For people new to Linux, “Free Software” does not refer to price. It refers to software that is open source and also adheres to the 4 software freedoms as outlined by the Free Software Foundation. It’s also known as libre software or FOSS. Free software is not necessarily gratis. It may be sold for profit, and some companies like Red Hat, build profitable businesses around Free Software. It’s different from public domain software and standard open-source software. Free and open-source software exists in contrast to proprietary software, which is closed source. Debian ships only Free Software by default; however, proprietary, closed-source software repositories are available.
Patrick Boerman I’m not Dutch, although I’m familiar with the Dutch term, as it’s the same in English, as well as in many other languages. I used the word gratis because it’s common parlance in the Free Software Community. Although the word gratis is not a commonly spoken word in English, it’s still common enough that most native English speakers understand it. Further, it helps underscore the point of “free as in beer” vs “free as in freedom.”
@Donaldo Mac Eachen People always say "Free as in Beer" but I've always had to pay for my beer, LOL. I'd think "Free as in Air" would be a better way to put it since at this point in time NO ONE pays for Air.
Thanks, Mitchel. It can be a bit of a balancing act between user friendliness and exposure. I'm more the sort that likes to jump into the deep end on a safe testing environment first. Cheers. :)
Exactly. A good portion of computer users use them for work. Not as a hobby. Having a working system with software support is number one. No point in using a computer if you're just playing with it for the sake of it.
being a freeware wasn't the only key success of ubuntu , i think the advantage of ubuntu was the (unique) user friendly experience among the other distros
Chris, Your discussion of the Debian installation process starts at video time T=9:11, which seems appropriate, given the long length of the official Debian Installation Guide. I had been searching for quite some time to find out how to install the necessary wifi driver firmware. Your video got me right where I needed to be and facilitated my installation of Debian 10.7 Buster. Many thanks. Sorry folks, I'm old. I get confused. I messed up here. This comment was meant for Chris' video titled Debian 10 Buster Release and Install.
25 year debian desktop user here. Debian is fine on the desktop. I've been riding Sid for about 20 years at this point. I played WoW on it for ten years. Totally "server only"!
? The video said "server" in reference to Debian stable. Then called "testing" a great Desktop option, and finally Sid the bleeding edge option. A bit of an oversimplification, but a useful one to start experimenting.
after leaving Arch linux and other Arch based distros, finally I now only use Debian linux on my personal laptop, and Ubuntu on my computer at work. And I feel happy.
Moved from Ubuntu (KDE Neon) to Debian stable last month. I went with the standard iso and only needed to install non-free Atheros drivers. Everything works great, I absolutely love it.
@Solve Everything Yup. that's quite unfortunate, thankfully I had been warned before going in. Also apparently the live disks for Debian come with the Calamares installer which is nice and modern (I think Manjaro uses it too) and ditches the whole root and personal user separation entirely.
You mentioned that the Debian installer only installs 'Free' Software, and Ubuntu ships blobs for WiFi/GPU enablement (for example). You might not be aware but the Ubuntu ISO has (for many years) had a "Free Software Only" option, which enables people who don't want any binary non-free software on their system. It's not commonly used, because it turns out people actually want to use the hardware they bought, but the feature is there. It was added when we mothballed the "Gobuntu" version of Ubuntu which was an entire ISO built to only contain Free Software. Turns out, people didn't want that.
@Ghost 67 Linux ask any 10 people what their definition of "Free Software" is and you will get 5 answers. Trisquel are hard-line freedom, removing things we consider Free Software that they don't. We remove firmware in that option which is a blob, they may remove software which is open source but has terms in their license the Trisquel devs don't like.
@Ghost 67 Linux Trisquel have their own entire repositories. They rebuild every package and cherry pick to make sure they never include things which might be considered non-free. Sure, users can do whatever they want post-install, adding back in things the OS vendor doesn't "approve of". Same as you can with Debian, Ubuntu or any other distro. What's your point?
I've been using Linux for ten years now (Linux Mint, Ubuntu Studio) and I am only now beginning to look into debian. What a smooth and streamlined experience it has been! debian feels superior.
I feel that Debian is like our Mammies. They love us. They want us to be good people und have success. Of course we don‘t hear to them so much when we‘re young. Of course we try out all the forbidden things. But we have that feeling that our Mam is the best Person in the world. We know, we can trust her. And believe me, after having done all the bad things you allways come back to Mama and are the most happy person in the world an start living your live without wasting your time with unproductive things. Debian, thank you so much! And with „Debian“ I mean all the involved people in the Community of course. And with forbidden things I mean breaking the system again and again and trying one distro after the other :-) Peace be with you SELAMU ALEYKUM
Noobs here. One month into the learning curve and I'm liking Debian the best. New to linux gaming been about 20 years since I been online gaming. Love the channel. Thanks for the knowledge and keep up the good work.
I've always loved KDE, but it (Neon) always seemed buggy on my laptop's hardware, so I moved on. Thank you for this video because Debian + KDE was NEVER on my radar. I installed it on 8/28 and have not run in to one single issue so far. Thanks again.
Hi Chris, Your last point is absolutely correct. The similarities far outweigh the differences. I have been on Debian Linux since 1994 (there wasn't even redhat available at the time, and I vaguely knew some of the developers, so the choice of distribution was easy). Currently I run on the experimental branch (which you forgot to mention, though in reality it's a hybrid of branches), and have found it to be pretty stable. The debian installer is much better than it used to be (I remember having a pile of 20 3.5" floppies to work from and havig to compile your own kernel -which I still do, just google the linux kernel archives and compile with make-kpkg). I've never found the installer to be a problem (at least in recent years), though you are right about network cards and firmware, which used to more of a problem than it is these days. I occasionally use Ubuntu in my university department (they never really went down the windoze route). It's fine, I can select the desktop environment I want to use, more or less: I have used enlightenment from its early release until a week ago -prior to that I was using fvwm2 and even twm. I've really enjoyed your videos as it's a geat way to see what is possible these days. -Oh, and yes, don't use "ppa"s in Debian, I don't know who would even think to use such a thing during a debian linux install...
Well, I started with kali a couple of weeks back and am used to .debs now but I can imagine people want to install synaptic and play with ppa's if the installation is "easier" from a larger repo.....
I don't know much but I know that when I switched from Windows a year ago, installing and getting started on Ubuntu was incredibly simple and stress-free. I get that people say it's bloated but I have 1.5Tb of drive space. I get that people say it hogs resources, but 1Gb on loading is 3% of my RAM. I just put the boot CD in and everything just worked right away. Ubuntu is great for people like me who do want to get away from Windows and get right back to doing stuff and don't want to spend a lot of up-front effort learning about the OS.
@@pw1187 I think he's more just curious where it came from. It sounds about right to me, but I wonder where it came from so I can see what the "other" distros are and how used they are.
@@wingsandthings. Those numbers are far from "about right", they're wildly off compared to what I've seen over the years. Which is why I asked for a source.
If you use the Debian live install it's a very easy installation, quite similar to Ubuntu. The live install has a desktop environment built in, and when you boot into the DE off the usb it has an installer right there that is very similar to Ubuntu's installer.
I recently discovered your channel and I find it very useful. I'm an artist/artisan that feels very identified with the open source philosophy. So when I got my last laptop, I tried for a week to correctly install Debian in a Nvidia Gpu laptop. That task was to much for me back then. So I ended up with Ubuntu, but the will to have Debian install has nos returned. 🤟🏻🙏🏻
There is a fairly old Movie called "The Silicon Valley Story", which tells the whole story of Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak (omg so many steves ^^). It begins when all of them were still in College, they befriended each other and eventually there were formed 2 camps - Microsoft and Macintosh/Apple. While Gates kinda "steals" the BASIC programming language by buying a floppy disk from a poor programming student for 10 bucks or so and basically rushed to use this ressource to scramble together the first Windows OS. He particularly went so fast with the creation of "his" OS was to beat Jobs in a tech-race which steve jobs didn't even know he was participating in. And so HE went a borderline OCD route to program his first MacOS... not that he was an innocent man... Besides driving his crew of coders nearly insane with too much work, perfectionism and "aggressive pep-talks" and on the other hand, he snatched the patent for the first ever produced computer mouse which was made by XEROX who didn't really know what a golden goose they created. Jobs was warned several times by Wozniak about Bill Gates' intentions, but Jobs thought he was Bills friend right until the release event for the Mac1 from him, which Gates used to stage a coup d'etat so to speak... just before the unveiling of the macintosh, Gates highjacked the whole event to present a full functioning PC with Windows installed and ready to go to the public... not only that, in the months before that, he contacted IBM and really every major player in the PC production game and made contracts with them that bound those big companies to microsoft by not selling them the OS itself, but allowing Windows to be shipped with EVERY PC that was built for a little licence fee. And so he singlehandedly removed every competition including steve jobs, who was devastated to see his work go up in flames in just 10-15 minutes of Bill Gates presentation. The Movie is a must see, i can highly recommend it.... the actors actually really look like their counterparts in real life btw.
I just moved back to Debian 10 "Buster" Non-Free w/KDE yesterday. ArcoLinux B w/KDE started having desktop issues and I need something reliable on my machines. Crazy thing is that Debian 9 gave me wifi no problem but Debian 10 didn't "see" my wifi so that's why I had to go Non-Free to get wifi working out of the box. Still need to do an install on my Secondary desktop machine and I'll probably put it on my Laptop as well because I like to be consistent with my operating systems. Debian is just so rock solid it's hard to go wrong with it and I've gotten use to setting up KDE just the way I like it so that's going to be my "go to" desktop for the foreseeable future.
I swapped most of my computers to Linux this past year, and about to swap more. Debian was my choice to start out on after much research and A/B comparisons, and I chose it specifically because it could be customized to hell and back, it could be a bare minimum install, and I could choose exactly what I wanted on it. It didn’t take me too long to figure out after a few mistakes (though I always back up my important data so no loss, I just reinstall the OS) and now it’s my OS of choice. I too have been in the stable branch since the start, but I just found out I may need to push to Sid to make a few things work, so onto my next adventure. Good vid man.
