“Ubuntu never positioned itself as a Debian derivative, like Xandros, Mepis, or Knoppix. Ubuntu publicly acknowledges its relationship with Debian, and Canonical, through its recently founded Ubuntu foundation, hires some Debian developers. All this should be good news; but for some it’s not. Whether on Distrowatch or on forums, voices whisper that Ubuntu has a dirty secret you may not want to hear: they don’t keep the compatibility with Debian, and they want to fork away from their mother distribution.”
fork fork fork
and not one that works well enough on my system.
don’t get me wrong. I want to use ubuntu
but I have to take it back off again and go back to debian sarge.. there are loads of apps that are not in the backports yet.
I want to use xorg, but am stuck with xfree86
so yes it is a fork, as they have took development in a different direction from debian
It works well enough for me. What are your specific problems?
specifically…
1] Planeshift does not start
2] Glest does not work
3] The kernel is a generic 386, if I upgrade it to a K7 kernel, for my processor, it breaks the nvidia drivers and X will not start.
BUT
most importantly, I have a digital and an analoge TV card in that PC and I use them with MythTV. Ubuntu has sort of got MythTV sorted, but it will not work with the digital tv card
If you reinstall the nvidia drivers after the kernel compile, I belive they should work again. At least it does if you use the drivers from nvidia.com.
you just need the matching k7 restricted modules package.
Install Debian Etch
xorg + gnome 2.10
but don’t dist-upgrade to it just yet.
deb http://people.debian.org/~nobse/xorg-x11/ sarge main
deb-src http://people.debian.org/~nobse/xorg-x11/ sarge main
“Ubuntu” is an ancient African word, meaning “I can’t install Gentoo” 😉
“Ubuntu” is an ancient African word, meaning “I can’t install Gentoo” 😉
NAH…. it means “I would rather USE my computer than watch it compile” 😉
Good one 😉
gentoo has binary packages….
Yeah, it has but in that case, what is the point of Gentoo? You just get another generic distro like Ubuntu and personally I feel Ubuntu (and I tried both) is much better for JoeSixpack than Gentoo.
When you introduce linux to a geek, Gentoo leads the way. Geek will be prepared to risk time and energy to top out the best possible result just to brag him self before his felow geeks.
When you introduce linux to a person whose general interest is not having optimized but having simple and workable solution that “Just works” Ubuntu leads the way. Either JoeSixpack or bussiness people don’t have the energy or time to cope with Gentoo.
When I (notice my personal opinion here) need a server distro CentOS is the way to go. But on my desktop computers there’s Ubuntu (haven’t got time for Gentoo)
I was just trolling. You shouldn’t feed me.
Uses for Gentoo with Binary Packages:
1.) slow computers. I sorta administer a Gentoo box that has a PII-333MHz in it. There’s NO WAY I would want to try to compile OpenOffice.Org with it; the system has to be at least somewhat functional and having massive compiles running for days in the background is bad business.
2.) Getting a system up and running fast. Install X.org, KDE and Mozilla Firefox from packages and get a running system in a few minutes (ok, with the current install system, an hour or so). Then once you have a functional system you CAN run upgrades in the background to get the latest version or a customized version. Yeah, in the end it takes longer before you have the system as you want it, but it’s usable faster.
Nah. It means I can either use a decent packaging system to get something compiled as a quality check so I can be confident it will run fine on my system, or I can use another distro and spend a hundred times as long working out why it isn’t running at all or why I have to configure umpteen other packages before I get to the one I actually want to use ;-).
Nah, it means “I believe I am doing software quality assurance because I watch a script compiling my stuff even if it’s quite possible that I don’t really know what to do if there is an error in the process since I am not a programmer, like those QA’ing binary packages”. 😉
Actually, I use Gentoo on my server, but not for pimping in front of my friends.
Ever heard the expression: “Don’t feed the trolls” ? I’m a troll, don’t feed me. 😉
You must be referring to RPM hell, not portage. In the rare instance I can’t install a package, the fix is usually not more than a day or two away in terms of a script fix. As for waiting around for my machine to compile, I don’t. I can actually use my machine while new packages are compiling.
Maybe you just don’t know what the hell you’re doing. And I thought I was a noob. LOL
Wow! A smart joke and a USE flag pun! You sir are an inspiration to us all.
As opposed to Gentoo, which actually stands for “Watching whimsical flurries of compiler output lines scrolling away on my console somehow makes me a Linux expert”…
I had a stage 1 install of Gentoo for more than a year. In some ways it worked better for me than Ubuntu does now; but I switched because I got tired of those compiler lines scrolling endlessly and from having to visit the forums to try to tweak my system (Ubuntu is 90% of what I’d been shooting for, and I didn’t have to do anything- big win).
Any experience I got with Gentoo came from poking around in the internals of the system, reading man pages, and frequenting the Gentoo forums. My current (modest) level of skill probably has more to do with having using Linux for more than a year than having used a Stage 1 Gentoo install.
Man, what part of “troll” you fail to understand?
My take: Mandrake user: “this distro is boring and gives me a newbie reputation, I’ll go to Gentoo.”
After some time with Gentoo: “this distro is *very* boring, it takes forever to compile and things go wrong too often: I’ll try the latest hype: Ubuntu” “Man, this is so much better than Gentoo! At least I can get some work done.”
But there is of course another path: Mandrake user: “I have had enough, I’ll try Debian.” “Man, this is really great! Ubuntu? What is that? I am not going to leave ol, trusted Debian because of a newcomer…”
I laughed so hard, I hurt myself!!!!
Finally someone that can apreciate good trolling 😉
This is all the authors theory and he states that in the article. One parapraph that really caught me was:
When the Debian Core Consortium was launched, any single Debian reseller/service provider/linux distributor out there rushed to join the alliance . But Ubuntu refused, for the sake of its own business, and for the sake of its own foundation… So Ubuntu declared that day to the world that it would separate itself from Debian. It may sound overreacted, but it’s true. If you refuse to join a consortium that is grouping the commercial and community players around Debian and is working withing the Debian project, you are simply saying that you’re not part of this community.
I view this similarly to the UK not jumping into the EU. Yes it’s true that also makes them seperate from the community, but it also implies a wait and see attitude. Ubuntu is moving really fast and if they were to couple themselves to the DCC would they benefit? Or would DCC just slow them down? Frankly, if I’m in charge of Ubuntu I make the same call until the DCC proves it’s not just a bunch of hot air.<P>
I view this similarly to the UK not jumping into the EU. Yes it’s true that also makes them seperate from the community, but it also implies a wait and see attitude. Ubuntu is moving really fast and if they were to couple themselves to the DCC would they benefit? Or would DCC just slow them down? Frankly, if I’m in charge of Ubuntu I make the same call until the DCC proves it’s not just a bunch of hot air.
Interesting point, but if I’m not mistaken, the real reason Ubuntu had no interest in joining the DCC is that they’re based on Debian Sid, whereas the DCC members are all based on Sarge. Therefore, there is no “common core” between Ubuntu and other DCC members.
> Debian Sid, whereas the DCC members are all based on
> Sarge. Therefore, there is no “common core” between
> Ubuntu and other DCC members.
Yes and no. If Debian were a part of the DCC, then Ubuntu would implicitly be a part of it, just the SID portion of the DCCA. Debian isn’t a part of the DCCA, so it wouldn’t make sense to join.
What’s a bit troubling about the DCCA is that they’re going around acting as if they own Debian and implying that if you’re not part of the DCCA, you’re a fork. The DCCA web site has fixed the “DCCA==Debian Common Core Alliance” issue, but each press release states “Ian Murdock, the founder of Debian and the leader of the DCC Alliance” instead of “Ian Murdock, Chairman and Chief Strategist of Progeny and the DCCA”.
It seriously looks as if the DCCA is trying to usurp authority from Debian. I’d must rather Ubuntu stay clear from this group of jokers until they stop muddying the waters or become a legitimate Debian subproject.
Yes and no. If Debian were a part of the DCC, then Ubuntu would implicitly be a part of it, just the SID portion of the DCCA. Debian isn’t a part of the DCCA, so it wouldn’t make sense to join.
