Thoughts on Debian Linux?

techne · 2011-06-03 12:10:53

Oh that's right Arch isn't 100% free.

Saint0fCloud · 2011-06-03 12:30:50

techne wrote:

Oh that's right Arch isn't 100% free.

Who cares?

And honestly krapp/techne why are you here? All you do is complain about Arch users not "liking" linux and trying to sabotage ubuntu all while extolling the virtues of debian.

techne · 2011-06-03 14:37:48

Fine sleuthing work! Registering gives a few advantages for browsing the forum that the guest doesn't have (find all posts for a user for instance). At any rate, you're not a very gracious host; sorry that I didn't see where it said using Arch was a condition for posting here!

ewaller · 2011-06-03 16:27:31

Forum moderator: I have had my eye on this thread for some time. So far, it has been civil and has not been disrespectful of other disros.

Techne, your posts do have a bit of a barb, but have not yet risen to the level of trolling. Please continue to keep this at an intellectual level.
SaintOfCloud: Being an Arch user is not a prerequisite to participating in the forums. If you think Techne is being trollish, I suggest you not rise to the bait.

Everyone: Remember that we do not tolerate libel against other OS's, distributions, or contributors.

Thanks

aurocha · 2011-06-04 18:40:58

tlmiller wrote:

I. SID (supposed unstable, bleeding edge, HAH) has 4.4.5.
Firefox 4.01 current, in SID Iceweasel 3.5.18
etc. etc. etc.
Great OS, but so far behind the curve in keeping modern software.

Newsflash for you:

May 27, 2011
KDE SC 4.6.3 was uploaded to unstable. Enjoy!

in: http://pkg-kde.alioth.debian.org/

Regards :-)

- aurocha

aurocha · 2011-06-04 18:52:24

I'll stop posting to this thread, I think all has been said.
I sense some who posted have an opinion on Debian but haven't really tested it. Sure, I love arch, but that's no reason to properly appreciate another philosophy.

Arch - Rolling release, bleeding edge
Debian - "Release when ready", geared to stability.

I use both and love and appreciate both, knowing that they are different!
Thank god!

But I guess I'd use any linux distribution. I don't because I'm happy, satisfied and lazy to learn anything else.
Both Debian and Arch suit me.

Regards,

- aurocha

Last edited by aurocha (2011-06-04 18:53:17)

archman-cro · 2011-06-04 23:16:18

I've poked around for the entire day with Squeeze today, trying to set it up at my parents' PC. It wasn't fun, at all... nm-applet was killing me with trying to ask for the password for my WPA-protected AP, wicd didn't work at all, although it said the network was established... Google Earth was a pain with the nvidia card (nForce 420, I think) and nouveau driver, it was giving me 1 frame per second performance. Why are they providing that driver by default when they have "The Nouveau drivers are reverse-engineered and for NVIDIA cards. These drivers are experimental and not recommended, unless you are having issues with the nv driver and don't want to use the nvidia drivers." note on their own wiki (http://wiki.debian.org/NvidiaGraphicsDrivers)?... The GNOME DE is weak, no software at all by default. Setting up tty resolution is a pain. Package management is a pain. My thoughts on Debian are just not good. Debian Stable isn't that stable, at least not for me.

Korrode · 2011-06-05 06:30:08

archman-cro wrote:

Google Earth was a pain with the nvidia card (nForce 420, I think) and nouveau driver, it was giving me 1 frame per second performance. Why are they providing that driver by default when they have "The Nouveau drivers are reverse-engineered and for NVIDIA cards.

So just enable the non-free repo and install the nvidia binary driver they provide there.

A couple of days ago I installed Debian Squeeze XFCE Desktop on my notebook, it's running great and has been a pleasure to set up.

As for package management being a pain; how? in what way?
I love Pacman more for how easy it is to make packages than for anything else. When it comes to just using package repos for the distro, I'm fairly indifferent on Pacman VS Aptitude.

I recently was playing with Fedora 15 and Aptitude and Synaptic shit all over Yum and whatever that horrible GUI package management software was in Fedora. (Synaptic is easily the best GUI frontend for package management i've ever seen.)

Last edited by Korrode (2011-06-05 06:37:05)

archman-cro · 2011-06-05 07:21:46

Korrode wrote:

So just enable the non-free repo and install the nvidia binary driver they provide there.

Thanks, but I already tried following http://wiki.debian.org/NvidiaGraphicsDrivers and it was nonsense, since the nvidia-installer (or whatever bush that is) was asking for gcc-4.3, even though i have installed it and did "export CC=gcc-4.3" how stands in the manual. Then I didn't know which kernel source or tree or what crap i needed for it to build, and then I just surrendered. If you have some ideas about the installation process, please share with me.

Korrode wrote:

As for package management being a pain; how? in what way?
I love Pacman more for how easy it is to make packages than for anything else. When it comes to just using package repos for the distro, I'm fairly indifferent on Pacman VS Aptitude.

Pain as in how you have to use three frontends to do one thing, in example, you can check the installed packages with one, contents of it with another, etc...

