Is Squeeze right for me?
John Jason Jordan
inside. I'm just a pointy-clicky desktop user. How things work has
never been of interest to me except when they don't work. Even then I
just learn enough to fix the problem and go back to living.
However, several Linux friends have suggested it's time for me to move
on. According to the advice I receive I no longer need the Ubuntu
training wheels and I would be better served by going to a less
newbie-oriented distro. Perhaps they are right, but I grew up with
Synaptic and .deb files, and I really don't want to leave the Debian
world. Therefore, this morning I installed testing on a new hard disk,
leaving my old Ubuntu hard disk untouched so I can always go back to it.
Having spent just a day in testing I am not happy with the quantity of
bugs. Yes, I know it is called "testing" for a reason. And I am happy
to do my part to help fix problems. Yet I need a computer that I can
use for real work. But at the same time I want the latest and greatest.
I need OOo 3.1 and Scribus 1.3.5.1 and the most recent versions of
several other apps that I live in all day long. The stable versions of
Debian are not sufficiently cutting edge for me. Or have I
misunderstood that?
The local Linux friends who thought I should move on from Ubuntu
suggested testing as the closest in the Debian world to the Ubuntu way
of doing things. After today I am thinking they were wrong.
I need advice.
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Neal Hogan
The following is my initial reaction and it may be something you've
thought of. If so, I apologize.
I'm not sure of the relationship between the ubuntu world and the
debian world and I'm not sure what you mean when you spent a day in
testing, but might I suggest that you dual boot ubuntu with debian
(perhaps test all of the versions and maybe even other distros). There
is software out there that can move your partitions around so that
your ubuntu set-up isn't affected.
God luck!
-Neal
Dave Witbrodt
> bugs.
> But at the same time I want the latest and greatest.
These 2 comments are a contradiction.
Make a decision between those two, and you will have made your decision
regarding whether to switch away from Ubuntu.
> The local Linux friends who thought I should move on from Ubuntu
> suggested testing as the closest in the Debian world to the Ubuntu way
> of doing things. After today I am thinking they were wrong.
They were right only if YOU are willing to learn to deal with breakage
caused by "the latest and greatest" packages. If you don't want to do
that kind of work, then they were wrong.
> I need advice.
Use Debian stable ("Lenny") and make yourself familiar with backports.org.
HTH,
Dave W.
Chris
Dave Witbrodt <dawi...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> > Having spent just a day in testing I am not happy with the quantity
> > of bugs.
> [...]
> > But at the same time I want the latest and greatest.
>
> These 2 comments are a contradiction.
>
> Make a decision between those two, and you will have made your
> decision regarding whether to switch away from Ubuntu.
>
>
> > The local Linux friends who thought I should move on from Ubuntu
> > suggested testing as the closest in the Debian world to the Ubuntu
> > way of doing things. After today I am thinking they were wrong.
>
> They were right only if YOU are willing to learn to deal with
> breakage caused by "the latest and greatest" packages. If you don't
> want to do that kind of work, then they were wrong.
>
>
> > I need advice.
>
> Use Debian stable ("Lenny") and make yourself familiar with
> backports.org.
>
That being said, be prepared to be disappointed with Lenny. I mean that
not in a bad way. While Ubu 9.10 (assuming) is nice and flashy, Lenny
is not (out of the box).
However, Lenny (to me) is solid as hell. But as Dave mentioned, there
are ways to get some of the more up to date apps etc.
In the end, you will need to be willing to tinker a bit ... and that,
is never a bad thing!
--
Best regards,
Chris
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Brent Clark
> The local Linux friends who thought I should move on from Ubuntu
> suggested testing as the closest in the Debian world to the Ubuntu way
> of doing things. After today I am thinking they were wrong.
>
> I need advice.
>
Hiya
For anything else .... use Debian, or FreeBSD for that that matter :),
but for Desktop use Ubuntu (or even the new Fedora / Mandriva). Im of
the opinion, your friends are ill advising you.
As I type this email, Im using Ubuntu Karmic on my Dell XPS, and I think
its great. At my work Im run Debian Testing as my workstation, other
than a few compiz issues when compiz segfaults, its ok.
For servers, and and I manage quite a few, Lenny is great for servers...
but old for Desktop.
HTH
Brent Clark
Lisi
> While Ubu 9.10 (assuming) is *nice and flashy*
To some of us, well one of me anyway, that is a contradiction in terms.
Something cannot be both nice and flashy - it must be either or. ;-)
Lisi
Chris
Lisi <lisi....@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Saturday 21 November 2009 18:05:40 Chris wrote:
> > While Ubu 9.10 (assuming) is *nice and flashy*
>
> To some of us, well one of me anyway, that is a contradiction in
> terms. Something cannot be both nice and flashy - it must be either
> or. ;-)
>
> Lisi
>
>
>
... Redefined... Ubu 9.10 (assuming) is both nice (to use, as in ease)
AND flashy (visually). Not a contradiction at all.
Perhaps I should have taken the time to define that however, knowing
the Op was using Ubu to begin with, I assumed the Op knew exactly what
I meant and how it was meant.
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Chris
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Paul E Condon
A few questions for you to think about. The tone may seem confrontational
but it's really up to you, so there is no need to answer them publically,
just think about what your answers really are, and then act accordingly.
Where was the Ubuntu disk when you installed Squeeze on the new disk?
If you had left it in the computer, you should have had a opportunity
to make your computer dual-boot trivially by simply answering yes to
a question from the Debian installer.
What kind of computer work is 'real work' for you? Can it be done on a
dual boot set up?
If you make your computer dual boot would you expect to have separate
/home directories for the two components of the dual? Or would you
require some sort of shared /home?
How can you be sure you are seeing bugs in Squeeze? Maybe the defaults
of Debian are just different from what you expect from what you
learned to expect in Ubuntu.
Why really do you want 'latest and greatest'? Or do you just think you
need L&G because you use OO and Scribus and think that versions in
Debian are 'too old' without having actually testing them for the
features that you actually use?
