digg

Join DiggAbout

Discover and share the best of the web!
Learn more about Digg by taking the tour.

Debian: server yes, desktop no

desktoplinux.com — I recently decided to retire Red Hat 7 after seven years of loyal service as a firewall/router-OS on my home LAN. Like a red-headed stepchild grown old, it had become cranky from extended neglect, and no longer would even shutdown or reboot without issuing nasty messages.

Bury
show profanity settings
expand all
  • esthero, on 10/12/2007, -5/+18Good story. However, I don't think it's as hard as the author makes out to get Debian up and running with a complete desktop system that can be compared to Ubuntu and the like. It comes down to what packages you install, as well as what sources you use (stable, unstable, testing). Dugg.
    • shadus, on 10/12/2007, -2/+16I agree, I've never had a problem setting up debian... and I've used it since the mid-late 90s for my primary linux distribution, I've also used redhat, gentoo, ubuntu, and suse. Is it the easiest? No-- it doesn't auto install everything. Does it take more work than installing packages on the others? No. The nice thing is you can install several metapackages and get everything you need for whatever install type you want. Debian gives me a lot of options on what I want installed and how, makes a great desktop system. The only one that gives more options is gentoo but man... thats a lot of compiling and its hard to maintain in a clean state over several years.
    • esthero, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10"The only one that gives more options is gentoo but man... thats a lot of compiling and its hard to maintain in a clean state over several years."

      Totally agree with you here. I was an avid Debian user after a friend introduced me to the 'testing' branch, where you could get all the bleeding edge packages.

      After a while I thought I'd give Gentoo a go, and while it's true that the compiling etc is hard work, the thing I found annoying was how long it took to do the compiling, even on an 1800+ it took overnight to compile Xwin & Gnome. And, at the end of it all, there wasn't any real noticeable difference between Debian testing & Gentoo :)

      The one thing I took from Gentoo was how great their documentation is. If only debian was as up to date with their doco as Gentoo is!
    • taintparty, on 10/12/2007, -15/+2Why is someone still using Red Hat 7 as a firewall? That's just being a crappy admin, you should have upgraded long ago. And you shouldn't use Redhat as a firewall, you should be using openBSD or something meant to be secure. I guess this is Digg, after all.
    • bias, on 10/12/2007, -11/+5i agree too, since I've no problem setting up Debian, everyone should have no problem. if you do, you are a fxxking idiot. linux can never be too hard to use, you are just too stupid.
    • americamatrix, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6Hrmm.... not sure why the guy is going thru all of that...when you could use something like...

      Wolverine...
      http://www.coyotelinux.com/

      or
      SmoothWall...
      http://www.smoothwall.org/

      or
      IPCop...
      http://www.ipcop.org/

      I personally have been using Wolverine Linux for the past year, and its been great. The only time that system is down is if the power is out and my UPS's battery dies out...

      Vortech Consulting FTW!
    • shadus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@esthero
      Yah gentoo stole all the good document writers :P

      Fortunately http://www.debian-administration.org/ is a pretty handy site which covers MOST of the holes... I'd love to see gentoo level of documentation for debian.
  • TheMoken, on 10/12/2007, -5/+10Debian desktop: Use the testing install CD, boot into the system.

    #> aptitude install x-window-system
    #> aptitude install ion3/gnome/kde
    #> aptitude install iceweasel (firefox)
    Done and done.

    Running Debian sid right now. The above will get you a respectable Etch system.
    • CurtHowland, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3With a desktop system, I consider Unstable to be far more workable than Testing.

      When Debian does a release, that day's snapshot of Testing is rolled over to become Stable. That means that Testing is what the next Stable is going to be.

      However, when that rollover is done, Testing gets very, VERY unstable. Things may break for extended periods, because the Debian developers are busy deciding how they want to do things in the future with Testing, rather than being focused on what is working or not working _now_. When I first installed Debian, I, too, thought that Testing would be the way to go. But then I ran face-first into exactly that kind of "we're not going to fix that" situation.

      Unstable is in continuous flux. Little things may happen, once in a while, but only the transition from Xfree86 to Xorg caused the kind of big problem other people complain about with trying to "upgrade" other distributions, and that's in 11 years of using Unstable.

      A server just has to work. Debian Stable does that in spades. But the fact is that if you need a stable system, you could just as easily install Unstable, get it working like you want it to be, with software and versions that work for you, and then just _leave_it_alone_.

