P2 Slackware as default?

[comradekingu]

Add to that crunchbang and linux mint debian edition. Consider also its the base for Ubuntu, and you understand why it has a foothold on the desktop.

Latest libreoffice. 4.1.3 latest libreoffice in debian 4.1.3 

Latest gimp 2.8.10   latest gimp in debian 2.8.6   Almost half a year old, held back by system upgrades.

What is your solution that is more popular? Opensuse?

"The people here" seem to be eager about debian, and add to that a +1 for debian for me.

 

[bzar]

Seriously, why is there so much love for Debian ? I'm sure as soon as Debian becomes the standard distribution, people are going to complain they don't have the latest libreoffice, the latest gimp and shit like that, because Debian packages take YEARS before they are updated.

Debian is a MINOR distribution currently for desktop users, it is far from being the most popular one. Debian makes sense mostly for servers where you want stability before anything else.

You can always enable testing repos, install upgrades for specific packages, disable testing repos

 

[Galaxis]

So, Debian is not a solution.

But it is. Don't confuse the base os with local userland - just have a look at which applications we have on the Pandora, and how old the underlying distribution is.


Having a solid base like Debian only makes porting programs easier.

 

[ekianjo]

But it is. Don't confuse the base os with local userland - just have a look at which applications we have on the Pandora, and how old the underlying distribution is.

You are not following my point at all.  I'm not talking about Debian vs CURRENT Pandora situation. Obviously Debian would be superior to anything we currently have. 

I'm talking about DEBIAN VS OTHER DISTRIBUTIONS for the Pandora successor. I'm saying that Debian would not be the best choice because its focus is not on latest software, but on stability. Which is not usually what users are dying for, unless they want to run servers.

Seriously, why is there so much love for Debian ? I'm sure as soon as Debian becomes the standard distribution, people are going to complain they don't have the latest libreoffice, the latest gimp and shit like that, because Debian packages take YEARS before they are updated.
 
Debian is a MINOR distribution currently for desktop users, it is far from being the most popular one. Debian makes sense mostly for servers where you want stability before anything else.

You can always enable testing repos, install upgrades for specific packages, disable testing repos

Just having to do that means it already sucks balls. And talk about being user-friendly (and by user I mean beginner) ! 

Add to that crunchbang and linux mint debian edition. Consider also its the base for Ubuntu, and you understand why it has a foothold on the desktop.

Latest libreoffice. 4.1.3 latest libreoffice in debian 4.1.3 

Latest gimp 2.8.10   latest gimp in debian 2.8.6   Almost half a year old, held back by system upgrades.

What is your solution that is more popular? Opensuse?

"The people here" seem to be eager about debian, and add to that a +1 for debian for me.

I'd prefer Mint or even Ubuntu over Debian for sure. 

 

[ghostpatch]

^Ubuntu is... meh..

I'm saying that Debian would not be the best choice because its focus is not on latest software, but on stability.

thats positive in my opinion. If we keep the pnd system you can simply packadge the latest software without interfering with stability - perfect!

by the way, I also love using ArchLinux! *thumbs up* ; )

 

[ekianjo]

thats positive in my opinion. If we keep the pnd system you can simply packadge the latest software without interfering with stability - perfect!

I'm not sure there is a real incentive in keeping the PND format if we have a full distribution on the Pandora successor.  

 

[Asiyura]

PND would allow us to have removable SD card that you can swap between your systems without any manipulation and retro-compatibility…

 

[sebt3]

Seriously, why is there so much love for Debian ? I'm sure as soon as Debian becomes the standard distribution, people are going to complain they don't have the latest libreoffice, the latest gimp and shit like that, because Debian packages take YEARS before they are updated.

Debian is a MINOR distribution currently for desktop users, it is far from being the most popular one. Debian makes sense mostly for servers where you want stability before anything else.

Err, Debian is not a MINOR distribution. It's a MAJOR distribution since ages. The fact that you dont know it much doesnt mean it's a minor distribution.Based on DistroWatch data, it's #4 on the top distribution usage with 2 of its children on the top (ubuntu and mint). So yeah, it's a fraking top notch distribution.

And saying it's a server distribution show you definatly doesnt know debian enough. Based on pop-contest data, debian see more xorg install then apache...

My point is, many people here are already complaining that many PNDs are not from the very bleeding edge version of several applications available on Linux, and going for Debian is going to disappoint these people as well who want the latest versions.