There is no Sid portion of the DCC. DCC and the DCCA are about creating a common base for Debian-derived distros so that they remain compatible both with eachother and with Debian’s supported stable branch, which today is Sarge (something I and many others consider to be an unquestionably positive thing for the Debian community). No such endeavor would make any sense at all for a moving target such as Sid. Zero sense. Less than zero, maybe.
There may be political reasons also, but there is an actual technical reason for Ubuntu not being able to adopt the DCC, despite your hand-waving: DCC is based on Sarge, Ubuntu is based on Sid, and guess what – they’re different by nature. In other words, you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.
What’s a bit troubling about the DCCA is that they’re going around acting as if they own Debian and implying that if you’re not part of the DCCA, you’re a fork. The DCCA web site has fixed the “DCCA==Debian Common Core Alliance” issue, but each press release states “Ian Murdock, the founder of Debian and the leader of the DCC Alliance” instead of “Ian Murdock, Chairman and Chief Strategist of Progeny and the DCCA”.
He is the founder of Debian. Is he supposed to remove that from his resume because you don’t like what he’s been up to lately? Who the hell are you?
The “going around acting as if they own Debian” is merely your fanciful interpretation of pretty straight-forward events. And whatever the DCCA trademark issues, how about letting Debian handle them instead of running around trolling forums with wild accusations? Debian has already started a process to handle the situation, and those of us who have been around this community for longer than five minutes know it will be worked out.
It seriously looks as if the DCCA is trying to usurp authority from Debian. I’d must rather Ubuntu stay clear from this group of jokers until they stop muddying the waters or become a legitimate Debian subproject.
Trying to usurp authority! Group of jokers! Great stuff. You should write your own trollish articles instead of just replying about them on OSNews. And if you write them poorly enough, OSNews will link to them and then other trolls will have a chance to reply with more half-baked logic, venom and innuendo – it’s a great system! Seriously, this is Grade A uninformed bullshit, with just the perfect amount of righteous indignation thrown into the mix. Nice job.
Remember kids, in troll-land the sky is always falling. And nobody does any actual work, they just stand back with pointy sticks and poke at anybody who actually tries to get something done.
Oh, who am I kidding. The real sucker here is me. Once again Eugenia has baited me into posting on her silly blog. Boy, a blog really has to be a piece of troll-laden crap to make Slashdot look like a bastion of professional journalism, eh.
Once again Eugenia has baited me into posting on her silly blog.
Eugenia? She left 4 months ago, sonny. I’m the one to flame now.
Calm down a bit. You don’t need to reply 5 times.
Although they are trying to say as close to Debian as possible, they aren’t just using Sarge. They’re using a newer kernel and I believe X.org. Both these are perfectly okay, but it is a fork and because it is a unification of various forks that already existed, it’s a good thing. Componetized Linux is also a good thing and I hope that it’ll one day it’ll be a part of Debian, but at the moment, it’s another distinction with Debian.
There *would* be a SID equivalent for the DCCA to accomodate these changes and also any other targetted backports. Remember this is for “the enterprise”.
So the DCCA isn’t evil, got that?
The problem is that they’ve managed their relationship with Debian poorly. It’s not just one article. Read the Debian mailing lists. There is a definite tension and there is concern that the DCCA is trying to ram through their mandate. There is apparently talk between the DCCA and Debian to try to resolve the differences.
> He is the founder of Debian. Is he supposed to remove
> that from his resume because you don’t like what he’s
> been up to lately? Who the hell are you?
It’s phrases like “DCCA stands for Debian Common Core Alliance. Ian Murdock, the founder of Debian and the leader of the DCC Alliance, ….” that cause people to think that the DCCA *is* Debian. Read the forums. If it happened once, there’s no fowl. But it’s happened repeatedly and it appears that DCCA is encouraging it. So if Ian and the DCCA want to maintain good relations with Debian they *do* need to go out of their way to clarify.
Ubuntu got a lot of flack early on about the forking issue that wasn’t deserved, but since it *was* big a concern of the Debian community which feared that Ubuntu might fracture Debian. Mark Shuttleworth and the rest of the Ubuntu crew went out of his way to clarify things repeatedly and are still doing it.
Similarly, GNOME got a lot of flack because it’s founder Miguel, started working on Mono and believed it should be a part of GNOME. It started appearing in news releases. Miguel and GNOME went out of their way to clarify that Miguel was not speaking on behalf of GNOME. These days Miguel downplays his GNOME founder’s status and simply states that he is the founder of Mono. There’s still a bit of misinformation about Mono in GNOME, but for the most part, people do understand that GNOME is not tied to Mono.
It may not be fair for the DCCA or Ubuntu because even a perceived reality, if it’s held to be true by enough people, has a way of getting a life of it’s own. If Mark and Ubuntu or Miguel and GNOME had done nothing, they’d have to accept the blame for the misinformation. Willful negligence is never an excuse when you’re dealing with a community Ian and the DCCA’s has no less responsiblity for the misinformation.
Things haven’t played out yet. The DCCA may yet redeem themselves. Right now, I’m holding my breath, hoping Ian and the DCCA do the right thing (even if it’s inconvenient).
Hi, don’t see the problem. It is already known, that ubuntu isn’t really compatible to debian. So what? Is this really needed? Why is a fork bad? Ubuntu works great, so what…
Tell you what, let’s see Debian say “thou shalt not use ANY of our packages” to Ubuntu and see how long it survives. It’d be dead within six months.
Ubuntu is heavily overrated, much like Gentoo was 3 or 4 years ago when it first came out.
Of course, now all the lovely Ubuntu fanboys will mod me down. Doesn’t bother me one iota.
Dave
You are undoubtedly still paying cash for free software. Libranet if I remember correctly? You are wasting your money. Both Gentoo and Ubuntu have more flexability (gentoo) and useability (ubuntu). Your comments about other distros are ill informed and ego based. Gentoo may be too difficult for most “general users” like yourself, but criticising Ubuntu is ridiculous as it is very newbie friendly…so give it a try before laying out blanket criticisms.
“Gentoo may be too difficult for most “general users” like yourself,”
You should think before you write. Dave (Morgoth) has helped people countless times, in a very competent manner.
I am wasting my money? It’s my money. The GPL doesn’t mean free as in beer, it means free as in speech. Do you think the likes of IBM or HP or Intel would give a shit about Linux if it was just ‘free as beer’? Nope. There’d be no, or little money to be made. Libranet offers value added add-ons that are sorely lacking in Debian proper, and other Debian based distributions. It has a friendly community, and developers that you can talk to. It’s development phase might be a bit slower than others, or it might not be bleeding edge, but that’s not it’s reason d’etre (think I spelt that one right lol).
If I want to spend 3 days compiling KDE on Gentoo and boring the shit out of myself with a non productive workstation, I would, but since I want to actually use the damn PC, I don’t think I’ll opt for Gentoo anytime soon.
Quote: “Your comments about other distros are ill informed and ego based.”
Really? I don’t think so. I’ve tried my fair share of distributions thanks. I’m happy with what Libranet does for me. And yes, I’ve tried both Ubuntu and Kubuntu and I stand by my comments that they are both the flavour of the month, and overrated.
Quote: “Gentoo may be too difficult for most “general users” like yourself”
I beg your pardon? You’re making a presumption that I’m a general user now? Wow. I can make my way around Gentoo if I want to, thanks, I choose not to as I see it as a waste of time. I’ve been using GNU/Linux long enough to have a reasonably good idea of what I’m doing. So, if you’re trying to make me look dumb, piss off.
Quote: “Ubuntu is ridiculous as it is very newbie friendly”
See above comment. I don’t need my hand held, or my ass wiped. Maybe you do?
Dave
“Tell you what, let’s see Debian say “thou shalt not use ANY of our packages” to Ubuntu and see how long it survives. It’d be dead within six months.”
At this point I do not see that Ubuntu would need anything from Debian as they have their own repository that is independant from Debian’s. Distros, like Libranet or Xandros, who make money by functioning as a parasite (nothing given back) on Debian would be in serious trouble.
“At this point I do not see that Ubuntu would need anything from Debian as they have their own repository that is independant from Debian’s. Distros, like Libranet or Xandros, who make money by functioning as a parasite (nothing given back) on Debian would be in serious trouble.”
