Whats the big deal about Ubuntu?

[Mike Douglas]

Yeah, but you use gentoo, so we love ya anyway! Your like the crazy uncle that is always out in the shed hot rodding a blender!

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:laugh: That has to be the best definition of a Gentoo user... ever.

Though you really should learn to deal with the config files, instead of Gentoo's scripts. Took me a while to get used to Debian's system.

The thing is I prefer Debian, not Knoppix, MEPIS, just pure Debian. I understand that they haven't released a stable release since 2002, but who really uses the stable? Sarge is stable enough to use anway.

Well MEPIS and Knoppix both use Debian's repositories (they have customized some desktop apps in repos that are pinned) and 80% of Ubuntu is unpatched debian (will be much more once the release) so it's calling one or the other pure is really splitting hairs.

Sarge is more stable than many other GNU/Linux distros but the problem is that they are in a feature freeze. I'd love to see Xorg, a new rc system and dpkg3 get some love from the debian developers, but right now thats impossible until the release. http://people.ubuntu.com/~scott/patches/ those are the Ubuntu patches, just waiting to be reintegrated into Debian.

[darkz]

you need to uncomment few commented out lines (the ones starting with a '#', just remove the '#') and do

apt-get update

. maybe you will also need to add 'multiverse' to one of the respository lines. I can't actually, I'm not at my pc right now, and I have trouble with remembering stuff.

Hope you understood, english is not my native ..

[Knight']

What you have to realize here, is that most of Linux zealots are pretty clueless.

They think because they compile everything from scratch and spend countless hours building their system from scratch that it "is more powerful" than your average out of the box Linux distro.

Couldn't be further from the truth.

Just because Ubuntu is easy to setup and use out of the box, it doesn't make it any "less powerful" than any other distro out there, just the way things are done and operated is different.

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I'de have to disagree. Building your system from scratch, is, in my view, the only way to do it. Leaving it upto a distributor like Ubuntu or Fedora..., is just screaming for disaster. I like the way that I've customized my laptop install to:

0) Bootup exactly the way I want it, either in battery mode or in AC mode.

1) Spin the hard-drive down at exactly the time I specified, and enter laptop-mode.

2) I know exactly how my NICs are setup, and I've setup a firewall (shorewall), I'm completely stealthed from the net as far as GRC's Shields Up! test goes. Because I've set it up, I know exactly how my firewall works and what's happening.

3) I've got EXACTLY the packages I CHOOSE, no KDE, no Open Office, just stuff which I like.

4) Because I chose exactly which X server my system has, I now have DRI enabled as a result, this was broken in XFree86 and some X.Org releases with the i810 driver (no Ubuntu installer could do with my i830M chipset). And Jesus, what's the whole issue with XFree86, Debian is really stuck in the past there...

5) Suspend-to-disk 2, fully working. No Ubuntu install can do that on my hardware.

6) Wireless WEP key support, Ubuntu just couldn't seem to handle this.

I can go on and on and on. The truth is Ubuntu, and any other distro, can't do everything for you. I bet anyone who "poo poos" Gentoo for being too difficult to setup, you'll run into loads of problems when you're setting up a laptop and you want it to actually behave like a laptop, and not a desktop, with Ubuntu. So why waste time working out what's already done for you and what's not, when you can do it all, get exactly what you want how you want. Enter Gentoo!

What I really hate is people like YOU who constantly make out Gentoo users to be obsessive about speed just because we compile from source. Lots of new Gentoo users are pulled towards it because of this ability, I admit, but they rarely do anything other than -O3 -formit-frame-pointer -pipe and declare some random USE flags. The real speed users are very knowledgeable, and do lots of interesting things with their setup, ever tried using the embedded-baselayout for your init, now you're talking fast init times...heh, and you think any idiot can do that? mmm? In reality, though, most Gentoo users use it for what it is; a very powerful and easy to maintain distro which doesn't force anything upon you. And believe me, I'm going to be one of the first paying for GenUX so I no longer have to compile Gnome and everything else on my mere P3m 1GHz 256MB laptop.

