Fwd: Ubuntu

[Alan Johnson]

On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 12:06 PM, Jarod Wilson <jarod at wilsonet.com> wrote
>
> On Thu, 2008-09-18 at 11:42 -0400, Arc Riley wrote:
> > On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 11:33 AM, Bruce Labitt
> > <bruce.labitt at verizon.net> wrote:
> >
> >         Seriously, now.  Why Ubuntu vs straight Debian?  Ubuntu has
> >         worked at
> >         making the average-user experience easier, is that it?
> >
> > That's exactly right.
>
> That, and new releases every six months vs. maybe every few years.


Quite a bit more to it than that, I'm afraid.  One of the biggest
differences is that Ubuntu plays nicer with commercial software while Debian
is pure FLOSS <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_and_open_source_software>.
I hesitate to call this an advantage, but it is what keeps me from
considering installing Debian on my Laptop.  For example, want to "pull in
support for MP3 playback and decoding, support for various other audio
formats (gstreamer plugins), Microsoft fonts, Java runtime environment,
Flash plugin, LAME (to create compressed audio files), and DVD playback"?
Just installed the ubuntu-restricted-extras package.  Flash even works on my
64-bit Ubuntu laptop which is shocking once you realize their is no 64-bit
Flash from Adobe... still!!!  Not even for Windows.  Good luck even getting
most of that stuff to work on Debian.  Surely doable, but one package does
it all under Ubuntu.

Again, I am not so bold to say that using proprietary/commercial software is
an advantage for everyone, infact I advocate avoiding it whenever
reasonsable.  However, in Ubuntu, there is the option to stick with all
FLOSS with very little effort (just stick with their add/remove app for
package management and select "All Open Source applications" from the
"Show:" drop down, or select the appropriate repos).  On the flip side,
there is a partner's repo you can turn on with a couple of clicks (but I
don't see much in there), as well as the restricted and
multiverse<http://alan.datdec.com/temp/screenshot1.png>repos.

Basically, if a human has to interact with the system directly, then your
life will likely be eaiser with Ubuntu.  If it is a server, then maybe
Debian, but Ubuntu server is pretty tight as well: only 20ish more packages
on Ubuntu server minimal install compared to Debian; compare that to several
hundred more on CentOS/RHEL base install, and <400MB vs. >2GB.

Now, don't forget, Ubuntu would be nowhere without Debian, and Debian has no
commercial entity running it (contributing yes, but not directly incharge).
So, if the world fixes itself, there will be very little difference between
the two in a few hundred years. ;-)

__________________
Alan Johnson
alan at datdec.com
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