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Why do you use debian?

Here you can discuss every aspect of Debian. Note: not for support requests!
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caulfield
Posts: 122
Joined: 2012-01-08 19:35
Location: Joy

Re: Why do you use debian?

#361 Post by caulfield »

esp7 wrote:
janet wrote:
esp7 wrote:hello janet - is that you shown on the avatar :oops: :D
No, it is not; I chose that avatar on-the-fly and because I'm a girl and didn't have one with a debian tatt already on it. I don'y know how to manipulate images, yet. :)

janet
i have time available to teach you how to manipulate images with GIMP :wink:
:mrgreen:

comrade esp7 in about 20 years ---> and that's how i met your mother :mrgreen: :lol:
"Smokey, this is not 'nam, this is bowling. There are rules!"

jdeca57
Posts: 2
Joined: 2013-05-15 07:27

Re: Why do you use debian?

#362 Post by jdeca57 »

By accident.

I was using Scientific Linux when my provider messed with imap settings but I didn't believe that and installed Debian 7 to rule out software issues. After a good installation the system seemed stable but I still had e-mail problems, of course and then I searched further and found the real reason.

But meanwhile I had the opportunity of testing Debian and it's open source philosophy and it attracts me more than the redhat clone. I used Debian a few years ago and it seemed clumsy at the time. I guess such appreciation is subjective and it may very well be that my time with Scientific Linux cured me of the obsession of using the latest kernel or the latest software. Or even the latest name. (Iceweasel? really?)

Anyhow my time with Debian convinced me that this system is rock solid, and that's what I want. No frills, no surprises. No crazy development cycles of 6 months, no new interfaces. It just works. Reason enough to keep using it.

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s3a
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Re: Why do you use debian?

#363 Post by s3a »

I love Debian for many reasons including:
* Strong commitment to software that is free as in freedom by removing any trace of non-free code by default while still making it easy to obtain if wanted.
* It is stable.
* The motivations of the organization remain pure and there isn't any forced changes on people so that they could attempt getting people to "get smoothly used to it".
* Upgrades are so smooth, I really think I can just keep upgrading forever and cloning my installation to each iteration of newer hardware that I get and, I love that! :D
* Repositories are large and I also like being able to have offline repositories. Having large repositories means most if not all of one's programs will be from the repositories so, one doesn't have to worry about malware as much plus, upgrades are so automated, it's lovely! :D

Debian is such a beautiful thing and, I hope it never dies.
Use Mnemosyne to Study for School!

Gomoto
Posts: 29
Joined: 2013-07-25 21:51

Re: Why do you use debian?

#364 Post by Gomoto »

Pros:
Good experience with my Debian 6 netbook and raspberry pi
No need to constantly upgrade, stable software base for two years
Free software focus
Debian Policies
Community

(I also used Suse, Gentoo, Ubuntu, Funtoo, Linux from Scratch, Fedora in the past)

Debian 7.1 is not yet working as intended for me right now (occasional gnome-shell freezes).
Nonetheless I use it on my desktop for everyday work and browsing.
Hope to pinpoint the gnome-shell bug soon, otherwise I will use a different desktop environment.

lectern
Posts: 3
Joined: 2013-07-30 15:33

Re: Why do you use debian?

#365 Post by lectern »

I use debian, and by relation linux, because I know that I will never truly get the hang of it. I used Windows for most of my life, since the mid 90's; the one thing that flows across all versions is that it is simplistic and non-innovative the farther along the timeline you go. You get used to it, feel coddled. I grew up around it, windows was my backyard. I was comfortable and stayed with it until around 2010ish. Then I found out that there was such a thing as a free OS.

It was a completely new experience, I had no idea what I was doing, and had to look up every little action to make sure I wasn't going to mess something else up for the longest time. There was an immense feeling of accomplishment from even the smallest success, be it from learning how to use tarballs or even just exploring the different software available, all for free. The feeling of knowing that there is always more to learn when you already feel trapped within the rigorous topics of the education system is a staggering thing.