Tried Debian, tried Manjaro ( Arch ), had windoze decades back, in the end it's Ubuntu, because it just WORKS ! I can get it to do other things, but now at my age, I want my system to just work reliably with little system tweaking and that's Ubuntu. I get newer software then what's on Debian, though not bleeding edge like Arch a fair compromise and the drivers all work for my machines.
I think you really misrepresented Ubuntu in this video. You mention, more than a few times, that Ubuntu is for Linux newbies while Debian is for more experienced users. There are many Linux users besides me that use Ubuntu and are not Linux newbies or just moving to Linux for the first time. In my previous life, I was a programmer and sys admin for 23+ years. I had been using Unix since the mid 1980s and my first exposure to Linux was Slackware in 1995 when I was working at a local ISP. I've been using Ubuntu as my daily driver since 2011, so I am not a Linux newbie. I like the fact that I don't have to frog around with settings, drivers, and the like to have an enjoyable Linux experience. I have gotten to the point in my computing life that I want to be able to turn on my computer and have it just work. When I run the software updater, I don't have to keep my fingers crossed, hoping that the update doesn't break my computer. I think there is a whole swath of Ubuntu users, myself included, you fail to acknowledge: users who are not newbies but want to be able to boot up their computers and not have to hold their breath because it may not run properly because an update or newly installed software package broke the OS.
Barbara H-P Good point. I’m a Linux veteran, and I don’t like Ubuntu, but.... I see more Linux veterans (and Unix veterans) choose Ubuntu than any other distro. Hands down. The old-school Linux users have already “been there and done that” with Linux, and nowadays go with Slackware or CentOS, or much much more frequently, Ubuntu. It’s almost always Ubuntu. And I understand why.
I just don’t like the politics behind Ubuntu but I use Pop_OS that is Ubuntu based. Gnome is good as I was sick of Windows and it was as far away as possible from it.
Tried to install Debian 10 two weeks ago, I couldn't install my NVidia drivers. I might try a Debian non-free installation, or Netrunner for that matter since I want a Debian-based distro optimized for KDE. But as for now, I moved to KDE-neon and it works out of the box and I'm very satisfied. Hardware recognition and installation should be out-of-the-box, period. The end user doesn't have time to waste tinkering with the system to make it recognize the basic hardware included.
Kudos to someone who understands the frustrations and problems of going from Windows to Linux. I tried years ago (like years, years ago), and I fought the exact same damned thing you're talking about. I've thought the exact same thing ... should be recognizing the BASIC HARDWARE from get-go. But, I used Mint few years back, and it seemed to BE PERFECT and cause no problems whatsoever. And it was hardware that was 2 or 3 years earlier. So, with Mint, I had no problems and was enjoying my experience.
I tried Neptune KDE and I personally preferred it to Debian KDE... easier to install and everything. But I can't vouch for hardware compatibility as my 'play' system doesn't have a GPU. I 'think' Neptune is actually based on Stretch but has a Buster kernel and some other newer packages as well. Just a thought :) I like KDE as well :)
The Debian installer tells you exactly which drivers it needs during the install process. A camera phone is very helpful here. nVidia drivers are mostly non-free, so take note of which drivers are listed at the hardware check, finish the install, sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list and duplicate the first deb line using non-free at the end instead of main, save, sudo apt update, then apt-cache search for the packages with the missing drivers. As a side note, hardware compatibility is user accelerated. The reason Windows has such good compatibility is because of it’s HORRID compatibility, and the millions of hours spent by many thousands of techs diagnosing, troubleshooting, and waiting on hold over the last 30 years. GNU/Linux & UNIX & MacOS combined haven’t had near half that many man hours dedicated to hardware compatibility. Installing WinXP Upgrade back in the day used to be a “I’ll start it tonight, I’ll call you day after tomorrow and let you know if it’s ready for pickup.” WinXP was almost worse with a boxed day 1 Upgrade, depending on the NIC. Windows is like Ford Diesels... give them enough time to iron out all the kinks and make a solid OS, and they’ll drop it and make something new instead.
I might be biased, have been using Debian for over a decade, and have only tried Ubuntu briefly. But I feel Debian expects you to RTFM more than other distros. Always read the release notes! Use apt-listchanges and definitely apt-listbugs. Once you learn how to do things the Debian Way, life becomes so much easier, and upgrades no longer break stuff, because you changed settings in a way that apt will detect, and asks you if you want to diff/overwrite/keep them. When you get experienced, you learn (the unspeakable) to mix and match, and cherry pick packages from testing, unstable, experimental and third party repos. But then when you break it, you get to keep both pieces. I have a machine that I've done this on for nearly ten years. Sure I've had rough patches, but almost every time I had myself to blame, and got myself out of them as well. Aptitude is my goto when things get rough. An aquired taste, but great for getting out of dependency hell, drilling down into levels of broken dependecies is quite easy once you know how (although it's "examine" suggestions are often not at all what I want). Sometimes apt-pinning can be very useful as well.
Very nice video! I've settled for Debian 10 Buster Xfce non-free after doing the rounds of many different distros. Chris, you got a great video about how to find the non-free version (Debian 10 Buster Release and Install ). It was spot on and a great help. Debian is the mothership. I like to start from the beginning, being in control and then add stuff along the way. Of course, if you don't really know what to add and what's available, it can be a bit hard, here some experience with other distros come in handy. I added the Arc-Dark theme, the Paper iconset, added the Whisker menu, added some keyboard shortcuts like CTRL+ALT+T to open the Terminal, Superkey to open the Whisker menu and so on. It really has turned into a nice friendly place that also looks modern. To run the latest applications I use Flatpaks or Appimages, works great! I wonder when Xfce 4.14 will be available...
Yes debian clean is lightening fast. My favourite is debian with KDE. Is there a reason why timeshift gui does not launch on it? It used to work before not not anymore.
I have been using ubuntu for 7 years now, no complains, absolutely fine. except for occasionally stalling which I can't identify the cause, whether it is the hardware (toshiba satellite) or having 3 OS in one laptop. I have Debian as the other OS but cannot quite get it to work to the way I want it, too much messing around with drivers and missing software. But I did experienced the beauty of Debian in a university computer lab while studying a course. Recently just bought a new laptop with Windows 10 loaded, now trying to research the latest update in both ubuntu (still at LTS 14.04) and debian (having wheezy) to see if debian has make life easier. Thanks for the video, for pointing out the pros and cons and a proponent of the debian, I am going to give debian another go.
i just switched back to ubuntu out of debian last night because i realized that i wasn't quite ready for it yet. I wish this video would've come out sooner.
I've been using Linux almost regularly since march, and tried several distributions and desktop environments, being more confortable using gnome. And when it comes to distros, I really like the apt package manager, so I prefer a Debian based one. And although I've really tried to use and enjoy Debian, some lag on the graphics and the difficulty of finding some software, made me stay with Ubuntu.
hey that is very understandable. It is not always easy and you sometimes have to find alternatives. Did you know that debian supports snap and flatpak since stretch? That can be useful if needed.
Another thing worth mentioning is that Debian offers "backports" (newer versions of programs and libraries built for older versions of Debian) for their Stable and OldStable versions. This tends to be most useful with libraries and drivers, and allows you to keep the overall "Stable" build of Debian while having access to newer software, libraries, and drivers when needed
I have been using Linux Mint Cinnamon for a month or two. No problems except that I had random freezes but thanks to a helpful homepage I found out that one line of code had to be fixed: intel_idle.max_cstate=1. I think it is a very sleek and easy to navigate system especially for someone who is coming from MS Windows.
Hi, I'm Brazilian. Congratulations, this video really helped me a lot in choosing my next install, I will try to install a Debian version, I've been using Ubuntu for over 6 years, I'm really tired of some of your inexplicable brief freezes.
The older software is no loner a problem to me, I work with deep in OS, Debian based, most of the stuff I install are flatpacks, and appimages. I use the most up-to-date apps out there with a rock solid and extremely good looking distro.
Great comparison! I have never tried vanilla Debian. Just really stuck on KDE Neon and KDE Manjaro. I love those 2 projects can't seem to figure out which one I like better. Lol!
It sounds like with Debian you start with the bare bones and add what you need and with Ubuntu you're given a big pile of stuff and you have to throw away the stuff to get down to what you want or need.
Now, I am a bit of an odd desktop user. Older is usually more stable, thus I run older, more proven packages. I ran Ubuntu 10.04 for years. Way past it's prime, and that was because it was rock stable and I could carefully pick and choose what updates I wanted to apply. True, I wouldn't run and rely on it today but I have and do 18.04. I do agree that for most people Debian is more tougher to install and use but if your careful it's easy once your set up and you get used to it. It's still easier then most Arch distros.
I use Debian Bullseye for my laptop and love it. Bullseye is up to date enough for what I do with it and it is rock solid. I use Pop_OS for my gaming rig and it is an Ubuntu derivative. I use Pop_OS because it is more up to date and I like the PPAs. but thinking about switching to Arch on the next release.
Thanks for the info Chris. We have been running Debian servers for 4 years and switched my deskop for 6 months ago. Now that I watched this video, I should have gone for the unstable version...
I like the philosophies of both, even though I use Ubuntu as my daily driver, but if I'm a serious Linux user. In my opinion, they aren't comparable simply because they are aimed at different markets. If someone likes one more than the other, that's fine. It's mostly about opinion to me.
Interesting analysis Chris. Thanks for your good videos. As some others I'm curious about your source regarding the user's share. I love Debian and consider that it's a great base for a Linux distro, however I've preferred to use Ubuntu for many years due to the comfortability and ease of use it provides. Only recently I've thought about distro hopping to Pop!_OS. Mostly because I don't like the decision of forcing snaps like calculator and others when I think they are not ready for prime time, even though I like snaps, its concept and the amount of software it brings to GNU/Linux, I think it should be optional. Besides I have a System 76 laptop, so I think is the most natural shift
Hi Chris . I have a question. I have been using Solus for quite some time now and it works really good. But yeah here comes the But lol. Always something has to ruin a distro you like. There are just tons of sound issues. I do audio production , I do music recording and have been re doing my entire studio to get back into recording. Well I have been trying for months now to get the sound working with my interface on Solus. I can see my interface in the list. I can select it and see the meter in the settings moving as sound is put into the interface so I know the sound is getting at least into the computers OS lol. But no matter what recording software I use I can not get any of this sound to patch into the programs. I used to use Ubuntu Studio for recording but yeah tons of stuff that I never used . Any ideas of a good distro for Music Production? Or should I just go back to Ubuntu Studio :( and play with the Devil?
