I've been using Ubuntu since Hoary too, and I've come to see the regular release schedule as a mixed bag.

On the one hand it's nice to know they've got a goal to work toward and are dedicated to meeting it, unlike Debian (as you pointed out) or other distros like, say, PCLinuxOS, where the releases are so infrequent and seemingly unplanned that you start to wonder whether the distro's been abandoned after a while.

On the other hand, I've seen Ubuntu veer into the Microsoft model of "ship it now, fix it later" just to meet their dates. Hardy was like that - full of issues, some of them kernel problems, some things that could have been better if they'd waited a little while for, say, Firefox 3 to come out of beta. (And let's not get started on Kubuntu and KDE4.) I had nothing but trouble with Hardy at first, and wound up dropping back to Gutsy for a couple of months waiting for it all to be worked out. When that happens, suddenly the Debian "it's ready when it's ready" model seems a lot more attractive.

Over time I've learned NOT to upgrade Ubuntu on release day. I wait and watch the forums now until the frantic "The upgrade broke my system!" posts subside. That usually takes a few weeks. Now that I know to do that, I have a lot less trouble, but I can't shake the feeling that I wouldn't have to worry about it if they were in less of a rush to get it out the door.

I tried Ubuntu, wiped my bloody nose, went back to Debian.

[quote]On the other hand, I've seen Ubuntu veer into the Microsoft model of "ship it now, fix it later" just to meet their dates.[/quote]

More than that, suspect most Ubuntu users are tuned by SUDO to treat Ubuntu like MS - just click and key in the password for ANYTHING thing that pops up.

If new worms and virus were to target Linux, Ubuntu will be the first to go.

Ubuntu has to release every 6 months to keep the interest and hype going. After all, very few users of Ubuntu compile their own packages so they are dependent--to a certain degree--on Canonical putting out a new release in a timely manner so they can get the freshest bits--or at least as fresh as the Debian/Ubuntu development model allows for.

In the future Canonical may have to consider developing the packages on their own if Debian ever went the way of history. As it stands right now, Canonical has built a business on the back of a community effort which--at any time and for any reason--could undergo massive change given the sheer size and complexity of the Debian community.

Question is, could Canonical, as it stands now, duplicate the efforts of nearly 1000 programmers?

I tried Ubuntu and went back to Debian pretty quick. Only ignorant people talk about the regularity of releases with Debian. It really only fits for stable, and if you need a production environment, that probably works for you. With debian, be it a week or 6 months, if I decide that it is time for an upgrade, "apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade" it's done.

People tend to underplay the politics of Linux and Debian. Eventually Ubuntu will fade away. Debian will still be here. In short, no the apprentice has not become the master. The master is just laughing inside at the misplaced pride of the apprentice.

Actually, Ubuntu has been "bigger" than Debian for at least a couple of years now, at least on the desktop. It was my first distro and I used it for a few months, until I got tired of the instability issues because of the release-every-6-months-no-matter-what policy. I know it's good for Canonical's marketing, but I don't like my pc to be a lab rat, so I left ubuntu and went to debian - couldn't be happier. About debian not having steady releases, even though you said "it's getting better", I feel it's sort of an understatement. Their release goal is every 18 to 24 months, and they have kept it for the last 4 years - both etch and lenny took 22 months. And if you need new packages, you can always run debian testing - it's more or less as stable as ubuntu anyway.

what eaxtly is ANYTHING? Package download? System changes? I think that password input thing is annoying enough to make users watch what are they allowing.
Also wtf means "anyhing that pops up"...

Ubuntu makes a lot of sense for the end-user desktop. It is what distros are supposed to be, a set of packages that can be easily installed. For the system administrator, Ubuntu is not better than Debian because only the system administrator knows the environment. You still have to tweak Ubuntu systems a lot over a complete system in a business or school, for instance. The advantage goes to Debian in anything more complicated than a single computer lab. Reliability becomes much more important than polish/features when a system grows larger.

Shuttleworth is right. Debian is the sysadmin's distro. If you have a system that needs a sysadmin, choose Debian.

I have to agree that the Ubuntu regular releases are starting to hurt.

8.04 obviously wasn't ready. It wasn't until 8.04.1 that the thing really shined. I've had poor relations with 8.10 and 9.04 as well. Having a set date and nailing it every single time...simply isn't working.

This constant hamster wheel is getting tiresome. Debian would be on my machine right now if I had figured out why Firefox/Iceweasel's performance was so poor.

Well every release may not be perfect and Ubuntu may not fit every one, but Ubuntu and Mr. Shuttleworth have probably done more to raise the awareness and utility of Linux then any group in the last 10 years.

At this point, Debian is to Ubuntu what Fedora is to Red Hat: a staging platform. It's a staging platform that is quite stable and used by a lot of people (especially techies), but Ubuntu is now "the real thing."

