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Moving from Ubuntu to Debian

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Re: Moving from Ubuntu to Debian

#31

Post by meddlepal »

papaf wrote: post #25
nawitus wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arch Linux is great if you like 'hacking'.

I recently changed a machine to Arch after a failed Ubuntu 13.10 upgrade. Its very strange. I was able to build a cross compiler following clear instructions: http://archlinuxarm.org/developers/distcc-cross-compiling But I cannot turn off the screensaver...

Arch is great, but you can get yourself into a world of hurt if you do not remember to do a system update every couple of days. I've b0rked a couple of Arch installs this way and fixing them is an hour or two of frustration usually.

Re: Moving from Ubuntu to Debian

#32

Post by networked »

Axsuul wrote: post #29

Ubuntu provides LTS versions. Does any other distro do this? I'm mainly using it for my server OS and I'm always interested in alternatives.

RHEL/CentOS currently provide ten years of (varying levels of) support in total for each release [1]. After that there's also the Extended Life Cycle Support.

[1] https://access.redhat.com/site/support/policy/updates/errata...

Re: Moving from Ubuntu to Debian

#33

Post by hrkristian »

sillysaurus2 wrote: post #8
keypusher wrote: post #3

There are actually many good Linux distributions not named Ubuntu.

Would anyone recommend some? Also, would anyone talk about FreeBSD vs Linux? What are some reasons to choose each?

My recommendation: Arch Linux. Focusing on "bleeding edge" is nothing to scoff at, a lot of the software coming out lately get major improvements almost weekly.

There is also the fact that you're running a clean system. You install once, grab what you need, and you're left with a stable system where every potential problem has a very easy and well-documented fix. You do not suffer things like screen tearing because some unwanted compositor you do not actually use is conflicting with your Desktop Environment.

There are plenty of good distros, and they all have the lack of Ubuntu in common, my favorite is Arch, but your own opinion is the only one that matters, take an afternoon to check out the various favorites.

Re: Moving from Ubuntu to Debian

#34

Post by cgag »

I left Ubuntu just because I don't trust them (issues 2 and 3), but I don't understand why people make a big deal about the default DE. I switched to Mint because I know everything "just works" with my laptop on it, and just changed the DE to i3. I previously used i3 on Ubuntu with no problem, I can't imagine it'd be too hard to use xfce or whatever else you wanted on Ubuntu.

Re: Moving from Ubuntu to Debian

#36

Post by AJ007 »

sillysaurus2 wrote: post #8
keypusher wrote: post #3

There are actually many good Linux distributions not named Ubuntu.

Would anyone recommend some? Also, would anyone talk about FreeBSD vs Linux? What are some reasons to choose each?

Head over to distrowatch.com, and just download a handful of distributions that look interesting to you. Either run a liveCD or install to virtualbox. May be I'm a dork but I find seeing what other people put together quite interesting.

For the non-linux experienced I would recommend starting with Mint (of which there are 4 versions, Cinnamon, MATE, KDE, Xfce.)

Re: Moving from Ubuntu to Debian

#37

Post by mayhew »

antonios wrote: post #21
networked wrote: post #13

So, is the Linux distribution market now ripe for disruption? I wonder who out of today's major players could be the next big thing. OpenSUSE seems the closest to Ubuntu in terms of user friendliness (Linus' comments notwithstanding) due to tools like YaST [1] and a PPA-like mechanism called the openSUSE Build Server for extra prebuilt software [2]. People certainly have speculated about it online for a while but we'…

> On a related note, a major thing Ubuntu and its derivatives have going for them is the great font rendering out of the box. This. The default freetype rendering is horrible to my eyes, even worse than Microsoft's SmearType(TM). > I wonder why other distributions haven't yet adopted it, or the Infinality patches, by default. Patents, I guess. Quoting Wikipedia: > Microsoft has several patents in the United States on…

Pretty sure the Microsoft subpixel rendering patents are only applicable in the United States.

Re: Moving from Ubuntu to Debian

#38

Post by qznc »

I tried Fedora (Korora spin) for a few months. However, battery life was bad and Chrome got buggy. Back to Ubuntu LTS (with Gnome 2) for now.

Will probably try Debian stable + lots of backports next.

Re: Moving from Ubuntu to Debian

#39

Post by jomohke »

Axsuul wrote: post #29

Ubuntu provides LTS versions. Does any other distro do this? I'm mainly using it for my server OS and I'm always interested in alternatives.

Debian stable releases come out roughly every two years, and are supported for an extra year (or so) after the following release.

Otherwise RHEL/CentOS have longer support periods (ten years).

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