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Why Use Debian Stable on the Desktop?

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Re: Why Use Debian Stable on the Desktop?

#31

Post by sametmax »

dsr_ wrote: post #5

This particular article seems to be an ad for consulting/support services, but their underlying point is one that I agree with: Desktop usage (terminals, browsers, editors, word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, media listening/viewing and light creation) should not be surprising. It should not change out from underneath the user. I've run Debian Stable for more than 15 years as my primary desktop system, almo…

Problem is, most softwares that are NOT in the official repository are made for Ubuntu TLS, not debian stable.

So if you want to install VSCode, Telegram, Skype, Stremio, Sublime Text, Python 3.6, clipgrab, steam, dukto, tilix, etc. You know that half of them won't work out of the box on debian stable. Each year it will be different ones, to make it spicier, for different reasons that can take a huge amount of time and energy to figure it, if you ever do.

Then if you need to do anything exotic, and it's worse. E.G: I'm currently compiling a lot of crypto currency wallets (I run a master node automation service). Most of them will compile only on Ubuntu. And if you don't want precisely Ubuntu 12.04 (I compile for 16.04), you'll need a little tweak.

Don't mistake that for hatred. I donate to the debian project financially, I adore them.

But for the desktop, it's really not making my life easy.

Re: Why Use Debian Stable on the Desktop?

#32

Post by Dowwie »

mmjaa wrote: post #23
Dowwie wrote: post #19

I use Debian 9 with gnome. I don't know what I'm missing by not using one of these other distributions and don't care enough to seek out that information because I have thus far managed to do everything I need with Debian, and have used it for years. Damn. Maybe I need to look around.

I have been a Debian user forever, but my current go-to for "recommending Linux to friends" is Ubuntu Studio. Latest release pretty much rocks, everything works smoothly out of the box, and the system is set up and ready for multimedia audio/video/etc. content creation. It still quite Debian underneath, but there is a lot to be said for having a multimedia workstation ready to go, out of the box, on the other end of…

Yeah, it's nice to experience a low-friction setup that does great many things. I used Ubuntu for a little while but kept breaking it. I'm a bull in an operating system china shop.

Re: Why Use Debian Stable on the Desktop?

#33

Post by samueloph »

majewsky wrote: post #13
billsix wrote: post #10

As a Debian user for 15 years, I like it, but as a developer looking to contribute packages, I am displeased. I can't figure out how to update Gambit Scheme to the newest version by making a package, setting up a local repo, etc. The documentation on the subject in debian is all over the place on many sites giving conflicting answers. Gentoo and Arch in my limited experience are much simpler to build packages for. Re…

I regularly build Arch packages. I once tried to build a Debian package, followed the tutorial, but gave up after nearly two hours. The amount of ceremony involved in Debian packaging is just absurd.

Debian Maintainer here (currently in the process of becoming a Debian Developer).

I agree that the documentation lacks various improvements, but i would like to add that there's a difference between building a deb package and building a deb package for Debian.

Tl;DR: To build a deb package for Debian involves lots of extra steps and cautions than to build a simple deb package because Debian is pretty strict with what can enter the official repository. The documentation needs to be improved for both cases anyway.

Re: Why Use Debian Stable on the Desktop?

#34

Post by billsix »

samueloph wrote: post #33
majewsky wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I regularly build Arch packages. I once tried to build a Debian package, followed the tutorial, but gave up after nearly two hours. The amount of ceremony involved in Debian packaging is just absurd.

Debian Maintainer here (currently in the process of becoming a Debian Developer). I agree that the documentation lacks various improvements, but i would like to add that there's a difference between building a deb package and building a deb package for Debian. Tl;DR: To build a deb package for Debian involves lots of extra steps and cautions than to build a simple deb package because Debian is pretty strict with what…

I'd like to update Gambit Scheme from the 4.2 series to the 4.8 series in debian unstable. if you have some time to help me figure it out, please email my username at Gmail.

Re: Why Use Debian Stable on the Desktop?

#35

Post by russianhun »

vog wrote: post #3

Site is down. Google Cache: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:nHJYRo... I'll never understand why serving static(!) sites is so hard. Are modern blog systems still that bad? HN traffic is far below 100 req/sec (perhaps below 10 req/sec), which should be an absolute no-brainer for any modern webserver. [1] Heck, given a good internet connection, one should be able to run 10 such blogs on a Raspberr…

According to support, my site just got DDoS-ed. Makes me wonder who can get THAT pissed off with an article about Debian. Anyway, it makes me feel like I'm doing something right. :D

(BTW you're right, it's a cheap host and quite slow even when it's working. Site runs on Grav (flat-file CMS), which is a lot faster than e.g. WP and ilk (on the same chep host))

Re: Why Use Debian Stable on the Desktop?

#36

Post by Svenstaro »

coffee9 wrote: post #27
majewsky wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a contrary anecdote, Arch Linux has only gotten more stable for me over the past years. I'm running it in multiple servers and had only one incident where a downgrade was necessary (which is not particularly hard either).

>I'm running it in multiple servers You're the only one.

Eh, I also do that and in fact, archlinux.org and all of its servers are also hosted on Arch Linux. It works really quite well and there is little reason to suspect it should be any less stable than other distros.

Re: Why Use Debian Stable on the Desktop?

#38

Post by russianhun »

dsr_ wrote: post #5

This particular article seems to be an ad for consulting/support services, but their underlying point is one that I agree with: Desktop usage (terminals, browsers, editors, word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, media listening/viewing and light creation) should not be surprising. It should not change out from underneath the user. I've run Debian Stable for more than 15 years as my primary desktop system, almo…

Just wondering what made you think it's "an ad for consulting/support services"

Edit: I found the "offending phrase", I think. I dare you to click the link, it leads to a (free) online book. :D

Re: Why Use Debian Stable on the Desktop?

#39

Post by aceofspad4s »

craigsmansion wrote: post #29
aceofspad4s wrote: post #7

Using Debian Stable on a desktop is probably the closer to hell that you could ever get. Imagine to never be able to get that one feature you need because it's only in a more recent version. The best option for a stable desktop is Gentoo, where you can run old software but then unmask recent stuff if you need it. As a recent example I'll say that MTP support in stable (libmtp) was flaky for my mobile phone. With Debi…

>The best option for a stable desktop is Gentoo Get with the times, gramps. Arch is where the racing stripes are at now. Not held back by all these weird dinosaur architectures Arch can really optimise for superior speed, and features, and modern things, leaving Slackware steamboats, Debian diesels, and Gentoo petrols in the dust, because Arch is the EV of Linux operating systems. The world of anecdata and pointless…

I've used Arch years ago. It was a trainwreck. They had a very very bad QA and I had to reinstall every few months. The community is also full of people I wouldn't want to have around, as your own message shows.

Also I don't use Gentoo to get "pointless optimisations". Ricers are the low hanging fruit that's there to be mocked. I use Gentoo because it's the best rolling out there.

Re: Why Use Debian Stable on the Desktop?

#40

Post by KozmoNau7 »

pletnes wrote: post #24
laumars wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The whole thing runs really nicely on an i5-2500 with 16GB RAM and 2 SSDs in a ZFS mirror. To be fair, I'd expect any OS to run nicely on that spec.

Not windows 10.

W10 runs fine on my laptop, a Thinkpad T440 with an i5-4300U, 8GB RAM and SSD.

W10 does a fair few things wrong, but performance is not really one of them, unless you're on a Pentium 4 or something.

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