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.
Debian: Server Yes, Desktop No
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
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.
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.
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
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.
Debian is my server choice for most locations.
Although I’ve started using FreeBSD and I can tell you it’s awesome, even at a terminal, it just feels so much more solid.
I like Debian for those times you need it up and running quickly, because it’s all binary, very easy with apt-get (Which I think is the best package manager out there, I’ve always disliked rpm’s, even with yum etc) to set it up quickly and it’s solid as.
I’m really looking forward to Debian4 with all the huge updates, going to be great stuff.
Edited 2006-12-13 06:58
Debian is my server choice for most locations.
I use FreeBSD,gentoo,debian.My preferance goes to gentoo though.Their hardned project is the most sophisticated( documented) in my opinion.
Although I’ve started using FreeBSD and I can tell you it’s awesome, even at a terminal, it just feels so much more solid.
Could you be more specific?
Could you elaborate on what “feels more solid” about a FreeBSD terminal?
I’ve always had exactly the opposite impression. All the BSDs always seem to be behind the times by default and take some tweaking to make them feel “right”.
What I mean by that is:
The default shell doesn’t seem to have all the abilities of BASH on Linux (e.g., going back to the beginning of the current command line when hitting the home button. BSD just beeps and puts crap on the end of the command line. In order to go back, you have to hit the CTRL + A sequence).
I don’t like BSDs mouse setup too much.
Patching a system is easier on Debian (in my opinion).
apt seems more mature than cvsup, even if I choose to install from source, in that I don’t have to edit files and jump through as many hoops to keep my system up to date or install new things. I’ll admit that the new cvsup replacement, whatever it is called, is closer to what I like.
…to name a few.
Don’t get me wrong, I really like BSD on the server, but I can’t think of anything at the command line that would lead me to think it “feels more solid” than a Linux machine.
Please enlighten.
Oh sure, I was able to easily get GNOME and KDE installed, and most of the basic bits and pieces were there, but the overall gestalt of the system — how well it worked out-of-the-box at supporting multimedia, Flash, audio, fonts, and so on — was far, far inferior to what those Debian spin-offs provide.
Very clever to do this test before Etch is released, right? If he installed Etch, he would have hardly noticed differences (except automatic proprietary-driver-installation, of course). But let’s not flame him, dear Debian-using mates.
He didn’t RTFM
Edit: spelling
Edited 2006-12-13 07:41
Debian is not an out of the box distro for desktop but rather “a kit distro” (like kit cars) that needs your fine tuning and customization. If you have the time, curiosity and a bit of experience to do these type of things, Debian becomes “the ultimate desktop distro for you”.
And even if you use the unstable (sid), the system works flawlessly without any major problems.
“And even if you use the unstable (sid), the system works flawlessly without any major problems.”
Eh, not so much. I’ve been burned using Debian Testing and Debian Sid. Both times by updates that rendered my system useless.
I use Debian stable on my server, and will continue to do so. As for desktop Linux, I go with Ubuntu or Slackware (yes, I know, but I have a soft spot in my heart for Slack).
Yeah, I got stuck with no X for a week with a Sid update once… lynx browsing got pretty old.
Eh, not so much. I’ve been burned using Debian Testing and Debian Sid. Both times by updates that rendered my system useless.
I’ve run Unstable more or less continously since I started using apt-get in late 1999, and my system has never been rendered useless. Not that there hasn’t been the occasional hickup, but nothing that I haven’t been able to fix by simply reverting some packages (don’t be too eager to delete downloaded packages from /var/cache/apt/archives/).
Not only that, but since 1999, I’ve only reinstalled twice. First in 2002, and the last time earlier this year. Not too shabby when running a system that is always on the ‘bleeding edge’. Though, truth be told, Debian Unstable is often no more bleeding edge then the so-called ‘stable’ releases of some other systems, the difference is often just one of semantics.
No offense but this is a somewhat shallow article.
All he says is “I put a CD in and ..” and complains about Grub error.
Then he is happy that all the servers were automatically started. Wow! I got the Apache test page!
Where is the the rest of the server configuration?
And please, what kind of “bulk storage” can one get on a K6 with a 40Gb hard disk?!
I doubt it’s even ATA100, never mind SATA.
