DesktopLinux.com's executive editor recently decided to retire Red Hat 7 after seven years of loyal service as his home LAN's firewall/router OS. This article chronicles his trials and tribulations as he presses "pure Debian" into service, first as a server and then as a Linux desktop. Read the complete tale here.
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Member since:2006-09-16
As for the *ubuntus I still find it necessary to type extra lines into the Xorg configuration file. It's always been like that for me. Luckily, xvidtune is there for CRT monitors and once the correct settings are found they apply to every distro. It would be nice if all Linux flavours could read Windows *.inf files.
Member since:2006-01-01
That's right, the default "desktop task" in Debian 4.0 has been built around GNOME 2.14. However, Joey Hess has pointed out some alternatives for users who prefer KDE:
http://kitenet.net/~joey/blog/entry/KDE_CD.html
More information about the Debian 4.0 (codenamed "etch") release is available here:
http://www.debian.org/releases/etch/
http://wiki.debian.org/NewInEtch
Member since:2005-10-12
Its all true, but there are a couple of things which will disoncert the ordinary user. One is menus. If you go with Gnome, there seems to be a Gnome menu, which has (eg) a programming entry, and that has a few things in it. If you then go from the Gnome start icon to the Debian entry, take this down to Programming, you get a different bunch. This sort of thing happens all through. Now everything works and is very stable, but its not exactly integrated, so if you're setting it up for someone, there's a fair amount of configuration. Similarly with printing setup. If you didn't know to start Cups from the browser, not sure how you would come on an easy way to do printers.
None of this bothers the experienced user, but for others, probably Mandriva or PCLinux might be a better choice.
Member since:
2005-11-14
The author barely talks about the Debian desktop experience. He understandably used the latest stable release, 3.1.
There's been a lot of work done to make the default desktop experience on Debian 4.0 something a lot closer to what people expect from distributions like Ubuntu and openSUSE.
Administration tools are installed by default (gnome-system-tools, printer support, scanner support, gdebi and synaptic) and the expected desktop apps are also installed by default (the default GNOME desktop plus gaim, gnomebaker, OpenOffice.org, NetworkManager on laptops, etc).
You're no longer asked cryptic questions during system install and you don't have to know or learn what Xorg, CUPS and even GNOME are in order to get started. There's even some custom Debian artwork installed by default.
While distributions with frequent releases and short support periods are great for testing and advancing the latest in FOSS development, it's stable and long supported releases that enterprises, governments and home users need when migrating. Debian 4.0 certainly delivers in that area.