of related note, though, I do like how Debian doesn't conveniently omit the "GNU" and values freedom.)

Last edited by JohannesSM64 (2011-02-16 13:39:24)

jollysnowman · 2011-02-16 14:59:49

I agree - SysV init is pretty crazy.

I started off with Ubuntu, so Debian was the next logical step (I actually went to CrunchBang, but it's basically Debian with some nice scripts). Since Debian is/was my main OS and Arch is what I'm currently learning, the age of the packages doesn't really disturb me, though I was a little surprised how "behind" they all are. I definitely appreciate the Debian way, and it is by far the distribution that is closest to being free. It's almost like Debian is the only distribution even trying to be free.

JohannesSM64 · 2011-02-16 15:05:30

Nah, there are at least 8 fully free distros:

http://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.html

IncredibleLaser · 2011-02-16 15:48:49

And debian is not listed.

jasonwryan · 2011-02-16 17:31:46

Debian have only moved to a completely free offering with this release: http://www.debian.org/News/2011/20110205a

Another first is the completely free Linux kernel, which no longer contains problematic firmware files. These were split out into separate packages and moved out of the Debian main archive into the non-free area of our archive, which is not enabled by default. In this way Debian users have the possibility of running a completely free operating system...

A gentle reminder to keep the comments about Debian respectful, irrespective of personal opinion
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Fo … ng_Systems

drcouzelis · 2011-02-16 19:29:56

Many years ago, I switched from Slackware to Debian and loved the ease of using a package manager. After switching from Debian to Arch, I was impressed by the simplicity and ease of pacman. I had used Debian for years, but had never made an APT package. (instead, I installed stuff to /usr/local) After just a couple of months of using Arch, I was able to make my own pacman packages and contribute to the AUR.

So, in summary, I greatly appreciated Debian when I started using it, but dislike how it's more complicated than Arch.

JohannesSM64 wrote:

There are at least 8 fully free distros.

IncredibleLaser wrote:

And debian is not listed.

If I remember correctly, Debian GNU/Linux will never be on the list of operating systems officially supported by the FSF, because of this:

A free system distribution must not steer users towards obtaining any nonfree information for practical use, or encourage them to do so. There should be no repositories or ports for nonfree software. Programs in the system should not suggest installing nonfree plugins, documentation, and so on.

See http://www.gnu.org/distros/free-system- … lines.html

escondida · 2011-02-17 04:33:16

Debian Testing was my main distro for a couple of years, and the one I always came back to after trying out something new. Naturally, Arch has replaced it in that role since then (-: .

Don't let the name fool you--it was generally very stable, but incorporated much more of a rolling release model than Debian Stable does.

Since I started with a base system and just installed what I needed or wanted on there, it was pretty easy to keep a slim and efficient system going. And, of course, there is a huge selection of packages available. However, as others have mentioned, the heavy patching could get...interesting at times. Oh, and configurating a sys-v-style init is rather baroque once you've tried bsd-style.

So overall, Debian can definitely be good, but I'll take Arch any day.

OP: Did you have any particular questions about Debian, or did you just want to get a discussion going?

paldepind · 2011-02-17 13:57:41

I agree with IncredibleLaser. I want my software the way the developers released it upstream. I don't think it's the distros task to make software stable and secure. If upstream is crappy and unstable I'll change my choice of software to something that isn't. Does software have to be old to be stable? I don't think so. In fact it's often the opposite. Take KDE 4.6 for instance. It's definitely more stable and polished than 4.5. But if you're using Debian you'll still be stuck on 4.5. So in my opnion the Debian way leads to software with less features and often more unstable.

madalu · 2011-02-17 15:22:41

I appreciate the Debian goal of creating secure, stable release. It
takes time to test and "season" packages for a production environment
-- and that requires freezing the stuff that works, even if it means
falling behind the bleeding-edge. It's nice that the release cycle is
a bit faster than it used to be.

That said, for personal use, I far prefer a rolling-release distro.
It's wonderful to use a distro in which most bug reports can just be
sent directly upstream.

vanvalium · 2011-02-18 20:45:56

I kinda liked it when I used it for a short time a few years ago. But I didn't reallly have a clue about linux back then.
As I'm currently bored with Arch (love it, but I need some new things to try out) I'll probably test debian sid soon. Heard good things about it and normal debian doesn't interest me at all (I'm currently building a server with it though)

lifeafter2am · 2011-02-18 20:54:57

vanvalium wrote:

I kinda liked it when I used it for a short time a few years ago. But I didn't reallly have a clue about linux back then.
As I'm currently bored with Arch (love it, but I need some new things to try out) I'll probably test debian sid soon. Heard good things about it and normal debian doesn't interest me at all (I'm currently building a server with it though)

If your bored keeping Arch in working order, move over to Gentoo. As much as I love Gentoo, I personally don't have the time to keep it all 100% anymore.

Carlwill · 2011-02-18 21:57:00

I've always hated Gentoo. It's just not for me by any means. Far too annoying and time consuming than it's worth. I love a PC more than the next guy but at some point you realize it's just a means to an end. Gentoo isn't one of those realizations...

lifeafter2am · 2011-02-18 22:33:46

Carlwill wrote:

I've always hated Gentoo. It's just not for me by any means. Far too annoying and time consuming than it's worth. I love a PC more than the next guy but at some point you realize it's just a means to an end. Gentoo isn't one of those realizations...

And see I am the opposite, I love Gentoo. I used it during the 1.2 release cycle; so for about 8 years. Its the only linux system where I felt like I had total control over what was on my system and what was happening. Arch provides a happy medium for me; because I don't have near the time that I used to.

To each their own.

Arch Linux

#1 2011-02-14 22:38:07

Thoughts on Debian Linux?

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