Edit: Solved by retrying to follow the manual. Solved with installing the binary driver, as you said. Thanks! (Sorry for my flaming and incompetency)

Last edited by archman-cro (2011-06-05 07:45:34)

Korrode · 2011-06-06 10:41:56

archman-cro wrote:

http://wiki.debian.org/NvidiaGraphicsDrivers and it was nonsense

I admit that wiki page is kinda horrible, it should say first thing, before all those alternatives and situation-specific other methods, that in most people's case they can just enable the non-free repo and do
aptitude install nvidia-kernel-2.6-arch ("686", "amd64", etc.)

archman-cro wrote:

Pain as in how you have to use three frontends to do one thing, in example, you can check the installed packages with one, contents of it with another, etc...

But those are different things ...but yes i see your point, having to use aptitude and dpkg and dpkg-* is annoying, plus last i checked only apt-get (not aptitude) does some source packages related stuff.

Certainly, the more technical the system usage becomes, the more we want to deviate from what Debian wants us to run and how it wants us to operate, the more we see Debian's many 'layers' and the more annoyed we become digging through them... which is why my server and notebook, with their specific and generally straightforward tasks, that I need to always be working, run Debian... but my main workstation where I 'play' runs Arch.

archman-cro wrote:

Edit: Solved by retrying to follow the manual. Solved with installing the binary driver, as you said. Thanks! (Sorry for my flaming and incompetency)

Glad to hear it's working.

archman-cro · 2011-06-06 19:12:06

Korrode wrote:

Certainly, the more technical the system usage becomes, the more we want to deviate from what Debian wants us to run and how it wants us to operate, the more we see Debian's many 'layers' and the more annoyed we become digging through them... which is why my server and notebook, with their specific and generally straightforward tasks, that I need to always be working, run Debian...

Well, I didn't understand this. Debian puts complicated stuff, and you guys hate it, but still use it because it's "stable" or something like that?

Korrode · 2011-06-07 02:18:40

archman-cro wrote:

Korrode wrote:
Certainly, the more technical the system usage becomes, the more we want to deviate from what Debian wants us to run and how it wants us to operate, the more we see Debian's many 'layers' and the more annoyed we become digging through them... which is why my server and notebook, with their specific and generally straightforward tasks, that I need to always be working, run Debian...
Well, I didn't understand this. Debian puts complicated stuff, and you guys hate it, but still use it because it's "stable" or something like that?

Sorta.

It's only complicated if you start messing with it, if you just use it as intended it's reliable, secure and works.

I don't 'hate' that Debian has layers of complexity. I understand that it's a different beast to Arch intended to be used a particular way. I don't expect it to be easily customizable, so I don't try to customize it, thus it rarely disappoints me.

Last edited by Korrode (2011-06-07 02:21:05)

I'mGeorge · 2011-06-07 08:46:52

Before Arch I've used Debian, and I've stayed with it for quite a while. As some others already said if there were no Arch I'll be using Debian right now.

Arch is really good for your personal pc or laptop because of the well known reasons: it's slick, clean, it brings you everything new in the open source world; in a few words it's straight down canadian

Debian however it's what you would be needing for a serious business. Even Debian unstable it's actually more stable than most stable releases of other linux distributions, and as a general idea it's bulletproof even compared to other OS so I kinda find Debian iconic for all the linux world.

I's more practical than arch when it comes installing packages, therefore being more expeditive in daily use and I believe it's the second choice for servers after RHEL. It's easier to use than Arch and more stable after major upgrades making it more suitable for a computer you need to do some work on it and you need it up and running all the time.

In conclusion:
Arch = more fun to use, clean interface, it has the newest packages in town, a bit more fast
Debian = stability, suitable for servers, more suitable for business

Misfit138 · 2011-06-07 20:04:38

I'mGeorge wrote:

..it's slick, clean, it brings you everything new in the open source world; in a few words it's straight down canadian..

This is the weirdest thing I have heard all year.

I'mGeorge · 2011-06-07 21:13:15

Misfit138 wrote:

I'mGeorge wrote:
..it's slick, clean, it brings you everything new in the open source world; in a few words it's straight down canadian..
This is the weirdest thing I have heard all year.

He he the idea was canadians are proud people, they have that saying "I am canadian". This is what Arch does to you, it makes you proud for being a part of it, even if it resumes to helping or getting helped on dedicated forums. And of course there's also the fact that it does has canadian origins .

Korrode · 2011-06-08 00:58:51

I'mGeorge wrote:

they have that saying "I am canadian".

...that qualifies as a "saying"?

(not that i don't have lotsa love for the Canadians )

mrmylanman · 2011-06-09 01:19:52

I have had good experience with Debian in the past (Crunchbang Statler was my distro of choice for a couple months before ArchLinux). However I tried installing it on my work PC last week when I wanted to move on from Ubuntu. I probably just didn't do my homework, but with the Gnome 3 transition I found that a lot of things in Debian weren't working right... I was using Squeeze which I thought wouldn't have had Gnome 3 issues.

Like I said, it may well have been my fault, but when I decided to say "hell with it" and put ArchLinux on it, I got it up and running in no time.