Sure, but a split with Debian would help no one and reflect badly on all concerned, so let’s hope it never happens. For a start, Ubuntu’s overheads would increase gigantically one assumes – counted in man-hours needed to maintain and prepare software, though also in cash out too most likely.
Also, there is a lot of talk about how much Ubuntu is giving back to Debian unlike some other Debian-based distros. But what’s the hard, empirical evidence of what and how much Ubuntu really is giving back?
I agree completely. I was just responding to Morgoth’s ridiculous assertion that the Debian project should or would forbid Ubuntu from using their packages as if open source distributors should suddenly start being piggish about intellectual property. Companies like Libranet, Linspire, and Xandros would love to see a distro like Ubuntu fail to increase their revenue. The poster to whom I refer is a proponent of one of the above “for pay” distros. His criticism is merely a reflection of the loss of revenue he estimates his distro to suffer.
“Also, there is a lot of talk about how much Ubuntu is giving back to Debian unlike some other Debian-based distros. But what’s the hard, empirical evidence of what and how much Ubuntu really is giving back?”
Canonical hired Debian developers who now get to work on Debian and get paid for doing it. Before Canonical these developers had to do it in their spare time.
All of the bugfixes, patches and packages that Ubuntu develops are given back to Debian.
What other Debian derivatives do that?
Quote: “Distros, like Libranet or Xandros, who make money by functioning as a parasite (nothing given back) on Debian would be in serious trouble.”
Ahh! I suggest you read the GPL – it’s basic premise is sharing, for the betterment of the community. And, yes, the GPL allows you to take code and enhance it, and then sell it for a profit! If you don’t believe me, go and ask RMS. Go on.
So, please stop spreading your FUD!!!
Dave
I hates it’s colors though..
That’s a very good point. I mean, if you aim the regular users, you can’t have that poor brown based colour scheme. As a regular user, I’ll spend my time on computer surfing webpages, IM’ing, playing, listening to music, watching videos. It’s fine for me that it just works, but it’s awful to have to change themes after install. A lot of people I have showed Ubuntu to have said it’s ugly and changed their minds for better looking user-friendly distros. Nowadays I prefer to show them Kubuntu. Although I don’t like that blue glowy kde madness, it’s still better than that brown theme.
It’s a matter of taste, brown if fine with, but bothers you. You have the freedom to change it, download different themes, icons whatever without extra charges (unlike windows for example).
I don’t see what this has to do with the article though..
General wisdom is that the default should be something that’s optimal for the broadest user group. I love customizing things, but everything should be smooth out of the box. Not my kind of smooth, perhaps, but smooth.
By paulwallen on 2005-09-26 14:16:28 UTC
I hates it’s colors though..
Racist!
I don’t think free CD’s are the reason Ubuntu is so popular. Alos, the article sound more like sour grapes complaining that Mark Shuttleworth donated 10 million to Ubuntu instead of Debian.
So what if Ubuntu and Debian are different? Most Red Hat based distros are not fully compatible with Red hat.
Ubuntu is the most popular distro on distrowatch.com with almost 2x the popularity of second place, Debian is 7th.
Maybe different is what people needed. If different was wrong there would be only one distro.
They game the results at DistroWatch by posting a direct link on their website.
The numbers att DistroWatch are, and always have been, misleading. The numbers only represents which distro people are interested in knowing more about, and not necessarily which one is actually the most used in the real world.
For example, I happen like Slackware, FreeBSD and OpenBSD but you won’t find me clicking their links at DistroWatch because I already know everything I need to know about them. At DistroWatch I go for the distributions I know nothing about. I’ve looked at the Ubuntu details, like package versions for example, at several occasions and by doing so probably upped their stats. Yet, I don’t have any Ubuntu machines.
See how that works? Hype can be enough to inflate the numbes. Personally I think Debian beats Ubuntu by a long shot in the real world (And this is not what I would consider a biased opinion or guess since none of the two are among my favorites).
This article bugged me… i mean.. if its a fork ok.. if its dirivative ok.. I really don’t care. Why? Because I am Joe sixpack computer user.. I don’ care if i have sarge,potato, whatever compatability. I just want to be able to do my papers for school, email my friends, discuss politics. Ubuntu is linux for everyone.. and most people aren’t sysadmins, programmers,developers. Most computer users are people like me. So I guess I will just have to live with the 16,000 or so packages that i can get via the various ubuntu repositories out there(universe,multiverse), and leave the debian repos alone.
p.s. re the gentoo comment..Ubuntu also means i have more to do with my life than stare at terminal output(gentoo is rice)
I certainly don’t. I just want a linux solution that works ‘out of the box’. If Ubuntu puts a polished edge on Debian, then I’ll back a coup d’etat.
I think ubuntu is like the author say: Canonical had a “secret” to attack open source community: They have a dream: become dominante in open source community.
I think ubuntu is like the author say: Canonical had a “secret” to attack open source community: They have a dream: become dominante in open source community.
Imho, for a distro where KDE is slapped on as an afterthought, they’ll hardly dominate anything.
the ubuntu developers SHOULD have become all debian developers and spent their time trying to better debian so that ubuntu would have a better product, but they acted selfishly and wanted to make sure not to help anyone else using debian.
they should have done:
help debian -> help ubuntu
but they do this instead:
help ubuntu & keep debian development slow
they are doing some really nice things it’s just a shame that they aren’t helping debian when my morals keep me on debian.
So let me get this straight. A company that pays debian developers to work on Debain, contributes all its changes back to debian in the MOST effectient means possible i.e. not as just a massive tarball of all the code, is somehow immoral?
Ubuntu is a stabilized 6 month snapshot of Debian unstable with all patches submitted back to Debian in a highly efficient manner. Also some changes to the configuration and a custom theme are done.
The only way Ubuntu becomes incompatible with Debian proper is when the Debian unstable sources break compatibility with Ubuntu. Since Ubuntu releases only provide security related patches after the official version is released it is impossible to stay perfectly compatible with Debian when DEBIAN MAKES CHANGES.
where are all the extra packages that ubuntu has in their repositories that debian doesn’t?
Ask the Debian developers… Seriously, Ubuntu was born out of necessity, a more up to date, stable Debian, because Debian has a different release cycle which is too slow for the average desktop user.
The give all their updates back to the community, it’s up to Debian to implement them…
sorry, that should have been: a more up to date, stable Debian desktop (I was not implying that Debian was not stable)
The real problem is that debian doesn’t want to accept a lot of things/patches made by ubuntu team because of their strong egos and “what is nod made here wont be included here” policy.
bleh i didn’t realize that was the case with debian
don’t get me wrong, i use ubuntu on all my non-development computers (have to use debian to remain somewhat compatible with lots of other older distros) — it’s just there that i miss the polish i get with ubuntu.
With your money and efforts do what *I* want you to do, Thanks. Or you’ll be damned.
When warty and hoary came out Ubuntu had many components in its base system that were more up to date than similar components in Debian sid. And Ubuntu rebuild the sources it took from Debian sid against its own base system, not sid’s, and this caused that not all Debian packages worked in Ubuntu or vice versa.
Back then Debian sid was experiencing an unusually slow phase in development because Debian had lots of troubles getting sarge out. But now sarge has been released and sid is back in full speed. Debian sid has been catching up Ubuntu really fast, thanks to good relations and collaboration between Ubuntu devs and Debian devs.
IMO, Ubuntu was close to becoming a fork but now it’s closer to derivative again. Also, there should now be even better chances than earlier to get Debian-built packages working in Ubuntu and vice versa — in case someone actually needs to try that. I’m looking forward to seeing even closer collaboration between these two excellent GNU/Linux distros. For example, Debian is developing a new GUI installer (still very experimental) and I’d love to see Ubuntu contributing to that project as much as possible. 🙂
Open source is a double edged sword, and the debian supporters need to stop complaining if the ubuntu folks do what they are perfectly free to do.
3] The kernel is a generic 386, if I upgrade it to a K7 kernel, for my processor, it breaks the nvidia drivers and X will not start.
You need the linux-restricted-modules-k7 for the nvidia binary drivers to work.
I tried getting all files that had K7 in them
Including the source code… It did not help
X would not start.
