I was disappointed to read the poor review of squeeze on distrowatch today.

I thought of leaving a comment below the story, but figured why bother. The main complaint appears to be about the appearance of the desktop, and the graphical installer "feels old." Then he goes on to recommend Trisquel instead as a "better Debian-based distribution" than Debian. Huh? What the hell?

... oh yeah... ??!!

I'm Using it... built several packages for it.. so far it performed flawlessly... so FSCK distrowatch...

Too bad for the Debian developers, I feel sorry for them. They did a real good job on Squeeze.

I have my doubts about the quality of the review. In the first paragraph he mentions that support for ARM was dropped. Dropped? I think it is one of the hottest ports at the moment.

And the ancient installer... better have a flashy graphic installer, and unstable software? I am happy the Debian developers put their effort in the applications and not in the installer.

Next week I am up to upgrading a HP laptop running Etch. Let s see...

jlinkels

Already gave a comment to them that they should rename the side to either DesktopDistroWatch or WindowsLikeDistroWatch.
But what bothers me more than the poor review are the comments from people that actually give a fsck about software-freedom and spread the opinion that linux will never break through if they try to make free distros. What they want is not Linux, what they want is a free replacement for Windows that is exactly like Windows, but without the malware, and with the geek-factor, so that they can feel "1337".

Windows, and now Ubuntu, support the idea that an operating system should come configured for you. Debian provides a base from which a user can select any desktop environment or software package that they want to. The user does the configuring, not the developers.

It's a shame that DW compared Debian to Ubuntu and Mint. Debian has entirely different goals and frankly doesn't give a flying fsck if they are similar to Ubuntu.

Oh well, it's not my problem that those guys are missing out on one of the finest Linux distro's in existence.

As someone who cut his teeth on Slackware, I must say that I really like Debian. It's really different, but it's got the same back-to-basics rock-solid feel to it.

I have two computers that came with factory-installed Ubuntu and Broadcom wireless chips that work with Ubuntu.

I therefore tolerate Ubuntu. Using Fluxbox on Ubuntu enables me to forget that it's Ubuntu until I have to sudo su instead of just su.

'nuff said.

And you have hit the nail on the head with this post. People are now expecting distributions to be fully setup. People used to call it a Windows Mindset, only the other day on another forum I called it an Ubuntu Mindset (and I got in trouble for it to) because people who are used to Ubuntu want Debian to behave the same way. I moved from Ubuntu to Debian because I don't want, correction .... need, a lot of bling. I want a stable system that works for me and uses minimal resources.

so he was missing a desktop firewall, huh ?
wait until he discovers that debian doesn't even have a trial version of norton antivirus pre-installed.
And for the old installer, maybe the debdevs can add some wobbly windows for all those windows users.

But seriously, maybe it would make sense to rename the branches. I think "testing" is a bit misleading and underrating and scares many people, who then install stable on their top-notch desktop and complain about too old software. It would probably be better to name testing "desktop" and stable "server".

There are couple of my reviews of Debian, if you want to lynch me. 8-)

http://linuxblog.darkduck.com/2011/0...0-squeeze.html
http://linuxblog.darkduck.com/2011/0...-with-tux.html

The "review" is fud...

Ubuntu better for servers than Debian..............?

I am not big specialist, but I can advocate Ubuntu (Advocate of Devil? ). As long as there is Ubuntu server edition, why can't they compete with Debian on server market?

That's not the issue - which is that according to this reviewer 'buntu server is somehow a better choice - when it clearly isn't. If there's one area where debian stable dominates, it's servers.

Simple as that, Ubuntu is made from Debian Unstable (except the LTS versions, they are made from Testing). They collect the software, integrate it, make alpha- and beta-testing, and that all in six months. Even the LTS-versions, and have a look how buggy 10.04 was at release-time.
Would you base your server on this, especially when a downtime costs money? I would prefer a distro that is much more tested, like Debian, RHEL/CentOS or Slackware.

++1

Or Solaris...

Really????