"Ubuntu caused a lot of friction with and for Debian. In discussions with its founder, Mark Shuttleworth, and other Ubuntu developers during (and before) Debconf6, I was able to spell out the main criticisms from the Debian perspectives of the way Canonical/Ubuntu is handling things (without a claim to completeness). These criticisms mainly stem from discussions with fellow developers over the past 18 months, and I largely support all of them. I am publicising them here to help make the status quo more transparent."
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:2005-07-06
Ubuntu will be focusing on the server side too
Thing is, with Debian you don't have a "focus" in your sense. If you want a desktop os, Debian is good for it. If you want a powerful server os with all and every freedom to control every aspect of it, Debian is good for it. You want a mix, a desktop os with several server functionality, Debian is good for it. Once tried, the good feeling won't easily go away. You're a skilled user of admin, a base install and apt-get can get you a totally working system easily - one of my favourite things in Debian -, you want package managing apps, here you go pick one from the bag.
In my book, Debian is great especially because it doesn't give you a desktop install/lamp install/server install/etc but it gives you a bag of tools and the largest package bag on this planet so that you are able to make your own system of out it.
Ubuntu is good, and with Ubuntu you also can achieve the above, but the average users won't know anything about that, they just know that Ubuntu has a nice install and is less hassle for them to install. That's good and ok, but won't make it better than Debian, just differently targeted.
Member since:
2005-07-06
The simple answer: because we define "users" in a much broader sense. To Ubuntu, it's Desktop users. To us, users include the advanced system administrator team in charge of thousands of machines.
Better be carefull.
1) targeting desktop users does not neccessarily makes Ubuntu less significant than Debian, if not more.
2) I don't think Ubuntu will limit it's target to only desktop users. From the progress we see so far, it seems Ubuntu will be focusing on the server side too.