Once again, you're just showing you dont know debian here. SID is as up-to-date (if not even more) as most user-friendly distribution. SID see package release of gnome and kde on the official release date of these products. Like many other product. Many distribution are not as up-to-date as this (ubuntu have longer delay to see these update, but hey, they pick the package from debian anyway... Mint depend on ubuntu so even a longer delay here...)
Please dont let your absence of education debian wise blind you.

 

[ekianjo]

PND would allow us to have removable SD card that you can swap between your systems without any manipulation and retro-compatibility…

True, but if on your systems the installation of a package is just a sudo apt-get install package away anyway, I don't know if that's much of an advantage anyway. Deployment would be fairly easy either way. 

 

[Asiyura]

PND would allow us to have removable SD card that you can swap between your systems without any manipulation and retro-compatibility…

 True, but if on your systems the installation of a package is just a sudo apt-get install package away anyway, I don't know if that's much of an advantage anyway. Deployment would be fairly easy either way.

Come on… you swap an SD card holding your pnd and data (saves, documents, source code, music) and instantly get all of those working on another device, isn't that quite a bit faster and easier than sudo apt-get install package + transferring data?I know that pandora's successor is going to be a niche device, but making it easier to use for non linux users via the existing pnd system is quite a good selling point.

 

[ekianjo]

Based on DistroWatch data, it's #4 on the top distribution usage with 2 of its children on the top (ubuntu and mint). So yeah, it's a fraking top notch distribution.

Look, if this doesn't tell you what minor means... Mint+Ubuntu is like 5-6 times the size of Debian at least (if you take an average on the stats below). Net, it's clearly not what most people use. 

And here's the overall popularity of distros since 2004 : 

Let me read it for you: Debian is not growing more popular. 

Come on… you swap an SD card holding your pnd and data (saves, documents, source code, music) and INSTANTLY get all of those working on another device, isn't that quite a bit faster AND easier?

You're missing the point. Who will even make PNDs if the packages are readily available in the distro itself ? The answer is : probably no-one. 

The PND system was created to go around the limitations of the current Pandora design and specs. In a regular distro, of course it can still have a purpose, but its value is clearly in question overall. 

 

[Linux-SWAT]

Ekianjo, you're missing some informations/experience here.

You should stop throwing pseudo-facts.

 

[sebt3]

^ +1

Ekianjo, you're missing so many things here. I'm just in aww right now. Do you get that your number doesnt mean anything ? You have 3 source of data that cannot even agree on value for mint. Geez below 10% for Hacker news while google trend tell us over 30%. That more than 3 times value for the same product for the same time. It clearly shows that these data mean absolutly nothing. I would bet that on debian.org, debian would be #1 distribution yeah, that would mean a lot.

On the other side, even with a full deb repository, I bet most dev will still produce PND files : easier to get to the repo, format designed for the mobile device and for the pandora exclusivly. So having nubs behavior hardcoded in a PND is not a problem while in a deb file...

You realy sound uneducated here. Please stay shut...

EDIT (because my last line sound rude) : ED here is giving us where the project is heading. It's heading there because the ones ED chossed to work on the OS are planning to go debian (and no i'm not part of that team). You want an other road. Fine show us your work so ED can use that as a starting point. Otherwise all you're doing is ranting. And you're ranting with biased and useless information. It just sound as if you just want to spread FUD...

 

[mcobit]

I installed sid recently on a pc at university and was quite surprised how nicely it works as a desktop distribution with gnome shell.


I like how you can just press the "windows" key and directly search for stuff and run it. Especially this would be a nice addition in userfriendlyness in a P2 imho. Including nice transparency and fading effects that don't seem to be there only for the sake of it but make it more functional.


I even quite like unity in its current state. I hated it two years ago...


But this is my opinion and now you can rip it apart

 

[Antartica]

Another thumbs-up to using Debian.

It may not be perfect, but it certainly is a very workable solution (and the one I usually use O.

OTOH, Debian has a lot of pluses on embedded systems:

1. It can be trimmed at installation (just abort the installation before tasksel and install packages as-you need, or create an alternative installation media with a different list of default packages).

