Is Debian easy?
 

Hello,

I heard good things about debian.
I'm wondering how much Debian requires as far as maintenance, installation, and overall hacking, and if it's good for a production workstation.

It's the best (...in spite of the fact that one of the mods here says it's only for hippies.)

Enlighten me: why is it for hippies? ^-^

I have been running Debian here for about 6 months and find it easy to use and maintain. The setup of the office software in stable can be a bit of a pain as openoffice 1.1.3 is the default. It can't handle the new OASIS file formats but there is a workaround at http://www.backports.org this gives you openoffice 2.

Installation is easy via net install and a default desktop install gives you both KDE and Gnome, you can choose to install the minimum packages if you so wish and build the exact system you want following macondos sticky guide at the top of this forum. (plus the verbose walkthrough)

Using stable I waste little time losing work, faffing around or having apps. crash. The only wobbly apps. I have are:

openoffice impress
amarok

To be honest I think that many of the linux systems will give a similar level of service if you set it up then leave it alone. I use debian for the package management system and the variety of software.

Maintenance is minimal

Hope this helps.

I think Debian is fairly easy to use especially if you have experience running other Linux distros. The Ubuntu installer is based on the Debian installer, so if many newbies can install Ubuntu, then someone with some Linux experience will not have a problem installing Debian using a similar interface. Debian does not have any fancy control centres but if you need a GUIs for sysadmin tasks you can install third party tools e.g. kde or gnome admin tools. Package management is also a breeze using apt.

Is it easier/harder than Gentoo? Easier/harder than Ubuntu?

Personally I don't see much difference between Debian and Ubuntu, so I don't think that one is harder than the other. Its certainly a lot easier to install and maintain than Gentoo.

How about try the above mentioned then try Debian?

But I will say this, I'd suggest Ubuntu for a new linux user before I suggested anything else. It's got to be the easiest for new user to install and get going, then once they got their feet wet I'd give them a Debian net install cd. :)

With the gnome or KDE 'configuration applications' installed it is as easy as ubuntu. Gentoo I don't know.

These tools are generic, you have probably used them before. .deb packages are simply tuned for the distribution.


Looking at the number of posts you have you have been using linux for some time, I post questions about once every 2 months here so it's fairly easy to use. This system is only a home system though.

thanks all for you advices :D

I'd also recommend using http://aboutdebian.com/ for setting up some of your box. It's a bit text heavy, but will walk you through a lot of setup.

I'm a bit geeky, but I like Debian over Ubuntu because I like to fiddle a bit. With Ubuntu there are guides and scripts that can be added to help install things like flash, java, etc. which makes it a bit too NooBish for my tastes (even though I'm no guru)...

I think Ubuntu is a fine distro and just like any linux, you can make it what you want it to be...

i think simplymepis is the better for debian distro n is very noob friendly,even though it is based on debian testing or etch.it comes with java n flash n other usefull stuff right out of the box.

Thanks for the link pljvaldez

I think I'll give debian a spin and Ubuntu a spin too, try them for a while and see which one I'll keep :)

Installation time and complexity is not a problem, it's when it's complex while I'm working and productive that is the problem.

If you install Debian Sarge, just be sure to use linux26 at the boot prompt, otherwise you'll get a 2.4 kernel.

I've been running Debian Etch for a few days and I'm really impressed with it, I really like the new installer. I'm a big Slackware fan, but, this distro has Slackware beat in the package management department, apt-get is the best package mangement system. Debian is very similar to Ubuntu in function, but, it is interesting to note that Debian Etch uses less system resources than Ubuntu. My Ubuntu box would always go into swap after running several applications.
I would say that Slackware and Debian are my two favourite distros.