Edited May 3, 2005 by Knight'

[markwolfe Veteran]

Please, people... Don't make me close this thread. :no:

[CaKeY]

And Jesus, what's the whole issue with XFree86, Debian is really stuck in the past there...

Ubuntu comes with xorg.

[betadan]

Adamb10 all you need is

www.ubuntuguide.org

[rezza Veteran]

0) Bootup exactly the way I want it, either in battery mode or in AC mode.

1) Spin the hard-drive down at exactly the time I specified, and enter laptop-mode.

2) I know exactly how my NICs are setup, and I've setup a firewall (shorewall), I'm completely stealthed from the net as far as GRC's Shields Up! test goes. Because I've set it up, I know exactly how my firewall works and what's happening.

3) I've got EXACTLY the packages I CHOOSE, no KDE, no Open Office, just stuff which I like.

4) Because I chose exactly which X server my system has,  I now have DRI enabled as a result, this was broken in XFree86 and some X.Org releases with the i810 driver (no Ubuntu installer could do with my i830M chipset). And Jesus, what's the whole issue with XFree86, Debian is really stuck in the past there...

5) Suspend-to-disk 2, fully working. No Ubuntu install can do that on my hardware.

6) Wireless WEP key support, Ubuntu just couldn't seem to handle this.

I can go on and on and on. The truth is Ubuntu, and any other distro, can't do everything for you. I bet anyone who "poo poos" Gentoo for being too difficult to setup, you'll run into loads of problems when you're setting up a laptop and you want it to actually behave like a laptop, and not a desktop, with Ubuntu. So why waste time working out what's already done for you and what's not, when you can do it all, get exactly what you want how you want. Enter Gentoo!

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Hum hum hum, I have a few issues with your linux world-view here ;) :

You can control the startup on any distribution. You can use lycoris or mandriva and still setup an init system that works exactly the same as the gentoo one if you like, or you can create your own init system to do exactly what you want. The only difference is that gentoo, to some extent, forces you to do some of the setup yourself.

Also, just because a distro ships with a default firewall configuration doesn't mean that it makes it any harder to set up your own firewall configuration exactly the way you like it - gentoo has no default firewall configuration, and you set up your own, some other distros do have a default firewall configuratio, but you can still set up your own. Just because something is automatically set up for you in a particular way doesn't mean that you can't edit that setup to your needs. It isn't any harder at all to go from [default setup] -> [custom setup] than it is to go from [no setup] -> [custom setup]. It's just a mental issue - people see gentoo as somehow being less restrictive about these things, but this is open source, you can do anything you like from whatever base a distro chooses to use.

When it comes to the packages you choose, how many decisions did you make about the packages gentoo has decided to included in their "system" collection of packages (the ones installed during an "emerge system")? I've not installed gentoo for over 2 years now, but I'm pretty sure you're still lumped with what they think constitutes a sensible base system. But "No," you cry, "if you want to remove a package from the base system and use something else, you can simply emerge unmerge the package, and emerge the replacement! Or create a new profile!" Well here's a little secret: you can do exactly the same thing on any other distro. Ubuntu comes with stuff you don't want? Apt-get remove it, then. Just because a distro uses certain packages by default, doesn't mean you have to use what they suggest.

Similarly, you can use any X server you like on any distro. Don't be blinkered by what is installed by default.

Suspend to disk is, as far as I know, an entirely kernel-level technology, and has absolutely zero to do with your choice of distro, packages, init scripts, or anything else. If you can get it working in gentoo, you can get it working in ubuntu. If you are trying to use it on a default ubuntu kernel then no, it probably won't be supported, but if you're competent enough to patch it into your kernel source and build the required options in gentoo, you can do the same in ubuntu. Or any other distro. Same goes for wireless wep key support. Can't figure out how to do it using the ubuntu networking scripts? Use gentoo ones instead. Write your own. Hack some mish-mash together taking elements from multiple distros, if you want.

The point is, anything you can do on one distro, you can do on any other. You want to use a version of rpm from redhat 5.2 to manage your packages on slackware 10.1? Go right ahead. You want to use the gentoo method of installing a kernel on debian? Knock yourself out. Gentoo is not more powerful than any other distro - to my mind, the thing that gave gentoo its power, and the reason I used it for so long, was portage. I loved the way portage handled USE-flags, enabling your package manager to gracefully handle, for example, nethack with X support and nethack without X support as the same package. I would love to see that sort of functionality integrated into a binary package manager rather than a source one, but to be honest I don't see an easy way to do it.