I haven't tried Leap yet, just Tumbleweed. I need a kernel of at least 4.14 :( One issue I had with Tumbleweed was the number and size of updates. Does Leap have as many and as large updates as what Tumbleweed does? The other issue for me was mirrors... living in Australia can create problems lol... updates as well as being large were 'slow'.
@@emjaycee I guess the reason Tumbleweed has so many updates is because it is a rolling distro. Whereas it Leap is a stable version. Read about the release cycle for opensuse for more info.
@@saurabhghanekar4985 Yeah, I do like openSUSE, but the updates would kill me in Tumbleweed. When they release leap with a kernel of 4.14 or newer I definitely plan to try it.
Back in maybe February this year I had debian on my laptop as a first distribution. Installing that wasn't fun, especially since my laptop has a broadcom wifi chip. Even though I did use it to learn linux, I never used the laptop that much, especially since the battery life was kinda horrible on debian. I made the full switch to linux with pop os about three months back and have learned a lot more about linux than when I had debian on that laptop. That laptop now uses pop os, and the battery life is a lot better thanks in part to system76's battery optimizations. After I'm experienced enough, I may switch my desktop over to debian sid and keep my laptops on ubuntu lts on an ubuntu-based distro.
I did install a ppa in a Debian Stable version. The only rule is it has to be a LTS version. It didn't break and it work. Can't remember which one it ways. But this was like 4 years ago. I did remove the ppa afterwards though. I have a Desktop and I always use Stable. Doesn't matter how far package versions are. I have build a few packages from source to have somethings up to date. If I need to or just want to. Any fresh installment, I'm up and running less in a hour. I tweak the next three days. Not doing everything as soon the fresh install is done. I do as I work along. In three days though. I have everything exactly the way I want it. Which I'm done with the OS tweaking.
Thank you for this video! Came up in Recommended list and now a new subscriber. :) I've used Ubuntu and Debian. I definitely prefer Debian, even though I'm not great with Linux overall yet. I upgraded to Buster from Stretch on a clean install. I was wondering why both have Slack coming from Jesse and you explained that, so thank you. I didn't realize Debian was so far behind on software, but I'll take it for the stability!
Good video, Chris, thanks! I used Ubuntu and then tried Debian, and loved its stability. Then tried Debian Testing and found it as stable and updated as Ubuntu, but much faster. It's perfect for home users like me. // Would love you to make another video on Fedora/RHEL/CentOS.
Flashing up a pie chart but not citing the source of the data? Care to share the data source? I'm interested because it doesn't reflect any public data I've ever seen. Interested in what demographic your data represents. May I also suggest that you listen to an episode (or more) of the Ubuntu Security podcast. I think it will open you eyes to the volume of security work the Ubuntu Security team process every week.
Spot on regarding the installation - Ubuntu good - Debian bad. However, I hate the look and feel of Ubuntu (yes I know I can change the desktop environment) and just love KDE on Debian. As a noob it took me about 4 different installs to not have a Franken-Debian. What a pain! But with what seemed like endless research I got smb working on Debian, my FreeNAS connected, my Windows PC connected with smb share. The upside of my initial experience is I learned quite a bit (thanks Chris). I still keep a rather large hammer at my work desk just in case I need to perform a quick hardware adjustment 🤬
Fresh Nuts Do you use any of these distros? If so, which ones? Do you have a preference? I am familiar with these distros (except for backbox) and their various purposes, but I’m curious about the experiences of other users.
6 years KDE user here (on personal and professional desktop): 3 Kubuntu, 3 KDE Neon (non LTS). Is fine on the desktop. I work in system administration and website support.
Hey nice to meet another person from The Netherlands. ;-) Cris says on 9:25 that the Debian installer is not as clean and sleek as the Ubuntu counterpart. But there is a live ISO that includes Firmware as well. There are even many Flavours you can choose from. cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware/current-live/amd64/iso-hybrid/
Chris, I have watched this video 3 times. Your video is very helpful about putting the subtle differences between Debian and Ubuntu into perspective. A key take-home point about Debian is that Debian intentionally uses older, proven, rock-solid software to provide Debian's 'stable' distribution. Thanks, again. Tom
one thing about debian being "harder" for beginners is that I learned so much from your videos that I feel like I completely skipped past being a beginner at any point :'D
My take on the two distributions: Ubuntu = Works out of the gate with minimal effort, but breaks more in the long run. Debian = It's gotten better but still hearkens back to when installing Linux and then configuring it required a lot of effort and when you FINALLY get it running, it's rock solid. I've been fine on Manjaro at home, but at work Ubuntu is typically what we run on our servers. The LTS releases are stable and the server releases of Ubuntu are easy to pick up and use which is great for when we need to spin up a few servers at one with different configs on them (ex: separate web, database, and file servers). That and more and more of the software vendors we're dealing with are officially supporting Ubuntu over Debian, CentOS, etc.. It also helps that Ubuntu has a solid release schedule (relatively, they have been late before) and this is important for a work environment so we can plan on either doing an in place upgrade or spinning up more servers to migrate over to. You also have the option for paid support which we've never needed to buy into and use, but some businesses find it pretty important to be able to have the option to call someone up for help when things break. Debian is great and all (I've run on it for over a year in the past) so it just depends on what your needs are. At work it's not about me, it's about the business so it's a different mindset. If it was about me, I'd probably use Debian on a server over Ubuntu. It's rock solid stable and Debian is known to back port security patches so any holes that are known to affect older and newer versions of software will get fixed.
5 Years of Ubuntu user here. I tried debian once but somehow didn't like it and moved back to Ubuntu. I work with embedded systems so most of the time I just run ubuntu as it is without that many modifications and it makes it extremely easy for me to work on any ubuntu system I can find. I don't want to spend time on fine tuning my distro and ubuntu's starting point is closest to my comfort zone.
Avid Debian user since 2001. Have tried Ubuntu once in a while, but I hardly ever found real added value. It basically hides the complexity from the user, but if something goes wrong, you have to fix it yourself like you would on Debian. Case in point: A neighbour asked me for help because his package management just wouldn't update anything anymore. I found the root cause: The Ubuntu installer had for some reason created a rather small /boot partition and over time it got filled up with the corpses of old kernels that were long obsolete but which Ubuntu somehow didn't bother to clean up. All you had to do to fix it was a few apt-get removes, nothing that Canonical couldn't have automated with not too much effort. But somehow they don't. I feel, that Ubuntu's user friendliness is mostly just image with no actual reality to back it up.
Honestly I have run Sid, testing, Manjaro, Fedora, OpenSuse tumbleweed and stable, and several versions of Ubuntu as daily drivers....and I'm a very happy desktop debian stable user. It does not scratch the itch to tinker (VMs are for that now) but it works great.
I've used Debian since the '90s and Ubuntu since its first release. This video was fine but I was a bit disappointed it didn't point out that every release of Ubuntu is based on Debian testing. Also (assuming you have a fast network connection) if you want a quick way to get what you might need on a Debian setup, use a netinstall image and tasksel to select the basics. And finally, even in Debian, try a lighter weight desktop environment like xfce if you want to avoid bloat.
@Solve Everything I wouldn't characterize the difference between Debian and Ubuntu as a "war." The two projects have different goals. Frankly I was personally lured to try Ubuntu as a devoted Debian user by one of Ubuntu's core developers, but I do still think Debian has an important mission. AND Ubuntu is completely dependent on the success of Debian. Core Debian folks would dispute it, but for years Debian has relied upon Ubuntu's large user base and important bug fixes. It's a symbiotic relationship with some difficult sticking points.
with regards to the starting point to get to the middle both sides can be troublesome for newbies or even those with a little experience.debloating ubuntu usually means uninstalling libraries that break other programs. a pain to work this through.loading up debian usually means installing stuff to get to a point where you can install stuff you want. a pain to work this through.Ubuntu, majaro, mandriva etc were the ones that kept casual users interested in linux as a windows alternative. (I miss os2 warp)All this being said, perhaps the Debian community needs to have a wiki or script for newbies to get a good desktop environment.
You keep banging on about your choice of distro doesn't matter. Ok , so let's go with you on this & say that someone decides to pick a random distro and they pick Debian Stable. Afterwards they learn that the repository only contains older software packages. But they want the latest stuff. So what can they do to resolve this now? -Can they just switch to a different repo with the latest packages?
Thanks very much Im thinking to go to Linux from!, I realy got your point and thanks for that because it sums up to what type of user you are and I'm coming from windows 7 and dont want to deal with linux learning curve and also having to deal with installing all my hardware, at the same time. At least at this moment maybe later with more hrs using linux and some basics learnt I will do it. Thanks Again!
new user on debian, used win11 b4, but i got fed up with microsoft, so chose to go linux, libre and such. i love it, it took 2 weeks and 10 reinstalls to set it up, but now it works perfect, with nvidia drivers and everything. i oftenly saw, how flatpaks are praised for debian, but i would rather use .deb packages and would recomend that other users too. kinda regret i was lazy to check for non free version, so it would made my experience a bit easier probably, but perhaps having free netinst version of it with non free and backports enabled and with nvidia drivers properly installed is maybe even better, idk. i love debian, will use it for everything now and not even interested in other distros
Chris, can you do a video on how to do overclocking and undervolting and fan control with your AMD gpu in linux? Its been driving me nuts that i have not figured that out yet, I cant getvthe same performance with my rx570 as i did with windows with the overclock and undervolt i was running. Thanks a bunch for your vids, ive learned a lot from you in the last few months. Best wishes 😁
Far more tinkering than I have been able to figure out as well. I like to set custom fan curves and adjust voltage on the fly. Just haven't been able to figure it out in Manjaro yet.