Within the software library I found a scientific program that let you visualize atomic bonds, the name is long gone from my mind but playing around with it and having to learn what everything meant, how to make it do what I wanted... if it weren't for linux I wouldn't have had such a strong interest in the incredibly small when I was in highschool.

I began on Ubuntu and used it for about 14 months before swapping back over to windows 7 for some reason I don't even remember, probably to do with PC games, I was really into them back then. I stayed with it, mostly due to fear of losing what was on my hard drive, up until late April of this year. I threw everything away and installed debian after taking a good look at where Ubuntu was going and deciding I didn't like it. Debian doesn't seem to get much love these days, but I like it. In fact, I think I'm going to love it after I use it for the next year.

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mihai
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Location: Romania

Re: Why do you use debian?

#366 Post by mihai »

I use Debian a sbetter computing choice from different perspectives:
- moral perspective, event activism (talk to people as often as possible about linux benefits) compared to commercial OSs (e.g. Microsoft, Apple)
- clear-cut & simple, better privacy & security
- community driven
- as much updated as possible balanced with stability
- some sort of personal resilience (to know my own stuff, to be able to do my own basic computing needs in terms of set-up system, administer, and at the same time keep the learning process still alive. Also it combines desktop and server oriented needs nicely (as I have a desktop which also servers from time to time as basic web server)

Vs. other Linux flavors:
- vs. Ubuntu ->too much self-oriented (what somebody said in a previous post)
- vs. Slackware -> a bit too difficult for my novice knowledge and time available to learn, although I liked a lot the philosophy around it
- vs. CentOS -> somewhat dependent on enterprise and also had some issues with software/package management (the latter may have been my own lack of knowledge). I think that Debian is smoother, better oriented toward eternal novices such as myself
- have tried some time ago Mandrake -> it was decent but dunno what happened with it

I can only hope that developers take Debian in some years time towards tablet format with most basic needs (browsing, email, self-organization).
I am just grateful that Linux exists and whatever developed around it.

:D
mihai.intranzitie.org

RekordMan
Posts: 1
Joined: 2013-08-06 06:52

Re: Why do you use debian?

#367 Post by RekordMan »

I managed the migration of a medium-range corporative network; you see, lots of end users coming from Windows and falling into the new-forced GNU/Linux environment. When I had to choose a distro for end users I didn't hesitate: Ubuntu. When I had to choose a distro for the backend... I didn't 'cause there was one single option: Debian.

OmegaSW
Posts: 10
Joined: 2013-08-21 03:21

Re: Why do you use debian?

#368 Post by OmegaSW »

Coming from Kubuntu LTS, here are my reasons:

Rolling Release -
I've broken Kubuntu simply by updating it in the past, and LTS software availability becomes obsolete by the end of it's life cycle, so I knew that I want a rolling release setup is ultimately what I want.

By being on Debian "Testing," I'm essentially on a rolling release platform. I don't have to reinstall my OS in 6 months, 1 year, 2 years nor 3 years. I did the installation once, and I can expect to have recent software without the nonsense of reinstalling a new version all the time.

The competition in this regard is Gentoo, Sabayon, Arch, Chakra, and Manjaro:
* Both Gentoo and Sabayon have broken on me when updating, and I've tried these Distros more than once in the last couple of years, and I kept breaking it, so never again for me.
* I didn't try Arch because quite frankly, after Gentoo, I don't ever want to mess with a command line based installer for days to only decide that it's not for me.
* I have tried both Chakra and Manjaro recently, and they both update without a hitch and are easy to use, but I didn't like Chakra due to it's limited software availability, and Manjaro is basically bloatware central.