I even tried the official Nvidia drivers, which would not compile.. Whats the story with that ?
How dare they create a distribution that is
a)User friendly
b)Ships on time
c)Well funded and promoted
d)Has a large, friendly community
Seriously, while I love Debian and use it every day it is not some sacred cow of open source! Ubuntu does contribute back to Debian, even though they don’t have to.
Sounds like a case of sour grapes to me.
As I understand it forking is one of the strengths of the open source community. It allows a project to split in order to cater to special interests…like Ubuntu’s special interest is the desktop. If a fork draws all of the support away from the original project causing it to die then that is simply evolution. Look at the fork of XFree called X.Org. X.Org is now the standard with XFree being mostly forgotten. Was that progress or failure? It was progress of course. If Debian cannot adapt it will die. So what, Linux distros drop off of the Distrowatch lists every day. Debian is nothing special. Recently they have become a lumbering, slow moving, dinosaur of a project. The strong survive and that is as it should be to ensure the quality and viability of the Linux community.
you retards don’t know how to change the colors?
WHAT ???
you mean this thing can be done ?
WOW
tell me more….
>you retards don’t know how to change the colors?
That’s not the point. Changing colours and themes are easy in Gnome, even a retard (as you call me) can do it. The point is that the scheme shouldn’t look so bad that I want badly to change it. Wait till http://ubuntuforums.org is up again and go check the screenshot section to see if how many people keep the brown theme. The whole point is: regular users like eye candy, thats’s a fact. If they’re your target, you can’t release such awful artwork. Did you check the new Breezy usplash? What do you think about it?
i don’t think the color scheme is bad. it’s a welcome change from the blue fisher price default BS of XP and even the brushed-metal-sometimes & pulsating-blue-bubble-glass-always of “OS ten version ten point four”.
maybe those users keep the color scheme because, oh i don’t know, they like it.
Yes, the ones that keep it are the ones that like it. Brilliant conclusion. Check how many keep it and how many change it. Check the forums about people complaining about the scheme. I know I can change it, but if I’m making a choice where the looks count, why should I get Ubuntu? Really, what most hardcore users fail to see is that it sucks to sit in front of a computer for hours looking at awful unprofessional artwork. I really like Ubuntu, I use it at home, all my hardware is detected flawlessly, but they REALLY need to rethink the appearance of the distro. Users complaining are a hint strong enough that they should change. And then have a look at the new usplash. Then compare it with other graphical boots, like Fedora for example. I know they’re completely different concepts, but as a regular user, I don’t care about it, all I can see is that Fedora’s boot looks good and Ubuntu’s look terrible. If you want to make a distro for normal regular users, learn from their feedback…
I know I can change it, but if I’m making a choice where the looks count, why should I get Ubuntu?
Choose your OS on its technical merits, not its default looks. Otherwise you could be rightly called shallow.
Users complaining are a hint strong enough that they should change.
Many users like it. My best friend switched to Ubuntu/Linux for the first time because he liked the brown look. Said it was “professional.”
And then have a look at the new usplash. Then compare it with other graphical boots, like Fedora for example. I know they’re completely different concepts, but as a regular user, I don’t care about it, all I can see is that Fedora’s boot looks good and Ubuntu’s look terrible.
I like the new usplash more than most. I hope one day Ubuntu runs with the dark brown theme of the usplash instead of light brown. I know that no major theme changes will come till after Dapper though.
If you want to make a distro for normal regular users, learn from their feedback…
There are a few things about Ubuntu that are decided by decrees of Mark, its founder: the silly names, the brown themes, the feature set. All decided by Mark. Ubuntu is his OS. As someone who is very involved in th e project, I can tell you that these things will not go away. The brown will stay- Mark likes it and he pays the bills. If you really are so shallow to judge an OS by its default look, then you better start looking for a new OS today. Ubuntu is what it is. It will not change for you or any single person not named Mark Shuttleworth.
And for the record, Ubuntu is not a distro for normal users. It never claimed to be that. All its fans claim that. Ubuntu is a distro for humanity- a distro that will remain free unlike many others that require a payment to use it. If you are looking for a distro for normal people, Mandriva/SUSE do a better job with their GUI tools and marketing. Ubuntu is for people that can’t even download those on their non existant connection or buy them with the money they don’t have- Ubuntu is shipped to these people for free.
>If you really are so shallow to judge an OS by its default look, then you better start looking for a new OS today.
As I said, I use Ubuntu, and I mostly like it, except for the looks. Some other people might be discouraged by its ugliness (as some I ran into) and go search other better looking distros that might not be as good as Ubuntu technically.
>I can tell you that these things will not go away
It’s pitty that I can’t recommend a good friendly distro because people will get turned off by its looks. I just hope Kubuntu won’t be released with brown theme in the future… with usplash either… It’s still a good alternative and at least comes with KDE default Plastik/Lipstick…
Just a PS: On the user-friendliness and community support the Ubuntu people do very well. I still plan to use Ubuntu for a long time and it has been my only desktop OS for 1 year.
System > Preferences > Theme > Shut The f–k Up
Yes, the ones that keep it are the ones that like it. Brilliant conclusion. Check how many keep it and how many change it. Check the forums about people complaining about the scheme. I know I can change it, but if I’m making a choice where the looks count, why should I get Ubuntu? Really, what most hardcore users fail to see is that it sucks to sit in front of a computer for hours looking at awful unprofessional artwork. I really like Ubuntu, I use it at home, all my hardware is detected flawlessly, but they REALLY need to rethink the appearance of the distro. Users complaining are a hint strong enough that they should change. And then have a look at the new usplash. Then compare it with other graphical boots, like Fedora for example. I know they’re completely different concepts, but as a regular user, I don’t care about it, all I can see is that Fedora’s boot looks good and Ubuntu’s look terrible. If you want to make a distro for normal regular users, learn from their feedback…
Another incredibly stupid article picked up by Osnews, probably for no reason other than to feed the trolls. Seriously, is the author 12?
His biggest charge, his damning evidence, is that Ubuntu isn’t a part of the DCCA. Well, guess what, the DCC is designed to be compatible with Sarge. Ubuntu is based on Sid. This has been true since day 1 of Ubuntu. If you don’t understand this basic fact then you have no business writing an article like this.
Is Ubuntu a fork? Yes, in a way. It’s not a fork of the code, at least, not a significant fork. It’s a fork of the Debian release process (the most broken part of Debian) – they independently stabilize Sid into a releasable form. And then they do it again six months later. And so on. Some of us think this is a good idea and think Debian should adopt a similar process (or, quite frankly, any sane and regular process).
That makes Ubuntu different from other Debian-derived distros, but it certainly doesn’t make it evil. If you don’t like the concept, fine, don’t use it. But it’s amazing that Ubuntu gets so much heat, so much negative energy, from certain quarters, while other derived-distros that make virtually NO attempt to work with the community or feed changes back to Debian (Linspire, Xandros) are ignored by the trolls.
Sure Ubuntu’s cooperation hasn’t been perfect, but in terms of shared philosophy, feeding back code, and community relations it far exceeds some other derived-distros which are given a free ride by the trolls. It seems if you really want to base a distribution on Debian, the best, most uncontroversial way to do so is to not care about the community at all and give nothing back.
There’s some new application that isn’t in debian’s unstable repository yet. You go to the project’s web page and find a .deb that’s available. You download and install it, but it doesn’t work because the developer uses Ubuntu.
As a Debian user, that is what I’m scared of.
http://dc5video.debian.net/2005-07-14/02-Ubuntu_Talk-Mark_Shuttlewo…
or.
http://atlas.secs.oakland.edu/~castro/Shuttleworth_debconf5.ogg
got 404 on the first one, might be temporary.
Sais it all. The whole talk is exactly about this topic. If you ain’t gonna watch it, you’ve got nothing to add to the discussion. Just move along.
I have used Ubuntu for something like 6 months and finally switched to SuSE.
Here are the reasons:
1) Ubuntu is a Gnome desktop. I don’t like Gnome, I prefer KDE. This is an entirely personal matter since Gnome apps work in KDE and KDE’s stuff works in Gnome. But in their rush to usability Gnome developers strip off so many stuff that you end up with an IMHO not usable but crippled desktop.