It wouldn’t even hold a fraction of my music collection, never mind other multimedia stuff like videos and digital images.
Maybe his needs are still the same as in 1999, but I know people that DOWNLOAD 40Gb/week off the internet.
Come on, it’s almost 2007! I want to hear about Linux on Core 2 Duo with SATA raid and eSATA and NAS and etc etc.! Not K6 crap!
And like Debian, *buntus don’t install any propreatory multimedia codecs either. So those have to be done manually after the installation.
In the end it’s not that hard to make pure Debian work and look just like Ubuntu.
Or better yet, it can be molded into anything you want.
Scalable from an old laptop to a new multicore machine.
One just has to engage his brain a bit instead of just “I put the CD in and …”
Edited 2006-12-13 07:57
“Come on, it’s almost 2007! I want to hear about Linux on Core 2 Duo with SATA raid and eSATA and NAS and etc etc.! Not K6 crap!”
Good for you. Maybe you should stop reading articles that are clearly not going to be about that, then?
There are lots of us running old boxes as special purpose hardware (I’ve got my old desktop sitting under my desk running as a host for two VMs, a web server and a mail server). It’s a perfectly common use scenario that’s worth writing about. If all you’re interested in is running the latest flashy desktops on the latest flashy hardware, just read those articles and quit moaning about the ones that clearly aren’t intended for you.
Well, this is OSnews. News means something current that’s happening right now.
Writing about hardware from 1999 is not news and should be on a personal blog somewhere in a dusty, dark corner of the Internet. Not on a major news site.
Besides, there have already been countless how-to pages written about Linux on this and that. One could probably find a how-to about Linux on a toaster from 1899. But it’s not news!
Writing about hardware from 1999 might not be news, but actions are performed _today_ on hardware from 1999 _is_ news, according to your own definition.
Well, this is OSnews. News means something current that’s happening right now. Writing about hardware from 1999 is not news and should be on a personal blog somewhere in a dusty, dark corner of the Internet.
Hey, this is *OS*News, not a hardware news outlet. Older hardware is interesting in various ways. E.g.:
– Not everyone can or wants to spend money on 2006ish hardware. There are plenty of countries where buying a new computer is expensive. Personally, I couldn’t care less about the latest hardware, when I can pick up good second hand IBM/Dell/HP boxes for less than 200 Euro.
– Some of us like to recycle, by buying or using/reusing older hardware, rather than buying new components every year.
So yes, I am personally very interested in reviews/articles about operating systems on older hardware, and I think many others are (reading some news outlets and forums).
Edited 2006-12-13 15:08
This was an article about putting a Modern Operating System on crappy hardware. it is about an Operating System, say it with me now…Operating System. Now the name of this site is OSNews, the hardware, frankly, is irrelevant for most articles, and important for this one. If you don’t want to read about it, then stop reading the article when you realize that it
This was an article about putting a Modern Operating System on crappy hardware. it is about an Operating System, say it with me now…Operating System. Now the name of this site is OSNews, the hardware, frankly, is irrelevant for most articles, and important for this one. If you don’t want to read about it, then stop reading the article when you realize that it
Umm, excuse my sometime convoluted logic.
But wans’t the hardware pretty much about 70% of that article?
Aren’t you contradicting yourself in your own comment?
And I don’t know about you, but I surely wouldn’t try to install Ubuntu on a 7 year old machine.
There are many much more suitable distros for old hardware.
I just thought that an editor of DeskopLinux.com could and should do a bit better than this.
Did you read my post?
to respond,
“But wasn’t the hardware pretty much about 70% of that article? ”
I had originally said “the hardware, frankly, is irrelevant for most articles, and important for this one”
So I wasn’t contradicting my self, MOST articles is not ALL articles.
Also, almost any distro runs ok on older hardware when not running x-windows and assorted GUI apps. and Debian is solid, so it would be a good fit, IMHO
Debian is a very good choice if you use older hardware.
I am running Etch on a AMD K6-3 400 with 256MB RAM and Etch works at reasonable speed even with the Gnome desktop.
In my case the replacement of Metacity with Sawfish led to a huge speed increase, as well as the addition of further RAM.
And, by the way, there are also very good light windowmanagers like windowmaker or icewm that will speed up your Debian desktop.
