
Debian 10.4 - laqq3
https://www.debian.org/News/2020/20200509
======
kelnos
I cut my teeth on Red Hat (before Fedora was a thing), used Gentoo for a few
years when I cutely believed that waiting hours for compiles to finish was fun
and useful, but for the last 8-10 years I've been on Debian.

It's not perfect, but it gets the job done. For my laptop I usually run
testing, and then stick with stable for 6 months or so after it's released,
before switching back to testing. For me, it's a good balance between
stability and having recent versions of applications.

~~~
badrabbit
I use both gentoo and debian. I find it hard for either one to replace the
other. I can't let go of the control gentoo gives me and as you noted the
smooth and stable binary based debian let's you get the job done fast with
little hustle. I try to mix and match, using gentoo as a minimalist and debian
as a full blown desktop or prod network(http,etc...) server.

~~~
hiq
In which cases do you need the minimalism Gentoo provides?

~~~
kakwa_
I've seen companies using Gentoo (with a lot of tooling around it) in
specialized context.

Particularly in military contracts, Gentoo brings you several things:

1) you have a full audit trace from the compilation, and in paranoid
situation, it's a huge plus.

2) it permits you to minimize the OS footprint quite a lot (feature flags),
which helps improving security (less exposure).

3) it permits an high degree of customization, including the combination of
software versions used.

4) it's relatively easy to import a patch and maintain an overlay yourself.

We have to keep in mind the constrains of Military contracts: The systems
tends to be quite complex, validation is quite lengthy, updates are far in
between, they tend to use specialized/weird/not powerful hardware which might
need some tweaking, and the level of traceability is generally quite high.

------
neogodless
As a relative Linux newbie, who's running Ubuntu 20.04 LTS on two laptops at
home, would there be any advantages to Debian 10.4 over Ubuntu 20.04?

(I assume at least some of that answer would depend on my use cases and
hardware, but if you have general insights to the differences, some of us
might find that useful!)

~~~
rjeli
No ads in your MOTD

~~~
neogodless
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motd_(Unix)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motd_\(Unix\))

Never heard of MOTD before. I'll keep an eye out for it since I haven't
encountered it yet (as a newb!)

Presumably getting ads is pretty annoying!

~~~
ColanR
It is, and it's one of the more annoying MOTDs I've encountered. You won't see
it unless you get rid of the login manager and login at the terminal. Or, use
the server edition.

~~~
jlgaddis
> _You won 't see it unless you get rid of the login manager and login at the
> terminal. Or, use the server edition._

And even though you don't see it, it's still there -- on every Ubuntu install
(by default) -- phoning home to Canonical (every 12 hours, if memory serves).

(Some users may not mind, of course, but they certainly don't go out of their
way to let you know about it beforehand, which is my major issue with it.)

~~~
neogodless
I had no idea this was a thing. Thanks for the details. Do you happen to have
a link handy for more information? If not, I'll see what I can find scouring
the internet!

~~~
jlgaddis
Here's an HN thread [0] from a few years ago regarding "advertising" in the
MOTD, specifically, and Ubuntu's "dynamic" MOTD, generally. (I'm not sure if
all of the hardware/system details were being sent back then, though.)

The relevant "snippets" responsible for this behavior live in their own
directory, /etc/update-motd.d/, if memory serves. That may not be exactly
right -- perhaps unsuprisingly, I don't have an Ubuntu box handy -- but it
should at least be close enough to help you find the actual directory.

\---

[0]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14662088](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14662088)

------
teddyh
Please note: Starting with Debian 7, the minor number is not part of the
Debian release number, and numbers with a minor component like 9.4 or 9.7 now
indicate a _point_ release. Basically, only security updates and major bug
fixes, with new updated installation media images. This, 10.4, is _not_ a new
major release of Debian.