I love Debian, but I have Pop OS! as well, and MX linux (I had to try it). I started with "Buzz" on a server at work, and that's the way it goes! Ubuntu is fine, but I dislike the snap part of it. If Ubuntu works for you, great! Keep using it!
My main system is Mint, which is based off Ubuntu... and it probably always will be as it just seems to work on my hardware. I'm not really a huge fan of Ubuntu, but I don't like Debian at all. You're spot on, Chris, it just isn't for Linux newbies, and I'm still reasonably new. Everything is too hard to find and too hard to set up... even remembering NOT to put a root password in is a pain lol. And having to add contrib and non-free repos to the sources list to get all the stuff you want... Debian doesn't make it easy for you :) And it just looks so plain, which is probably good because newbies probably prefer a bit of glitz and glamour :) Debian is, however, a great distro to base other distros on because of its renowned stability. MX is an example of that. To me, as a relative newb, the three main FOSS distros are Debian, openSUSE and Fedora... and I have to say that I'm getting quite a hankering for Fedora these days. Took me a while to work it out but once you do that it's modern and polished. Unfortunately Fedora KDE doesn't seem to like me, for some reason Thunderbird in Fedora KDE keeps giving me 'elo' errors. It might just be my Aussie broadband supplier (Telstra)... at least I've heard that can be an issue sometimes. Still, it works just fine in Cinnamon lol. Mint, MX, Manjaro and Fedora are my main go-tos these days. Thanks again, Chris, for all your hard work.
Sorry but I need to correct your there Chris. You said Debian is more difficult to install but recently they added a Live version of Debian Buster which has the same installer as Ubuntu have. Just try it out! Works almost the same. It uses the same Calamares installer as Ubuntu has. Here you go give it a try! cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware/current-live/amd64/iso-hybrid/
@@ChrisTitusTech Appart from the custom partitioning (which is hell at first) it is quite straight forward on debian 9. iirc, ubuntu doesn't provide custom partitioning and even less encryption during partitioning... (t least last time i checked, it threw me out.)
Does that mean you don't need wifi firmware on a usb stick anymore for Debian? That's normal what makes me use ubuntu. Given Fedora is my personal favorite. I like deb distros more then pac currently.
I have to start out saying I don't use Ubuntu. With that said when I got into Linux, Ubuntu was the starting point for most people coming to Linux desktops with no prior knowledge of Linux. Ubuntu has the most "how-to" sites of any other Distro's out there, along with Ask Ubuntu on Stack Exchange. If you have a problem, I would guess most of the time you can find the fix in easy to understand verbiage, a lot easier than the ArchWiki, which comes in handy when running Manjaro. I've got a spare disk and just might try Debian Syd.
I really love both. On my desktop, I prefer Debian Testing (where I don't mind updating every few days) and on my laptop, I like Xubuntu/Kubuntu because I don't use it as much so I don't want a whole pile of updates every time I turn it on.
Debian is still my go to. I started with Ubuntu, but I hated Gnome... I know the desktop.. but even installing stuff through it felt off... Debian things just worked smoother for me. I been watching your videos for a few clicks now... Debating about trying out Fedora... I never really gave it a fair shake... but its downloading.
Hi Chris I use Ubuntu since years, I try debian with VirtualBox and I look good for me. If you have to choose a distro for a really old computer do you choose Linux Mint or lubuntu? You really did a great job Chris. Edit because I'm a French misspeller 😕
romain Fouquet depends on how old, Ubuntu for sure will have issues on systems without APIC timing (pre 64bit). Debian 9/10 doesn’t have that issue. Not sure on Mint.
romain Fouquet out of the box performance on an older system is going to be mainly due to DE, and a Qt DE will usually run faster than a Gtk DE doing the same thing. This points to either KDE or LXQt, with KDE being more feature-rich and LXQt, well, it’s pretty blank. You can go further lightweight, either XFCE or piecemeal (pick a window manager, desktop manager, and compositor), but even less features. Currently running I have a G4 500mHz running Debian 7 with Apache, MySQL, FTP, SMB, and mail & print server, no GUI (X11 over SSH works fine), and a P4HT 1.6Ghz on Debian 10 LXQt running QEMU or Virtualbox Win2k (it gets really slow running both at the same time). Both of these machines are well beyond what 99% of people consider “old.” My Tandy 286 hasn’t gotten the linux treatment, as 5.25 floppies are hard to come by, but I really should spend some playtime seeing how hard I can push it
@Ahnaf Habib Nope, we've discussed making a rolling version in the past. But nobody was heavily motivated to do it. It's a fair amount of work to maintain.
As a Linux user for 6 years, I should mention that you can always change anything in Ubuntu (or any distros) after installation. So don't worry about anything. Just enjoy the simplicity of installing. Don't waste your time to find drivers for your hardware and other stuff. Ubuntu will do this for you.
0:35 Where does the market share estimation come from? I searched but the results are either market share to windows and mac os, or distrowatch clicking ranking. What keyword I should use to search?
I think I got a hunch why Ubuntu is so popular when it comes to people coming from Windows. They got that familiar cozy feeling of not knowing how much Canonical gathers from their user data. Canonical is the Microsoft of Linux. ;) I started out with Arch, and florped if a few times, but that's how you learn, and I haven't had a problem for a year now. I chose Debian for the GF, and it took some rethinking, but after that it just runs. I'm NOT from a techy backgrund, so it just takes some effort. ... If people want ready out of the box, I'd recomend Deepin and such Distros, as they look good and just works out of the box. Ok, I'll give Ubuntu that it works out of the box, but it's just fugly!
@@BlommaBaumbart There has been several things that has been less popular, but I think this is the latest: betanews.com/2018/06/23/analytics-ubuntu-linux-user-data/
@@mrecks7782 interesting, the article actually praise Canonical for using telemetry in the right way: giving the users the choice to opt-out and if they opt-in showing exactly the information they are going to collect. So I don't really see any evil here... If you don't want to share harmless anonymous information, you can choose not to.
Andrés Marín Pérez & Ghetelen the opt-out option is a kneejerk that was added on later. The fact that the opt-in is default and opt-out requires knowledge and fiddling is the evil. Microsoft telemetry can be disabled too (it’s easier to just unplug it).
Used Ubuntu for years, know what you mean about being bloated but it works. Closest I've been to a vanilla Debian is Raspian, which is Debian ported to the Raspberry Pi devices. Most of the time I use Terminal for them anyway.
You mentioned hardware that just works with the linux kernel and doesn't need any of the proprietary extras, is there a hardware list somewhere? The next time I upgrade my computer, I'd like to make sure I get all hardware that wouldn't need the non-free version of Debian.
Anthony Hunter there are a few lists out there, but they lag behind what’s actually happening. AMD is open source, Intel has an active Linux dev team (not technically FOSS, but it’s a step in the right direction)... nVidia is mostly non-free, Broadcom & Cisco are anti-FOSS (I want to say that in a Cisco media conference), and brand-specific bells & whistles (RGB control, software fan control, input acceleration, overclocking, etc) are disappointments waiting to happen. Whether that’s all still true in 6 or 12 months, who knows...
How to install Debian: Step 1: Install Ubuntu Step 2: Change every url in /etc/apt/sources.list from ubuntu to debian testing Step 3: apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade Step 4: .. Step 5: Welcome to a weird Debian System!
For people new to Linux, “Free Software” does not refer to price. It refers to software that is open source and also adheres to the 4 software freedoms as outlined by the Free Software Foundation. It’s also known as libre software or FOSS. Free software is not necessarily gratis. It may be sold for profit, and some companies like Red Hat, build profitable businesses around Free Software. It’s different from public domain software and standard open-source software. Free and open-source software exists in contrast to proprietary software, which is closed source. Debian ships only Free Software by default; however, proprietary, closed-source software repositories are available.
Are you dutch? I see a word called gratis = free in english.
Patrick Boerman I’m not Dutch, although I’m familiar with the Dutch term, as it’s the same in English, as well as in many other languages. I used the word gratis because it’s common parlance in the Free Software Community. Although the word gratis is not a commonly spoken word in English, it’s still common enough that most native English speakers understand it. Further, it helps underscore the point of “free as in beer” vs “free as in freedom.”
WR3ND good point.
@Donaldo Mac Eachen People always say "Free as in Beer" but I've always had to pay for my beer, LOL. I'd think "Free as in Air" would be a better way to put it since at this point in time NO ONE pays for Air.
Thanks, Mitchel. It can be a bit of a balancing act between user friendliness and exposure. I'm more the sort that likes to jump into the deep end on a safe testing environment first. Cheers. :)
Ubuntu is the reason why linux (as desktop os) so popular now .
have to agree with you there, their free CDs was a big push to bring new users to Linux
Exactly. A good portion of computer users use them for work. Not as a hobby. Having a working system with software support is number one. No point in using a computer if you're just playing with it for the sake of it.
Mana Hraib مانع حريب True, but not the only reason. Don’t forget that Linux is freeware.
being a freeware wasn't the only key success of ubuntu , i think the advantage of ubuntu was the (unique) user friendly experience among the other distros
@@insitakaya1672 The other reason is because people is sick about windows.
Chris, Your discussion of the Debian installation process starts at video time T=9:11, which seems appropriate, given the long length of the official Debian Installation Guide. I had been searching for quite some time to find out how to install the necessary wifi driver firmware. Your video got me right where I needed to be and facilitated my installation of Debian 10.7 Buster. Many thanks.
Sorry folks, I'm old. I get confused. I messed up here.
This comment was meant for Chris' video titled Debian 10 Buster Release and Install.
25 year debian desktop user here. Debian is fine on the desktop. I've been riding Sid for about 20 years at this point. I played WoW on it for ten years. Totally "server only"!
testing user here (on personal and professional desktop). Just perfect when you know what you're doing :)
Respect.
uphill both ways in the snow
? The video said "server" in reference to Debian stable. Then called "testing" a great Desktop option, and finally Sid the bleeding edge option. A bit of an oversimplification, but a useful one to start experimenting.
after leaving Arch linux and other Arch based distros, finally I now only use Debian linux on my personal laptop, and Ubuntu on my computer at work. And I feel happy.