      Desktop systems, on the other hand, have a "hands on" aspect that servers don't have. I have learned far more about Linux, the Unix operating environment, those little indispensable tools like "lsof" and "dmesg" by tracking down the little problems over years of constantly upgrading and fiddling, than I ever would have learned if all I'd done is leave my system well enough alone.

      Multi-year up-times are cute, but dull. I had a lot of fun with the 2.4.10 virtual memory swap storms, for example, but that's what one must expect when trying to keep up with the latest kernel. 2.6 has been wonderful, I've had no concerns with loading the very latest kernel as soon as the Debian developers package it.
    • drag, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It depends.

      Probably what you would want to do is use pinning to use Testing, but have packages aviable from stable and unstable.

      Right now I would not track 'testing', I'd track 'Etch' and live with stable for a while until I got tired of it.

      For a while after stable, maybe for a few months, I'd just keep using 'Etch' then upgrade to testing pinned with Unstable and stable aviable as repositories, then track that version until it gets released as stable. Rinse and repeat. I like unstable, but for most stuff it has a lot of churn. It gets tiresome.

      Ah f-it. I'll probably just keep tracking unstable. But my point is that there is a lot of different things you can do depending on your temperment.

      Also in the future I don't expect nearly the same level of breakage. The two major things were the XFree to X.org transition. Previously upgrading between XFree releases was traumatic, but having a modular X has solved most of that problem. Now the last upgrade from 7.0 to 7.1 was smooth as silk.

      The other big horror that happenned was the C++ ABI breakage by moving up to GCC 4.x land. That sucked for KDE users. But it's the nature of C++ this sort of crap happens. But I have a feeling that GCC 4.x.x is going to be around for a long, long time and I don't expect the same thing to happen.

      Also it's worth pointing out for people who may want to use Debian as a desktop that Ubuntu is a snapshot of Debian unstable + modified/newer Gnome and X.org along with a bucketload of kernel patches. So using Debian Unstable will actually provide newer stuff then most of what you'd get with Ubuntu (since Unstable is a moving target)
  • noamsml, on 10/12/2007, -4/+15Ubuntu and mepis are debian for the desktop.
    • schestowitz, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12Elive might be a better example. MEPIS has recently become a Ubuntu derivative, which makes it aDebian's granadchild (or an in-law).
  • JohnTheLutheran, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Setting up a Debian desktop is quite straightforward if you choose the Desktop installation task (plus, IIRC, the Print Server task if you want to have CUPS set up automatically).

    Then add the Debian Multimedia repos to get the w32codecs, acroread etc. Sun Java and the Nvidia binary drivers are available once you add the non-free repo. I think Iceweasel is part of the standard installation.

    Installation isn't as quite as slick as Ubuntu's live CD installation - and I hope the final release makes the graphical installer option a little more obvious - but it's still pretty straightforward.

    In short, there is a certain degree of work to getting the system set up, but once you've done that then it works pretty painlessly from then on. I installed Etch over a year ago, and everything has been very low-maintenance since then, apart from when I do New Things like installing an ATI graphics card (disaster! avoid!!!) and then rip it out and replace it with Nvidia...
  • gadgeek, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I've used Debian on the desktop since 1998, but I don't like it on a server. The unstable versions are too dynamic! And the stable never seems to have the libraries you need to run the software you want to run. But it is the best desktop environment, because it has almost every package you could imagine, and keeping it up-to-date is trivial. And on the desktop, if something breaks when you do an update, you can live with the 10 minutes of downtime it takes to fix it, typically by going into /var/apt/cache/archives and dpkg -i'ing the old version of whatever broke.
    • shadus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9I've used stable on a few hundred servers, and ... well, I've had to install something that wasn't in the archive... twice in > 10 years? Most server software that is proprietary and not part of debian's package archives uses older libs than debian even uses. If I were going to use something that was going to break constantly/potentially break for a server on update I'd run gentoo :P
    • merreborn, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Personally, I admin a dozen or so debian LAMP servers, and I'm constantly wrestling with out of date packages. Frequently, we'll run into a bug in PHP or MySQL, and find that it's already been fixed, but debian stable has 12-18 month old versions of the packages that don't include the fix.

