Questions about Ubuntu

Mark Komarinski mkomarinski at wayga.org
Thu Sep 18 09:32:43 EDT 2008


On 09/18/2008 08:57 AM, Bruce Labitt wrote:
> What is unique or good about Ubuntu?  What are its advantages?  As I 
> understand it is based on Debian.  Ubuntu uses a different package 
> manager, does it really matter?
>
> My linux background is with SuSE, Fedora, Centos, and Scientific Linux 
> which use an rpm based package manager.
>   
I might be able to answer this for you, having recently switched my last 
Fedora desktop to Ubuntu after having used Red Hat/Fedora on my desktop 
almost exclusively since..uhm..they existed.

Here's the things that Ubuntu gets right, at least on the desktop:

- restricted drivers (NVidia in particular) are built-in at install 
time.  You get notified that they're restricted and have the option to 
use the 'free' drivers.  With Fedora, you have to use livna or atrpms, 
which may be out of sync with what's current.

- Ubuntu uses DEB, which turns it into a religious war that I'll 
sidestep by saying you can use some .deb files from Debian and 
vice-versa, but you can quickly find yourself in dependency hell.  Using 
DEB takes some getting used to compared to RPM, but there's plenty of 
documentation online to help out.

- Easy upgrades.  I can perform a live upgrade from Hardy Heron to 
(mumble) Ibex when it's released.   Given how often both Ubuntu and 
Fedora are released (~6-8 months), not needing to download a DVD or CD 
is pretty appealing. Yes, there are some live upgrade instructions for 
Fedora, but they always have Big Warnings attached to them.

- no need for root.  There's almost no need to log in as root.  You're 
automatically set up with sudo access and everything goes through that.  
For a desktop that's perfect for me.  Fedora still had some areas where 
you needed the root password, some you could do via sudo.

There's one downside I've seen with Ubuntu, which is the initial 
installation.  My Dell would hang with every single boot CD I tried 
until I installed it in text mode and is nowhere near as user-friendly 
as the graphical install.  I don't have any strange hardware, and once 
installed it's been working fine, but if I were a new user, I'd be 
running Fedora since I never had a problem with its install DVDs.  
Though now that Ubuntu's installed, I won't need to use the Boot CD 
again.  Installing on my laptops (both Thinkpads) went without error.

For servers, I've moved to Debian, though I still administer about a 
dozen RHEL systems.

-Mark


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