Moved from Ubuntu (KDE Neon) to Debian stable last month. I went with the standard iso and only needed to install non-free Atheros drivers. Everything works great, I absolutely love it.
@Solve Everything Yup. that's quite unfortunate, thankfully I had been warned before going in. Also apparently the live disks for Debian come with the Calamares installer which is nice and modern (I think Manjaro uses it too) and ditches the whole root and personal user separation entirely.
You mentioned that the Debian installer only installs 'Free' Software, and Ubuntu ships blobs for WiFi/GPU enablement (for example). You might not be aware but the Ubuntu ISO has (for many years) had a "Free Software Only" option, which enables people who don't want any binary non-free software on their system. It's not commonly used, because it turns out people actually want to use the hardware they bought, but the feature is there. It was added when we mothballed the "Gobuntu" version of Ubuntu which was an entire ISO built to only contain Free Software. Turns out, people didn't want that.
Alan Pope underrated comment
@Ghost 67 Linux ask any 10 people what their definition of "Free Software" is and you will get 5 answers. Trisquel are hard-line freedom, removing things we consider Free Software that they don't. We remove firmware in that option which is a blob, they may remove software which is open source but has terms in their license the Trisquel devs don't like.
@Ghost 67 Linux also, not many people know about the option. Further, Trisquel has a small team.
@Ghost 67 Linux Trisquel have their own entire repositories. They rebuild every package and cherry pick to make sure they never include things which might be considered non-free. Sure, users can do whatever they want post-install, adding back in things the OS vendor doesn't "approve of". Same as you can with Debian, Ubuntu or any other distro. What's your point?
@Ghost 67 Linux Approval from FSF is really hard to get and doesn't get you users.
Chris, you have a beautiful backyard. :)
Gratis Soupware made Titus Millonaire
Quaid e Azam approves
Osama Anees what’s the lore behind this comment? Lol
@@salman.sheikh more like whats the pindi behind this comment. LOL lul xD haha heheh
(Sorry i thought it was funny)
Osama Anees Oh... I got it! :D
Chris:
Another great video. Thanks for explaining this. I think you're the Linux Professor of UA-cam. Glad you found your home, Here.
I've been using Linux for ten years now (Linux Mint, Ubuntu Studio) and I am only now beginning to look into debian. What a smooth and streamlined experience it has been! debian feels superior.
I feel that Debian is like our Mammies.
They love us.
They want us to be good people und have success.
Of course we don‘t hear to them so much when we‘re young.
Of course we try out all the forbidden things. But we have that feeling that our Mam is the best Person in the world. We know, we can trust her.
And believe me, after having done all the bad things you allways come back to Mama and are the most happy person in the world an start living your live without wasting your time with unproductive things.
Debian, thank you so much!
And with „Debian“ I mean all the involved people in the Community of course.
And with forbidden things I mean breaking the system again and again and trying one distro after the other :-)
Peace be with you
SELAMU ALEYKUM
Noobs here. One month into the learning curve and I'm liking Debian the best. New to linux gaming been about 20 years since I been online gaming. Love the channel. Thanks for the knowledge and keep up the good work.
I've always loved KDE, but it (Neon) always seemed buggy on my laptop's hardware, so I moved on. Thank you for this video because Debian + KDE was NEVER on my radar. I installed it on 8/28 and have not run in to one single issue so far. Thanks again.
Hi Chris,
Your last point is absolutely correct. The similarities far outweigh the differences. I have been on Debian Linux since 1994 (there wasn't even redhat available at the time, and I vaguely knew some of the developers, so the choice of distribution was easy). Currently I run on the experimental branch (which you forgot to mention, though in reality it's a hybrid of branches), and have found it to be pretty stable. The debian installer is much better than it used to be (I remember having a pile of 20 3.5" floppies to work from and havig to compile your own kernel -which I still do, just google the linux kernel archives and compile with make-kpkg). I've never found the installer to be a problem (at least in recent years), though you are right about network cards and firmware, which used to more of a problem than it is these days.
I occasionally use Ubuntu in my university department (they never really went down the windoze route). It's fine, I can select the desktop environment I want to use, more or less: I have used enlightenment from its early release until a week ago -prior to that I was using fvwm2 and even twm. I've really enjoyed your videos as it's a geat way to see what is possible these days. -Oh, and yes, don't use "ppa"s in Debian, I don't know who would even think to use such a thing during a debian linux install...
Well, I started with kali a couple of weeks back and am used to .debs now but I can imagine people want to install synaptic and play with ppa's if the installation is "easier" from a larger repo.....
I don't know much but I know that when I switched from Windows a year ago, installing and getting started on Ubuntu was incredibly simple and stress-free. I get that people say it's bloated but I have 1.5Tb of drive space. I get that people say it hogs resources, but 1Gb on loading is 3% of my RAM. I just put the boot CD in and everything just worked right away.
Ubuntu is great for people like me who do want to get away from Windows and get right back to doing stuff and don't want to spend a lot of up-front effort learning about the OS.
What's your source on that pie chart you showed for market share of Linux users?
He said that this is not Exact...and I have seen similar numbers of course no one knows Exact numbers...
So what do you think they are?
@@pw1187 I think he's more just curious where it came from. It sounds about right to me, but I wonder where it came from so I can see what the "other" distros are and how used they are.
@@pw1187 I didn't ask how accurate they are, I asked for a source.
@@wingsandthings. Those numbers are far from "about right", they're wildly off compared to what I've seen over the years. Which is why I asked for a source.
Alan Pope yeah, the numbers definitely seem “off” to me.
If you use the Debian live install it's a very easy installation, quite similar to Ubuntu. The live install has a desktop environment built in, and when you boot into the DE off the usb it has an installer right there that is very similar to Ubuntu's installer.
I recently discovered your channel and I find it very useful. I'm an artist/artisan that feels very identified with the open source philosophy. So when I got my last laptop, I tried for a week to correctly install Debian in a Nvidia Gpu laptop. That task was to much for me back then. So I ended up with Ubuntu, but the will to have Debian install has nos returned. 🤟🏻🙏🏻
There is a fairly old Movie called "The Silicon Valley Story", which tells the whole story of Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak (omg so many steves ^^). It begins when all of them were still in College, they befriended each other and eventually there were formed 2 camps - Microsoft and Macintosh/Apple. While Gates kinda "steals" the BASIC programming language by buying a floppy disk from a poor programming student for 10 bucks or so and basically rushed to use this ressource to scramble together the first Windows OS. He particularly went so fast with the creation of "his" OS was to beat Jobs in a tech-race which steve jobs didn't even know he was participating in. And so HE went a borderline OCD route to program his first MacOS... not that he was an innocent man... Besides driving his crew of coders nearly insane with too much work, perfectionism and "aggressive pep-talks" and on the other hand, he snatched the patent for the first ever produced computer mouse which was made by XEROX who didn't really know what a golden goose they created.
Jobs was warned several times by Wozniak about Bill Gates' intentions, but Jobs thought he was Bills friend right until the release event for the Mac1 from him, which Gates used to stage a coup d'etat so to speak... just before the unveiling of the macintosh, Gates highjacked the whole event to present a full functioning PC with Windows installed and ready to go to the public... not only that, in the months before that, he contacted IBM and really every major player in the PC production game and made contracts with them that bound those big companies to microsoft by not selling them the OS itself, but allowing Windows to be shipped with EVERY PC that was built for a little licence fee. And so he singlehandedly removed every competition including steve jobs, who was devastated to see his work go up in flames in just 10-15 minutes of Bill Gates presentation.
The Movie is a must see, i can highly recommend it.... the actors actually really look like their counterparts in real life btw.
rock solid... not a single hickup!
battaglin@debian:~$ uptime
17:24:54 up 1576 days, 5:16, 1 user, load average: 0.12, 0.16, 0.15
uname -r ?
I just moved back to Debian 10 "Buster" Non-Free w/KDE yesterday. ArcoLinux B w/KDE started having desktop issues and I need something reliable on my machines. Crazy thing is that Debian 9 gave me wifi no problem but Debian 10 didn't "see" my wifi so that's why I had to go Non-Free to get wifi working out of the box. Still need to do an install on my Secondary desktop machine and I'll probably put it on my Laptop as well because I like to be consistent with my operating systems. Debian is just so rock solid it's hard to go wrong with it and I've gotten use to setting up KDE just the way I like it so that's going to be my "go to" desktop for the foreseeable future.
I swapped most of my computers to Linux this past year, and about to swap more. Debian was my choice to start out on after much research and A/B comparisons, and I chose it specifically because it could be customized to hell and back, it could be a bare minimum install, and I could choose exactly what I wanted on it. It didn’t take me too long to figure out after a few mistakes (though I always back up my important data so no loss, I just reinstall the OS) and now it’s my OS of choice. I too have been in the stable branch since the start, but I just found out I may need to push to Sid to make a few things work, so onto my next adventure. Good vid man.
Well, honestly I’m ok with Debian Stable. Best distro for my usage.
Tried Debian, tried Manjaro ( Arch ), had windoze decades back, in the end it's Ubuntu, because it just WORKS !
I can get it to do other things, but now at my age, I want my system to just work reliably with little system tweaking and that's Ubuntu.
I get newer software then what's on Debian, though not bleeding edge like Arch a fair compromise and the drivers all work for my machines.
Ubuntu was full of bugs for me and i settled with Arch, but Manjaro is great too.
I think you really misrepresented Ubuntu in this video. You mention, more than a few times, that Ubuntu is for Linux newbies while Debian is for more experienced users. There are many Linux users besides me that use Ubuntu and are not Linux newbies or just moving to Linux for the first time. In my previous life, I was a programmer and sys admin for 23+ years. I had been using Unix since the mid 1980s and my first exposure to Linux was Slackware in 1995 when I was working at a local ISP.