With respect to older hardware and especially to non-i686-CPUs Debian Etch (as well as Debian Sarge) is faster and, in my opinion, more stable than e.g. Ubuntu.
Therefore, there is nothing to complain about, nothing.
Maybe his needs are still the same as in 1999, but I know people that DOWNLOAD 40Gb/week off the internet.
Are they independently-wealthy, or just packrats? I can’t imagine how someone could be employed full-time and still have the time to download and consume 40GB of media per week.
Are they independently-wealthy, or just packrats? I can’t imagine how someone could be employed full-time and still have the time to download and consume 40GB of media per week.
No, no need to be independently-wealthy.
But a season of tv series is about 4-7Gb and takes about two nights to download by bittorent. One can be gainfully employed full-time during the day and have the computer do the download at night while the hard working person is sleeping.
Or are you sitting in front of your computer watching the download progress bar?
And with other downloads in-between one can easily use up 40Gb/week. All it takes is a half-decent Internet connection.
But a season of tv series is about 4-7Gb and takes about two nights to download by bittorent.
That’s just downloading. Watching a season’s worth of a TV series will probably take more than two nights, at least for those who are employed and in the habit of sleeping at night (I certainly don’t have time to watch ~15 hours of TV in two days).
That’s just downloading. Watching a season’s worth of a TV series will probably take more than two nights, at least for those who are employed and in the habit of sleeping at night (I certainly don’t have time to watch ~15 hours of TV in two days).
Of course it takes more than two night to watch a season.
But you grab the torrent while it’s “hot” and watch a bit at a time a lot over the weekend.
Torrents do die off after a while so unless one keeps up with them it can be difficult a few months later.
But the main point in my original comment was that it sounds a bit funy to call 40Gb a bulk storage.
And to the other posters that defended the articles place on OSNews.
Well, sure, anything goes on OSNews. But the fact is that writing about a 2+years old Debian Stable on 7 year old hardware IS NOT news.
And if you’re confused about what NEWS is then look up the term on Wikipedia, please.
I don’t really care if I get modded below oil reserves, I have to tell I am sick and tired of Debian reviews which are based on well-debian-stable-is-so-old-and-doesn’t-do-everything-for-me. So what ? Either you’re not enough for a distro, or it’s not enough for you, that’s life, get along with it.
And now, I also will get subjective. If others can do it, so do I.
For once, I’d really like to see a _good_ Debian review. In my fairly long years of linux use I haven’t read even one. I’m not using only Debian now – but I did for quite a while – still, I remember the long road that lead me to Debian where I could finally take a rest and just use the system. I find such shallow “reviews” outright nerving.
Just for the record, etch and sid and more than stable enough for desktop use, and there’s no hassle or pain in setting them up and using them for many years to come. The current and very well updated stable branch is one of the best choices for server use, I bet many linuxers would agree on that.
These days I use mostly Gentoo and Debian on my machines and Debian on servers, and as good as Gentoo can be, I still sometimes just think about dropping it and going back to Debian. Using it has been the most hassle-free linux times in my computer-using years.
I don’t care if this guy is an editor or else. This isn’t good.
debian stable is about as old as RHEL and its ripoffs nowadays, so I too tire of the whining.
True… but (and this is a very big but) RHEL and its ripoffs backport drivers and release new kernel versions every 3-6 months. This is my major problem with Debian. How do you support new NIC cards, RAID adapters, etc. using an operating system that is 2 years old. I know you could put your own kernel in there, but then you aren’t really gaining anything by using Debian anymore.
I’ve found that Sarge installed fine on a brand new IBM x series server – whereas Dell’s SATA drives needed a custom module. Same for Adaptect RAID cards – but I believe 3Ware cards work fine.
This is because IBM and 3Ware are onboard with Linux and get their drivers into the kernel.
Hopefully when other kit manufacturers realise that server builders are making choices based on Linux support they will get onboard too.
Get YaST and all it’s modules (except those associated with package management and upgrading) working on Debian and I’ll climb aboard.
That means revive the YaST4Debian project and finish it.
Or perhaps I’ll just build my own dream distribution with YaST, SaX, AppArmor, 20,000+ DEB packages, and the Smart package manager.