Are your friends tiring of giving you help on making Ubuntu do things
that are not properly part of the Ubuntu User Experience?
I only know Ubuntu from hearsay. You confirm my impression that it is
targeted for newbies and/or casual users. I think you will have great
difficulty becoming a adept 'power user' if you stick with Ubuntu. To
become a power user of Ubuntu, first switch to Debian, become a power
user, and then switch back to Ubuntu (if you wish).
If you did not have the Ubuntu disk in your computer when you installed
Squeeze, and want to make your system dual-boot, you probably don't need
to do a re-install. Instead, re-install the physical HD that has Ubuntu
on it. And ask for help on this list about re-configuring grub to see it
and offer it as a boot option.
I'm not a power user, I got started with Debian before Ubuntu existed
and have never felt a need to change. Or even investigate any other
distribution.
You might be completely satisfied with Lenny. As a user I am very skeptical
of L&G. But you have to test it for your actual work. And Lenny will soon
be replaced by Squeeze so maybe wait for Squeeze to be released and revisit
this issue then.
HTH
--
Paul E Condon
peco...@mesanetworks.net
John Jason Jordan
Chris <rac...@makeworld.com> dijo:
> ... Redefined... Ubu 9.10 (assuming) is both nice (to use, as in ease)
> AND flashy (visually). Not a contradiction at all.
>
> Perhaps I should have taken the time to define that however, knowing
> the Op was using Ubu to begin with, I assumed the Op knew exactly what
> I meant and how it was meant.
First, thanks to all who responded. I should have given more detail,
but it's hard to think of everything when writing an e-mail in a list
like this. My failure to communicate required many to make assumptions
about my needs.
I started with Linux with a brand new laptop that I bought for school
four years ago. I found a local user group who helped me get started.
The computer had a 15.4 inch widescreen capable of 1680 x 1050, and I
was adamant in getting that working with 64-bit Linux. At the time I
tried Mandriva, Suse, and several others. No amount of tweaking could
get the display to run better than 1024 x 768 Vesa. After several days
of frustration I tried a Breezy live CD. The screen came up
automatically at 1680 x 1050. That was it. Shuttleworth made another
sale.
Over the years I have often tried live CDs of other distros, but I
always came back to Ubuntu. Two years ago I built myself a new desktop
computer to use as a music server. I installed Debian on it and tried
really hard to get things to work. Eventually I ended up putting Ubuntu
on it.
Today I have two main motivations for going to Debian:
1) It's time to expand my knowledge of Linux, and I have no huge
computer projects underway at the moment. I can afford the time to
fiddle around for a while. At the same time, my experience with other
distros over the years leads me to reject any distro that is not Debian
based. No package management system can hold a candle to Debian. I want
my Synaptic.
2) I write and publish textbooks. In the past I used InDesign on
Windows, but now I am in the Linux world. I recently did a new textbook
and had to figure out what works best for me in Linux. I spent a week
trying to get my head around Lyx-Latex-Tex, but finally gave up. I
found my home in Scribus, which I love. But I want to use 1.3.5.1,
which is close, but not yet stable. In discussing issues on the Scribus
e-list it is clear that the Scribus developers mince few words in their
dislike of Ubuntu. Scribus is based on Qt, and apparently the Ubuntu
people messed around with some of the Qt libraries. They strongly
recommend Fedora, Debian or OpenSuse.
So there you have it. Debian is the common denominator for me. The only
issue is whether I should have used stable instead of testing.
At the time I wrote my original message I was feeling extreme
frustration with the bugs in Nautilus on testing. But Márcio H.
Parreiras just gave me a solution (thanks!) - gconf-editor allows me to
change the configuration without needing to use the Preferences button.
I feel much happier with testing now that I have Nautilus configured
the way I want it. I still have some troublesome apps to install
(realplayer, xaralx, foxit reader), but I had them working on Jaunty,
so I'm sure I can do the same on testing.
I don't mind that testing is probably not as stable as the current
incarnation of Ubuntu. And I am very willing to do my share of bug
reporting and participate as much as I can. I know nothing of
programming, but there are lots of other ways to contribute. In four
years of Ubuntu my "bean count" on the forums is over 1,000.
At the moment I think testing is the right fit for me. But if not,
well, it is installed on a brand new hard disk. My old hard disk with
Jaunty is untouched; all I have to do is put it back in the computer to
go back to Ubuntu. Or I can wipe out testing and install stable.
Thanks again for the viewpoints.
AG
> I have several years of experience with Ubuntu, but I have never looked
> inside. I'm just a pointy-clicky desktop user. How things work has
> never been of interest to me except when they don't work. Even then I
> just learn enough to fix the problem and go back to living.
>
scratch, some just like to use a computer as a tool in the course of
their living or have to in the work place.
> However, several Linux friends have suggested it's time for me to move
> on.
use. Unless you are after "geek points" ? Being "cool" is not about the
computer OS you use - it comes from the kind of person you *are*.
> According to the advice I receive I no longer need the Ubuntu
> training wheels and I would be better served by going to a less
> newbie-oriented distro. Perhaps they are right, but I grew up with
> Synaptic and .deb files, and I really don't want to leave the Debian
> world. Therefore, this morning I installed testing on a new hard disk,
> leaving my old Ubuntu hard disk untouched so I can always go back to it.
>
the new HD you used to install Deb on is in good working order?
> Having spent just a day in testing I am not happy with the quantity of
> bugs.
software or might there be some PEBKAC going on?
> Yes, I know it is called "testing" for a reason. And I am happy
> to do my part to help fix problems. Yet I need a computer that I can
> use for real work. But at the same time I want the latest and greatest.