I've been using Ubuntu as my daily driver since 2011, so I am not a Linux newbie. I like the fact that I don't have to frog around with settings, drivers, and the like to have an enjoyable Linux experience. I have gotten to the point in my computing life that I want to be able to turn on my computer and have it just work. When I run the software updater, I don't have to keep my fingers crossed, hoping that the update doesn't break my computer. I think there is a whole swath of Ubuntu users, myself included, you fail to acknowledge: users who are not newbies but want to be able to boot up their computers and not have to hold their breath because it may not run properly because an update or newly installed software package broke the OS.
Barbara H-P Good point. I’m a Linux veteran, and I don’t like Ubuntu, but....
I see more Linux veterans (and Unix veterans) choose Ubuntu than any other distro. Hands down. The old-school Linux users have already “been there and done that” with Linux, and nowadays go with Slackware or CentOS, or much much more frequently, Ubuntu. It’s almost always Ubuntu. And I understand why.
I have been using Linux for over a decade and still like Ubuntu for all the reasons you noted.
stewieX right on! 👍 You and Barbara H-P nailed it!
I just don’t like the politics behind Ubuntu but I use Pop_OS that is Ubuntu based. Gnome is good as I was sick of Windows and it was as far away as possible from it.
He meant the majority of ubuntu users are newbies.
It does not mean that Linux veterans don't use Ubuntu
Tried to install Debian 10 two weeks ago, I couldn't install my NVidia drivers.
I might try a Debian non-free installation, or Netrunner for that matter since I want a Debian-based distro optimized for KDE.
But as for now, I moved to KDE-neon and it works out of the box and I'm very satisfied.
Hardware recognition and installation should be out-of-the-box, period. The end user doesn't have time to waste tinkering with the system to make it recognize the basic hardware included.
Kudos to someone who understands the frustrations and problems of going from Windows to Linux. I tried years ago (like years, years ago), and I fought the exact same damned thing you're talking about. I've thought the exact same thing ... should be recognizing the BASIC HARDWARE from get-go. But, I used Mint few years back, and it seemed to BE PERFECT and cause no problems whatsoever. And it was hardware that was 2 or 3 years earlier. So, with Mint, I had no problems and was enjoying my experience.
I tried Neptune KDE and I personally preferred it to Debian KDE... easier to install and everything. But I can't vouch for hardware compatibility as my 'play' system doesn't have a GPU. I 'think' Neptune is actually based on Stretch but has a Buster kernel and some other newer packages as well. Just a thought :) I like KDE as well :)
The Debian installer tells you exactly which drivers it needs during the install process. A camera phone is very helpful here. nVidia drivers are mostly non-free, so take note of which drivers are listed at the hardware check, finish the install, sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list and duplicate the first deb line using non-free at the end instead of main, save, sudo apt update, then apt-cache search for the packages with the missing drivers.
As a side note, hardware compatibility is user accelerated. The reason Windows has such good compatibility is because of it’s HORRID compatibility, and the millions of hours spent by many thousands of techs diagnosing, troubleshooting, and waiting on hold over the last 30 years. GNU/Linux & UNIX & MacOS combined haven’t had near half that many man hours dedicated to hardware compatibility. Installing WinXP Upgrade back in the day used to be a “I’ll start it tonight, I’ll call you day after tomorrow and let you know if it’s ready for pickup.” WinXP was almost worse with a boxed day 1 Upgrade, depending on the NIC. Windows is like Ford Diesels... give them enough time to iron out all the kinks and make a solid OS, and they’ll drop it and make something new instead.
I might be biased, have been using Debian for over a decade, and have only tried Ubuntu briefly. But I feel Debian expects you to RTFM more than other distros. Always read the release notes! Use apt-listchanges and definitely apt-listbugs. Once you learn how to do things the Debian Way, life becomes so much easier, and upgrades no longer break stuff, because you changed settings in a way that apt will detect, and asks you if you want to diff/overwrite/keep them. When you get experienced, you learn (the unspeakable) to mix and match, and cherry pick packages from testing, unstable, experimental and third party repos. But then when you break it, you get to keep both pieces.
I have a machine that I've done this on for nearly ten years. Sure I've had rough patches, but almost every time I had myself to blame, and got myself out of them as well. Aptitude is my goto when things get rough. An aquired taste, but great for getting out of dependency hell, drilling down into levels of broken dependecies is quite easy once you know how (although it's "examine" suggestions are often not at all what I want). Sometimes apt-pinning can be very useful as well.
Very nice video! I've settled for Debian 10 Buster Xfce non-free after doing the rounds of many different distros. Chris, you got a great video about how to find the non-free version (Debian 10 Buster Release and Install ). It was spot on and a great help. Debian is the mothership. I like to start from the beginning, being in control and then add stuff along the way. Of course, if you don't really know what to add and what's available, it can be a bit hard, here some experience with other distros come in handy. I added the Arc-Dark theme, the Paper iconset, added the Whisker menu, added some keyboard shortcuts like CTRL+ALT+T to open the Terminal, Superkey to open the Whisker menu and so on. It really has turned into a nice friendly place that also looks modern. To run the latest applications I use Flatpaks or Appimages, works great! I wonder when Xfce 4.14 will be available...
This was a wonderful and easy explanation. Thank you and keep up the good work.
Yes debian clean is lightening fast. My favourite is debian with KDE. Is there a reason why timeshift gui does not launch on it? It used to work before not not anymore.
I have been using ubuntu for 7 years now, no complains, absolutely fine. except for occasionally stalling which I can't identify the cause, whether it is the hardware (toshiba satellite) or having 3 OS in one laptop. I have Debian as the other OS but cannot quite get it to work to the way I want it, too much messing around with drivers and missing software. But I did experienced the beauty of Debian in a university computer lab while studying a course. Recently just bought a new laptop with Windows 10 loaded, now trying to research the latest update in both ubuntu (still at LTS 14.04) and debian (having wheezy) to see if debian has make life easier. Thanks for the video, for pointing out the pros and cons and a proponent of the debian, I am going to give debian another go.
i just switched back to ubuntu out of debian last night because i realized that i wasn't quite ready for it yet. I wish this video would've come out sooner.
I've been using Linux almost regularly since march, and tried several distributions and desktop environments, being more confortable using gnome. And when it comes to distros, I really like the apt package manager, so I prefer a Debian based one. And although I've really tried to use and enjoy Debian, some lag on the graphics and the difficulty of finding some software, made me stay with Ubuntu.
hey that is very understandable. It is not always easy and you sometimes have to find alternatives. Did you know that debian supports snap and flatpak since stretch? That can be useful if needed.
Yeah i was using debian a lot then moved to manjaro for a bit. And it wasnt that comfortable like apt.
I recently switched from Ubuntu to Debian 10 - much happier now as I do not get random things stop working anymore.
Another thing worth mentioning is that Debian offers "backports" (newer versions of programs and libraries built for older versions of Debian) for their Stable and OldStable versions. This tends to be most useful with libraries and drivers, and allows you to keep the overall "Stable" build of Debian while having access to newer software, libraries, and drivers when needed
I have been using Linux Mint Cinnamon for a month or two. No problems except that I had random freezes but thanks to a helpful homepage I found out that one line of code had to be fixed: intel_idle.max_cstate=1. I think it is a very sleek and easy to navigate system especially for someone who is coming from MS Windows.
Hi, I'm Brazilian. Congratulations, this video really helped me a lot in choosing my next install, I will try to install a Debian version, I've been using Ubuntu for over 6 years, I'm really tired of some of your inexplicable brief freezes.
The older software is no loner a problem to me, I work with deep in OS, Debian based, most of the stuff I install are flatpacks, and appimages. I use the most up-to-date apps out there with a rock solid and extremely good looking distro.
Great comparison! I have never tried vanilla Debian. Just really stuck on KDE Neon and KDE Manjaro. I love those 2 projects can't seem to figure out which one I like better. Lol!
I like using the Debian netinstall option!
Excellent! I've been looking forward to this video. Thanks!
It sounds like with Debian you start with the bare bones and add what you need and with Ubuntu you're given a big pile of stuff and you have to throw away the stuff to get down to what you want or need.
Now, I am a bit of an odd desktop user. Older is usually more stable, thus I run older, more proven packages. I ran Ubuntu 10.04 for years. Way past it's prime, and that was because it was rock stable and I could carefully pick and choose what updates I wanted to apply. True, I wouldn't run and rely on it today but I have and do 18.04. I do agree that for most people Debian is more tougher to install and use but if your careful it's easy once your set up and you get used to it. It's still easier then most Arch distros.
I use Debian Bullseye for my laptop and love it. Bullseye is up to date enough for what I do with it and it is rock solid. I use Pop_OS for my gaming rig and it is an Ubuntu derivative. I use Pop_OS because it is more up to date and I like the PPAs. but thinking about switching to Arch on the next release.
Thanks for the info Chris.
We have been running Debian servers for 4 years and switched my deskop for 6 months ago.
Now that I watched this video, I should have gone for the unstable version...
I like the philosophies of both, even though I use Ubuntu as my daily driver, but if I'm a serious Linux user. In my opinion, they aren't comparable simply because they are aimed at different markets. If someone likes one more than the other, that's fine. It's mostly about opinion to me.
Interesting analysis Chris. Thanks for your good videos. As some others I'm curious about your source regarding the user's share. I love Debian and consider that it's a great base for a Linux distro, however I've preferred to use Ubuntu for many years due to the comfortability and ease of use it provides. Only recently I've thought about distro hopping to Pop!_OS. Mostly because I don't like the decision of forcing snaps like calculator and others when I think they are not ready for prime time, even though I like snaps, its concept and the amount of software it brings to GNU/Linux, I think it should be optional. Besides I have a System 76 laptop, so I think is the most natural shift
Hi Chris . I have a question. I have been using Solus for quite some time now and it works really good. But yeah here comes the But lol. Always something has to ruin a distro you like. There are just tons of sound issues. I do audio production , I do music recording and have been re doing my entire studio to get back into recording. Well I have been trying for months now to get the sound working with my interface on Solus. I can see my interface in the list. I can select it and see the meter in the settings moving as sound is put into the interface so I know the sound is getting at least into the computers OS lol. But no matter what recording software I use I can not get any of this sound to patch into the programs. I used to use Ubuntu Studio for recording but yeah tons of stuff that I never used . Any ideas of a good distro for Music Production? Or should I just go back to Ubuntu Studio :( and play with the Devil?