~~~
bzb3
So your point is that a .x release is a minor, point release? Isn't that
obvious by itself?

~~~
teddyh
It didn’t use to be that way; Debian 3.1 was a major release after Debian 3.0,
and Debian 6.0 had minor releases up to 6.0.10. This did not change until
Debian 7 (which was called 7, not 7.0, and had a minor release numbered 7.1).
Therefore, many people might still be used to the first minor version number
being a major release, even though it is not true anymore.

------
dilandau
What would I do without you, Debian? Thanks team for all the work, if you
happen to see this. It is _very_ appreciated.

~~~
jbverschoor
For me it was: Redhat-> Slackware -> FreeBSD -> Debian

I should probably donate

~~~
wtracy
Take a look at the website for Debian's parent organization, Software In The
Public Interest, and see all the projects they are responsible for:
[https://www.spi-inc.org/projects/](https://www.spi-inc.org/projects/)

Contributing is not a bad idea.

------
Koshkin
My problem with Debian (and Ubuntu) has been that often when I want to install
a seemingly little piece of software, be it a library or a program, I end up
getting the whole slew of stuff - frameworks, daemons, even language
processors I haven't suspected existed. (This may not be the distro's problem,
but I believe at least some of those things may be optional, and I would have
liked to treat them as such.)

~~~
ComputerGuru
You can’t even install a GUI without getting every web browser, mail client,
office suite, and more under the sun.

~~~
jlgaddis
You _can_ , but it does require one to RTFM and know/learn about the available
installation options.

My automated "preseed" installs are quite minimal. I don't recall exactly how
many packages I end up with on a new install but I _think_ it was 224 -- much
fewer than what you'll end up with when doing a typical installation.

------
pcdoodle
I've actually been using Raspbian Desktop installed on a laptop to develop
software for raspberry pi. For some reason it's faster compiling xojo apps
than windows or mac. Debian FTW!

------
paines
I used to love the shit out of Debian., but nowadays, that I am really
startled and shocked what it had become. Try to get nvidia graphics running on
an optimus based laptop, and you will find yourself in a midst of an multiple
hour long try and error prone session of head-shaking and cursing. Graphics
installer -> no touchpad?!?!? Blueutooth A2DP -> fix it by hand..... This list
goes on and on and on...

~~~
Dunedan
I built a PC in 2005 with an Nvidia graphics card and ran Debian on it
exclusively. I had a lot of trouble with that graphics card over the years,
but that wasn't caused by Debian, but rather by Nvidia, because they did
neither offer nor even support open source drivers. My conclusion was to not
buy any Nvidia product again, until they offer proper open source drivers for
it. Since I retired this PC I haven't owned any Nvidia product anymore and I
couldn't be happier. Sure the drivers for other graphics cards aren't perfect
either, but at least I don't have to deal with binary blobs anymore where
nobody except of the manufacturer can fix issues.

------
Mave83
debian is awesome.

~~~
stOneskull
it really is.

thank you to the team for a great OS and for keeping the spirit of ian murdock
alive.

the tough decision for me right now on my laptop, is whether to use MX Linux,
which has been great the last few years, or this Linux Mint Debian Edition,
which i've been trying since the latest release and is very nice.

------
asveikau
The first Debian release I used was slink (released March 1999). I stopped
using debian on most of my personal machines when they switched to systemd.
This is because a few of them refused to boot or exhibited strange init
related bugs after the switch.

~~~
FlyMoreRockets
My first Debian was also Slink, installed from a box of floppies onto a 486.
Had to use rawrite to put the disk image onto the floppies. That box of
floppies is still around here somewhere, though the 486 is long gone.

~~~
IronBacon
I remember the troubles using _" dselect"_ without a stable internet
connection, _" apt"_ came quite later (with _Potato_ or _Woody_ , don't
recall). On the other hand, I never had the need to try something else...

~~~
asveikau
I think apt was actually in slink. I remember the dist-upgrade to potato over
a modem. It was so far ahead of the rpm based distros then.

But the installer still dropped you into dselect for a long time thereafter.
Once it was installed it was smooth sailing.