>
if it is work that has some value for you (e.g. a source of income,
etc.). Latest & greatest software can & does break regularly, can have
any number of vulnerabilities and might be exploitable. Latest &
greatest software obviously has its place, but running latest & greatest
on a production system is *not* good computing practice. The decision
you probably should be considering is your breakage tolerance, the
reliability of your back-up routine, your security know-how, and how
much time you have available to restore and repair breakages. You would
be better off with having software that has been thoroughly break and
security tested, which is "stable" (or Lenny) in Debian world. Latest &
greatest are in sid or "experimental". But there are times when those
can have high overheads, and it is assumed that you know how to maintain
your own system when running something like that. Despite what modern
advertising might tell you, patience really is still a virtue. The
decision you should be looking to make at this point in time is what
your *need* is and what your *want* is and decide where your values
lie. Novelty does not necessarily mean better.
> I need OOo 3.1
I run testing/ "Squeeze" and have OOo3.1.1
> and Scribus 1.3.5.1
On
http://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=scribus&searchon=names&suite=testing§ion=all
you'll see that Scribus is 1.3.3.13dfsg~svn20081228-2 How critical is
the difference? Was there a new feature in 1.3.5.1 that you *need* or
is this simply a mad pursuit for novelty to keep up with friends?
> and the most recent versions of
> several other apps that I live in all day long.
> The stable versions of
> Debian are not sufficiently cutting edge for me. Or have I
> misunderstood that?
>
less about "cutting edge" and more about whether the system is stable
and reliable, responsive given your hardware array, does it satisfy your
user-based needs? Stable is definitely "tried and tested" and nothing
except for the occasional security patches will be added to the code
base for Lenny. As a consequence, it is software that will work
reliably and as expected. If you want higher degrees of churn, which
will require you to spend a lot more time "under the hood", then try sid
or to be "uber cool" out-fox your buddies and give sidux a run for its
money. Nice and speedy distro, with all of the latest gizmos, but is
likely to require increased maintenance overhead from yourself. It's
all a question of how much you are prepared to give of your time and how
much you want to take without any effort on your part.
> The local Linux friends who thought I should move on from Ubuntu
> suggested testing as the closest in the Debian world to the Ubuntu way
> of doing things. After today I am thinking they were wrong.
>
questions I raised above and those asked of you by others responding to
your query. Again, let me re-emphasise that using a computer is
something that you yourself do. When you are by yourself with your
computer it is pointless trying to keep up with them when you are
tearing your hair out at endless problems and text filled screens and
lost data/ crashed apps. Fixing a critically wrong system at a time
when even the hacker world has gone to sleep is a very lonely and
frustrating place to be, trust me.
> I need advice.
>
>
It all depends on exactly *what* you *want* to hear as to whether or not
you consider it advice; however, I would suggest that you go back to
basics: what do you want a computer for and does Ubuntu currently
satisfy that need?
If the *only* reason that you are looking to change distros is to fit in
with what your friends expect of you, then (no offence!) you really do
have a different set of questions that you would probably benefit in the
long term from asking, rather than the specific set you are asking here,
and these are more likely to concern you yourself and your relationships
than a computer system.
Good luck in making your *own* mind up. Perhaps you might consider
asking a different query on the Ubuntu list, such as "How can I defend
my preference for Ubuntu against increasing peer pressure to change?"
and then stick to your guns once you've figure out what *you* want.
Robert Hodgins
> I have several years of experience with Ubuntu, but I have never looked
> inside. I'm just a pointy-clicky desktop user. How things work has
> never been of interest to me except when they don't work. Even then I
> just learn enough to fix the problem and go back to living.
A reasonable approach to computers.
> However, several Linux friends have suggested it's time for me to move
> on. According to the advice I receive I no longer need the Ubuntu
> training wheels and I would be better served by going to a less
> newbie-oriented distro.
If you are okay with Ubuntu, why would they suggest this?
> Perhaps they are right, but I grew up with
> Synaptic and .deb files, and I really don't want to leave the Debian
> world. Therefore, this morning I installed testing on a new hard disk,
> leaving my old Ubuntu hard disk untouched so I can always go back to it.
Good call with the hard drive.
> Having spent just a day in testing I am not happy with the quantity of
> bugs. Yes, I know it is called "testing" for a reason.
Yep, there can be bugs...
> Yet I need a computer that I can
> use for real work. But at the same time I want the latest and greatest.
> I need OOo 3.1 and Scribus 1.3.5.1 and the most recent versions of
> several other apps that I live in all day long. The stable versions of
> Debian are not sufficiently cutting edge for me. Or have I
> misunderstood that?
Nah, you got that. Debian stable is not cutting edge.
>
> The local Linux friends who thought I should move on from Ubuntu
> suggested testing as the closest in the Debian world to the Ubuntu way
> of doing things. After today I am thinking they were wrong.
>
> I need advice.
I'd say stay with Ubuntu if you are comfy with it. The latest and
greatest of some/most apps (openoffice, thunderbird, firefox, etc.) can
be installed using debs (or "what-evers") from the relevant
application's website.
Joe
I find it worth keeping a fairly recent Knoppix around. It's not a
distro to install: while it can be installed on a hard drive, it is
unmaintainable, you need to wipe and install the next version to stay up
to date. But for finding out how to drive hardware which other distros
don't handle well, it's hard to beat. If you do have hardware problems
after an upgrade, it's useful to have a different distribution to run on
the same hardware to pick up clues to the trouble.
>
> Today I have two main motivations for going to Debian:
>
> 1) It's time to expand my knowledge of Linux, and I have no huge
> computer projects underway at the moment. I can afford the time to
> fiddle around for a while. At the same time, my experience with other
> distros over the years leads me to reject any distro that is not Debian
> based. No package management system can hold a candle to Debian. I want
> my Synaptic.
I'd agree with that, though I use aptitude most of the time. But I find
Synaptic much easier to deal with than aptitude when it comes to
searching and looking up dependencies, file names and locations etc.
It's also worthwhile knowing a bit about apt-get itself, and the
underlying dpkg. Very, very occasionally, you can get into a state when
even apt-get will not fix an upgrade problem, and you need to use dpkg
and some judicious manual file deletions to beat the system into submission.
