Disengenuous to blame Debian for Ubuntu's problems

Story: Saying good-bye to DebianTotal Replies: 11
Author Content
cmost

Nov 20, 2011
3:52 PM EDT
It's pretty clear that this article was written by a fresh off the boat Windows weenie who dabbles here and there with Linux in the form of Linux Mint, a fork of Ubuntu which is an offspring of Debian. He fancies himself a computer geek, however, so he's quick to point out at the onset that he's using a derivative of Debian, which is a true power users Linux distribution. The author then puts Debian in the title of his little rant which is really all about Canonical's and Ubuntu's bad habit of failing to fix long-standing bugs in its distribution. I'm confused. Is this author using Linux Mint, Ubuntu or Debian? The entire article blathers on and on about how one Ubuntu version worked as it was supposed to on his uber unique network setup but subsequent versions of Ubuntu contained the same bug he claims he reported months ago. Here's a wakeup call dude: Ubuntu doesn't listen to its users so forget about reporting bugs. Bizarrely, the article even segues into a rant about Unity, which neither Debian or Mint even uses!!! After the author gets fedup with Ubuntu, he then reaches for Debian but of course as a newbie, he has trouble installing it. Why he wouldn't use Linux Mint's Debian Edition since he claims to be a fan of Mint is beyond me! After becoming frustrated, he takes a bizzare pot shot at Ian Murdock, the creator of Debian who hasn't had anything to do with it for years (hint: he's working on OpenIndiana these days, a UNIX OS) and his former wife Deb. Geesh, what is this guy smoking? My advice to the author if this whiny ill-informed rant is to go back to Windows.
tuxchick

Nov 20, 2011
6:58 PM EDT
My fave part is his reply to the first comment, where the commenter makes some sound repair suggestions, and the author dismisses them with "Sure, I can do that - but can my friends?" An obvious case of PEBCAK.

*plonk*
djohnston

Nov 20, 2011
8:26 PM EDT
Quoting:This to me, is like walking into a new job with my test gear (a laptop and a workstation of my own, along with a few tool kits full of hand tools which don't pertain to the article) and be able to integrate it into any existing system, whatever it may be.


You mean any existing system ... like Debian?
Rodebian

Nov 20, 2011
10:19 PM EDT
I created an account just to make a comment on this article.

Debian is very easy to use. As a matter of fact it is my favorite distro. It is far from being hard to install and get going. I didn't here once what he did to try and fix it to get it going. As far as "Sure he can do it, but what about his friends?" Please.... That is so weak of an argument. I drive, I have a car but if the engine starts acting up, the car won't start. I don't touch it. I bring it to someone who KNOWS what they are doing, I don't just throw the car away because I can't do it. With close friends and family, I am the one who works on their computers, including Windows (actually mostly Windows,) computers. They know little to nothing about computers.

My point? Of course not EVERYONE knows EVERYTHING about ALL things. If you are as smart as you want people to believe you are, then learn. Then when your friends get themselves into a mess they don't know how to get out of, you can help them. That is if If you are really a good friend.

All computers will have problems. If you give up this easy I would love to see your garbage can. Bet there are a lot of good, new, computers thrown away because you would rather give up then learn, diagnose and fix.

I advise you to: $apt-get install some_patience
Steven_Rosenber

Nov 20, 2011
11:22 PM EDT
I went to the guy's site and, in a similar entry, suggested he do his partitioning in advance of the installation with Gparted in Parted Magic.

He talks about multiple systems, multiple partitions ... I've found that mixing multiple Linux distributions that share common /home directories (not sure if he's doing this, but it looked that way) is more trouble than it's worth.
linuxsavvy

Nov 21, 2011
1:35 AM EDT
Quoting:All computers will have problems. If you give up this easy I would love to see your garbage can. Bet there are a lot of good, new, computers thrown away because you would rather give up then learn, diagnose and fix.

I advise you to: $apt-get install some_patience


I fully agree with this!

I've been a Windows user for many years and only recently started to appreciate the Linux and Open Source world. There's one important thing I've learnt from interaction with LXer users: New users *will* face hurdles when working with Linux and that certainly does not call for hasty conclusions – there are ways to negotiate out of trouble.
gus3

Nov 21, 2011
2:09 AM EDT
And Linux is much more willing to negotiate than either Windows or MacOS.
cr

Nov 21, 2011
8:55 AM EDT
Quoting:I've found that mixing multiple Linux distributions that share common /home directories (not sure if he's doing this, but it looked that way) is more trouble than it's worth.
With the way they stomp on each other's dot-files? You betcha.

I've been playing with that issue in LVM, thus:

/ -- per-OS, contains install, with empty per-user off /home
/home/crb3 -- per-OS, contains dotfiles, dotdirs, ffox cache
/home/crb3/public_html -- public branch, Apache userdir-docroot
/home/crb3/crb3 -- private branch, full of seekrit stuf
...and LVM makes it at all possible in /etc/fstab. Extrapolating from experience so far, even if the first two shown in the layout are combined, with more than one live user-account on the machine it'd be a bear to reliably set up to mount at login (with C wrappers for suid scripting); anything less, though, is guaranteed trouble.
tracyanne

Nov 21, 2011
5:44 PM EDT
Quoting:

Quoting:I've found that mixing multiple Linux distributions that share common /home directories (not sure if he's doing this, but it looked that way) is more trouble than it's worth.

With the way they stomp on each other's dot-files? You betcha.


It's a problem even changing from Ubuntu to Linux Mint.
helios

Nov 21, 2011
6:03 PM EDT
I gave up on the shared home directory a long time ago. You are just inviting trouble and frustration. I'm glad it works for those it works for but for me it was a nightmare. I'd rather back up each home dir. It's not like hard drive space, even portable usb space is expensive or hard to use. Re-inserting the home directory for a matched distro is like slipping on a comfortable shoe most times. A shared one? It's like nailing it on.
tuxchick

Nov 21, 2011
8:08 PM EDT
When I have a bunch of Linuxes in a multi-boot setup I give each one its own home dir for settings, and a big shared data directory for files. Works like a charm.
DrGeoffrey

Nov 21, 2011
8:39 PM EDT
<chuckle>

Sooner or later, I knew I'd find someone who takes the same approach as I. Right now my 13inch lappy (my greatly preferred weapon of choice) has SalineOS 1.4, SalineOS 1.5, Xubuntu, Sabayon, & Winblows. All happily coexisting, with the entire Linux clan nicely sharing one data partition.

Of course, I haven't updated Winblows 7 in about a year, but who the <expletive> needs Winblows? If I needed the space, it could be removed without a tear.

And I'm just an lowly academic, in accounting no less!

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