For Debian, I used the 7.0 Live DVD KDE edition, and the installer wasn't hard per say, but it wasn't as straight forward or as clean as Fedora's installer or even Ubuntu's. I had to get my hands a little bit dirtier with getting my wireless card to work since they're non-free, but I figured it out which driver to install from the non-free repository. After that, I switched my sources.list to "testing," and everything was clear sailing after that. So I have Debian with a basic KDE setup, and I've customized it to exactly what I wanted without extra bloat. I event found a Debian KDE start logo online (for some reason, Debian forgot to include it).

Package Management-
Debian solution is the most supported and it simply works. It's the most complete out of all the Distros, so it's an automatic win for me.

Stability -
My setup gets tested on "Sid Unstable" before it comes my way to "Jessie Testing," so it's a happy medium in the stability vs recent software debate.

Community -
I feel that this is a real community without the drama that happens in the other Distros. I've read the forums here, and I feel people are definitely genuine around here.

*Ubuntu - I vote no on Unity and Amazon Spyware on by default. Even though Kubuntu doesn't spy (yet?), I don't even want to know what other fast ones Canonical will try to pull on me.
*Gentoo - lots of bickering and thus Funtoo is born.
*Arch/Manjaro - Animosity between the two Distros.
*Mint - I'm not even Jewish, but I took the dev's advice anyways
I’m only going to ask for one thing here. If you do not agree I kindly ask you not to use Linux Mint and not to donate money to it.
That's pretty much everything I can think of at the moment.

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mor
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Re: Why do you use debian?

#369 Post by mor »

OmegaSW wrote:Stability -
My setup gets tested on "Sid Unstable" before it comes my way to "Jessie Testing," so it's a happy medium in the stability vs recent software debate.
That's where you might find yourself very wrong my dear friend.
Testing is not at all in the middle between sid and stable.

In theory testing is ten days apart from unstable, this means that a package is migrated to testing, if there are no peculiar impediments, after just ten days. That's hardly a thorough testing.

Testing is indeed where packages are tested, as in months and months and years of testing before they become stable material.

Stability is an ephemeral concept, for instance I run testing and have never had a problem that required me to reinstall or that lost me data, but every once in a while something, maybe little maybe a little bigger breaks and you have to fix it. This is fine with me, I'm in for the excitement of fixing this stuff, but do not kid yourself: testing is not stable.

So, think about it and consider using stable instead, dist-upgrades in debian stable come once every three or four Ubuntu cycles so is not that big of a deal and as for having newer software, backports might come in handy. ;)

OmegaSW
Posts: 10
Joined: 2013-08-21 03:21

Re: Why do you use debian?

#370 Post by OmegaSW »

mor wrote:
OmegaSW wrote:Stability -
My setup gets tested on "Sid Unstable" before it comes my way to "Jessie Testing," so it's a happy medium in the stability vs recent software debate.
That's where you might find yourself very wrong my dear friend.
Testing is not at all in the middle between sid and stable.

In theory testing is ten days apart from unstable, this means that a package is migrated to testing, if there are no peculiar impediments, after just ten days. That's hardly a thorough testing.

Testing is indeed where packages are tested, as in months and months and years of testing before they become stable material.

Stability is an ephemeral concept, for instance I run testing and have never had a problem that required me to reinstall or that lost me data, but every once in a while something, maybe little maybe a little bigger breaks and you have to fix it. This is fine with me, I'm in for the excitement of fixing this stuff, but do not kid yourself: testing is not stable.

So, think about it and consider using stable instead, dist-upgrades in debian stable come once every three or four Ubuntu cycles so is not that big of a deal and as for having newer software, backports might come in handy. ;)
I don't want to reinstall to go back to Wheezy. I'll just stick it through until the system breaks itself if it ever happens.

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mor
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Re: Why do you use debian?

#371 Post by mor »

Be careful not to think about breakage of testing in terms of catastrophic meltdowns, indeed this is highly unlikely unless you really work for it.

The breakage in testing can be more in the line of subtle nuisances, things that most users won't accept as part of the game because they can't afford to suddenly not use something for sometime, or have to patch some other thing before being able to do something else and so on.