>
> 2) I write and publish textbooks. In the past I used InDesign on
> Windows, but now I am in the Linux world. I recently did a new textbook
> and had to figure out what works best for me in Linux. I spent a week
> trying to get my head around Lyx-Latex-Tex, but finally gave up. I
> found my home in Scribus, which I love. But I want to use 1.3.5.1,
> which is close, but not yet stable. In discussing issues on the Scribus
> e-list it is clear that the Scribus developers mince few words in their
> dislike of Ubuntu. Scribus is based on Qt, and apparently the Ubuntu
> people messed around with some of the Qt libraries. They strongly
> recommend Fedora, Debian or OpenSuse.
I can't comment on this specific issue, but Linux handles different
versions of the 'same' libraries fairly well, so you might consider
compiling the latest version of an application into a distribution whose
own libraries don't support it. It's a bit of a nuisance, as you can't
rely on Synaptic to maintain it, but it's a useful Linux skill to
acquire. You will sometimes find it difficult to get hold of something
in Debian for ideological reasons (e.g. freeradius with SSL) and will
either have to use a third party package or compile it yourself.
>
> So there you have it. Debian is the common denominator for me. The only
> issue is whether I should have used stable instead of testing.
Not stable. I run stable on my server, and they're not kidding. Much
more solid than the average rock. But there are only security upgrades.
While server software doesn't change quickly, desktop software is much
less mature, and may always be.
>
> At the time I wrote my original message I was feeling extreme
> frustration with the bugs in Nautilus on testing. But Márcio H.
> Parreiras just gave me a solution (thanks!) - gconf-editor allows me to
> change the configuration without needing to use the Preferences button.
> I feel much happier with testing now that I have Nautilus configured
> the way I want it. I still have some troublesome apps to install
> (realplayer, xaralx, foxit reader), but I had them working on Jaunty,
> so I'm sure I can do the same on testing.
>
> I don't mind that testing is probably not as stable as the current
> incarnation of Ubuntu. And I am very willing to do my share of bug
> reporting and participate as much as I can. I know nothing of
> programming, but there are lots of other ways to contribute. In four
> years of Ubuntu my "bean count" on the forums is over 1,000.
>
> At the moment I think testing is the right fit for me. But if not,
> well, it is installed on a brand new hard disk. My old hard disk with
> Jaunty is untouched; all I have to do is put it back in the computer to
> go back to Ubuntu. Or I can wipe out testing and install stable.
>
> Thanks again for the viewpoints.
>
>
I've run unstable (sid) on my desktop for a number of years, but you
certainly wouldn't want to do that. I had to reinstall twice in a month
recently, when my sid-fixing abilities were not up to the combinations
of problems I had. While that is rare, it's not at all unusual to have X
or sound fail to come up after an upgrade, which currently runs about
50-150MB per day for the software I have installed. Yes, it's *that*
unstable. Not really a problem most of the time, but you can't risk
using it if you have deadlines.
As others have said, you might try dual-booting, but you might also
consider a virtual installation. Linux is generally quite amenable to
virtual running, and doesn't have the licensing issues of Windows.
Either way, you get to do two lots of updates, but that shouldn't be
much of a problem for either Ubuntu or testing. Another useful set of
skills.
--
Joe
Lisi
> On Sat, 21 Nov 2009 18:41:18 +0000
>
> Lisi <lisi....@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Saturday 21 November 2009 18:05:40 Chris wrote:
> > > While Ubu 9.10 (assuming) is *nice and flashy*
> >
> > To some of us, well one of me anyway, that is a contradiction in
> > terms. Something cannot be both nice and flashy - it must be either
> > or. ;-)
> >
> > Lisi
>
> ... Redefined... Ubu 9.10 (assuming) is both nice (to use, as in ease)
> AND flashy (visually). Not a contradiction at all.
>
> Perhaps I should have taken the time to define that however, knowing
> the Op was using Ubu to begin with, I assumed the Op knew exactly what
> I meant and how it was meant.
That was exactly what I took you to mean. I just don't agree with you. For
me it is a contradiction in terms. And I did make it clear a) that I realise
that I may be in a small minority in that and b) that I was not entirely
serious.
Lisi
Stan Hoeppner
> I need advice.
If you have never used a bash shell or are not comfortable with it, or
are not comfortable with vi/vim and editing Linux config files with
such, then I suggest you stay far, far away from any Debian
testing/unstable release. Things will break and you'll be required to
work from the CLI (command line interface, i.e. bash and vi) to fix them.
For instance, if X (GUI desktop) breaks, and you can't get to Icedove to
email a bug report or get help from this list, or log onto a web help
forum through Iceweasel, what then can/will you do? If you don't have
another PC available to do such things, then you're completely dead in
the water with your hosed "cutting edge" system, and will have to stick
that old Ubuntu hard disk back in to allow communication with the
outside world.
--
Stan
Chris
Lisi <lisi....@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Saturday 21 November 2009 18:47:38 Chris wrote:
> > On Sat, 21 Nov 2009 18:41:18 +0000
> >
> > Lisi <lisi....@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On Saturday 21 November 2009 18:05:40 Chris wrote:
> > > > While Ubu 9.10 (assuming) is *nice and flashy*
> > >
> > > To some of us, well one of me anyway, that is a contradiction in
> > > terms. Something cannot be both nice and flashy - it must be
> > > either or. ;-)
> > >
> > > Lisi
> >
> > ... Redefined... Ubu 9.10 (assuming) is both nice (to use, as in
> > ease) AND flashy (visually). Not a contradiction at all.
> >
> > Perhaps I should have taken the time to define that however, knowing
> > the Op was using Ubu to begin with, I assumed the Op knew exactly
> > what I meant and how it was meant.
>
> That was exactly what I took you to mean. I just don't agree with
> you. For me it is a contradiction in terms. And I did make it clear
> a) that I realise that I may be in a small minority in that and b)
> that I was not entirely serious.