2) They don’t have a nicely polished distro with a graphical boot screen and GUI configuration tools. Making bluetooth work was a nightmare. However, Ubuntu doesn’t interfere you carefully-crafted configs. So, in this way it’s closer to Slack or Gentoo. In SuSE for example, I haven’t touched the console to do any configuration. In Ubuntu, it is not possible.
3) One CD is not enough. To get a decent development workstation you have to download about 200 megs, and network traffic can be quite costly.
4) Brown theme, unpronouncable name, dark Gnome icons, Clearlooks theme. I simply hate those.
They have some good points, too:
1) Free CDs by mail!
2) All packages are avaliable through Synaptic. And Synaptic (and apt-get) is really good.
3) Packages included in Ubuntu are as close to the original ones as possible.
4) They don’t charge money for forums, updates, packages etc. unlike Mandriva and some others.
4) Brown theme, unpronouncable name, dark Gnome icons, Clearlooks theme. I simply hate those.
I have to differ about unpronouncable name. Saying “Ubuntu” is not that hard at all. In that context, this not a excuse much like many people are able to say “Nintendo”.
Mandriva provides a free version of their distro and there are free updates available using urpmi.
hmmm, if everyone would recall that at the time that Ubuntu was started Debian was in yet another multi-year period of relative stagnation. That is, it was stagnant IF you relied on the stable release. IF you were willing to live with development version(sorry, I’ve forgotten all the cutesy names for various Debian branches and releases, and even their versioning numbering) and the possibility of breakages, which kind of sucks when a 40M package update is broken and you’re on dialup.
Ubuntu came along and offered a stabilized version of the Debian development branch. As part of the stabilization, Ubuntu froze package versions at the release level and only released security updates as applicable to release versions, i.e. giving us a nice stable “next-release-of-debian”. Then, as we have seen Ubuntu continued development by upgrading package versions and adding various applications, while at the current time keeping the distro down to a nice single CD install for a usable base system, which IMNHO is a refreshing change from the mega-bloated distros that are mainly in vogue, unless you wish to go through the pain of creating your own sub-distro based on one of the mega-bloated versions. (The even funnier thing from this standpoint is that these bloated distros usually do not even include source on their CDs any longer. I remember that in the early-latish ’90’s MOST distros still included current source on their distro CDs if they were >1 CD(latish 90s) or just generically earlier(fewer packages, more room left over on the CD), plus I also recall that most of these distros used to have LIVE CD file systems, i.e. you could bootstrap a base system which would mount and run additional utilities/apps from CD(very handy, but I suppose that demo/LIVE bootable CDs are the answer to that even though they really are much more limited unless you want to do some configuration hacking…)
Well, I’ll cut the various historical oddities short, and get to the point which is I believe that Ubuntu was initially created as Canonical WANTED to use Debian, but couldn’t work with it as it stood over a year ago. At this point, I’d guess, Canonical grabbed Debian set about stabilizing, possibly with the intention of continuing it in the event that Debian imploded, which looked quite possible around a year or so ago, and still seems to not be entirely out of the realm of possibility at this moment. i.e. My theory summarized is that Ubuntu was set up to be a commercially viable “spiritual” successor to Debian with regular development cycles and releases.
Now it looks as if this will be changing somewhat as the needs of ubuntu are diverging from those of Debian as eventually happens with all parent-child distros that I have seen. However this is not necessarily bad unless Ubuntu seriously breaks Debian compatibility, but I think thats pretty unlikely as in the case of RedHat/SuSE(and others) their rpm packages are generally workable in the case of binaries, and even more so in the form of source packages(when available.) I have some experience with this as I ended up using YDL on a powerpc for several years before migrating to Ubuntu(more binary packages which is a good thing(TM)). I managed to “port” pretty much any rpm source based(not much of choice with ppc) which typically worked fine unless endian issues or assembly optimizations(without ppc equivalents or workarounds) reared their ugly heads(very few cases). I’d expect this to carry over to ubuntu as well, although with the added bonus that Ubuntu maintains x86, x64, AND ppc repos. (x86 is best maintained, as I find, still, many missing dependencies in the ppc/x64 repos requiring some manual intervention. I started working on an automatic package dependency checker, found someone who had one that did that amongst other things started to switch to using that but had to drop it for the time being. Never had the chance to contact the author of the other packages, which BTW had an “interesting” name… Some day, hopefully soon, I’ll get back to this as it will make my life MUCH easier, and would be something potentially useful to the developers of Ubuntu…)
And like rice, if overcook, it burns…
Yea… we all hate mandriva since it is not 100% compatible with redhat… (who needs a, costly, server OS anyhow)
We need/want a good desktop… comply or die!
-iMoron
Ubuntu is definitively a quality distro, but I disagree when I read the following in the article:
– “[Ubuntu] remain as the number one distribution for more than 6 months”
– “Ubuntu is the first, or one of the first distributions in the world”
These comments are based on the distrowatch.com ranking . What the author seems to ignore is that this ranking only reflects curiosity and interest in a distro (as well as the intensity of PR around a distro).
The Distrowatch ranking can NOT be used to conclude that Ubuntu is the leading distro being used in the field. Only that Ubuntu is drawing attention more than other (older and well known) distros.
I would be curious to see real market share statistics based on the number of desktops and servers running each distro. My guess is that Ubuntu would probbaly be ranked in the second half in term of number of active installations.
Stop dicking with half-assed Linux distros and just install Windows your video card will then work, You know you want too, and still have time to look for a woman to bare your children. easy
hopefully trolls like you will never get the chance to breed
trolls have been breading ever since the snake offered eve an apple. and the apple tasted goooood. how about another.
javajazz
>>I have no evidence of my thesis, except for the
>>few points I’ll mention clearly in the article.
Okay. And that’s where I stopped reading the ‘article’ if there’s
no facts here AND no smoking gun, then there’s no point in
reading the paranoid delusions of a cheap whiner. OSNews.com
should be ashamed of itself for even TRYING to make this out to
be ‘news’ …All I can say is ‘Strike Two’
–bornagainpenguin
if they want to fork – let them.
if they have better ideas – let them flourish. if they can prove debian to be slow or stagnant – let them prove it.
if you don’t like it – fork the fork and keep it compatible.
no-one is forcing you …
OSS projects do it all the time. Debian has incompatible priorities. Ubuntu is all about making the leading desktop distro for (somewhat) normal people and Debian is all about geek-chic (we support that 20year old SPARC hardware – doesn’t make any sense but we’re so hip because of it!) and politics.
I’m going to say who cares.. i don’t care if it doesn’t stick with debian or not.. the fact remains.. unbuntu works.. and very well. I’ve never used anything as effective.. as long as they continue on that road who cares what the backbone is.
If you look at both history and the facts you get a little different picture than this article tries to make. And it’s not the first one of it’s kind lately.
To stay with the fact’s, you have the Debian Core Consortium. BTW Debian is not a part of it. Which was launched by that former Debian leader, but now Progeny(sp) guy. Progeny(sp) is his failed attempt to create a commercial Debian offering. Along comes Ubuntu becoming an instant hit, getting lots of users where he failed. Then we see lots of strange news about Mandriva switching to Debian and partnering with Progeny(sp), baffling not only the comunity but the management at Mandriva. Then after some more press releases and interview’s it all leads to the DCC initiative. With this article, the second or third of it’s kind in a month, it looks more like someone are playing at some kind of media game.
come on guys, face it. Linux is a beautiful Brown.
javajazz
Oh, who am I kidding. The real sucker here is me. Once again Eugenia has baited me into posting on her silly blog.
And you even got baited to post the same mesage 5 times, says it all really.
And you even got baited to post the same mesage 5 times, says it all really.
Six. And for what it’s worth, each time OSNews responded that the message wouldn’t be posted as the forums were temporarily closed.
I may be an idiot, and posting here at all is certainly evidence of that. But the software also sucks.
The guy needs to slap on a tampon and stop his bleeding. Debian moved too slow, they got out evolved. That’s life.
The guy needs to slap on a tampon and stop his bleeding. Debian moved too slow, they got out evolved. That’s life.Who knows, maybe that guy is actually Ian :p
He does sound kinda sour.
