

Ubuntu and I – Beauty Isn’t Enough - markrushing
http://mark.orbum.net/2011/11/05/ubuntu-and-i-beauty-isnt-enough/

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icebraining
Have you considered the Backports for Debian? It solves the problem of glacial
updates for many people - just add some of the packages you want, like Firefox
and such.

I've been using Unstable for a couple of years now (updating every few days)
and it has only broke once or twice in the entire time. Sure, it took me a
couple of hours initially to configure it just as I wanted it, but I never
feel like I'm doing "maintenance work".

One of the problems with Ubuntu is that it loads too much damn stuff, which
increases the probability of breakage. My base desktop - the stuff that gets
loaded after logging in - is just X, Awesome, Wicd and XScreensaver.

~~~
markrushing
Yeah, I haven't looked at what backports has in it right now, but that's
certainly a thought. I was thinking Mint might be a "first line" against any
breaks that might show up in unstable, but it seems many people are very happy
with unstable. I sure don't mind spending a few hours every couple years
fixing some breakage - it's worth it for keeping updated. Totally agree about
Ubuntu - serious bloat. I'm back in Debian stable right now, and it's
incredibly more agile on the same hardware. There's not a thing I miss about
Unity, either. Mint, BTW, couldn't install on an LVM/raid setup. Thanks
icebraining....

------
dfc
I have been a debian/unstable user for ten years on my workstations and
laptops. During that time I have rarely experienced any problems. With the
addition of the experimental repository there are rarely if ever any issues.
The easiest way to avoid troubles in unstable is the installation of apt-
listchanges and apt-listbugs.

~~~
markrushing
And then just perusing anything that shows up in listbugs before an update?
Hopefully problems would be noticeable without having to sift through tons of
reports. I've never used that before. It's astonishing how many bugs there are
in Ubuntu, yet they still release it. They have tended to get them fairly well
settled over a span of time, though, after a release. But right now, I'm very
happy to be back in Debian stable. It does feel like home. Well, much less
cluttered than home, actually. ;)

~~~
dfc
Perusing sounds a little more involved than what the process actually entails.
Its not a list of all bugs; its a list of bugs found in the version you are
about to upgrade to. That means there are rarely more than one or two bugs.
Most of the time its pretty easy to tell if the bug is relevant and if it is
you can just pin the package to the old version, restart apt-get and upgrade
away. Definitely worth checking out.