2. It is quite easy to have the root disk in read-only (although for most servers you have to touch the custom "init-ro" to bring into ram some directories):

https://wiki.debian.org/ReadonlyRoot

3. As it is widely used, there are solutions for most problems. For example, the problem of slow "apt-get"s on embedded systems can be mitigated with tdpkg:

http://lethalman.blogspot.com.es/2010/03/tdpkg-speed-up-reading-dpkg-database.html

Those are only examples; personally I think that the read-only thing would be impractical in the pandora (it is hackish, and intended more for a "static" appliance than for a "dynamic" PC).

Anyway, I would be a very happy camper having debian in a pandora.

 

[_wb_]

When you're comparing popularity of distros, you have to take into account which distros are derived from which other distros. Ubuntu and Mint are both directly derived from Debian, so it's a bit strange to say that Debian is not popular because people are using Ubuntu -- you can just as well say that GNU/Linux is not popular because people are using Ubuntu. Take a look at this diagram: http://futurist.se/gldt/wp-content/uploads/12.10/gldt1210.png. Zoom out a bit if needed. Most of the top half of that diagram are all derived from Debian. Many of them still have the same packaging system and are mostly compatible with Debian. Mint, Ubuntu, Trisquel, Google Chrome OS, Knoppix, just to name a few, are all essentially just variants of Debian.

When you're talking about Debian being outdated, you're most likely referring to the "stable" branch. That's a bit like using only the LTS releases of Ubuntu and then complaining that it gets old. There's also Debian "testing" and Debian "unstable" (see http://www.debian.org/releases/), and those are much closer to the cutting edge. Those branches are still more reliable than many other distros; you may not want to run your server farm on them, but for a handheld they're perfectly fine.

I'm not saying we necessarily have to go for Debian (or something Debian-based) - I would be fine with something based on Gentoo, Arch or Slack too - but the arguments that it is not popular or too outdated are not valid ones.

 

[bzar]

^ IIRC Ubuntu tracks Debian unstable? So that should give us as up-to-date packages?

 

[ekianjo]

When you're talking about Debian being outdated, you're most likely referring to the "stable" branch. That's a bit like using only the LTS releases of Ubuntu and then complaining that it gets old. There's also Debian "testing" and Debian "unstable" (see http://www.debian.org/releases/), and those are much closer to the cutting edge.

Then, sorry to ask, but what's the advantage of having Debian-unstable vs Ubuntu, because you lose the stability of Debian when you move to Debian-unstable anyway. I'm not sure what argument you are making here.

For info: http://www.diagrammr.com/png?key=dodjkzMu8Bg

 

[sebt3]

You cannot have a "debian stable" stability and the lastest hottest newest code. You have to choose. Reaching that level of stability cost a lot of tests and qualification. This mean lot's of time. Beside, debian "unstable" mean the distribution might be unstable not the software used in. You wont see anything that upstream consider as unstable in SID, that's what experimental is for. In the end, all this mean for the end users is : more download of package because the maintainer have to fix packaging problems... not code.

I'm a (very) long time SID user, and I have seen only 2 larges breakages in my long term usage (the worst have been when the pam package have flushed its config on an upgrade. even root wasnt able to log in. It took me maybe 20mn to fix my issue : boot using the install CD in recovery mode and copy the dpkg-dist backup files... The longest part was : finding this CD ). and I got no problems in the lasts 5-8years at the very least. Dispite its alias, debian SID is rock solid

 

[_wb_]

When you're talking about Debian being outdated, you're most likely referring to the "stable" branch. That's a bit like using only the LTS releases of Ubuntu and then complaining that it gets old. There's also Debian "testing" and Debian "unstable" (see http://www.debian.org/releases/), and those are much closer to the cutting edge.

Then, sorry to ask, but what's the advantage of having Debian-unstable vs Ubuntu, because you lose the stability of Debian when you move to Debian-unstable anyway. I'm not sure what argument you are making here.

For info: http://www.diagrammr.com/png?key=dodjkzMu8Bg

I didn't say there's an advantage to having Debian instead of Ubuntu. Do you think there's an advantage of having Ubuntu instead of Debian?

I don't think there's a huge difference between the two, except that Ubuntu is starting to annoy me for various reasons -- e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_%28user_interface%29#Privacy_controversy -- and I don't really like distributions owned/steered by a company (Canonical Ltd. in the case of Ubuntu, Red Hat in the case of Fedora), because at some point, the interests of the company and those of the community can start to diverge.