Looks like I’m back to recommending Debian to people…
I disagree with most of what the author says in this article. Here are some particular points which I would like to rebut.
He claims that there is a dirty secret in that Ubuntu intends to fork away from Debian, the distribution upon which it is based. Frankly, this isn’t news to me. As a Ubuntu user, I have never felt that Ubuntu intended to keep compatibility with Debian. Rather, the promise Ubuntu has made is to make an easy-to-use, up-to-date and reasonably stable Linux distribution that happens to be based on Debian. The fact that I can at the present time install software from Debian repositories is a bonus. However, if and when Ubuntu “breaks” compatibility with Debian I certainly won’t mind.
The author also questions Mark Shuttleworth’s motivations and commitment to free software and open source movement. In his view, Shuttleworth could have accomplished his stated goals by donating money to Software in the Public Interest, the non-profit organization funding Debian. He also argues that Ubuntu should have been a joint desktop project with Progeny/Debian rather than a separate undertaking.
I disagree with this as Ubuntu has a fundamentally different approach to evangelizing open source software compared with Debian. Debian’s goal is to provide the knowledgeable Linux user with a powerful and extremely tested and stable operating system. Ubuntu’s focus, in contrast, is on the desktop (which Debian hasn’t really shown interest in), is directed towards “newbies” (again, not Debian’s target demographic), and on up-to-date software selection by default. The joint venture suggested by the author would not be viable in my opinion. As for Ubuntu’s commercial aspirations, I have no problem with this if this gives the end user a better Linux experience.
Given the above, why should Ubuntu be obligated to join the Debian Core Consortium, as suggested by the author? Ubuntu has used the core code base from Debian, but apart from that Ubuntu has very little in common with Debian, and has in my opinion a very different vision of the direction that Linux should take.
Finally, the author claims that Ubuntu is in some way taking away from Debian by forking away the code and the community. Well, to begin with Ubuntu has been aimed at a completely different user base than Debian; I wouldn’t be surprised if Debian is one of the distributions that has lost the least amount of users to Ubuntu. In my view, Ubuntu has contributed to Debian in a significant way by hiring several Debian developers. By ensuring that quality Linux code is being written, everybody wins, including Debian which may choose to incorporate any code that happens to fit their needs as well.
In conclusion, I’d like to thank Mark Shuttleworth and Canonical for providing a quality Linux distribution for the masses and for staying true to the aims of free and open source software.
I tried Ubuntu on my HP laptop, and it wouldn’t even installed. I’ve been able to install Mandrake/Mandriva, Suse, Linspire, Gentoo, Knoppix and Fedora on that laptop without a single problem. Ubuntu craps out every single time. I have run the live CD, and I’ve gotta say – Ubuntu just an overhyped distro. Nothing special at all about it, besides the fact that it wouldn’t even install on a laptop that several other distros would install with very few problems.
For the impatient, here’s my breakdown of the important points raised in this thread:
* Ubuntu is a fork of the Debian release cycle more than a fork of the code base. While Debian takes a couple years (on average) to stabilize their unstable branch into testing, and another year from testing to stable, Ubuntu stabilizes and tests the unstable branch every six months. There are other differences, but that’s the biggest.
* Ubuntu is based on a snapshot of Debian Unstable taken around the time of a release of the GNOME desktop environment. Unlike Debian unstable, it does not continue to update its package versions between releases except for security and/or bug fixes. Therefore, it is more truthful to say that Debian Unstable breaks compatibility with Ubuntu than the other way around. However as the mother project, Debian is not beholden to upkeeping compatibility with its children, and quite frankly Ubuntu has no requirement to remain compatible with Debian (although it would be in its best interest to stay close). If a Debian unstable user can’t install a .deb that was created for Ubuntu, it is not because Ubuntu forked, but because Debian unstable kept developing while Ubuntu froze.
* Debian is a free software project, and therefore it is the right of the user to copy, modify, and redistribute its code as per the requirements of the software licenses involved. Some of the licenses Debian uses require the user to make public any modifications to the source code they make. While at first Ubuntu didn’t go out of its way to send Debian a list of packages that had been modified and such, it has always made its modified Debian source code available as per the requirements of some licenses. Lately Ubuntu has realized that it is in everyone’s best interest to work actively to facilitate the backporting of their enhancements into Debian. This initiative is going a step beyond the necessary cooperation. The continuation of this effort is a rebuttal of the author’s claim that Ubuntu wants to fork from Debian.
* Ubuntu has been a great driving force for the OSS community. It has push pressure on Debian to pick up the pace, and in some cases it has exposed some reluctance to accept improvements from Ubuntu. It has contributed a great deal to the GNOME project. The last three releases of GNOME introduced features in the vanilla desktop environment that were first introduced on Ubuntu. GNOME now has an improved mechanism for distributing LiveCDs of its DE, not only for stable releases, but for development releases as well.
* Ubuntu is not only a desktop distribution. It is also a great server distribution. There is a simple boot option on the install CD to set up Ubuntu as a server.
Now, it might be fair to suggest that I am an Ubuntu fanboy or something. The truth of the matter is that I run neither Ubuntu nor any other Debian flavor. But what I see here is an effort from the Debian supporters to deny Ubuntu’s right to derive from Debian, while I see an effort from the Ubuntu community to actively go beyond the call of duty in assisting Debian backporting and development. I think that Ubuntu has been a big kick in the pants for the Debian project, a suggestion that an alternative community and release management system could be so wildly successful. Ubuntu showed that people want a Debian repository that moves quicker than testing, but with better stability than unstable.
Should Debian cease to exist, Ubuntu would be able to continue in its stead. However, Ubuntu seems to be committed to cooperating and coexisting with Debian. Sadly, I don’t see the same committment from Debian.
Great summary.
IMO, the only thing that’s a bit inaccurate is the conclusion. Ubuntu definitely needs Debian. Without it, Ubuntu is distracted from all their good work of refinement and is forced to handle the hard nitty gritty work of that Debian puts forward. Mark Shuttleworth has acknowledged this.
And while Debian has been slow to accept change, it has some good reasons for doing so. When all is said and done, Debian’s success has depended on it’s slow methodical approach to change and rigid adherence to policies that people (and other derivative distributions) can count on. From what I’ve read, that’s actually one reason why Mark Shuttleworth didn’t try to run for the Debian leadership and try to change Debian within. He realized that Debian’s goals are different from Ubuntu’s goals. And while Debian and Ubuntu can feed off of each other to make each other better, they can best do it by working separately to target their different audiences (at least for now).
Personally, I would not be at all surprised if at some point in the future, as Ubuntu matures more and Debian becomes more responsive to change (without losing it’s stability strength), that Ubuntu becomes a subproject of Debian and the Ubuntu repository becomes a branch between Debian Testing and SID.
I tried the Ubutu Live CD the other day, what a slow beast, it took maybe 4 times as long to boot as Knoppix. If you read the Ubutu sites there is such an arrogance, as if having a lot of money means that they are automatically a cut above every other distro out there. They need to do less hyping and more development.
I tried the Ubutu Live CD the other day, what a slow beast, it took maybe 4 times as long to boot as Knoppix.
There is a good reason for that. The Live CD sets itself up just like the install CD does. Since Hoary, it is a way to help people determine if Ubuntu can work with everything on their system. Thats the point of the Ubuntu live CD. Knoppix is meant to be a live CD (mostly), so it does not care about this requirement.
I’ve said it before and I am going to say it again. Apart from the issue whether it is a fork or derivate, Debian is and will always be an open source project. And you know what, this is the fscking consequence of being open source.
Debian has always been VERY strict about free as in freedom, but when someone actually uses that freedom and happens to become more popular than Debian itself, the folks @ Debian start to moan about package compatibility.
If you do not want anyone to mess with your product, develop your own proprietary OS. You wanted open source, you get open source! Nothing more, nothing less.
Don’t get me wrong: I do like the OSS concept. I believe that all hw vendors should open up their specs and that everyone should use open standards. But please do not whine about Ubuntu compatibility. What you choose is what you get…
build for debian, install on lots of distros. That’s how it should be. Be compatible. Share the results of your efforts.