      We're using dotdeb.org for those packages now, and backports.org for one or two other ones. It's workable, but frankly, I'm looking at switching to Ubuntu in the future, just for the sake of having fresher packages.

      Other than that, I have no complaints. In fact, except for the old packages, I friggin love debian.
    • shadus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2or switch to one of the more current branches of debian, since that's basically what you're doing by going to ubuntu *shrug*.
  • cellofellow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Just like to say I have done exactly this. I have Xubuntu on my desktop, and found myself with an old Pentium machine. I initially installed Puppy, hoping to use it for a low-power desktop or thin client. That didn't do to well because it was really slow and the video card didn't even handle Xorg at all, although th XVesa server worked.

    So, I decided I wanted a server. I downloaded the Debian Sarge net-install floppies (I don't have a working CD burner and thought why waste a disk I did have one). I made a big mistake when using dd to copy the disks, wiping my root partition but that's another story.

    Today I have a small Debian Sarge server running Apache, DNSMasq, SSH, Samba (though I still have problems with Samba in a no-authentication Windows 98 network) and a CUPS based print server. It may be slow, but it does all I need it to and would use the same system on the box that is my desktop if I buy a new box.

    Ubuntu-&-Company are my desktop systems of choice, but Debian is my favorite server all the way.

    Good article!
  • stmiller, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5The issue with Debian and desktop is not ease/difficulty of install. It is that Debian stable does not have the latest and greatest packages, which could be not so good for the desktop user. But accepted and wanted for a server- for stability.

    • ISIfunded911, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6That is why so many debian desktop users prefer the testing version (currently named Etch) for an up-to-date desktop. Every testing package has been debugged by the devs while in experimental version, and then for a couple of weeks by the devs and experienced users while in sid version.
      A further step to avoid bugs can be taken by installing the apt-listbugs package, which will inform you about the important bugs that affect the packages you have chosen to upgrade.
      If you are still unsure about the explanation about a specific bug, you can check the bug number on:
      http://www.debian.org/Bugs/
      If the upgrade goes wrong, you can downgrade the versions of the faulty packages. If things went really bad, you can reboot, log as root, and use lynx (internet browser that does not use X) to find out what went wrong. Or use a live-cd.
  • haveacigar, on 10/12/2007, -9/+1Turn off computer
    "Oh, too cheap to leave your computer on are you? well then ***** off!"

    turn on computer
    "You again? Your too stupid to run linux... go use mac you apple loving bastard"
  • Alisic, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Good article, I liked it.
  • McGrude, on 10/12/2007, -9/+2Then don't ues Linux. Who needs all the resource hogging pretty graphics anyway. Just download an ISO for FreeBSD 6.1 and away you go. No graphical cruft getting in your way.
    (as I write this on my G5 and install FreeBSD on an old 1Ghz P3).
    • doodlebumm, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7BSD systems will outperform Linux systems for server purposes in almost all conditions. It is just better. If you throw 1M web page requests at the system, it will usually (eventually) handle all those requests. Linux will tend to hiccup as it gets overloaded.

      But if you use BSD you may have to compile your own apps, as there are fewer to choose from. If you are not comfortable doing that, and you need some non-easy-to-get applications for it, then maybe Linux is a better solution for your case.

      Linux is better for a desktop, due to the abundance of applications.

      Just like everything else, use the tool that bests suits your needs and budget. Don't use a hammer to put a screw in place, and don't use a screwdriver to hammer in a nail.

      I usually like to use BSD for servers and Ubuntu for desktops. But that is my preference. Your mileage may vary.
    • Urusai, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Compile your own??? I can't be bothered with ./configure && make && make install, I'm not a rocket scientist!!!
    • licoricewhip, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2My first free-os experience was on FreeBSD 3.2 (or 3.3?) on a Cyrix 100mhz something-or-other. I dunno... I think I totally set myself up for failure there! But, I managed to get the dirtly little s-o-b running WindowMaker and basic server functionality and a x586-based compilation of the kernel and some Cyrix-specific pieces compiled in as well. It was a painful first impression. I guess, what I am trying to say is, all I am asking for is some sympathy and genuine well-wishes.
  • fishfishfish, on 10/12/2007, -5/+0Is Red Hat 7 really seven years old? I thought it came out at the end of 2000?
  • rmxz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3On servers use Debian Stable for parts non-core to your application (where the stability and best security patches in the industry mean you don't have to worry about those components at all); and get the specific leading-edge components you need either from the Unstable repository or from the upstream projects themselves. For those packages you're responsible for testing them and following the latest of security patches - but since they are core components of your application, it makes sense to do so.