Korrode · 2011-06-09 06:51:57

mrmylanman wrote:

I was using Squeeze which I thought wouldn't have had Gnome 3 issues.

Squeeze doesn't have Gnome 3...

mrmylanman · 2011-06-10 02:35:49

Korrode wrote:

mrmylanman wrote:
I was using Squeeze which I thought wouldn't have had Gnome 3 issues.
Squeeze doesn't have Gnome 3...

I probably screwed up the sources.list then I guess. Oh well, a non-issue now.

scottman · 2011-06-14 05:13:47

im going to mess everything up and say I like it. I run servers using it, i have some vm desktops on it. They do a great job with it. Its not bloat unlike some debian based distros we all know.

s922183t · 2011-06-14 13:21:44

I've used Debian just a bit, liked it, but, didn't had much time to know better.

Carlwill wrote:

... Debian community seems very arrogant and snobby...

I have the same impression about them...

Inxsible · 2011-06-14 14:51:30

s922183t wrote:

I've used Debian just a bit, liked it, but, didn't had much time to know better.
Carlwill wrote:
... Debian community seems very arrogant and snobby...
I have the same impression about them...

That's what most other communities say about the Arch community. So that's subjective.

tlmiller · 2011-06-14 22:35:51

Inxsible wrote:

s922183t wrote:
I've used Debian just a bit, liked it, but, didn't had much time to know better.
Carlwill wrote:
... Debian community seems very arrogant and snobby...
I have the same impression about them...
That's what most other communities say about the Arch community. So that's subjective.

Agreed, and most other communities say the same about Gentoo, etc. Any particular distro's base will find another distro's base to seem arrogant due to the simple fact that they are that distro's base because they think they're doing it better. That's the reason they chose that distro. I personally don't find either Debian or Arch to seem arrogant due to the fact that I'm part of both, as these are probably my favorite 2 OS's. But I go to something like Gentoo's forums, and am amazed at the level of arrogance. And then I look at it as an unbiased opinion, and realize that we say the same thing with Arch or Debian communities about our own chosen OS. It's human nature to believe that the one you chose is superior.

cyrusza · 2011-06-16 02:32:43

I love Debian. I used it on various ARM and Motorola devices and then i started using it on my laptop. When i found Arch i fell in love with it and now it's my main os on my laptop, but Debian will always be my choice when it comes to servers.

Last edited by cyrusza (2011-06-16 02:34:45)

Misfit138 · 2011-06-19 00:27:00

mrmylanman wrote:

I probably screwed up the sources.list then I guess. Oh well, a non-issue now.

Speaking of sources.list, you can add the LMDE repos to a vanilla Debian install. In this way, you have a user-friendly, rolling, do-it-yourself system once you set it up.

deb http://packages.linuxmint.com/ debian main upstream import
deb http://ftp.nz.debian.org/debian/ testing main contrib non-free
deb http://security.debian.org/ testing/updates main contrib non-free
deb http://www.debian-multimedia.org testing main non-free

Neat trick.

Arch Linux

#101 2011-06-03 12:10:53

Re: Thoughts on Debian Linux?

#102 2011-06-03 12:30:50

Re: Thoughts on Debian Linux?

#103 2011-06-03 14:37:48

Re: Thoughts on Debian Linux?

#104 2011-06-03 16:27:31

Re: Thoughts on Debian Linux?

#105 2011-06-04 18:40:58

Re: Thoughts on Debian Linux?

#106 2011-06-04 18:52:24

Re: Thoughts on Debian Linux?

#107 2011-06-04 23:16:18

Re: Thoughts on Debian Linux?

#108 2011-06-05 06:30:08

Re: Thoughts on Debian Linux?

#109 2011-06-05 07:21:46

Re: Thoughts on Debian Linux?

#110 2011-06-06 10:41:56

Re: Thoughts on Debian Linux?

#111 2011-06-06 19:12:06

Re: Thoughts on Debian Linux?

#112 2011-06-07 02:18:40

Re: Thoughts on Debian Linux?

#113 2011-06-07 08:46:52

Re: Thoughts on Debian Linux?

#114 2011-06-07 20:04:38

Re: Thoughts on Debian Linux?

#115 2011-06-07 21:13:15

Re: Thoughts on Debian Linux?

#116 2011-06-08 00:58:51

Re: Thoughts on Debian Linux?

#117 2011-06-09 01:19:52

Re: Thoughts on Debian Linux?

#118 2011-06-09 06:51:57

Re: Thoughts on Debian Linux?

#119 2011-06-10 02:35:49

Re: Thoughts on Debian Linux?

#120 2011-06-14 05:13:47

Re: Thoughts on Debian Linux?

#121 2011-06-14 13:21:44

Re: Thoughts on Debian Linux?

#122 2011-06-14 14:51:30

Re: Thoughts on Debian Linux?

#123 2011-06-14 22:35:51

Re: Thoughts on Debian Linux?

#124 2011-06-16 02:32:43

Re: Thoughts on Debian Linux?

#125 2011-06-19 00:27:00

Re: Thoughts on Debian Linux?

Board footer