Ubuntu is not doing this. Bad
build for debian, install on lots of distros. That’s how it should be. Be compatible. Share the results of your efforts.
Ubuntu is not doing this. Bad
Pays Debian developers to work on Debian so that they don’t have to have other jobs to pay bills. Submits packages back to Debian for use, like Xorg. Shares the results of their efforts.
Ubuntu is doing this. Good.
No other Debian derivative has done as much for Debian.
“build for debian, install on lots of distros. That’s how it should be. Be compatible. Share the results of your efforts.
Ubuntu is not doing this. Bad”
The vast majority of packages that are built for Debian will install on Ubuntu and vise versa. Ubuntu freezes and breaks from Debian unstable every six months, stabilizes the repository, and releases. There are a couple of times year where Debian unstable makes big changes and breaks compatibility with the snapshot used to build Ubuntu. Very rarely do .deb packages rely exclusively on brand new features in unstable or on older features from the Ubuntu snapshot. The quick release cycle helps maintain close compatibility.
This isn’t divide and lose, it’s stabilize and release!! Moving-target unstable trees seldom work unless you’re a patience developer-type. To allow years between stable releases in today’s fast-paced development environment runs counter to the interests of most users. Empirical hand-waving has “proven” that corporate customers want an 18-month release cycle and end-users want a 6-month release cycle. Ubuntu’s commitment to supporting upcoming releases for up to 5 years while continuing to release every 6-months is a huge advancement from the Debian project model.
Like I said, they didn’t fork Debian, they forked the Debian release cycle.
Viniosity is on drugs. He believes the UK would not be part of the EU… gosh !! GOSH !!!!
I cant see how this is possibly the #1 distrubition. It has a cheesy 2nd rate installer and the default desktop looks hideous(yes i know it is not spelled right, and i really dont care). It makes me wonder if employees of the company are told to go to the site everyday, like the Yopper thing that happened previously.
Ubuntu just works for me. I honestly couldn’t give 2 craps if it’s compatible with Debian. Every app I’ve wanted, I’ve been able to find and install. So really… who cares?
Do you mean now we’ll *have* to live with a distro based on Debian, with updates – security and all – based on fixed schedule releases ?
On, no, that’s terrible !
in these interesting times we live, it’s become impossible for anyone to defend Debian’s unmanageable mass of so-called “developers.”
so, you’ll notice, the author of the Fine Article says Debian, in fact, is “a non-distribution.”
now we’re negating logic, too, are we ?
From what I can tell that guy is claiming Canonical actually doing the exact opposite of what they say they’re doing.
This reminds me of something else I read (possibly here) about Google selling all your info to marketers because they didn’t include a specific provision in their terms of use. Well, I looked, and it was THERE, word for word what they said WASN’T there. I think this is the same thing.
It’s fine to be suspicious of runaway success; I mean hey, I don’t know how much I want to trust Google myself. But honestly, I think this is Mark Shuttleworth’s way of combining his interest in computers with philanthropy.
The Ubuntu people seem to like the stability and setup of the Debian system, and want to bring it to the common man. In doing so, they validate their own packages, submit them to Debian (if they say they are and really aren’t, I would assume SOMEONE would be making a big stink).
What’s wrong with this, really?
Quoting from the article:
“Now, Ubuntu is trying to imitate Debian; Since it refuses to integrate inside the Debian framework, it captures its own community, and takes all the goodwill of volunteers who used to travell from and to projects like Knoppix and Debian for itself.”
Well, welcome to GPL. That’s all allowed!
“It’s rather shameful to do this in my opinion, but I hope it is now clear that Ubuntu has at least an agenda. It is now progressively forking from its Debian core base, and is also forking its community.”
Again. GPL allows that, so stop the bitching.
“Thanks to the millions of Mark Shuttleworth, Ubuntu became the number one distribution for desktop by giving away CDs to the masses and living in parasite on the Debian core base.”
Parasite?
Yep. It’s called GPL.
“Well done Mr. Shuttleworth, well done Ubuntu, you have showed us how to take power inside a community and turn it to your own advantage.”
Isn’t that what Red Hat, IBM, Oracle, SGI and others have been doing?
So did Corel, Lindows(oops!, I mean Linspire!), etc.
To the author: –> Put a cork in it! <—
The guy who wrote that crap of an article is FULL of it. Ubuntu represents everything that open source is about! They took the code (which is GNU) and made their own product… then released the source!!! Isn’t that the point of open source… to step up and make something better if you don’t want to wait for someone else to do it? What about xorg? Are they evil because they forked from X11? Get a clue buddy.
Debian done right. Now I don’t have to futz with my install too much…I can just use it! Yay!
-nX
“Debian done right.”
I beg your pardon?
Indeed, if you don’t have a clue it might feel like that to you. To me it feels like “Debian gone mad”
Where are the Debian freedom and flexibility?
I’ve used Debian for a few years so I have a bit of a clue..perhaps not as much as you do. Can you elaborate a little on the restrictions of Ubuntu vs Debian? I haven’t noticed any.
-nX
I refer you to the posts of Anonymous (IP: 130.238.82.—) on 2005-09-27 09:00:23 UTC and Anonymous (IP: 193.166.94.—) on 2005-09-27 11:22:13 UTC
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
But if you want a few words from me: with Debian I can do whatever I want, easily. I can add any repository ever created for Debian, without compatibility issues:
http://www.apt-get.org/
I can mix up to 3 branches, according to my convenience (pinning)
All the commercial packages are one click away:
deb http://ftp.debian-unofficial.org/debian/ sarge main contrib non-free restricted
I could go on forever.
But yes, I know, too much choice can be scary…
I love ubuntu, you don’t like it?
http://www.distrowatch.com and pick up another distro.
I love The Brown Concept. you don’t like it?
http://www.gnome-look.org
you don’t like gnome?
Kubuntu.
Server? workstation? desktop? .
apt-get…
Why i would care about debian compatibility ?
wait a minute…I DON´T CARE ABOUT DEBIAN!
it’s all about choices.
“wait a minute…I DON´T CARE ABOUT DEBIAN!”
Yet another n00b who doesn’t understand a very basic fact: no Debian, no Ubuntu!
No offence, but this is a poorly written article. I am no english major, but it is embarrassing to read. What the hell does this even mean:
Now, nobody could even care because we may find ourselves in the following scenarios:
– Ubuntu is a very small distribution nobody pays attention about
– Ubuntu is criticized by jealous people
– Ubuntu released a 1.0, but never managed to release a 2.0
All this is wrong, indeed. Ubuntu is the first, or one of the first distributions in the world. Some people may be jealous, but I know some who aren’t and who criticizes Ubuntu anyway. Ubuntu releases often, and has no problems in terms of motivation or human ressources.
Who is claiming Ubuntu is a small distro that “nobody pays attention about”? Are the comments criticizing Ubuntu here written by those “jealous people”? I thought the Ubuntu releases were 4.10 Warty and 5.04 Hoary… so what it up with saying they never managed to release a 2.0?
It may be that the english isn’t the first language for the author. I just find the article unintelligible for the most part. It is funny to see people all worked up and arguing about this when it is written so crazily. What in god’s name does this mean:
Debian has no product line, it maintains packages and one single big system (these days, it’s called Sarge) and you create your own system on it.
Maybe I am just grouchy. I am sure someone can pick apart grammar/spelling errors in my comment. It just makes the open source community look unprofessional to treat things like this article as legitimate. It reads more like a comment than anything.
Finally, I find it hard to argue that someone donating ten million dollars to an open source project is a bad thing. Sure, he could have donated it to Debian, but he also could have donated it to Yoper. If it gets people paid to do work on Linux, it is a blessing. Thanks to Shuttleworth we have a reasonably new distro that works for the most part and gives us the ability to argue about color schemes instead of working. When I win the lottery, I’m dropping ten million on Texstar. I will be able to withstand the criticism of “living in parasite” on the Mandriva “core base”.
Time to get to bed. I’m making less sense than the author I am criticizing.
Ubuntu is popular because it does things *better* than Debian.
Perhaps Debian should start addressing it’s problems than ALWAYS blame for others and whine when they lose?
Ubuntu is popular because it does things *better* than Debian.
