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View Poll Results: Desktop Distribution of the Year
This particular poll is titled "Desktop Distribution of the Year", so that can include the BSDs, etc, .
The poll is Desktop DISTRIBUTION of the year. Not OPERATING SYSTEM of the year. Last time I looked NONE of the BSDs - good as they are - was a Linux distribution
Archlinux is the best Linux distro that I have ever used. Head and shoulders above the rest. Especially the documentation on https://wiki.archlinux.org
I want to share my opinion about Arch Linux and I do not want to offend anyone or particularly Arch Users.
The thing is that I loved Arch Linux most compared to any other distros out there, since it has a very good documentation, good build system, good everything except that the user is forced to be at bleeding edge all the time. I had to upgrade the whole system and partial upgrade didn't work (it used to break the system completely). And I am not that kind of person who always try to update all of things available (and paying for costly internet data). So I ditched it and returned to Debian where I have liberty of upgrading part of system without breaking a thing.
I am using Debian Sid, upgraded many small things as I found required, still it is damn stable
The poll is Desktop DISTRIBUTION of the year. Not OPERATING SYSTEM of the year. Last time I looked NONE of the BSDs - good as they are - was a Linux distribution
I don't see the word "Linux" in the poll title and BSDs are 'distributions' so...
IMHO, Linux and the BSDs are 'unix-like' cousins, poh-tay-toh, poh-tah-toh.
I beg your pardon, as your post is meant for oldrocker99. But I want to share my opinion about Arch Linux and I do not want to offend anyone or particularly Arch Users.
The thing is that I loved Arch Linux most compared to any other distros out there, since it has a very good documentation, good build system, good everything except that the user is forced to be at bleeding edge all the time. I had to upgrade the whole system and partial upgrade didn't work (it used to break the system completely). And I am not that kind of person who always try to update all of things available (and paying for costly internet data). So I ditched it and returned to Debian where I have liberty of upgrading part of system without breaking a thing.
I am using Debian Sid, upgraded many small things as I found required, still it is damn stable.
I must say though, Debian sid should also be fully updated regularly -- it too is rolling release (albeit much more patched than Arch) and I have seen problems on the Debian forums caused by partial upgrades...
I don't see the word "Linux" in the poll title and BSDs are 'distributions' so...
IMHO, Linux and the BSDs are 'unix-like' cousins, poh-tay-toh, poh-tah-toh.
*BSD operating systems are not 'distributions', certainly not in the "Linux distribution" sense and are neither GNU nor Linux. So it's completely correct that they're not included in this poll.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Head_on_a_Stick
I must say though, Debian sid should also be fully updated regularly -- it too is rolling release (albeit much more patched than Arch) and I have seen problems on the Debian forums caused by partial upgrades...
Debian unstable is in fact neither rolling, nor a release.
I don't see the word "Linux" in the poll title and BSDs are 'distributions' so...
IMHO, Linux and the BSDs are 'unix-like' cousins, poh-tay-toh, poh-tah-toh.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cynwulf
*BSD operating systems are not 'distributions', certainly not in the "Linux distribution" sense and are neither GNU nor Linux. So it's completely correct that they're not included in this poll.
Despite the fact that the "D" in "BSD" stands for "Distribution", I think that in view of the fact that this site is called "LinuxQuestions.org", we could assume that the word "distributions" in this context means Linux distributions and does not include *BSD, regardless of whether or not "Linux" is specified in the poll title.
Of course, it's jeremy's call, since he posted the poll in the first place.
Despite the fact that the "D" in "BSD" stands for "Distribution", I think that in view of the fact that this site is called "LinuxQuestions.org", we could assume that the word "distributions" in this context means Linux distributions and does not include *BSD, regardless of whether or not "Linux" is specified in the poll title.
Of course, it's jeremy's call, since he posted the poll in the first place.