And before anyone starts flinging around the "ubuntu fanboi" label, please know that I have been using Linux since the days when SLS and Yggdrasil were the popular distributions.

I think posts like this are done for no other reason than to start the distro A is better than distro B fight. I've used both Debian and Ubuntu. Each has it's strengths and weaknesses. My motto is "Use What You Like" and don't worry about other distros.

To IGnatius T Foobar

So you mean that Debian is the not so stable testing version of Ubuntu, like Fedora is for Red Hat? For somebody who's used SLS and Yggdrasil, such a misconception is surprising to say the least.

I am a Desktop Linux user since 2002. Migratated from Apple Macintoshes (not Windows) to Linux when Apple abandoned MacOS 9 - I got tired of all the forced upgrades on Apple machines.

So I am a simple, "it just works" GUI kinda guy.

I have tried Lindows, Debian, Mandrake, Red Hat, Fedora, Mepis, KNOPPIX, Ubuntu, Puppy, DSL - and a few others along the way. And I have now settled down to what works for me.

Debian in 2002 was impossible for me to set up as a desktop machine with my limited Linux skillset. When I installed straight Debian I just ended up on the command line. I could not figure out what to do, despite searching through the Debian web site. I did get the impression on the Debian web site that Debian was built by technical people for technical people, that it was more a server distribution than a desktop distribution, and that I was in way over my head. The Debian culture that I saw just ended up making me feel too stupid for Debian. Definitely a newbie-unfriendly distribution. So I moved on.

Red Hat/Fedora would work OK until an update inevitably borked it. So I would try something else.

Mepis is just plain wonderful. I was home! Until an update would bork printing. Then, regretfully, on to try something else.

Ubuntu was garbage - at first. Display, printing, internet connection - problems all over the place. All hype - no substance. A bunch of silly overenthusiastic people on the boards. So I moved on.

Cycling back through Fedora and Mepis - which both again then borked during updates.

Back to try Ubuntu again. Not expecting success. Surprisingly, everything now actually worked. So I figured I would use Ubuntu until an update inevitably borked it. But updates - unlike Fedora and Mepis - have never once borked my Ubuntu machine.

So I now use Ubuntu. Because Ubuntu gets it right. And I recommend Ubuntu to others. And I now have no reason to change.

If Debian has become any friendlier to us desktop GUI types, I might give it a try if I ever have a problem with Ubuntu. However, Debian still leaves a bad taste in my mouth when I think how unwelcome I felt in the Debian community back in 2002.

A Debian-based - but friendly - desktop distribution may make more sense for the likes of me.

Oh - the secret to making any distribution work relatively well - Ubuntu, Mepis, Fedora, whatever:

(1) Backup!

(2) Never an early adopter be: always wait at least one month before adopting a new release. Check the boards before doing so for knowledge of problems and fixes. True of Ubuntu. Particularly true of Fedora!

(3) Multiboot. Keep your old functioning release on one partition as you are trying the new release on another. That way, if the new does not work out, you have a good fallback position.

(4) Keep trying different distributions until you find the one that works for you.

Best regards,

Epamonondas

As we all know, Ubuntu is a Debian variation. Unless Canonical drastically changes Ubuntu away from the Debian distro, Debian's popularity will always be a supremum to Ubuntu's popularity. Ubuntu is like debian with glitter ::grin::.

So no, Ubuntu is not more popular.

My 75 year old aunt and 9 year old cousin can use Ubuntu Mint with no problem because everything just works like windows xp. But ask then to install a program that cannot be installed by a click and they freeze up. Ubuntu is made for the average dumb user like us. I use it on my lenovo s10 netbook and it just works. I do not care about the details of how it works. I just want to install it and get on with life.

I understand that some programmers at Debian are upset that Ubuntu is getting all the glory while they do the dirty work but please look at all the people who are now using Linux because of Ubuntu.
Ubuntu has expanded the linux market share.

We would probably use open source products at work if it were not for the Microsoft contract that makes us pay for a copy of office and windows for every computer in the company.

You programmers are doing good things that will benefit many.

I had used Debian happily for a long time, and had a few derivates (Kanotix) running back then. But with Breezy Badger 5.10 I switched to Ubuntu. At first just for checking out why it got so overly hyped. But after a little inurement I sticked with it ever since.

While getting around with standard packages in Debian wasn't terribly difficult, it obviously lacked some attention to usability. There is simply more thoughtfulness and GUI polish in Ubuntu. While lots of stuff got terribly dumbed down and there are some incomprehensible quality degradions, in the end it still eases interaction. The bigger advantage however is, that the package selection is much less dictated by ideology, and less features get ripped out just because of US-only patent problems. (Hint: education works better than prohibition.)