    We use Debian Stable + postgresql from postgresql.org, ruby from the ruby devs (testing with yarv, but not on the servers yet), and rails from the rails project, all installed in /usr/local.

    This gives us the best of both worlds - the security and stability of Debian Stable - plus the very latest of the packages we need.
  • mcflynnthm, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I personally run Debian on my desktop machine at home and for the little file/print server we have set up for the apartment, and I think Debian is a very acceptable choice for a desktop distro.
    I never found it a particularly difficult process to get my Debian desktop up and running in the way I wanted it. Admittedly, these days I'm pretty easy to please (especially since WoW runs in Crossover Linux :P).
  • deadbaby, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2FYI, the GRUB problem you're having is due to chipset limitations of your hardware.

    "This error is returned when a read is attempted at a linear block address beyond the end of the BIOS translated area. This generally happens if your disk is larger than the BIOS can handle (512MB for (E)IDE disks on older machines or larger than 8GB in general). Try an update for your BIOS and/or move your boot partition to the front (or at least into the appropriate range)."

  • satan666, on 10/12/2007, -7/+2I hate to say it but if you want a no-nonsense distro, no graphics junk, no bloat etc., then install Slackware.
  • Nougat, on 10/12/2007, -9/+2What? You mean a Linux install started behaving badly without maintenance? Can't be; Linux is perfect. /sarcasm
  • DaBlade, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7I couldn't disagree more. Not only is Debian (Etch) easy to install (just type installgui when you boot the CD and you get an Anaconda Installer-type GUI installation). Go through the usual stuff (formatting, partitioning, root password, users etc..) and you get to select "Desktop". Now, I used the Netinst (Net Installer) CD, which basically downloads all the necessary packages (instead of having DVDs of the stuff, plus the packages are new), and installs it. It's very easy, though not Linspire/Mandriva/Ubuntu/MEPIS/whatever-type teletubbies-easy installation. You're actually required to do something! :)
    Anyway, after installation, you just pop open a terminal, log in as root and type in apt-get install kde. That's it. :)
  • hydrokayak, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I use Debian Sarge for a desktop. It's decent. I like being able to apt-get things. A while ago I used MEPIS, and am considering switching back... Anyone know if I can use APT in MEPIS? If so, it's going to be a quick switch to try it out.

    Debian will still run on my servers though... have no fear...
    • chrisl456, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I'm running Mepis 6.0, and yes it uses apt. I haven't used previous versions, but I thought they were all based on either Debian or Ubuntu, so shouldn't they all have had apt?
  • tropican8, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Hmm, I never found Debian difficult to install for desktop use. Unlike its children, Debian doesn't make the "best" choices for you. There are three branches, and a million packages in each branch. You have to be able to know exactly what you want before you do it. Personally I prefer the more straightforward approach. I can see why it would be a pain in the neck though.
    • CurtHowland, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"...a million packages each..."

      Running Unstable, just did "update" in dselect:

      ------------------
      Fetched 291kB in 16s (18.0kB/s)
      Reading package lists... Done
      Merging available information
      Replacing available packages info, using /var/cache/apt/available.
      Information about 19959 package(s) was updated.
      ------------------

      41 packages to go to reach 20,000. I would guess that there will be 20,000 in about two weeks. I also expect that there will be some purging done after Etch is released, so 20,000 packages for the next month or two.

      I agree with the comment above that there is rarely a need to install software from outside the Debian archive, if one includes Debian-Multimedia.org in that grouping.

  • midwinter, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I happily run Debian testing on my desktop, without a single problem so far. It's really not that hard to get it going, and chances are it'll run faster than some derivative distro filled with junk.
    • CurtHowland, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1We're coming up on a new release cycle.

      I recommend that you change /etc/apt/sources.list to read "etch" instead of "testing". This will ensure that you continue to point to the pool of packages that is presently "testing" through the transition.

      In a few months, when the new "testing" has settled down, go back into /etc/apt/sources.list and change it back to "testing". Then the next time you "apt-get update" you'll get the new package listings and everything will go back to what you know of as normal.

