[Malvern] Debian and Ubuntu.

[Guy Inchbald]

For Matt Hartley's article, see:
http://www.intranetjournal.com/articles/200710/ij_10_10_07a.html

And for a reply, see:
http://monochromementality.com/index.php/blog/show/Re-Why-Ubuntu-Tops-Deb
ian.html

Both are full of ideological posturing and very little substance. Both 
assume that, like Mac OS and Windows, Ubuntu "just works", while debian 
requires geek genes. Hahaha! Any OS that black- or bluescreens me does 
not IMHO "just work". Of those mentioned, only debian has never done 
that to me.

Nevertheless I have persevered with Ubuntu, expecting it to get better 
quicker. But instead I am getting increasingly fed up with its "nanny 
knows best" attitude.

For example I just installed the latest long-term support hardy heron 
8.04. Then I decided to diddle with my partitions a bit more, but no 
tool was available (it was in the installer, but vanished during the 
install). So I fired up the download toy (forget what it's called), 
which promptly demanded my password - even for access to the *official* 
repository. So did other tools for diddling with one thing or another. 
Look Mr. Shuttleworth, I already logged on. This isn't an enterprise 
full of locked-down servers, it's my personal desktop box for **** sake! 
Well, next I had to "just know" to look for gparted, and I downloaded 
it. It failed to appear in my desktop menus (unlike Abiword, which is a 
great little word processor). I had to "just know" to open a terminal 
and type 'gparted'. But all I got was a lecture on how daaangeerrroussss 
it was and only root was allowed to play with it (even though my present 
account had been allowed to download and install it). Presumably that 
was why it was not in my menu. Of course, Ububtu doesn't allow you to 
log in as root. Again, I had to "just know" to type 'sudo gparted'. Thus 
circumventing nanny was as simple as climbing out the window and down 
the drainpipe - as any professional cat burglar would know. Nanny is not 
just irritating, she is ineffectual. That makes her doubly aggravating 
as far as I am concerned, and she reminds me of nothing if not a certain 
popular OS from Redmond, USA.

Geoff's post reminded me of my earlier affair with debian - thanks 
Geoff! The only trouble I recall was setting up ppp and dialup stuff. 
Since I now have a broadband router, that is no longer an issue.

Is there anything about debian unstable that makes it less slick than 
Ubuntu to install? I always like to be forewarned.

-- 
Cheers,
Guy


On Tue, 8 Jul 2008 18:52:53, Geoff Bagley <geoff.bagley at btinternet.com> 
wrote:
>Hi Ian,
>
>Further to our exchange of ideas on Ubuntu vs. Debian,  I found the 
>following paper
>by Matt Hartley  "Why Ubuntu Tops Debian".  Date : 10/10/2007 in 
>Intranet Journal .
>
>You might try googling for it.
>
>Best regards,
>
>Geoff
>
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