>
> Lisi
>
>
Gotcha :)
--
Best regards,
Chris
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Klistvud
> the way I want it. I still have some troublesome apps to install
> (realplayer, xaralx, foxit reader), but I had them working on Jaunty,
Just out of curiosity, as an ex-foxit-user to foxit-user: what does
foxit reader have that other (GNU/Linux) pdf readers don't have?
--
Regards,
Klistvud
Certifiable Loonix User #481801
http://bufferoverflow.tiddlyspot.com
Celejar
AG <computin...@googlemail.com> wrote:
...
> reliably and as expected. If you want higher degrees of churn, which
> will require you to spend a lot more time "under the hood", then try sid
> or to be "uber cool" out-fox your buddies and give sidux a run for its
> money. Nice and speedy distro, with all of the latest gizmos, but is
> likely to require increased maintenance overhead from yourself. It's
> all a question of how much you are prepared to give of your time and how
> much you want to take without any effort on your part.
Curious - why is use of sidux over sid associated with "uber-coolness"?
Celejar
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John Jason Jordan
Klistvud <quota...@aliceadsl.fr> dijo:
> Dne, 21. 11. 2009 21:10:38 je John Jason Jordan napisal(a):
> > the way I want it. I still have some troublesome apps to install
> > (realplayer, xaralx, foxit reader), but I had them working on Jaunty,
>
> Just out of curiosity, as an ex-foxit-user to foxit-user: what does
> foxit reader have that other (GNU/Linux) pdf readers don't have?
I write and publish textbooks for linguistics. Generally I don't have a
problem with PDFs, but occasionally something happens that requires
additional tools.
Recently I received a PDF created in InDesign by a colleague of a local
professor. She had never used InDesign before and could not understand
my instructions. I knew I was in trouble after the following
conversation:
Me: What program did you use to create this file?
Her: Windows
I needed to try every possible PDF viewer to find one that would output
the file to my laser printers. Adobe Reader would open the file, but
printing was glacial. Okular was almost as bad. Evince wouldn't print
it at all. Foxit did the best job, but was still slow. Finally I had to
open the file in Windows and print to PRN file from Adobe Reader there.
I found the PRN file would print beautifully from the command line with
lpr.
I should add that Foxit is one of the few PDF viewers that can handle
editable PDFs. Okular doesn't do all possible controls, and Adobe
Reader / Linux does not either.
There are PDFs and then there are PDFs.
Celejar
Stan Hoeppner <st...@hardwarefreak.com> wrote:
> John Jason Jordan put forth on 11/21/2009 11:44 AM:
>
> > I need advice.
>
> If you have never used a bash shell or are not comfortable with it, or
> are not comfortable with vi/vim and editing Linux config files with
> such, then I suggest you stay far, far away from any Debian
> testing/unstable release. Things will break and you'll be required to
> work from the CLI (command line interface, i.e. bash and vi) to fix them.
>
> For instance, if X (GUI desktop) breaks, and you can't get to Icedove to
> email a bug report or get help from this list, or log onto a web help
> forum through Iceweasel, what then can/will you do? If you don't have
> another PC available to do such things, then you're completely dead in
> the water with your hosed "cutting edge" system, and will have to stick
> that old Ubuntu hard disk back in to allow communication with the
> outside world.
My $.02 - it's probably a really good idea to have a small, stable
installation installed alongside a testing/unstable installation even
if one *is* a CLI expert - forget X, what happens when really basic
stuff, like networking, breaks? Been there, done that:
http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2008/07/msg01704.html
The problem turned out to be this (thanks again, Sven):
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=491114
Celejar
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Jesús M. Navarro
> I have several years of experience with Ubuntu, but I have never looked
> inside. I'm just a pointy-clicky desktop user.
I don't need to read anymore. You should know that "Squeeze" is currently not
only "Squeeze", but Testing too.
By you own accord you are not a suitable user for Testing, therefore you are
not a user for Squeeze (not till Squeeze becomes next Stable, but that's
still months in the future).
AG
On Sat, 21 Nov 2009 20:48:43 +0000 AG <computin...@googlemail.com> wrote: ...reliably and as expected. If you want higher degrees of churn, which will require you to spend a lot more time "under the hood", then try sid or to be "uber cool" out-fox your buddies and give sidux a run for its money. Nice and speedy distro, with all of the latest gizmos, but is likely to require increased maintenance overhead from yourself. It's all a question of how much you are prepared to give of your time and how much you want to take without any effort on your part.Curious - why is use of sidux over sid associated with "uber-coolness"? Celejar
Matthew Moore
> Celejar wrote:
> > Curious - why is use of sidux over sid associated with "uber-coolness"?
> >
> > Celejar
>
> Primarily because of its integrated scripts that keep the system
> updated, its reasonably small user group and its admittedly quite neat
> icon (scorpion) ;-)
If anything, this makes
(coolness of debian sid user) > (coolness of sidux user).
Furthermore, A scorpion is MUCH less cool than a spiral. A spiral has been
badass since the time of the greeks.
MM
Steve Lamb
> Today I have two main motivations for going to Debian:
> 1) It's time to expand my knowledge of Linux, and I have no huge
> computer projects underway at the moment.
If it is for academic purposes why sacrifice the stability you have thus
far enjoyed for learning. Or, from another perspective, why not learn a
little more and be able to do both?
Install VirtualBox on your Ubuntu partition. Run Debian inside the VM to
learn it if that is your goal. You can make a clean install, set a snapshot
to that point, then go about breaking the system, tweaking it, doing things
you might not otherwise do and when all else is said and done, if you can't
recover normally, just reset back to the snapshot.
--
Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream?
PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do...
-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------
Steve Lamb
> However, several Linux friends have suggested it's time for me to move
> on. According to the advice I receive I no longer need the Ubuntu
> training wheels and I would be better served by going to a less
> newbie-oriented distro.
I am going to take a different direction than the few answers I've seen
thus far. I call this into question. I offer myself up as an example.
