Hacker News Reader

Comment by simonebrunozzi | Hacker News Reader

Let's talk about Linux on laptops: am I the only one perennially debating between Debian and Ubuntu?

I love Debian, but Ubuntu seems to have better support.

What do you guys think?

Debian, on server and laptop. One of the reasons for choosing Debian on the laptop is that I tend to use older hardware - currently ranging from a series of Thinkpad T42p's to a HP 2230s - which tends to balk at the sheer size of 'modern' desktop environments. I also happen to prefer something less obtrusive so I 'standardised' on a combination of Xmonad, Dzen, Trayer and Conky combined with mate- or gnome-terminal. For this, Debian is just fine. Power management sometimes needs some fiddling with before it behaves, but the same would go for Ubuntu. Last but not least, I prefer the stability of Debian - even when using Sid - over the more brittle Ubuntu. Once I've installed a machine I like to be able to keep it up to date using a simple apt (dist-)upgrade, something which tends to 'just work' with Debian but 'usually break' with Ubuntu and its derivatives (eg. Mint).

I now have one system left running LMDE (the Debian version of Mint), one on Mint, one Ubuntu (Maverick, from 2010... my wife and kids love it so I keep it as it is) and the rest is Debian. All servers are on Debian, usually a combination of Stable with some added Testing/Unstable packages.

I always put Debian on my desktops and Ubuntu on my laptops. So far, I've never had any real struggles with Debian on my desktops, but it's been an awful experience on laptops, specifically ones without an ethernet port.

I keep a cheap USB network adapter around (I think it used to work with an old Wii) for just this purpose.

I just spent a few hours installing Debian Testing on a 2 year old macbook. If you start with a net install you are mostly on your own, but starting with one of the live cds makes it pretty useable from the start. I think the big difference between the two is installing proprietary drivers. Wireless works out of the box on Ubuntu, but I have to install linux-firmware-nonfree and another broadcom package to get WiFi working on Debian.

I just tell myself that the extra work I put into a Debian install makes me more knowledgable about how the system actually works.

They're both fine. Whether you prefer to rent furnished or unfurnished apartments is a matter of taste. Either way, you'll have it like you like it within a couple of months.

You're not the only one. Recently, I decided to try Fedora, though. It seems to work very well. However, I'm somewhat uncomfortable with it. I guess Red Hat makes a living selling Linux support, which means it's probably in their interest to make things unnecessarily complex. I'm not an expert but I looked a bit at SELinux (which comes with Fedora) and it seems rather complex. Then there's Systemd etc.

You aren't going to get away from systemd with a Debian or Ubuntu system. Both Debian 8 and Ubuntu 15.04 (and beyond) use systemd. There are very few mainstream Linux distributions that haven't adopted it, Slackware being the notable exception.

You can use sysv-init on Debian if you prefer (as I do). There will still be some systemd-related stuff around, but it won't be running at pid==1.

Are there any articles or guides or even just instructions for doing that? I've always loved Debian, but I can't stand systemd and its ilk...

This won't be the answer you are looking for but let's face some bitter truth: I have been running Linux on my laptops since 2004 and in my experience it's always a struggle (servers since 1993 are happy, it's the desktop that suffers). As of right now, this struggle no longer worths it. Just use Winux (my made up name for the Ubuntu userspace under Windows 10 plus perhaps Xming).

I've been predominantly a Linux user on desktop/laptop since 1995. It has literally never been easier; to install, to use, to find hardware that works (even weird stuff like pro audio devices and oddball controllers), and to act like it's a "normal" computer without having to worry about drivers, kernels, X, etc.

I have had at least as much trouble from my Windows partition and my Android phones as I have from my Linux (mostly Fedora and CentOS) systems.

There really is no longer a credible case to be made that Linux is hard to use on the desktop. I even lend my older computers out to extremely non-technical friends (the kind who don't own a computer) without having to go into any significant detail about how to use Linux; they figure it out in a few minutes, mostly on their own.

If you wanted to make that case even as recently as maybe five years ago, I wouldn't have argued. But, really...the Linux desktop experience today is excellent, certainly comparable to Windows or Mac OS X. And, with Steam providing a huge variety of Linux games, I haven't rebooted into Windows in almost a year (I used to reboot for video projection work, but am no longer involved in that business...I was on the verge of switching even that to Linux, and had I done any more of those jobs it would have been with Linux).

> There really is no longer a credible case to be made that Linux is hard to use on the desktop.

No, Linux desktop is as easy to use as Windows (sometimes perhaps easier), the problem is one layer lower: the drivers.

1. Bluetooth breaks about every 3-4 months. 2. Wifi. Where do I start. Say: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Wireless_network_config... "If you have problems connecting to networks in general or your link quality is very poor, try to disable 802.11n" -- are you kidding me? Then if you have anything complicated, chances are you are completely and totally screwed. Examples: a) PPPoE over Wifi is simply not supported. b) The only way I found to connect to my work VPN is via a Firefox-running-as-root (I kid you not -- and it wasn't me me who came up with this solution obviously). 3. Battery life. http://unix.stackexchange.com/a/119620/9452 4. USB 3.0. Sure, NEC and Intel hosts are supported. Throw your card away if it's not NEC. 5. Hybrid graphics.

On to the destkop:

1. Skype. Say what you want, Microsoft abandoned it and Skype is a huge part of communications these days, sorry. 2. Chrome and hardware acceleration.

I haven't experienced any of those problems. On the WiFi front, I live a challenging WiFi life, because I travel full-time, and connect up to RV park WiFi regularly. I don't find it problematic. I don't know what chipset my laptop has, as I've never had to look into it. It's a shitty HP lappy. My desktop has had several different USB and PCI WiFi adapters without major issue. I do remember I did check google to make sure I was buying a compatible one, though, it wasn't hard to pick one that was known to be well-supported, even at Best Buy or Fry's.

Likewise, USB 3.0 works fine for me. I dunno what chipset any of my devices have, but they all work.

As for Skype, I used to use it regularly, and then switched to Hangouts. Skype worked fine on Linux up until I switched. I dunno the state of it now, but I don't need it, so it's no big deal. Both Google and Facebook have video chat and phone call features built right into their messenger apps, and they work fine on Linux; Skype is deprecated, IMHO.

Debian on desktop. Ubuntu on laptop (a macbook pro) because Ubuntu supports the wifi card and Debian doesn't (out of the box, at least). I'd prefer Debian because it starts with less, but working at all is more important.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com