Why Debian Matters More Than Ever

Julie188 writes "If you look at the feature list for Debian 6, released on February 6, it's easy to be underwhelmed. This is especially true when measuring Debian against its offspring, like Ubuntu. Debian doesn't get much credit, and its become trendy for industry pundits to claim it's become irrelevant. But it's more relevant than ever. If you're using Ubuntu (or Linux Mint, or Mepis...), you're really using Debian with some enhancements. According to a presentation given recently by Debian Project Leader (DPL) Stefano Zacchiroli, only 7% of Ubuntu is directly derived from upstream projects, Canonical's projects, or other non-Debian sources. Of the rest, 74% of Ubuntu is rebuilt Debian packages, and 18% are patched and rebuilt Debian packages."

You can't just count packages and draw conclusions

[melted]

You can't just count packages and draw conclusions from counts. Some of the packages haven't been updated in years. Some are only used by like five users on the planet. Some are so buggy they won't even run.

Weigh them by how many people install and use them, and you've got something to talk about, though.

Re:Since when?

[garyisabusyguy]

If anything it makes me question 'industry pundits' who fail to recognize the layered way that open source projects are able to build on each other.

Like saying a plant is irrelevant to the flowers that grow on it

Re:Since when?

[countertrolling]

Somebody named Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols [zdnet.com] the third. Should be working at the DMV

Re:Since when?

[KiloByte]

Say who? If you're going to call others irrelevant, shouldn't you first have some modicum of relevancy yourself?

debian is better for n00bs

[tonytraductor]

Personally, I don't understand why people claim that Ubuntu is more "user-friendly". I tried ubuntu for about a year before finally taking the dive into Debian (had used Fedora/RH for 8 years prior, but finally got tired of yum breaking stuff). Stuff broke on Ubuntu (not as much as Fedora!), and I wasted time fixing it. I installed Ubuntu for a few n00bs, friends who were tired of their virus/crash ridden XP, etc. They all became frustrated, because, well, stuff broke, and they didn't know how to fix it. Now, when my Mom got an old computer from a friend, a 400hmz PII with like 128mb ram, I installed Lenny on it for her. It's run great ever since, without a single problem (time to go update her to Squeeze, though). I've been using Debian on all my desktops now for about 2 years, upgraded to Squeeze last weekend. The most trivially easy, seamless upgrade ever. (can't be said of ubuntu's frantic release schedule, where every new silly snake release breaks more stuff). Nothing ever breaks in Debian. I haven't had a single software problem since making the move, and I can't imagine ever moving away, now. It's rock-solid, impregnable, and it just works. I don't get what's supposedly so "user-friendly" about Ubuntu. For one thing, I kind of agree with Tuomo Valkonen about "usability" anyway. Do what I want, only what I want, and stay out of the way. Ubuntu makes too many decisions for the user, and not always good ones (usually tying a ton of bloat together in "metapackages" in such fashion that you can't remove some useless crap like, say , cowsay, or something, without removing your entire window manager). Debian allows me to install what I need, precisely, no more no less. And for n00bs, it doesn't break and cause problems.

This is how I see it.

[Beelzebud]

If Ubuntu disappeared tomorrow would the Debian team notice?

If Debian disappeared tomorrow would the Ubuntu team notice?

Now ask yourself. Who exactly isn't relevant?

Re:Since when?

[cgenman]

Steven Vaughan-Nichols is calling it "no longer as important as it once was"

He should know. He's on ZDnet.

I should know, I'm commenting on Slashdot.

Re:Since when?

[zr-rifle]

What has this to do with the desktop? He is talking about CentOS (a distro commonly used on servers) and Django (a Web framework).

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