Perhaps Debian should start addressing it’s problems than ALWAYS blame for others and whine when they lose?
You (and most of the Ubuntu fans in this thread) seem to miss the point completely. Most of the things you love in Ubuntu come straight from Debian. You love Ubuntu’s modest-looking but reliable and easy-to-use installer? Then thank Debian for that. You love Ubuntu’s package management that resolves all dependencies? Then thank Debian for that. You love the huge amount of packages/applications that Ubuntu offers for easy install/upgrade/remove via Synaptic? Then thank Debian for that. Ubuntu can only “do things *better* than Debian” because it grabs as its starting point all the hard work that Debian has done so far.
You also miss the point in thinking that the question about forking is a popularity contest where you need to support Ubuntu by shouting Debian down. But it is not. Nobody is asking you to stop using Ubuntu and start using Debian instead. All this business about Ubuntu forking (or not forking) eventually boils down to binary compatibility (or lack of it). So what would Ubuntu users gain if you cannot install any Debian-made packages? Nothing at all. Then what would Ubuntu users gain if you CAN install Debian packages on your Ubuntu system without breaking the system? The answer is: a lot!
Contrary to the popular opinion, Debian Sid is actually more up-to-date than Ubuntu. Only the stuff that is directly related to Gnome (and also to KDE, thanks to the Kubuntu project) is where Ubuntu tends to be a bit quicker, but Debian Sid usually catches up this lead pretty fast. All the other packages are newer in Debian — because the Ubuntu packages come from a snapshot of Debian Sid and Debian keeps constantly updating its packages, which Ubuntu doesn’t do. This is especially obvious with the packages that are in Ubuntu’s universe repo, but it applies also to a large percentage of packages in Ubuntu’s main repo. And the more Ubuntu’s release cycle proceeds, the clearer it will become that Debian users get to enjoy up-to-date software while Ubuntu users must do with outdated packages. So wouldn’t it be cool if you could keep your Ubuntu desktop with all its tweaks and polish and ease-of-use and just point Synaptic to Debian repositories to keep your installed packages up-to-date through all the phases of Ubuntu’s release cycle? This way Ubuntu users could get the best of both worlds. But you just cannot do this unless Ubuntu stays binary compatible with Debian.
So the only ones who have something to lose if Ubuntu forks from Debian are Ubuntu users. And still it’s precisely these Ubuntu users who keep shouting hoorays when their only available means to maintain a relatively up-to-date Ubuntu desktop goes down the toilet. You fools.
“You also miss the point in thinking that the question about forking is a popularity contest where you need to support Ubuntu by shouting Debian down. But it is not. Nobody is asking you to stop using Ubuntu and start using Debian instead.”
These Ubuntu fans shouting down Debian are no worse than these Debian fans shouting down Ubuntu. Nobody is asking you to stop using Debian and start using Ubuntu instead.
“Contrary to the popular opinion, Debian Sid is actually more up-to-date than Ubuntu. Only the stuff that is directly related to Gnome (and also to KDE, thanks to the Kubuntu project) is where Ubuntu tends to be a bit quicker, but Debian Sid usually catches up this lead pretty fast. All the other packages are newer in Debian — because the Ubuntu packages come from a snapshot of Debian Sid and Debian keeps constantly updating its packages, which Ubuntu doesn’t do.”
Actually, Ubuntu is no longer stagnant between releases. There is an official Backports repository which, like Sid, is a moving target bringing in new packages as they are released. Even without Backports, having GNOME, KDE and Xorg before Debian is no small matter. Many people want GNOME the day it’s released, which is a big contributer to Ubuntu’s initial popularity.
Contrary to the popular opinion, Debian Sid is actually more up-to-date than Ubuntu.
Right, but Sid makes no promises about not being broken at any given time, since it’s Debian Unstable. Ubuntu’s meant to be more up to date than Stable and more stable than Sid with a predictable release and support cycle. That’s clearly something that’s desirable to a lot of people.
It is written like a five year old conspiracy theorist. Alarm bells started ringing when, on the second line, he said “I don’t have any evidence…” Oh dear.
If Ubuntu forks…. so what? Its a damn useable distrubution and far friendly to me than the debian “community” (ask a question? you have to be kidding) have ever been.
“Ubuntu” is an Australian word for ‘bloody good software’.
I have been ‘playing’ with various distributions of Linux for several years since I retired, looking for one that could replace Microsoft Windows XP on my desktop PC. I thought Xandros was getting close but not quite there. Then I tried Ubuntu – WOW! Its not as easy as WinXP and perhaps I am learning a bit more about Linux, but Hoary Hedgehog is really very good. When Breazy Badger is released is ‘bye-bye’ WinXP.
Mr Schultz is entitled to his opinions but I think he is wrong and a bit mean spirited. Why not give Mark Shuttleworth the benefit of the doubt (at least until he proves you wrong)? Shutleworth and Ubuntu have managed to create something that all the other distributions have failed to do – a version of Linux that is relatively easy to install, use and maintain. Ubuntu’s success should be a spur to other disto developers to produce something even better – now that would get Mr Gates and Balmer worried!
Regards,
Peter
i can’t people are resenting ubuntu for being good, attracing attention and developers. to protect an ailing debian is not in the interests of meritocracy – sure, revere it in a museum, but let’s not stop progress. (not that i use ubuntu myself, but good look to them)
We’ve been here over and over again. Please remember that the Debian GNU/Linux project itself is NOT about mainly producing a slick desktop. While the Linux Desktop development in general is very promising at the moment, it is hardly (and should not be seen as) the single process by which we benchmark the progress and success of neither Linux or Debian.
Speaking about subprojects/forks. Many many interesting OS projects have used Debian as codebase for very different purposes and concepts: Damn Small Linux, Quantian and Knoppix comes to mind. Ubuntu may or may not separate itself from the main branch, but so what? What does that have to do with whether or not the Debian project is successful in doing what it is doing? Why is it important to compare scores at Distrowatch? What does those scores really say? That Ubuntu has a bigger or more dedicated teen geek fanbase that has time to vote for theis distro of choice? It is pretty clear why the top five distros at DW are Desktop products, because they attract a lot of desktop users that run it on their personal PCs.
Debian is much more than a Desktop OS. If you want it to be just that, fine, you can have a great desktop using Debian. And Sarge is NOT difficult to install. If you want a server, fine, go ahead, install the server stuff you’re after. If you want a development/programming/scientific platform, fine, install the relevant packages. It’s all there and it is all up to the user what type of OS her or she want to run using the standard Debian distro. OR just get a specialized “pre-configured”; Kanotix for instance is a great desktop OS, fully compatible with Debian. It easily beats Ubuntu in terms of hardware support and simplicity of maintenance.
I choose Debian because its is Free, it is stable, it has huge software repositories, it scales from my old Sun Ultra1 to my Centrino Laptop to my AMD64 scientific openmosix cluster and it is fun and simple to use.
But if I ever want a brown gnome on my desktop… 🙂
Great post. Pity I can vote only once for each post.
I have tried almost every major distro and finally settled on debian. Trust me if you just know where to look you will find out that debian is better than ubuntu in many ways. Also guys try the testing and unstable versions they work just fine and in some cases more advanced than ubuntu.
I plan to get it by DSL if it actually comes here. They say it will.
There is a followup to this article: http://www.libervis.com/modules/smartsection/item.php?itemid=29
Thanks
And I still don’t get it, I mean if the debian project has not adopted the DCC, why should ubuntu?
Nobody said that ubuntu won’t join as soon they see it apropiate.
But I’ll throw some trolling on my own and claim that Ian and the other DCC members are just trying to steal focus away from Ubuntu and Debian itself to take over true parasiting.
I take mepis as an example, It only had one repository and the others were just the debian testing and unstable repositories combined with the videolan and marillat mirrors (pathetic really pathetic)
Hey, Ubuntu is like any other Linux distro, –
put together by hordes of high-school or college students
taking Computer Programming Basics 101. (Can you say “recompile”). As long as it has been around, Linux is still years behind Microsoft and a long, tedious Pain in the A** to install, then long hours spent troubleshooting all the no-gos, just to get it up to a Win 95 level.
Well, OK, Microsft Os’s are POS too Compared to where they should be.