[GRLUG] Newbie Distros [Re: Upgrading Firefox]

[Adam Tauno Williams]

> In the course of following this thread, I got to rethinking my personal
> policy of not recommending Debian to people new to the gnu/linux world.

It is important to differentiate between people who are versed in IT
terms and concepts - most of which are very portable between the various
platforms - but who have never happened to use LINUX/UNUX and people who
are general computer users.  The only operating system appropriate to
the later group is one installed (or pre-installed) by someone else;
most users cannot successfully [or at least no pleasently] install
NT/2000/XP/Vista.

> When I installed Debian on my new computer a couple of weeks ago, the
> process was painless, not complex like the Debian of yesteryear.  I had a
> couple of hardware issues stemming from the fact that I elected to buy
> relatively new computer parts, and therefore needed a more current kernel
> and X.org, but I would have run into those problems with any distro.
> (And Debian's apt-pinning, though a technically advanced procedure, is a
> true convenience in this situation.)  So what does the LUG think? 

I think the installation is a trivial issue.  The hard part, which
distros like Ubuntu and openSUSE have done pretty well, is fine-tuning
issues like hot-plugging devices, printer type detection,  getting all
the applications integrated, etc...  That is the maddening tedium of
supporting the desktop.

> there any longer an advantage of Ubuntu over Debian for the novice?
> Debian has a shining reputation for stability and quality, so maybe

I don't accept that the reputation has much meat on its bones.  I don't
know how to quantify "quality" but  as for stability all the mainstream
binary distros are very tightly clustered.

> Debian is the better "long term investment"?  Inviting some friendly
> speculation.

I consider it equivalent.  Currently most of the distributions have
fairly long update support cycles.