Really? Then explain this please. You're right, Jeremy should specify 'Linux only' in the title, good call. I'm not telling you what to do Jeremy, just a point of discussion. Here's another question, if somebody voted PC-BSD for example, would it show in next year's poll choices?
Distribution: Debian, Red Hat, Slackware, Fedora, Ubuntu
Posts: 13,597
Original Poster
Rep:
I've already clarified this topic, in this thread, in post #145:
Quote:
As we've said previously, while the various BSD's are high quality projects we don't plan to include them in this poll, which is for choosing the Linux Distribution of the Year at LinuxQuestions.org.
We don't plan to add "Linux" to the poll title, as it would be redundant. If we ever bring bsdquestions.org back, we'd certainly have BSD options (and not Linux ones) in the polls there.
I am aware that during the freeze it rolls rather slowly but I have still had kernel upgrades and version changes of many components of my sid system since the freeze started.
We could argue about this all day, but unstable is never released, thus is not a release.
Software packages are "released" upstream not by the distribution you happen to use, so that's irrelevant.
Debian testing and unstable are the development branch for Debian stable, not a rolling release distribution. They're designed for testing and bug squashing, the fact that you can install it and it works is a bonus.
Yes, besides wikipedia, you will even find Debian devs and maintainers referring to testing as "rolling" but it's used in the flippant sense or refers to how users utilise the testing and unstable branches. During the freeze, testing and unstable almost come to a standstill and the freeze lasts for months. It's usually during that freeze that new testing and unstable users appear and after the freeze they disappear as the new packages start surging in and stuff starts to break.
Arch Linux is a true rolling release, Debian unstable isn't.
We could argue about this all day, but unstable is never released, thus is not a release.
Software packages are "released" upstream not by the distribution you happen to use, so that's irrelevant.
Debian testing and unstable are the development branch for Debian stable, not a rolling release distribution. They're designed for testing and bug squashing, the fact that you can install it and it works is a bonus.
Yes, besides wikipedia, you will even find Debian devs and maintainers referring to testing as "rolling" but it's used in the flippant sense or refers to how users utilise the testing and unstable branches. During the freeze, testing and unstable almost come to a standstill and the freeze lasts for months. It's usually during that freeze that new testing and unstable users appear and after the freeze they disappear as the new packages start surging in and stuff starts to break.
Arch Linux is a true rolling release, Debian unstable isn't.
Notwithstanding the pointless semantic arguments and the fact that my sid system has received upgrades during the freeze, my point remains -- partial upgrades in Debian sid are a bad idea and will cause breakage.
I see, so when you're proven wrong that amounts to "pointless semantic arguments" by others...?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Head_on_a_Stick
and the fact that my sid system has received upgrades during the freeze
unstable gets a trickle of updates during freeze.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Head_on_a_Stick
, my point remains -- partial upgrades in Debian sid are a bad idea and will cause breakage.
Was that your point? Ok great, I'm sure that someone will find it useful. I didn't see anyone suggesting doing a partial upgrade... presumably you mean pinning a certain package or packages and not upgrading them for days/weeks/months or whatever...?
In fact, I just remembered, the above is common practice to those running Debian unstable...
What about pinning a certain package to a testing version to avoid a bug in unstable? That sounds like a "partial upgrade" to me... sounds bad... I'm sure no one in their right mind does that, but then you're the Debian "rolling" unstable guru from FDN so you tell me...
I don't see the word "Linux" in the poll title and BSDs are 'distributions' so...
IMHO, Linux and the BSDs are 'unix-like' cousins, poh-tay-toh, poh-tah-toh.
I suppose youu missed the word Linux in the name of this site as well. To quote the adverts - Should have gone to Specsavers. The 'Distribution' in the name BSD came from the days when it was an academic vversion of unix distributed from Berkely - Berkely Software Distribution. As you are obviously interested in BSD unix I strongly recommend The Design and Implementation of the 4.3BSD UNIX Operating Systembook by John Quartermain et al or the follow up on 4.4 (the 4.3 book had a major influence on the world of computing)
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