Serverwise fine but desktopwise what an unhelpful article. You’d think a journo with his credentials would at least have checked when the next Debian Stable was due.
A couple of weeks ago, I replaced Ubuntu Edgy on my laptop with Debian Testing (i.e., very nearly the new Debian Stable 4.0) using a netinstall. The only substantial difference was installing proprietory kernel modules: Ubuntu has gathered these into a ready-to-roll package whereas in Debian I need to seek them out, install them individually, then fire them up using module-assistant. Installing multimedia was simple: I just needed to add http://www.debian-multimedia.org to my list of apt sources and then all I could want by way of video and sound was open to me.
I realize there are other differences. Ubuntu has put in mucho work under the bonnet, apparently, such as their new upstart init system. And there is an obvious difference with eyecandy: Ubuntu has done it all for you by pre-theming everything right down to their usplash stuff whereas Debian offers the basic vanilla Gnome and no fancy boot-up screens. But that’s so easy to change!
Otherwise, I was surprised by how similar the two distros were from the POV of installation to basic system. A kicker for me is that Debian is faster all round, which matters on an ageing machine.
“You’d think a journo with his credentials would at least have checked when the next Debian Stable was due.”
Why?
Journalists (at least, good ones) REVIEW the products that are available and PREVIEW the ones that aren’t. The fact that Debian screwed their release cycle up so hideously that the currently available product is inferior to alternatives is entirely Debian’s fault. Etch may be the best thing since sliced bread, but it’s not done yet, and the guy was writing this (informal) article now. I’m sure if he wants to write about Etch AFTER IT’S ACTUALLY DONE AND RELEASED, he will.
“You’d think a journo with his credentials would at least have checked when the next Debian Stable was due.”
Why?
Well, I guess because that’s his job. No one’s forcing him to do it. He is, after all, the executive editor of a Linux web site.
As google kindly reminded me, there was a time back in the latter years of the 20th century when you had to install the MBR (master boot record) in a small partition at the beginning of your hard drive — otherwise the BIOS couldn’t boot from it
I can recall the same from a redhat 6.x install:-)
I just don’t see his problem but mostly I think it’s because he doesn’t even state one. I install debian, I get a nicely configured, very usable, maybe a bit blah looking blue gray gnome desktop ready to rock, doesn’t everybody? Granted I haven’t done it in a while as it’s not current enough for my development needs but when I did I found it very, very nice and instantly usable.
First let me say that desktop debian will do anything you can do with other distros, just not “out-of-the-box.”
I have tried several Linux distros, and have decided I like debian best for the desktop. Just my preference, of course, but here are my reasons:
1) Debian does require me to download, or install, what I don’t want. Net install is only 180mb. If I don’t want KDE, or gnome, or openoffice, I don’t have to download them. In fact, I don’t even have to use x-window. Some distros require over 3gb initial download, then you have to periodically upgrade with another 3gb+ download, which is ridiculous, IMO.
2) Install debian once, then just upgrade incrementally. No major upgrade every six months that breaks your system.
3) Best package management in the business.
4) Flexible. You can make debian a rock-solid server, or a bleeding edge desktop with all the bells and whistles. Debian does not push you one way or the other. Also, debian does not care which WM/DE you use, or if decide not to use any.
If the standard, out-of-the-box, stable version of debian does not give you that gee-whiz desktop experience; and if that’s important to you. Then use another distro. To each his/her own.
But, for me, debian is well worth the small amout of trouble required to get debian set up the way I like. In the long run, debian is less trouble – certainly much less trouble than redhat/fedora.
Again, JMHO.
More like .. 6? I started 8 years ago with RedHat 5.2; how fast was their release schedule in 98-99?
debian is on MY Desktop
In my experience, building up from a base (‘net’ install in this case) is by far the best way to get a fast, clean system on ANY distro, so I suppose it’s no surprise I think the majority of derivative distros are completely redundant. I’ve found Debian testing to be solid, and great for a desktop system.
” so I suppose it’s no surprise I think the majority of derivative distros are completely redundant”
What you think is irrelevant. There are others that share the world with you and find derivative distros *not redundant*: like me. I was once a Debian user. I switched to Kubuntu to have the latest KDE. Debian didn’t have it available at the time. Of course there are ways I could have done it, but I don’t really have much time to tinker with or the patience anymore. I just want a distro that works and gives me everything I need without major problems. Once it was Debian, and I’m sure I could go back and use it, but there’s no need to do that.