I have been using Debian since shortly before the libc5 to glib2 (libc6)
conversion. IE, started on Bo (1997), slightly before Hamm (1998). That's
6-7 years before Ubuntu's first release in 2004.
Here are my Linux machines and the distros they use:
Olethros - Leased Xen VM for web/mail/ftp presence on the net. Debian.
Teleute - Router/Samba server for my local network. Debian
Morpheus - Desktop/Game Machine (dual-boot w/W7) - Ubuntu
Mania - Dell Mini 10v Netbook, my carry/use everywhere machine. - Ubuntu
I question the notion that Ubuntu is somehow a lesser distro that one
outgrows. By what you've written I should have never started using Ubuntu
since I supposedly outgrew it years before it existed! Yet it is the Distro I
use most often as virtually all of my web browsing & email correspondence is
performed on my Netbook running Dell's remix of Ubuntu 8.04. The only desire
I have for this machine is to have a newer release (9.10, anyone?) of Ubuntu;
preferably KUbuntu. Not Debian, not Mandrake, Fedora Core, Puppy Linux or who
knows what other distros.
Would I make an argument for Debian on servers? Hell yes. I think it is
the premiere server distro and would fight tooth and nail to get it on any
server that I were responsible for.
But for your personal machine? Does Ubuntu work for you? Is it reliable?
IE, is there any reason you're looking at another distro other than some
friend's snobbery when it comes to what is a "real" distro and what isn't? If
the answers are yes, yes and no, simple. Tell them to get bent and keep on
with what works for *you*.
Andrew M.A. Cater
> On Saturday 21 November 2009 18:44:47 John Jason Jordan wrote:
> > I have several years of experience with Ubuntu, but I have never looked
> > inside. I'm just a pointy-clicky desktop user.
>
> not a user for Squeeze (not till Squeeze becomes next Stable, but that's
> still months in the future).
>
With the best will in the world, this statement doesn't help.
This question is a Frequently Asked Question [FAQ] - answered elsewhere
in places like the Debian Wiki - but something which comes up fairly
regularly on this list.
Similarly, people coming to Debian are bewildered by the number of CDs/DVDs
- "Do I really need to download all 21 / 5" or whatever, the sheer
volume of packages and the confusion of "There are three downloadable
versions of Debian but they're all one Debian" and the repeated effective
assertion that "Once you get past the installer, you need only ever install
Debian once and then apt-get / aptitude update does all the rest"
That leaves aside the "ia64 doesn't work on my Intel machine", any
mention of sheet music and duelling banjos or why apt-get has an
immediately useful moo option and aptitude doesn't :)
Herewith a couple of quick answers: if need be, can we work up an FAQ
list to be posted here once a month or so in the same way that some very
long-established Usenet lists post multi-part FAQs?
Which Debian version should I choose?
=====================================
Debian has various versions. There is always a stable, released version.
There is a "Testing" version and also an "Unstable" version. The testing
and unstable versions have more package churn as they settle: packages
may be uninstallable for varying periods of time if package dependencies
are unavailable. The normal sequence of events is for a package to start
in unstable, move to testing after a period and then, on release of the
next version of stable, be in the stable release.
How long does support for a stable version last?
================================================
For one year after the release of the next stable version. The trend at
the time of writing is one release every 22-24 months, so a version is
fully supported for approximately three years.
How should I install Debian?
============================
Use a CD/DVD/USB bootable image or possibly from a network server PXE
boot. As of Debian 5.0.x, floppy installs are no longer practicable
because of the size of the kernel.
How many CDs / DVDs is it?
==========================
One network install disk if you have Internet bandwidth: if you have no
connectivity or are behind a firewall, 5 DVDs or 22 CDs. It is not
necessary or desirable to install every Debian package.
etc. etc. :)
All best,
Andy
Stan Hoeppner
> There are PDFs and then there are PDFs.
Portable Document Format. Is this in Webster's right next to Oxymoron?
--
Stan
Andrei Popescu
>
> Herewith a couple of quick answers: if need be, can we work up an FAQ
Something like http://wiki.debian.org/FAQsFromDebianUser ? ;)
> list to be posted here once a month or so in the same way that some very
> long-established Usenet lists post multi-part FAQs?
I doubt posting it here regularly will help, because people asking these
questions are usually not searching the archives or the web.
Maybe putting a link in the footer appended by the list would have more
effect?
Regards,
Andrei
--
Offtopic discussions among Debian users and developers:
http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/d-community-offtopic
S. Fishpaste
> This question is a Frequently Asked Question [FAQ] - answered elsewhere
> in places like the Debian Wiki - but something which comes up fairly
> regularly on this list.
Thanks for your work; I've saved it to refer to. It helps and probably is a
good idea to post this monthly.
Someone mentioned the sheer volume of information that is often available to
the Debian user. I can see how it's intimidating and confusing to the casual
user as it is to even those of us that consider themselves perhaps a little
more experienced but still learning non-the-less.
So I guess with my blabbering what I'm trying to say is; It' nice to have short,
concise information available in certain situations. 8)
S. Fishpaste
> On Sun,22.Nov.09, 19:01:38, Andrew M.A. Cater wrote:
>> Herewith a couple of quick answers: if need be, can we work up an FAQ=20>> list to be posted here once a month or so in the same way that some very=
>
>> long-established Usenet lists post multi-part FAQs?
>
> questions are usually not searching the archives or the web.
>
> effect?
Why not both? Isn't the point that if not read here at least it will show up
on the search engines? More is better might be appropiate here.
Memnon Anon
> On Sun, 22 Nov 2009 19:01:38 +0000, Andrew M.A. Cater in gmane.linux.debian.user wrote:
>
>> This question is a Frequently Asked Question [FAQ] - answered elsewhere
>> in places like the Debian Wiki - but something which comes up fairly
>> regularly on this list.
>
> Thanks for your work; I've saved it to refer to. It helps and probably is a
> good idea to post this monthly.
