Ubuntu and I – Beauty Isn’t Enough | Hacker News Reader

Ubuntu and I – Beauty Isn’t Enough

mark.orbum.net

3 pointsmarkrushing5 comments

Have you considered the Backports for Debian? It solves the problem of glacial updates for many people - just add some of the packages you want, like Firefox and such.

I've been using Unstable for a couple of years now (updating every few days) and it has only broke once or twice in the entire time. Sure, it took me a couple of hours initially to configure it just as I wanted it, but I never feel like I'm doing "maintenance work".

One of the problems with Ubuntu is that it loads too much damn stuff, which increases the probability of breakage. My base desktop - the stuff that gets loaded after logging in - is just X, Awesome, Wicd and XScreensaver.

Yeah, I haven't looked at what backports has in it right now, but that's certainly a thought. I was thinking Mint might be a "first line" against any breaks that might show up in unstable, but it seems many people are very happy with unstable. I sure don't mind spending a few hours every couple years fixing some breakage - it's worth it for keeping updated. Totally agree about Ubuntu - serious bloat. I'm back in Debian stable right now, and it's incredibly more agile on the same hardware. There's not a thing I miss about Unity, either. Mint, BTW, couldn't install on an LVM/raid setup. Thanks icebraining....

I have been a debian/unstable user for ten years on my workstations and laptops. During that time I have rarely experienced any problems. With the addition of the experimental repository there are rarely if ever any issues. The easiest way to avoid troubles in unstable is the installation of apt-listchanges and apt-listbugs.

And then just perusing anything that shows up in listbugs before an update? Hopefully problems would be noticeable without having to sift through tons of reports. I've never used that before. It's astonishing how many bugs there are in Ubuntu, yet they still release it. They have tended to get them fairly well settled over a span of time, though, after a release. But right now, I'm very happy to be back in Debian stable. It does feel like home. Well, much less cluttered than home, actually. ;)

Perusing sounds a little more involved than what the process actually entails. Its not a list of all bugs; its a list of bugs found in the version you are about to upgrade to. That means there are rarely more than one or two bugs. Most of the time its pretty easy to tell if the bug is relevant and if it is you can just pin the package to the old version, restart apt-get and upgrade away. Definitely worth checking out.

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