Debian sid simply rocks. And for those that say Sid breaks, just install apt-listbugs and read the damn bugs apt lists. Simple as that. If it says critical bug, breaks this or that, well just don’t upgrade, wait a couple of days and retry. I usually dist-upgrade once a week. I carefully read the bugs that apt lists and choose to update, or to wait another week.
Rock solid, bleeding edge. Debian Sid.
I have to agree with the author – current debian stable is not what I’d want to run as a desktop. If I want bleeding edge, I’ll run Arch or Frugalware. I thnk debian stable is fantastic, but it is very, very, uh…stable.
>>current debian stable is not what I’d want to run as a desktop<<
So run debian testing, or debian unstable. Any bleeding-edge distro is more likely to have stability problems than an older tried-and-true distro. Debian simply gives you a choice. BTW: on the desktop, I’m okay with that trade-off.
Debian can be just as bleeding-edge as any other distro.
Buzz Lightyear!
Oh darn they used it for 1.1.
Gotta admit, I haven’t tried Debian + Gnome on the desktop in quite a while. My last experience with it was that it wasn’t very polished (I’m not talking about icons and desktop backgrounds). Sorry though, can’t recall any particulars, so please take that with a grain of salt.
From reading some of the posts here though, it sounds like maybe things have changed for the better since then. I’ve been using Ubuntu on the desktop for a while now, and everything that I’ve needed just works.
Incidentally, still using Debian Stable on the server. Solid as a rock, with everything I need only an apt-get away.
On an unrelated note, the new Debian installer is very good, but could still use some form of built-in help (for instance, when I select packages to install (see 2nd screenshot in the article), if I choose “Desktop environment”, does that give me *both* Gnome and KDE? There should be a way to ask it before making the choice.).
On an unrelated note, the new Debian installer is very good, but could still use some form of built-in help (for instance, when I select packages to install (see 2nd screenshot in the article), if I choose “Desktop environment”, does that give me *both* Gnome and KDE? There should be a way to ask it before making the choice.).
It will install Gnome ánd KDE ánd Xfce.
(I was quite surprised myself to experience this some day.)
The best thing if you know what you’re doing is always a manual selection.
So the guy decides to replace a $40 appliance with Debian. This belongs in some high school kid’s blog.
MySQL drops support for Debian :
http://developers.slashdot.org/developers/06/12/13/1515217.shtml
It looks like that report was a false alarm. MySQL continues to support Debian and Ubuntu.
http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS7941177766.html
The whole grub loop part (10 paragraphs) could have been summarized by:”After figuring out that my bios was old, I finally got a working install by creating an appropriately sized partition layout…etc…”
The rest of the article didn’t give much more than could have been read from the debian installation manual. Useless article.
Great you know of a $40 appliance, with 40gb of hd space that can act as a file/web server.
sign me up!
4 year Debian user and installed Etch on to a server for the first time yesterday.
Debian is being honed down and improved all the time. The Etch install was perfect on a brand new IBM SATA based server.
We all know that NTFS stands for Never The Fuggin Same but with Debian I’ve been able to move from Woody to Sarge and now to Etch without problem.
It’s time people started shouting about how brilliant Debian is.
As for Etch on the desktop I’ve not tried it – but I bet it’s close to very good – and it will improve with time.
server – yea sure I mean my desktop IS a server if you call having music shares as well as personal folder shares a server…
desktop – hell yea, etch ROCKS! I really wished they could of got it out by now but hopefully it won’t be long. Most distros out there are simply debian with a little tweaking – some good and some bad.
This harks a bit too much towards the “Linux IS/ISN’T ready for the desktop” style articles. Personally I love Linux for the Desktop but I use Ubuntu since it pretty much ‘just works’. Very nice, and this is coming from someone who used Slackware and then Gentoo for about 5 years in the past – most of that time at work – so I know how to make a Linux workstation work. Servers are a different story, again with the same idea of low maitence I’ve fallen for FreeBSD. While Linux kern vulns require contant attention, you can use something like freebsd-update to fetch and alert you to anything like that. An email from teh server, one command later and you’re done.