[...]
> So I guess with my blabbering what I'm trying to say is; It' nice to have short,
> concise information available in certain situations. 8)
Interesting question.
Is there any FAQ availabe for this list?
Some lists keep sending a monthly pointer to a faq, this list does
not...
Does it exist?
'in places like'... does not refer to a specific place for debian-user.
Would it be a good thing to have?
Please comment.
Memnon
Rob Owens
case you need another one for your list...
-Rob
Aniruddha
Install Debian stable and use apt-pinning to get testing/unstable packages:Having spent just a day in testing I am not happy with the quantity of bugs. Yes, I know it is called "testing" for a reason. And I am happy to do my part to help fix problems. Yet I need a computer that I can use for real work. But at the same time I want the latest and greatest. I need OOo 3.1 and Scribus 1.3.5.1 and the most recent versions of several other apps that I live in all day long. The stable versions of Debian are not sufficiently cutting edge for me. Or have I misunderstood that?
http://wiki.debian.org/AptPinning
http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/apt-howto/ch-apt-get.en.html
Klistvud
> Someone mentioned the sheer volume of information that is often
> available to
> the Debian user. I can see how it's intimidating and confusing to the
> casual
> user as it is to even those of us that consider themselves perhaps a
> little
> more experienced but still learning non-the-less.
>
Precisely. The trouble with the standard "RTFM" or "Google is your
friend" answers is that, if you follow them to the letter, you'll find
not one but, say, half a dozen different infos/posts/howtos that will
appear as potential solutions to a casual user. Of course, one of those
will not work in Lenny because it was Etch-specific, another will not
work for, say, a DHCP-networked computer with NetworkManager, but only
for static-IP machines, or vice versa, and so on. Problem is that, as a
newbie, you won't know that in advance. You'll proceed by trial and
error.
(There's also the possibility that your issue is simply a brand
new glitch/bug that hasn't made it to the various bug
trackers yet, so all your research won't help you zilch.)
Once a typical newbie has tried out all those suggestions and
discovered that they don't work -- and even if he discovered that some
actually do work -- he will have modified so many parts of his Debian
install, that it may well be messed up. Which, for a complete newbie,
may virtually spell "messed up *beyond repair*".
All a newbie or a casual user can do is change his attitude: start
considering these obstacles/challenges not as "pitfalls", but as
"opportunities to learn". Life's not perfect, but it's perfectible. To
a degree. Sometimes.
--
Regards,
Klistvud
Certifiable Loonix User #481801
http://bufferoverflow.tiddlyspot.com
Celejar
"Andrew M.A. Cater" <amac...@galactic.demon.co.uk> wrote:
...
> Herewith a couple of quick answers: if need be, can we work up an FAQ
> list to be posted here once a month or so in the same way that some very
> long-established Usenet lists post multi-part FAQs?
Nice idea.
...
> How long does support for a stable version last?
> ================================================
> For one year after the release of the next stable version. The trend at
> the time of writing is one release every 22-24 months, so a version is
> fully supported for approximately three years.
Minor nitpick - the two year freeze / release schedule is actually
current official policy, not just a trend:
http://www.debian.org/News/2009/20090729
...
> How many CDs / DVDs is it?
> ==========================
>
> One network install disk if you have Internet bandwidth: if you have no
> connectivity or are behind a firewall, 5 DVDs or 22 CDs. It is not
> necessary or desirable to install every Debian package.
One should probably add that in general, they try to put the more
commonly used stuff on the earlier images, so most people won't
actually need all of them, at least not to begin with.
Celejar
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Paul Johnson
> Having spent just a day in testing I am not happy with the quantity of
> bugs. Yes, I know it is called "testing" for a reason. And I am happy
> to do my part to help fix problems. Yet I need a computer that I can
> use for real work. But at the same time I want the latest and greatest.
> I need OOo 3.1 and Scribus 1.3.5.1 and the most recent versions of
> several other apps that I live in all day long.
Really? What do OOo 3.1 and Scribus 1.3.5.1 have to offer that you
can't do in older versions?
> The stable versions of Debian are not sufficiently cutting edge for me. Or have I
> misunderstood that?
Probably misunderstood. Testing is NOT for you if you just want it to
work. That's what stable is for. Stability or cutting edge: Pick one.
> The local Linux friends who thought I should move on from Ubuntu
> suggested testing as the closest in the Debian world to the Ubuntu way
> of doing things. After today I am thinking they were wrong.
Ubuntu is closest to the Debian way of thinking, if Debian were clubbed
in the head with a brick by Special Ed to make Debian "special" too.
Kamil Kułaga
> The local Linux friends who thought I should move on from Ubuntu
> suggested testing as the closest in the Debian world to the Ubuntu way
> of doing things. After today I am thinking they were wrong.
>
I disagree with your friends. http://www.debian.org/devel/testing
Some packages in ubuntu are from unstable tree. Twice a year ubuntu
team pick packages and release. Debian/Testing gives you new package
as soon as it is "briefly" tested. So testing gives you opportunity
for not reinstalling your system for several time and have stable
enough system. Yesterday I checked firefox(iceweasel) version in
debian testing and it is still 3.0.14!!!
Backports for stable are nice if you want to have only some
applications up to date (for example newer firefox) but core still
becomes extensively tested server distribution.
I used for several time unstable distribution for real work and now
using mix of testing and unstable for real work. Only what gives me a
lot od irritation is randomly not waking up from s2ram which didn't
work in ubuntu anyway.
--
Pozdrawiam
Mark Allums
> The local Linux friends who thought I should move on from Ubuntu
> suggested testing as the closest in the Debian world to the Ubuntu way
> of doing things. After today I am thinking they were wrong.
Debian is what Ubuntu wants to be when it grows up.
(Ubuntu is a mix of Debian testing and unstable.)
