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What distribution of Debian do you use?

Posted: 2011-06-05 00:23
by rent0n
Out of curiosity, what Debian distribution do you use on your main machine (desktop/laptop)?
Why do you use it over the available alternatives?

Vote and comment! :mrgreen:

EDIT: Added Oldstable to the poll.
EDIT2: Adding Olstable apparently deleted all the votes... sorry about that, please revote...

Re: What distribution of Debian do you use?

Posted: 2011-06-05 00:28
by dmhdlr
Stable because it's uh stable and the "new" is vastly overrated. My most used programs are Gnome Terminal, Emacs, Eboard, Nautilus, Quod Libet, and Iceweasel 4, for which I have backports enabled; I use Dropbox too, but that's not from the repositories.

Also, I protest that the addition of backports comprise an additional distribution if testing + unstable, etc., doesn't! :twisted:

Re: What distribution of Debian do you use?

Posted: 2011-06-05 01:21
by walkerinthewoods
I started using Unstable on my main desktop. I had used it on my netbook for awhile without any big problems. Unstable is for the most part stable, if one is careful. I like the Unstable branch mostly because I like the "rolling distro" and I learn more about the OS by needing to be a little careful and if something does not work right I get to find out how to fix it. I use it over Testing because fixes happen faster with Unstable.

Re: What distribution of Debian do you use?

Posted: 2011-06-05 01:28
by vbrummond
Right now using Testing. I really should just go back to stable though.

Re: What distribution of Debian do you use?

Posted: 2011-06-05 04:23
by dasein
Deckard wrote:Stable because it's uh stable and the "new" is vastly overrated.
+1, on both counts

I know that "rolling release" is very chic in some circles. But I want my OS to work for me, not the other way around. Time I spend fixing breakage is time not spent doing more interesting and important things (like staring idly into space). Give me a fixed release cycle and a "stable" branch any day.

Software has no moving parts. It does not wear out. Once it's good, it says good, until someone decides to try to "improve" it. For the relatively rare occasion where new is actually improved, well, that's why there's backports.

Re: What distribution of Debian do you use?

Posted: 2011-06-05 06:37
by edbarx
Rock Solid... err... no, it is called Stable.

Ooops! I forgot to give the reason behind my choice.

Obviously, I use Stable because it is less buggy than testing and because there are less updates and my connection is very slow compared with modern standards. Moreover, I don't get excited with new non-functional eye-candy.

What I need at the moment is a good web-browser that respects my needs, but I didn't find one.

Re: What distribution of Debian do you use?

Posted: 2011-06-05 06:45
by dmhdlr
edbarx wrote:Rock Solid... err... no, it is called Stable.

Ooops! I forgot to give the reason behind my choice.

Obviously, I use Stable because it is less buggy than testing and because there are less updates and my connection is very slow compared with modern standards. Moreover, I don't get excited with new non-functional eye-candy.

What I need at the moment is a good web-browser that respects my needs, but I didn't find one.
Have you tried Iceweasel 4 (this is a serious question)?

Re: What distribution of Debian do you use?

Posted: 2011-06-05 07:14
by gerry
Stable. Squeeze/Gnome on my netbook, Squeeze/minimal on an eleven-year-old desktop. Why stable? 'Cos it's stable. And it works.

Re: What distribution of Debian do you use?

Posted: 2011-06-05 07:22
by DtW
Another "poll" is going on on Debian popularity contest. Checking what version of popularity-contest package people have installed shows pretty good data what version of Debian people are using. The data is on the front page:

http://popcon.debian.org/

Currently the majority is using Squeeze (stable) or Lenny (oldstable). Others are far behind.

Re: What distribution of Debian do you use?

Posted: 2011-06-05 08:06
by kedaha
I use Squeeze with the default Gnome Desktop on my main machine.
Why? Because it's 100% stable as far as I'm concerned, even though I installed the 2.6.38-bpo.2-amd64 kernel and Iceweasel 5.0. I really dislike receiving updates all the time and prefer to install only the software that I need including, for example, a driver for a TL-WN722N wifi dongle, the latest version of minitube, and Oracle virtualbox-4.0. Secondly, I use it because it is effortless and after installation and configuration like adding compiz, transparent gnome panels and changing the fonts as posted here requires almost no further attention. I have a second partition to track Testing.

Re: What distribution of Debian do you use?

Posted: 2011-06-05 10:44
by Tadeas
Mostly Lenny and several Etch machines :) .

Re: What distribution of Debian do you use?

Posted: 2011-06-05 11:12
by edbarx
Deckard wrote:
edbarx wrote:What I need at the moment is a good web-browser that respects my needs, but I didn't find one.
Have you tried Iceweasel 4 (this is a serious question)?
I am using chromium although it doesn't resize pictures properly.

Re: What distribution of Debian do you use?

Posted: 2011-06-05 11:50
by rent0n
Adding Olstable apparently deleted all the votes... sorry about that, please revote... :roll:

Re: What distribution of Debian do you use?

Posted: 2011-06-05 12:21
by treb0r
Stable + Backports is the connoisseur’s choice imho.

Unstable is fun for tinkering, and testing is great when you just can't wait any more for that release ;-)

If you just want a solid, dependable OS that always works then Stable + Backports is the way to go.

My biggest problem used to be what Browser to use, but thanks to mozilla.debian.net, I get the latest Mozilla code in a handy Debian format.

Having said all that, I'm talking about my Laptop here, and I would only ever use Stable on a server.

Re: What distribution of Debian do you use?

Posted: 2011-06-05 13:28
by qjqqyy
What distribution of Debian do you use?
The correct word is "branch".

Re: What distribution of Debian do you use?

Posted: 2011-06-05 14:50
by cynwulf
qjqqyy wrote:
What distribution of Debian do you use?
The correct word is "branch".
"distribution" is also correct:
Wheezy is the development codename for the next version of Debian, after Squeeze.

It is the current testing distribution.
http://wiki.debian.org/DebianWheezy

Re: What distribution of Debian do you use?

Posted: 2011-06-05 14:52
by qjqqyy
fine, "branch" is more specific

Re: What distribution of Debian do you use?

Posted: 2011-06-05 16:43
by dejan034
Testing.. 8)

Re: What distribution of Debian do you use?

Posted: 2011-06-05 17:27
by Roel63
Testing.

Re: What distribution of Debian do you use?

Posted: 2011-06-05 17:37
by maxpro4u
I am running sid and I really like the latest KDE(netbook) works well on my thinkpad A31 P4 2gz 512ram.