I use OpenSUSE Leap with KDE, because of YaST (Yet another Setup Tool). YaST is a software that beats all other tools in GNU/Linux in my opinion.
I haven't tried Leap yet, just Tumbleweed. I need a kernel of at least 4.14 :( One issue I had with Tumbleweed was the number and size of updates. Does Leap have as many and as large updates as what Tumbleweed does? The other issue for me was mirrors... living in Australia can create problems lol... updates as well as being large were 'slow'.
Yes, it is amazing!
@@emjaycee I guess the reason Tumbleweed has so many updates is because it is a rolling distro. Whereas it Leap is a stable version. Read about the release cycle for opensuse for more info.
@@saurabhghanekar4985 Yeah, I do like openSUSE, but the updates would kill me in Tumbleweed. When they release leap with a kernel of 4.14 or newer I definitely plan to try it.
@@emjaycee Haha that's true!! (and if there is a Nvidia driver update my heart stops till it is done! 😅)
Back in maybe February this year I had debian on my laptop as a first distribution. Installing that wasn't fun, especially since my laptop has a broadcom wifi chip.
Even though I did use it to learn linux, I never used the laptop that much, especially since the battery life was kinda horrible on debian.
I made the full switch to linux with pop os about three months back and have learned a lot more about linux than when I had debian on that laptop.
That laptop now uses pop os, and the battery life is a lot better thanks in part to system76's battery optimizations.
After I'm experienced enough, I may switch my desktop over to debian sid and keep my laptops on ubuntu lts on an ubuntu-based distro.
I am running Ubuntu Studio which has everything I am looking for in a OS!!
Buster has been doing great on my old EeePC 4G.
I did install a ppa in a Debian Stable version. The only rule is it has to be a LTS version. It didn't break and it work. Can't remember which one it ways. But this was like 4 years ago. I did remove the ppa afterwards though. I have a Desktop and I always use Stable. Doesn't matter how far package versions are. I have build a few packages from source to have somethings up to date. If I need to or just want to. Any fresh installment, I'm up and running less in a hour. I tweak the next three days. Not doing everything as soon the fresh install is done. I do as I work along. In three days though. I have everything exactly the way I want it. Which I'm done with the OS tweaking.
Thank you for this video! Came up in Recommended list and now a new subscriber. :) I've used Ubuntu and Debian. I definitely prefer Debian, even though I'm not great with Linux overall yet. I upgraded to Buster from Stretch on a clean install. I was wondering why both have Slack coming from Jesse and you explained that, so thank you. I didn't realize Debian was so far behind on software, but I'll take it for the stability!
Good video, Chris, thanks! I used Ubuntu and then tried Debian, and loved its stability. Then tried Debian Testing and found it as stable and updated as Ubuntu, but much faster. It's perfect for home users like me. // Would love you to make another video on Fedora/RHEL/CentOS.
Flashing up a pie chart but not citing the source of the data? Care to share the data source? I'm interested because it doesn't reflect any public data I've ever seen. Interested in what demographic your data represents. May I also suggest that you listen to an episode (or more) of the Ubuntu Security podcast. I think it will open you eyes to the volume of security work the Ubuntu Security team process every week.
Spot on regarding the installation - Ubuntu good - Debian bad. However, I hate the look and feel of Ubuntu (yes I know I can change the desktop environment) and just love KDE on Debian. As a noob it took me about 4 different installs to not have a Franken-Debian. What a pain! But with what seemed like endless research I got smb working on Debian, my FreeNAS connected, my Windows PC connected with smb share. The upside of my initial experience is I learned quite a bit (thanks Chris). I still keep a rather large hammer at my work desk just in case I need to perform a quick hardware adjustment 🤬
Haha sounds like my kind of adjustment!
PM (percussive maintenance) service ;)
some security distros:
Arch - BlackArch
Debian - ParrotOS
Debian - Kali
Debian - Tails
Debian - OSSIM
Ubuntu - Backbox
Fresh Nuts Do you use any of these distros? If so, which ones? Do you have a preference? I am familiar with these distros (except for backbox) and their various purposes, but I’m curious about the experiences of other users.
6 years KDE user here (on personal and professional desktop): 3 Kubuntu, 3 KDE Neon (non LTS). Is fine on the desktop. I work in system administration and website support.
2nd👍🏻 First to say, great vid as always! Keep up the good work Chris!
Greetings from Netherland
Hey nice to meet another person from The Netherlands. ;-) Cris says on 9:25 that the Debian installer is not as clean and sleek as the Ubuntu counterpart. But there is a live ISO that includes Firmware as well. There are even many Flavours you can choose from. cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware/current-live/amd64/iso-hybrid/
Chris,
I have watched this video 3 times. Your video is very helpful about putting the subtle differences between Debian and Ubuntu into perspective. A key take-home point about Debian is that Debian intentionally uses older, proven, rock-solid software to provide Debian's 'stable' distribution.
Thanks, again.
Tom
Thanks for information chris
one thing about debian being "harder" for beginners is that I learned so much from your videos that I feel like I completely skipped past being a beginner at any point :'D
Sid is still behind Arch.. It's even behind Ubuntu but it's nice as I have it on my second drive
My take on the two distributions:
Ubuntu = Works out of the gate with minimal effort, but breaks more in the long run.
Debian = It's gotten better but still hearkens back to when installing Linux and then configuring it required a lot of effort and when you FINALLY get it running, it's rock solid.
I've been fine on Manjaro at home, but at work Ubuntu is typically what we run on our servers. The LTS releases are stable and the server releases of Ubuntu are easy to pick up and use which is great for when we need to spin up a few servers at one with different configs on them (ex: separate web, database, and file servers). That and more and more of the software vendors we're dealing with are officially supporting Ubuntu over Debian, CentOS, etc.. It also helps that Ubuntu has a solid release schedule (relatively, they have been late before) and this is important for a work environment so we can plan on either doing an in place upgrade or spinning up more servers to migrate over to. You also have the option for paid support which we've never needed to buy into and use, but some businesses find it pretty important to be able to have the option to call someone up for help when things break.
Debian is great and all (I've run on it for over a year in the past) so it just depends on what your needs are. At work it's not about me, it's about the business so it's a different mindset. If it was about me, I'd probably use Debian on a server over Ubuntu. It's rock solid stable and Debian is known to back port security patches so any holes that are known to affect older and newer versions of software will get fixed.
5 Years of Ubuntu user here. I tried debian once but somehow didn't like it and moved back to Ubuntu. I work with embedded systems so most of the time I just run ubuntu as it is without that many modifications and it makes it extremely easy for me to work on any ubuntu system I can find. I don't want to spend time on fine tuning my distro and ubuntu's starting point is closest to my comfort zone.
Avid Debian user since 2001. Have tried Ubuntu once in a while, but I hardly ever found real added value. It basically hides the complexity from the user, but if something goes wrong, you have to fix it yourself like you would on Debian. Case in point: A neighbour asked me for help because his package management just wouldn't update anything anymore. I found the root cause: The Ubuntu installer had for some reason created a rather small /boot partition and over time it got filled up with the corpses of old kernels that were long obsolete but which Ubuntu somehow didn't bother to clean up. All you had to do to fix it was a few apt-get removes, nothing that Canonical couldn't have automated with not too much effort. But somehow they don't. I feel, that Ubuntu's user friendliness is mostly just image with no actual reality to back it up.
I actually find Kubuntu to be the best KDE Plasma install without tweaking ( and I've tried lots - Manjaro, Debian, even KDE Neon)
Honestly I have run Sid, testing, Manjaro, Fedora, OpenSuse tumbleweed and stable, and several versions of Ubuntu as daily drivers....and I'm a very happy desktop debian stable user. It does not scratch the itch to tinker (VMs are for that now) but it works great.
I’m thinking about going with Debian for my laptop.
I've used Debian since the '90s and Ubuntu since its first release. This video was fine but I was a bit disappointed it didn't point out that every release of Ubuntu is based on Debian testing. Also (assuming you have a fast network connection) if you want a quick way to get what you might need on a Debian setup, use a netinstall image and tasksel to select the basics. And finally, even in Debian, try a lighter weight desktop environment like xfce if you want to avoid bloat.
@Solve Everything I wouldn't characterize the difference between Debian and Ubuntu as a "war." The two projects have different goals. Frankly I was personally lured to try Ubuntu as a devoted Debian user by one of Ubuntu's core developers, but I do still think Debian has an important mission. AND Ubuntu is completely dependent on the success of Debian. Core Debian folks would dispute it, but for years Debian has relied upon Ubuntu's large user base and important bug fixes. It's a symbiotic relationship with some difficult sticking points.
with regards to the starting point to get to the middle both sides can be troublesome for newbies or even those with a little experience.debloating ubuntu usually means uninstalling libraries that break other programs. a pain to work this through.loading up debian usually means installing stuff to get to a point where you can install stuff you want. a pain to work this through.Ubuntu, majaro, mandriva etc were the ones that kept casual users interested in linux as a windows alternative. (I miss os2 warp)All this being said, perhaps the Debian community needs to have a wiki or script for newbies to get a good desktop environment.
Very knowledgeable, thanks! Ubuntu and Debian however are not completely different. Ubuntu is based on Debian.
You keep banging on about your choice of distro doesn't matter. Ok , so let's go with you on this & say that someone decides to pick a random distro and they pick Debian Stable.
Afterwards they learn that the repository only contains older software packages. But they want the latest stuff. So what can they do to resolve this now?
-Can they just switch to a different repo with the latest packages?
Thanks very much Im thinking to go to Linux from!, I realy got your point and thanks for that because it sums up to what type of user you are and I'm coming from windows 7 and dont want to deal with linux learning curve and also having to deal with installing all my hardware, at the same time. At least at this moment maybe later with more hrs using linux and some basics learnt I will do it. Thanks Again!