Anyway, rant mode off, sorry if I sounded harsh in some parts there, I sometimes get a little carried away with these big posts ;)

[Crimson Behelit]

Hum hum hum, I have a few issues with your linux world-view here ;) :

You can control the startup on any distribution. You can use lycoris or mandriva and still setup an init system that works exactly the same as the gentoo one if you like, or you can create your own init system to do exactly what you want. The only difference is that gentoo, to some extent, forces you to do some of the setup yourself.

Also, just because a distro ships with a default firewall configuration doesn't mean that it makes it any harder to set up your own firewall configuration exactly the way you like it - gentoo has no default firewall configuration, and you set up your own, some other distros do have a default firewall configuratio, but you can still set up your own. Just because something is automatically set up for you in a particular way doesn't mean that you can't edit that setup to your needs. It isn't any harder at all to go from [default setup] -> [custom setup] than it is to go from [no setup] -> [custom setup]. It's just a mental issue - people see gentoo as somehow being less restrictive about these things, but this is open source, you can do anything you like from whatever base a distro chooses to use.

When it comes to the packages you choose, how many decisions did you make about the packages gentoo has decided to included in their "system" collection of packages (the ones installed during an "emerge system")? I've not installed gentoo for over 2 years now, but I'm pretty sure you're still lumped with what they think constitutes a sensible base system. But "No," you cry, "if you want to remove a package from the base system and use something else, you can simply emerge unmerge the package, and emerge the replacement! Or create a new profile!" Well here's a little secret: you can do exactly the same thing on any other distro. Ubuntu comes with stuff you don't want? Apt-get remove it, then. Just because a distro uses certain packages by default, doesn't mean you have to use what they suggest.

Similarly, you can use any X server you like on any distro. Don't be blinkered by what is installed by default.

Suspend to disk is, as far as I know, an entirely kernel-level technology, and has absolutely zero to do with your choice of distro, packages, init scripts, or anything else. If you can get it working in gentoo, you can get it working in ubuntu. If you are trying to use it on a default ubuntu kernel then no, it probably won't be supported, but if you're competent enough to patch it into your kernel source and build the required options in gentoo, you can do the same in ubuntu. Or any other distro. Same goes for wireless wep key support. Can't figure out how to do it using the ubuntu networking scripts? Use gentoo ones instead. Write your own. Hack some mish-mash together taking elements from multiple distros, if you want.

The point is, anything you can do on one distro, you can do on any other. You want to use a version of rpm from redhat 5.2 to manage your packages on slackware 10.1? Go right ahead. You want to use the gentoo method of installing a kernel on debian? Knock yourself out. Gentoo is not more powerful than any other distro - to my mind, the thing that gave gentoo its power, and the reason I used it for so long, was portage. I loved the way portage handled USE-flags, enabling your package manager to gracefully handle, for example, nethack with X support and nethack without X support as the same package. I would love to see that sort of functionality integrated into a binary package manager rather than a source one, but to be honest I don't see an easy way to do it.

Anyway, rant mode off, sorry if I sounded harsh in some parts there, I sometimes get a little carried away with these big posts ;)

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Owned.

[xxdesmus]

I've been running Ubuntu on my server since Warty...I've only restarted the server twice since then, once to finish the install of Hoary and once to install Suse 9.3 (dual boot)...that's it. Now granted, I won't say I have all that many services running (apache, ssh, mysql, ftp, smtp, and samba)...but this thing is pretty darn stable in my playing with it. I've tried most of the major linux distros at some point or another and I must say this is the only one that has stuck for more than a week or so. The entire "feel" of it is nice, it's streamlined, quick, has the programs i want/need, upgrading/maintaining is easy, and yet it doesn't make you feel like a 3 year old by being too simple. i love it. :yes:

[Alfonz]

man very good points are raised here, but im going to add just one, a simple one

its a matter of personal preference, loytalty.

Cheers!