Many mistake testing (and even sid) for stable-enough branches because yes, it is not like they blow up in you face (unless you really screw up), but truly, few or none at all would seriously use testing or sid for production systems that cannot afford unexpected minor disservices (which will occur).
I don't think that there are many non-stable debian servers out there, and there's a good reason why. ;)

That said, bon voyage on testing and may it be a wonderful learning experience as it has been and still is for me.

Kiemc
Posts: 1
Joined: 2013-08-25 09:35

Re: Why do you use debian?

#372 Post by Kiemc »

Why do (will) I use Debian?

About two years ago, when I got internet connection, started to use Ubuntu. But when Unity desktop came in, I left it, as my computer was too slow for that. Then I started to use Lubuntu (Ubuntu with LXDE), it was fine. It is still fine, I like the OS itself, but the company behind Ubuntu (Canonical) makes me a bit frustrated. It is getting more and more commercial, and this differs from what I imagined to be free software. (Not as free of charge, but free as in freedom.) Can actually be free something that is backed by a company? Business is business, as it is said, and I'm getting frustrated by business breaking into every aspect of life. In fact, I realized this thing when I got upset by the Ubuntu SSO system, which is, I think, useless, and just annoying. Then, for what on Earth is it present? I've also read that there are other things that seem to be not really good (search keywords sent to third parties, ads etc.) in a "free" OS.

Of course, the word Debian wasn't unknown for me, but – shame on me – till now I haven't realized it's a standalone operating system (I didn't read encyclopedia pages till now). Now I know it's the oldest Linux distribution, and the base of many other ones, and – despite some critics – still one of the most favuorite distros. As a bit experienced (l)ubuntu user, for me it shouldn't be difficult to change. I've installed it on my laptop, and soon will on my PC. I bet I won't regret.

So, why do (will) I use Debian? Mostly because of its philosophy: not mixing free software and business. Maybe I wouldn't recommend Debian for inexperienced AND non-English-speaking users, but for me it's fine. I do think that there can be an OS that is free, developed on voluntary basis, and the community can put that amount of money together that is needed to maintain the servers and pay other costs. And once a user gets experienced, it may give advice and answer questions, or even becomes a developer.

I believe in this philosophy. Because of this and my (l)ubuntu past, I think I couldn't choose anything else but Debian.

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Orbmiser
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Re: Why do you use debian?

#373 Post by Orbmiser »

My first post here. And was a Ubuntu user back in Dapper days in 2006
left linux due to lack of mature and powerful apps for Image editing and video work.

So came back Nov. 2012 to check out and was flabbergasted at what Ubuntu done with the whole Unity thing.
I tried it more than once and more than a month and just wasn't my cup of tea.
Then the whole Shuttleworth Vision was getting in the way of community and desktop.

Left for Linux Mint 14 Cinnamon then KDE. Been running great and is a great distro.
But updating to new version requiring a clean install.

Then saw the release of SolydXK 2013-08 was released and did some reading on Debian and rolling releases and such.
And is a fork off from Mint LMDE Debian edition that has fell behind in the Mint community.
Found it intriguing as getting tired as just Upgrade Mint 14 KDE to Mint 15 Olivia which recommends clean install.
Even tho do have a separate /home partition which makes these kind of things easier. I also backup my partitions to external usb so something borks then back in 20 mins.

So downed the SolyK 64bit KDE iso and intalled.
Couple of apps needed to be reinstalled that I use and some basic tweaking all done in 60 mins.
They use update packs which is different I guess of a true rolling release?

Just wanting a stable and a reasonable updated system without the need or worry of how Upgrading will go borking or not borking my setup with my crossing fingers the whole time. And Debian may just be the Golden Ticket :P

So far So Good!
.
Last edited by Orbmiser on 2013-08-26 00:30, edited 1 time in total.

Randicus
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Joined: 2011-05-08 09:11

Re: Why do you use debian?

#374 Post by Randicus »

Why do I use Debian? With all the people who register on the forum so they can inform us how terrible Debian is and how much better Mint and Ubuntu are, apparently I use Debian because I am stupid.