A good middle ground for someone who is just starting out or doesn't want to spend too much time messing with stuff is LMDE.
Great video. Thanks.
new user on debian, used win11 b4, but i got fed up with microsoft, so chose to go linux, libre and such. i love it, it took 2 weeks and 10 reinstalls to set it up, but now it works perfect, with nvidia drivers and everything. i oftenly saw, how flatpaks are praised for debian, but i would rather use .deb packages and would recomend that other users too. kinda regret i was lazy to check for non free version, so it would made my experience a bit easier probably, but perhaps having free netinst version of it with non free and backports enabled and with nvidia drivers properly installed is maybe even better, idk. i love debian, will use it for everything now and not even interested in other distros
Chris, can you do a video on how to do overclocking and undervolting and fan control with your AMD gpu in linux? Its been driving me nuts that i have not figured that out yet, I cant getvthe same performance with my rx570 as i did with windows with the overclock and undervolt i was running.
Thanks a bunch for your vids, ive learned a lot from you in the last few months. Best wishes 😁
Far more tinkering than I have been able to figure out as well. I like to set custom fan curves and adjust voltage on the fly. Just haven't been able to figure it out in Manjaro yet.
i use debian cinnamon if you download the non free iso its not miles apart from mint just lots more stable
I love Debian, but I have Pop OS! as well, and MX linux (I had to try it). I started with "Buzz" on a server at work, and that's the way it goes! Ubuntu is fine, but I dislike the snap part of it.
If Ubuntu works for you, great! Keep using it!
My main system is Mint, which is based off Ubuntu... and it probably always will be as it just seems to work on my hardware. I'm not really a huge fan of Ubuntu, but I don't like Debian at all. You're spot on, Chris, it just isn't for Linux newbies, and I'm still reasonably new. Everything is too hard to find and too hard to set up... even remembering NOT to put a root password in is a pain lol. And having to add contrib and non-free repos to the sources list to get all the stuff you want... Debian doesn't make it easy for you :) And it just looks so plain, which is probably good because newbies probably prefer a bit of glitz and glamour :) Debian is, however, a great distro to base other distros on because of its renowned stability. MX is an example of that. To me, as a relative newb, the three main FOSS distros are Debian, openSUSE and Fedora... and I have to say that I'm getting quite a hankering for Fedora these days. Took me a while to work it out but once you do that it's modern and polished. Unfortunately Fedora KDE doesn't seem to like me, for some reason Thunderbird in Fedora KDE keeps giving me 'elo' errors. It might just be my Aussie broadband supplier (Telstra)... at least I've heard that can be an issue sometimes. Still, it works just fine in Cinnamon lol. Mint, MX, Manjaro and Fedora are my main go-tos these days. Thanks again, Chris, for all your hard work.
The one thing i'm really missing in debian is something like the AUR. Prob would be using debian sid instead if it had that.
Installed debian last night and it was full of games, man. I had to install like 15 of them. Lol
I count eight small games (Debian Buster GNOME). Not exactly full of games ...
The Gnome version of Debian probably will have those games, since the Gnome desktop ships with those games
I use MX Linux ,Manjaro and Mint, that way I have the best of Debian,Ubuntu and Arch .
Sorry but I need to correct your there Chris. You said Debian is more difficult to install but recently they added a Live version of Debian Buster which has the same installer as Ubuntu have. Just try it out! Works almost the same. It uses the same Calamares installer as Ubuntu has.
Here you go give it a try!
cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware/current-live/amd64/iso-hybrid/
Thanks for the addition! You are right... I was referring to Debian 9 installer which was notoriously bad compared to ubuntu.
@@ChrisTitusTech Appart from the custom partitioning (which is hell at first) it is quite straight forward on debian 9. iirc, ubuntu doesn't provide custom partitioning and even less encryption during partitioning... (t least last time i checked, it threw me out.)
Does that mean you don't need wifi firmware on a usb stick anymore for Debian?
That's normal what makes me use ubuntu. Given Fedora is my personal favorite. I like deb distros more then pac currently.
But I don't like Ubiquity...
I have to start out saying I don't use Ubuntu. With that said when I got into Linux, Ubuntu was the starting point for most people coming to Linux desktops with no prior knowledge of Linux. Ubuntu has the most "how-to" sites of any other Distro's out there, along with Ask Ubuntu on Stack Exchange. If you have a problem, I would guess most of the time you can find the fix in easy to understand verbiage, a lot easier than the ArchWiki, which comes in handy when running Manjaro. I've got a spare disk and just might try Debian Syd.
I really love both. On my desktop, I prefer Debian Testing (where I don't mind updating every few days) and on my laptop, I like Xubuntu/Kubuntu because I don't use it as much so I don't want a whole pile of updates every time I turn it on.
Debian is still my go to. I started with Ubuntu, but I hated Gnome... I know the desktop.. but even installing stuff through it felt off... Debian things just worked smoother for me. I been watching your videos for a few clicks now... Debating about trying out Fedora... I never really gave it a fair shake... but its downloading.
Hi Chris I use Ubuntu since years, I try debian with VirtualBox and I look good for me. If you have to choose a distro for a really old computer do you choose Linux Mint or lubuntu? You really did a great job Chris.
Edit because I'm a French misspeller 😕
romain Fouquet depends on how old, Ubuntu for sure will have issues on systems without APIC timing (pre 64bit). Debian 9/10 doesn’t have that issue. Not sure on Mint.
@@jadosrd8950 thanks for your answer, my question are just about theory I don't have a real case ;)
romain Fouquet out of the box performance on an older system is going to be mainly due to DE, and a Qt DE will usually run faster than a Gtk DE doing the same thing. This points to either KDE or LXQt, with KDE being more feature-rich and LXQt, well, it’s pretty blank. You can go further lightweight, either XFCE or piecemeal (pick a window manager, desktop manager, and compositor), but even less features.
Currently running I have a G4 500mHz running Debian 7 with Apache, MySQL, FTP, SMB, and mail & print server, no GUI (X11 over SSH works fine), and a P4HT 1.6Ghz on Debian 10 LXQt running QEMU or Virtualbox Win2k (it gets really slow running both at the same time). Both of these machines are well beyond what 99% of people consider “old.” My Tandy 286 hasn’t gotten the linux treatment, as 5.25 floppies are hard to come by, but I really should spend some playtime seeing how hard I can push it
@@jadosrd8950 thank you so much i understand more the system requirement with linux
Why is there no Ubuntu rolling distro based on Debian testing?
Because nobody made it? :)
@Ahnaf Habib Nope, we've discussed making a rolling version in the past. But nobody was heavily motivated to do it. It's a fair amount of work to maintain.
As a Linux user for 6 years, I should mention that you can always change anything in Ubuntu (or any distros) after installation. So don't worry about anything. Just enjoy the simplicity of installing. Don't waste your time to find drivers for your hardware and other stuff. Ubuntu will do this for you.
0:35 Where does the market share estimation come from? I searched but the results are either market share to windows and mac os, or distrowatch clicking ranking. What keyword I should use to search?
Which one is good for developing software ubuntu or Debian?
Thank you, Chris. Or Linux Mint Debian Edition.
As soon as Mint bring that out based on Debian 10, I plan to try it. I have a lot of respect for what the Mint team do.
@@emjaycee - Yep, same here.
I think I got a hunch why Ubuntu is so popular when it comes to people coming from Windows. They got that familiar cozy feeling of not knowing how much Canonical gathers from their user data. Canonical is the Microsoft of Linux. ;)
I started out with Arch, and florped if a few times, but that's how you learn, and I haven't had a problem for a year now. I chose Debian for the GF, and it took some rethinking, but after that it just runs.
I'm NOT from a techy backgrund, so it just takes some effort.
...
If people want ready out of the box, I'd recomend Deepin and such Distros, as they look good and just works out of the box. Ok, I'll give Ubuntu that it works out of the box, but it's just fugly!
So tell me then about Canonical and my user data. What is the great evil I'm missing?
@@BlommaBaumbart There has been several things that has been less popular, but I think this is the latest:
betanews.com/2018/06/23/analytics-ubuntu-linux-user-data/
@@mrecks7782 interesting, the article actually praise Canonical for using telemetry in the right way: giving the users the choice to opt-out and if they opt-in showing exactly the information they are going to collect. So I don't really see any evil here... If you don't want to share harmless anonymous information, you can choose not to.
Yeah, looks fine by me.
Andrés Marín Pérez & Ghetelen the opt-out option is a kneejerk that was added on later. The fact that the opt-in is default and opt-out requires knowledge and fiddling is the evil. Microsoft telemetry can be disabled too (it’s easier to just unplug it).
Used Ubuntu for years, know what you mean about being bloated but it works. Closest I've been to a vanilla Debian is Raspian, which is Debian ported to the Raspberry Pi devices. Most of the time I use Terminal for them anyway.
It's like choosing between a pickup and a convertible. Which one is better?
The pickup, convertibles are just fashion statements.
Debian is a fine newbie distro, its not hard to use!
You mentioned hardware that just works with the linux kernel and doesn't need any of the proprietary extras, is there a hardware list somewhere? The next time I upgrade my computer, I'd like to make sure I get all hardware that wouldn't need the non-free version of Debian.
Anthony Hunter there are a few lists out there, but they lag behind what’s actually happening. AMD is open source, Intel has an active Linux dev team (not technically FOSS, but it’s a step in the right direction)... nVidia is mostly non-free, Broadcom & Cisco are anti-FOSS (I want to say that in a Cisco media conference), and brand-specific bells & whistles (RGB control, software fan control, input acceleration, overclocking, etc) are disappointments waiting to happen. Whether that’s all still true in 6 or 12 months, who knows...
How to install Debian:
Step 1: Install Ubuntu
Step 2: Change every url in /etc/apt/sources.list from ubuntu to debian testing
Step 3: apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade
Step 4: ..
Step 5: Welcome to a weird Debian System!