Mark Allums
John Jason Jordan
Paul Johnson <ba...@ursamundi.org> dijo:
> John Jason Jordan wrote:
>
> > Having spent just a day in testing I am not happy with the quantity of
> > bugs. Yes, I know it is called "testing" for a reason. And I am happy
> > to do my part to help fix problems. Yet I need a computer that I can
> > use for real work. But at the same time I want the latest and greatest.
> > I need OOo 3.1 and Scribus 1.3.5.1 and the most recent versions of
> > several other apps that I live in all day long.
>
> Really? What do OOo 3.1 and Scribus 1.3.5.1 have to offer that you
> can't do in older versions?
OOo 3.1.1 fixes a lot of bugs when using Math in a Writer document. I
need that feature to work. Scribus 1.3.5.1 adds so many features that
it would take too long to list them. Suffice it to say that I need the
new features. I do book design and layout, and these tools are critical
to me.
> > The stable versions of Debian are not sufficiently cutting edge for me. Or have I
> > misunderstood that?
> Probably misunderstood. Testing is NOT for you if you just want it to
> work. That's what stable is for. Stability or cutting edge: Pick one.
> > The local Linux friends who thought I should move on from Ubuntu
> > suggested testing as the closest in the Debian world to the Ubuntu way
> > of doing things. After today I am thinking they were wrong.
> Ubuntu is closest to the Debian way of thinking, if Debian were clubbed
> in the head with a brick by Special Ed to make Debian "special" too.
I was migrating from Ubuntu Jaunty. One of my goals in doing so was to
increase my knowledge. The other goal was to get a distribution that is
better supported by the Scribus developers. Scribus depends on Qt4, and
apparently the Ubuntu developers have taken liberties with it. Scribus
developers do not mince words in expressing their dislike of Ubuntu.
They openly suggest Debian, Fedora or OpenSuse. Debian package
management has no peer in the Linux world. Hence, Debian was my first
choice.
I should add that in order to embark on this journey I purchased a new
hard disk for my laptop. The only one with Jaunty sits on a shelf. I
can use it as a source of config files and data, or I can just put it
back in and I am back where I was in Jaunty.
What has happened since I posed the question at the beginning of this
thread is that I tried installing Unstable. In doing so I wiped out
Testing and reformatted the hard disk. At the end of the installation
it asked if I wanted Grub 2, Grub 1.5, or LILO. I selected Grub 2. But
when the installer tried to write Grub 2 to the MBR something bad
happened and I got an error message that installing Grub had failed. I
used the back button and tried installing Grub 1.5 instead, but that
also failed. I used the back button once more and installed LILO.
Unfortunately, thinking that it would make it easier to replace LILO
with Grub later, I told it to install it to sda1 (which is /) instead
of sda. LILO installed fine, but when I rebooted at the end of the
installation I got a Grub 2 error screen. I could not recover from the
error screen because the commands available are useless. In short,
there was no way to boot.
This was the fourth time I had attempted to install a version of
Debian. In each case I had problems that I was unable to repair. The
first two times with testing I lost the window manager and gnome-panel.
I tried at least a dozen suggestions to fix the problem, but I could
not get them to load automatically on login. I even set up a new user,
where metacity and gnome panel worked fine. But after a day of working
as the new user, suddenly I lost metacity and gnome-panel again. The
only way to sleuth down exactly what was causing the problem would be
to log out and back in again after every single little configuration
change or app install, which would take a week at least.
After the mess with an unbootable Unstable yesterday (which takes
nearly two hours to install over the internet), I was so bummed at
Debian that last night I installed Fedora 12. As I expected, package
management sucks compared to the Debian world. But it connected to my
bluetooth mouse right off (which worked fine in Jaunty as well) but
which I could never get working in Debian. And so far there have been
no problems.
I'm going to stick with Fedora for a while and see how it goes. I still
love Debian. But the problem is that every version of Debian, including
the derivatives like Ubuntu, have problems that render them unsuitable
for me.
Rob Owens
>
> This was the fourth time I had attempted to install a version of
> Debian. In each case I had problems that I was unable to repair. The
> first two times with testing I lost the window manager and gnome-panel.
> I tried at least a dozen suggestions to fix the problem, but I could
> not get them to load automatically on login. I even set up a new user,
> where metacity and gnome panel worked fine. But after a day of working
> as the new user, suddenly I lost metacity and gnome-panel again. The
> only way to sleuth down exactly what was causing the problem would be
> to log out and back in again after every single little configuration
> change or app install, which would take a week at least.
>
> After the mess with an unbootable Unstable yesterday (which takes
> nearly two hours to install over the internet), I was so bummed at
> Debian that last night I installed Fedora 12. As I expected, package
> management sucks compared to the Debian world. But it connected to my
> bluetooth mouse right off (which worked fine in Jaunty as well) but
> which I could never get working in Debian. And so far there have been
> no problems.
>
> I'm going to stick with Fedora for a while and see how it goes. I still
> love Debian. But the problem is that every version of Debian, including
> the derivatives like Ubuntu, have problems that render them unsuitable
> for me.
>
apt-pinning to get more recent versions of Scribus, etc), you could try
running it from a USB flash drive.
Instructions:
2) Insert USB drive and make sure it's unmounted (your desktop
environment may automatically mount it. If so, unmount it).
3) As root or sudo:
dd if=debian-live-502-i386-gnome-desktop.img of=/dev/sdX ...... Where
sdX is the device name for your usb drive.
4) Create a partition for persistence
As root or sudo:
fdisk /dev/sdX
p (print the existing partition table)
n (create a new partition)
p (primary partition)
2 (partion #2)
enter (accept default)
enter (accept default to use the entire remaining space for this partition)
w (write the partition table)
5) Create the filesystem for persistence
As root or sudo:
mkfs.ext2 -L live-rw /dev/sdX2 (note the "2" which is for the second partition on your USB drive)
Now you can boot off of the USB device. At the boot menu, hit Tab (I
think) to edit the boot parameters. Add the word "persistent" (no
quotes). Hit enter to boot.
-Rob