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kolker
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Re: Why do you use debian?

#375 Post by kolker »

I like debian for its actual choice. want a os that is only open soft ware you got it, want a rolling release you got it, want a preinstalled de you got it; if you dont want any of that you got it. I came from arch which is a nice distro and I have learned a lot while using it though I needed something more reliable and where I can concentrate more on working than tweaking/fixing the os. I can still do that if I wanted with unstable but at least I have the choise either way.

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keithpeter
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Re: Why do you use debian?

#376 Post by keithpeter »

s3a wrote:* Upgrades are so smooth, I really think I can just keep upgrading forever and cloning my installation to each iteration of newer hardware that I get and, I love that!
Pointers to the cloning method you favour would be greatly appreciated. I'm thinking of cloning from desktop to laptop.
Randicus wrote:Why do I use Debian? With all the people who register on the forum so they can inform us how terrible Debian is and how much better Mint and Ubuntu are, apparently I use Debian because I am stupid.
I get stupider as I grow older, I think it is called learning by experience. :twisted:

I'm using a Debian desktop system on the old PC because it works, has the packages I need, does not force any 'direction' especially.

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janet
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Re: Why do you use debian?

#377 Post by janet »

keithpeter wrote:
s3a wrote:Pointers to the cloning method you favour would be greatly appreciated. I'm thinking of cloning from desktop to laptop.
keith, check out this site:http://www.clonezilla.org/
The "live-cd" version is usually the one to use.

Clonezilla came out with a new updated version today:http://sourceforge.net/projects/clonezi ... /2.1.2-43/

Good luck

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keithpeter
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Re: Why do you use debian?

#378 Post by keithpeter »

janet wrote: keith, check out this site:http://www.clonezilla.org/
The "live-cd" version is usually the one to use.
I started a new thread in 'General Discussion' about moving Wheezy using tar. I've used clonezilla for things like preserving the Windows/hidden partition on a Thinkpad in case I want to sell the laptop in the future. Thanks

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rop75
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Re: Why do you use debian?

#379 Post by rop75 »

I will TRY and answer the original question: Why do I use Debian?:

Because it does not depend on a company (unlike Ubuntu, Fedora or SuSE it does not depend on the economic situation, nor on the profits made by a company)

Because it does not depend on just one person or on a small team (unlike distros like Linux Mint or fuduntu -do you remember FUDUNTU?, it was a great distro...now it is only a memory...-), a

And specially because it has everything I need and it is amazingly stable and reliable

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Jimmyfd
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Re: Why do you use debian?

#380 Post by Jimmyfd »

Back in 1995 I became a Novell Certified NetWare 3.1x CNA/CNE primarily with MS Windows Clients (Windows 3.11 WFW) - The server I administered was somewhat a monster. It serviced 250 concurrent connections (license was 500 users) and it did it on a single core 90 MHz Pentium system with 256 MB of RAM and a Sony 4,7 GB (uncompressed) tape drive, a 2 GB SCSI drive for the system and a 4.2 GB SCSI drive for user data. Mounting of the data-drive alone took 20 min during startup. What I'm trying to say is, that this relative small, by todays standards, server was rock solid. It just worked and was pure joy to work with.

Having tried every MS Windows since Windows 3.00a up until Windows XP Professional I have been applauded with more than my fair share of instable and insecure systems. Day by day Windows gradually got slower and slower. So back in 2006 I tried out Ubuntu Linux and kind of kept hanging there. Tiered of the constant six month upgrade cycle I went looking for a distro with a longer lifespan. Tried Debian Lenny, but it couldn't make me settle there so I went back to Ubuntu.

For a little more than a year now I've run nothing but Debian, and I'm not going to either. Debian satisfies my needs fully, unlike all the other distros I've tried out. Debian's "learning by doing" just make me want to learn even more.
UBUNTU ? Debian programmer gone mad !

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