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On Tue, 2008-03-18 at 11:00 +0000, David Bell wrote: > What interests me is why a majority of users seem to turn to the Debian > derivatives in preference to Etch/Lenny? I rule out ease of installation, as > the Debian installer is easy enough nowadays for a tyro to use. Looks like that perception is still evident, despite changes within Debian. Maybe Lenny will change that. (September 08). Debian configuration is not that different to Ubuntu configuration - just without the assistance to use restricteed drivers. wifi is always the area where proprietary/restricted drivers from Ubuntu allow things to "just work" but older hardware will be able to use stable and predictable wifi using only software from Debian main in the Lenny release thanks to improvements in drivers like b43 (for Broadcom hardware). 3D is also mooted as a barrier but I still don't consider 3D as an essential for normal users. It's eye candy and nothing more to most. Even wifi is not the "deal-breaker" that some people claim: 1. At home, a Cat5 cable is not a huge problem 2. Away from home, wifi is expensive, unreliable, unpredictable - it's even unreliable in conferences run by computer geeks like Fosdem. I refuse to use ndiswrapper so I still don't have wifi on this HP laptop [0] but everything else is now sorted, even serial over USB to control bootloaders on embedded devices. I'm going to only use Lenny on the old Mac laptop (with working wifi). Finally, frequent releases (ala Ubuntu) are not a panacea either - there are significant penalties in *forcing* an artifical timetable onto disparate upstreams with different priorities. Free software is about volunteers and volunteers simply cannot be forced into a pipeline or constrained to an external timeline or deadline. If you *MUST* release on an artificial timeline, you and all your users *MUST* accept that each release will be buggy and that regressions and breakages are not just likely but inevitable. The timeline constraint removes all methods of preventing such problems or even predicting where those breakages would occur. Lenny is due for September 08 but if it isn't ready, it isn't ready - end of story. Lenny will be released when it is ready and not before. Ubuntu's Hardy will be released whether it is ready or not. It's a matter of choice - the basis of free software. I've made my choice [1] and I don't mind who uses Debian or Ubuntu as long as the choice is an informed one. Don't blame Ubuntu for breakages and regressions. Don't blame Debian for long periods between releases. All the other differences between Ubuntu and Debian stem from those decisions. [0] http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/serendipity/index.php?/archives/66-Debian-Lenny-on-amd64-HP-Pavilion-dv6000-dv6615ea.html [1] http://people.debian.org/~codehelp/ -- Neil Williams ============= http://www.data-freedom.org/ http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/ http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/ -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html