It's a love/hate relationship. :)

Ubuntu builds upon Debian, so, theoretically, it would be bigger. Ubuntu has had tremendous success at what no other has been able to do, so it is only natural that some are jealous.

One Debian programmer said that the (other Debian devs) were upset about Ubuntu's success, but "...that is what Debian's about." (The free software idea)

I don't find Debian so terrible, but, I like how Ubuntu automagically works. I have never had problems with it, two exceptions being KDE 4.1.x to 4.2.x (oh, dear!) and Ubuntu 7.10 to 8.04 (curses to non-free drivers!).

And I agree, I would definately prowl the Ubuntu forums and estimate the success rate, then base your decision on what you find. As for me, I've heard nothing but success so far, but I've no reason to upgrade... After all, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!"

I'm personally going to gNonSense soon... *ahem* gNewSense. Pardon.

Is Ubuntu bigger than Debian? I think it depends on if we're talking about influence in the Linux community or on the number of users. It's like asking: which is the bigger band, The Offspring of the Ramones? Debian is the most improtant and influential distro ever, and everything Ubuntu does adds to that legacy.

Like some others on this page, I also switched from Debian to Ubuntu for almost a year, but I eventually did go back to all Debian all the time. One big reason was i got pissed off when Kubuntu pushed the halfbaked KDE 4.1 down its users throats way ahead of schedule with (as I came to call it) the insipid Ibex release. (I'm using KDE4.2 right now, so don't call me a KDE4 hater. )

But there's nothing wrong with Kubuntu. The world needs wannabes, and Ubuntu is pretty fly (for a white guy).

I've used many GNU/Linux distributions in the past 6-7yrs, including Slackware, Gentoo, Debian, Mandrake (now Mandriva), Puppy Linux and OpenSuSe. I've used Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy Eft) for a year. It was a great distribution back then but now I hate each and every new release of Ubuntu. And the 8.10 release (Kubuntu) sucked so hard that I switched back to Debian.

If Canonical doesn't change the 6-month release cycle, Ubuntu will become a very bad choice for production environment.

No, Ubuntu is not bigger than Debian. I have empirical evidences. Canonical workers and Mark stated that they did not contribute to the Linux Kernel (or Xorg or Alsa or Pulse audio or binutils or gcc...) because they were a tiny poor company.

It is true that other companies like Red Hat are bigger that but even proportionally Canonical's contribution is several orders of magnitude smaller.

This 6 month release cycle is a Moronic idea full or miserable failures, let me see: pulse audio misconfigured (and it was very clear in the wiki how to do it), Firefox 3 beta, not including OO 3 by default (they just needed delaying the release 2 weeks), Intrepid's network assistant unusable, very unstable wine (always)...

You report them that the latest GDM version breaks backwards compatibility with other versions causing users to lost data when using some features like remembering open applications. Almost every single Linux distro decides then keeping an older version but Ubuntu. Their answer was: in any case it is a Gnome problem and not Canonical's. We are shipping it.

I'm not a Free software zealot or a bash junkie but Mark's "agit prop" (moronic comments almost every single day) just for marketing purposes, their history of misleading advertising about the certification of their products and the fact Canonical is placed in a tax paradise, just make me feel despise for Ubuntu. Ubuntu is a Debianized Microsoft.

I have installed Lenny and various Ubuntu releases. At least Lenny is as easy installable as all I have seen from Ubuntu, and also has a nice looking desktop. And when you integrate some repos (which are integrated in Ubuntu out-of-the-box) one also has over 26000 packages. When I think about stability the clear winner is Debian. Ubuntu rules in terms of marketing and eyecandy, I can not see further advantages

I think having proper releases is a flawed idea anyway. I use sidux (which is basically sid) and I enjoying the lack of whole-system upgrades. Rolling release is the way to go.

Ubuntu will never surpass debian imo.

Ubuntu, powered by Debian. Debian is the hardware store, Ubuntu the assembly plant. I love both, what else could I do?

I own one desktop (iMac) and two laptops on which I have tried many different distros

I conclude that Debian based distros are the way to go. Of those, my personal favourite is Linux Mint (the ultimate Debian desktop?).

If Debian is the grand parent then Ubuntu is the parent and Linux Mint is the grand child. Debian DNA flows through them all and I would prefer to select one on the basis of what works best for me.

So thanks to all three groups of coders, developers for giving me the freedom that I enjoy on my computers.

I have been using Debian since the Etch days. I like its rock solid stability and operation.

I have tried other OS's but Debian so far is the best. I feel like I am in control of the system rather than it controlling me.

I am a really happy Debian user.

I haven't had to reinstall my system since I've installed Debian and apt has been easy to maintain my system. For example upgrading to Lenny was real easy, just a few apt commands.

If I am really after the latest and greatest then there is always testing and/or sid.