On Saturday, 25 January 2014 at 15:52:39 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 25, 2014 at 11:51:57AM +0000, John Colvin wrote:
>> On Friday, 24 January 2014 at 16:14:15 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:
>> >On Fri, Jan 24, 2014 at 06:01:33AM -0500, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>> >[...]
>> >>While Linux isn't my primary desktop system, the desktop Linux stuff
>> >>I do work with has gone from Ubuntu -> Debian -> Mint.
>> >>
>> >>I left Ubuntu because Canonical was starting to piss me off, partly
>> >>because of their apparent obsession with being basically just an OSX
>> >>clone. So I went upstream to Debian. Still run Debian on my server,
>> >>but I abandoned it as a desktop OS partly because so much of it is
>> >>out of date literally before they even release it, and also because
>> >>once they do get a newer version of something, there's a fair chance
>> >>you can't actually get it without upgrading the whole OS because not
>> >>everything actually gets into backports
>> >[...]
>> >
>> >You should just run off Debian/unstable (or if you're chicken,
>> >testing).  I do.  In spite of the name, it's actually already as
>> >stable as your typical desktop OS with its typical occasional random
>> >breakage.  Stable is really for those people who are running mission
>> >critical servers that when the OS dies, people die. That's why it's
>> >always "out of date", 'cos everything must be tested thoroughly
>> >first. For desktop users you don't need that kind of stability, and
>> >generally you don't want to wait that long to get software upgrades.
>> >So just use unstable or testing.  I've been living off unstable for
>> >almost 15 years and have only had 1 or 2 occasions when things broke
>> >in a major way. That's saying a lot considering how many times I've
>> >had to reformat and reinstall Windows (supposedly a stable release
>> >version!) back when I was still stuck using it.
>> >
>> >
>> >T
>> 
>> The thing with stability is, it's meaningless without context. The
>> only thing that has meaning is stability in the face of a particular
>> workload.
>> 
>> Mission critical servers tend to have very static requirements. A
>> power-user's desktop has very dynamic requirements. Debian stable
>> will be more "stable" for the server, but the same is not
>> necessarily true for the desktop.
>
> OK, but what I was getting at was that Debian 'unstable' is actually
> usable for daily desktop needs in spite of the name.
>
>
> T

I was agreeing with you, in a very round-a-bout way :)

On Saturday, 25 January 2014 at 15:52:39 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:
> OK, but what I was getting at was that Debian 'unstable' is actually
> usable for daily desktop needs in spite of the name.

And original rant was that Debian unstable is too _stable_ for desktop use, not the other way around :)

On 01/25/2014 11:46 AM, Dicebot wrote:
> On Saturday, 25 January 2014 at 15:52:39 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:
>> OK, but what I was getting at was that Debian 'unstable' is actually
>> usable for daily desktop needs in spite of the name.
>
> And original rant was that Debian unstable is too _stable_ for desktop
> use, not the other way around :)

If you're talking about Nick's rant, he didn't specifically say what Debian release he was using, but it was clearly stable, especially when he mentions backports. Over the years I've switched from Debian stable, to testing, and finally to unstable and haven't looked back.

On Sunday, 26 January 2014 at 00:33:43 UTC, Jeff Nowakowski wrote:
> If you're talking about Nick's rant, he didn't specifically say what Debian release he was using, but it was clearly stable, especially when he mentions backports. Over the years I've switched from Debian stable, to testing, and finally to unstable and haven't looked back.

I was talking about one of my own :P

On Sat, Jan 25, 2014 at 07:33:43PM -0500, Jeff Nowakowski wrote:
> On 01/25/2014 11:46 AM, Dicebot wrote:
> >On Saturday, 25 January 2014 at 15:52:39 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:
> >>OK, but what I was getting at was that Debian 'unstable' is actually usable for daily desktop needs in spite of the name.
> >
> >And original rant was that Debian unstable is too _stable_ for desktop use, not the other way around :)
> 
> If you're talking about Nick's rant, he didn't specifically say what Debian release he was using, but it was clearly stable, especially when he mentions backports. Over the years I've switched from Debian stable, to testing, and finally to unstable and haven't looked back.

Makes me wonder if Debian should just rename unstable -> stable, testing -> very stable, and stable -> very old. :-P


T

-- 
This is a tpyo.

On 1/25/2014 8:20 PM, H. S. Teoh wrote:
>
> Makes me wonder if Debian should just rename unstable -> stable, testing
> -> very stable, and stable -> very old. :-P
>

I've started wondering the same, but it's probably not worth it to expect a sane naming system from something that uses "versions" like "wheezy", "lenny", etc. ;)  And in absolutely no discernible order no less! </pet peeve>

On Sat, 2014-01-25 at 17:20 -0800, H. S. Teoh wrote:
[…]
> Makes me wonder if Debian should just rename unstable -> stable, testing -> very stable, and stable -> very old. :-P

experimental → playground
unstable → workstation (*)
testing → Britney's playground
stable → server (for conservative sys admins who are afraid)


(*) and server for those who do not do automatic upgrades and are
careful when doing manual upgrades.

-- 
Russel. ============================================================================= Dr Russel Winder      t: +44 20 7585 2200   voip: sip:russel.winder@ekiga.net 41 Buckmaster Road    m: +44 7770 465 077   xmpp: russel@winder.org.uk London SW11 1EN, UK   w: www.russel.org.uk  skype: russel_winder

On Monday, 20 January 2014 at 12:30:27 UTC, Chris wrote:
> At work we use Ubuntu, however, I'm not at all happy with it and don't want to use it on my private computer. Which is the best alternative (I've been looking at OpenSUSE; Mint is based on Ubuntu/Debian but only shares the repository with Ubuntu (right?); Fedora has bad reviews at the moment and might be a pain to set up (drivers etc.)). I'm also considering FreeBSD, a completely different beast.

I use Fedora since the first beta release. There will always be people who do not like this and that... :) openSuSE, Fedora, ArchLinux, Mint, Mageia (etc) are all good distros - pure matter of taste I would say. Try few distros and see which one you like the most. That is my advice. Do not read reviews, because they are in 90% subjective.

Am Fri, 24 Jan 2014 06:23:26 -0500
schrieb Nick Sabalausky <SeeWebsiteToContactMe@semitwist.com>:

> On 1/20/2014 11:20 AM, H. S. Teoh wrote:
> >
> > (P.S. Now I know Ubuntu is based on Debian, but the one time I had to deal with an Ubuntu system directly I noticed that they were not as friendly to customization.
> >
> 
> I'd say that's fairly accurate. Ubuntu started as an easy-to-use Debian. But ever since, they've been gradually, but steadily, turning it into an OSX clone.
> 
> With Unity now, it's exactly what I'd recommend to Mac fans who want to try Linux, but not really to anyone else.

Even just Gnome 3 is too heavy weight for my taste. >500 MiB RAM for a desktop shell alone and quite a slice of free video memory wasn't worth it too me for what it offers in usability over light weight desktops. Maybe if I had 8 GiB RAM or so... :)

-- 
Marco

On 1/21/14, <munrek@gmx.com>"@puremagic.com <"\"Théo".Bueno"> wrote:
> Manjaro is great but keep in mind that you will not have access to ArchLinux official repositories.

Speaking of Manjaro, does anyone know how to disable the auto-update feature of Pacman? I'm really getting tired of being asked to download 400MB updates every single day when I start pacman. I can't find much on their wiki. Yeah I could ask in IRC, but I might as well ask here. :)