Hacker News Reader

Comment by rowanG077 | Hacker News Reader

I still don't understand how people can run Debian/Ubuntu. Every single time I have tried my environment in the span of a few months turns into a wet ball of mud with various levels of breakages. It's honestly astounding how bad it is. Once in a while I install a newly released version and naively think "Surely this problem is now fixed". But no, it's terrible.

View on HN

I have used in my life many different Linux distributions: Slackware, Red Hat, Ubuntu, Debian (professionally or privately). My private choice is the only one not driven by marketing: Debian.

You have three main Debian releases:

  SID (if you need to be as close as possible to upstream versions)

  Testing (the same as above but a few days after SID)

  Stable (you sacrifice the latest software versions for insane stability)

Which one did you use ?

And please don't mix Debian and Ubuntu.

Canonical is commercial company driven by profit (and CEO's bonus).

Debian is driven by community and (mostly) engineers.

I used Stable and SID. The reason I mixed Debian and Ubuntu is because I perceive the root of shittiness to be apt and how it can, and often does, poison your system.

What do you mean by "poison" ? Be specific. Very specific.

running apt install can brick your system in both large ways, it just stops booting. Or small ways, breaking existing packages or a myriad of other ways. On the one hand this is the fault of apt itself. It allows package scripts to do way too much. And on the other hand package maintainers write honestly brain damaged scripts a lot of the time.

Sounds similar to my experience with other systems (like Red Hat). Amazing - you've just realised that IT systems don't always work. Welcome to IT world !

"welcome to IT world" is just dismissive and needlessly aggravating. Just because systems can break doesn’t mean we should throw up our hands and accept the terrible state Debian package management is in. Debian-style package management has specific architectural issues, combined with maintainers writing poor package scripts, that make breakage seem far more common than it should be.

I asked you to be very specific. And you refused. You are criticizing "apt" for "specific architectural issues" but it is still very, very vague. Once again - be specific please. Can you? What exactly are the "specific architectural issues" ?

If you worked for a politician, you would look like hired by PR agency to throw a sh..t on someone else. I believe (and hope) you are not ?

I didn't refuse, I gave a very specific answer, namely that debians package manager can brick your system at any time because there are literally no safety mechanisms. That is the "specific architectural issues" I'm talking about. What more do you want? The code to prove it? Here it is: https://gist.github.com/rowanG077/27cd0a9417dd48593e63018783...

You are right: you didn't refuse, you are cheating (especially people who don't understand nuances)

You provided a content of a deb package that is intentionally malicious. It is like a saying that car from specific car manufacturer is dangerous for people. When asked "why" your answer is: "Because you can suddenly turn the car and hit people waiting at a bus station".

BTW, I hope you already know that in i.e. Red Hat you don't need rpm package to brick your system. It's much, much easier.

You are a troll.

Back in the 1990's I was fond of it for the community spirit, the attention to detail, the way things "just worked" even it had a particular take on some things. Over time it felt like it became burderned with design-by-committee decisions, maintainers leaving and abandoning packages faster than they could replace them, and just a bit too political.

I've lived on Debian since day dot, never really had an issue. Biggest gripe with Debian is that it's /too/ stable!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com