      Right after a release, "testing" can get very unstable due to the developers being focused upon what they want to work in the future, rather than what is working now. Testing has no assurance that anything will be fixed in a timely manner.

      Personally, I use Unstable. I find the continuous minor changes much easier to deal with than the more occasional but major earthquake level events that happen in Testing. Especially with a desktop machine which I'm accustomed to fiddling with anyway.

  • jmcantrell, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2similar situation with me... desktop setups always end with no satisfaction on my part, but my servers are perfect.
  • gJon, on 10/12/2007, -4/+4If you want debian for the desktop that is easy to install/configure then just use Ubuntu.
    • Stemp, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I really don't know why you are Digged down ? You're absolutely right, one cd and you have a gnome/kde/xfce desktop up and running with Ubuntu.
      So Debian folks, stop bashing Ubuntu and create a desktop-Debian cd.
  • ohhhL3ThaL, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1Red-headed step child. Wow, you are just ***** hilarious.



  • rshakin, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Hehe I run love my debian install on my sun ultra 5... I've tried it all, freebsd netbsd and redhat for sparc. And I have to say that Debian Stable Run's like a champ on my web server hosting my blog. Specs of the system along with the story http://rubicon.merseine.nu/misc-stuff/system/

    13:09:06 up 78 days, 22:05, 2 users, load average: 0.02, 0.10, 0.02
    USER TTY FROM LOGIN@ IDLE JCPU PCPU WHAT
    rshakin pts/0 netblock-72-25-8 13:05 0.00s 0.24s 0.04s w
    • CurtHowland, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Agreed! Debian on SPARC runs much more smoothly than SunOS ever did.

      I've recycled SPARC 2, 10 and 20s by installing Debian and turned them into fully modern servers when they'd been written off as extinct by others.

      Oh, sure, they're not race-horses. They are steady, solid machines. And priced very nicely, too.

      If SUN wanted to do something really nice to the F/OSS community, they could GPL the SPARC-64 chip design. It's not like it's making them money any more, and combined with OpenBIOS and a couple of Korean or Taiwanese chip/MB makers could give INTEL and AMD a serious run for their money in commodity systems.

  • daxsymbiont, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5linux is linux. once you get used to it any distribution does the job. i use debian unstable for years as a desktop and i don't want to change it either for the new community of ubuntu (sorry, i don't want to be the "pro" in forums when i want a question answered fast) or gentoo (and wait for ages to get vim compiled).

    the only problem linux, any distro, faces is software houses support. i still keep windows on purpose to run at least games.
  • gravityboy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3The author is probably using a Sarge install for his desktop. That's fine, but the new release is due out in a few weeks (it was just frozen the other day) and it will incorporate a ton of improvements for the desktop user. Hopefully Etch will work out better for him.
  • ggpipe, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0I just tried installing Debian on a PC at work at it is no picnic so far. I've installed RedHat and Ubuntu before and they were alot easier to get working. So far I've run into problems with lack of ethernet drivers and lack of SATAII support (both on this machine).
  • FyberOptic, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2For the record, Ubuntu has an "Alternate" install disc you can download from their site which resorts to the classic text-based installer. I had to use this on my old laptop, since the newer live-cd-style installation was horrible to try and sit through on it. But after it installed, I ended up with the same setup as I would have with the normal install disc, and all's good.
    • coolbru, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Installing Ubuntu form live took a Dell Inspiron 8200/2.4/512 around 12 hours of constant HD thrashing. No idea why. The alternate CD installed in about 40 mins, and though text only, was easier. I also installed XP on it, and I was quite pleasantly surprised at the installer (I'm not a regular Windows user); it actually looked better, was easier and installed faster than Ubuntu.
      Normally I use Ubuntu or Debian on servers, OS X on the desktop.
    • FyberOptic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It would seem the recent Digg stories about comment trolls is true, because even though my comment was on subject and helpful, it still got rated down. Hooray democracy?
    • CurtHowland, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@ FyberOptic,

      Ask Socrates. Democracy _sucks_ as a decision making process. It's terribly inefficient and arbitrary.

      Dictatorship is by far the most efficient decision making process, but it has its own tendencies for abuse. Introduce any power into the situation, and no dictatorship is benevolent for long.

  • sembetu, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1"Thank you for choosing Debian!" ...but, will it boot?

    ha

    "Thank you for choosing Debian!" ...but, will it BLEND?"!!
  • darthmdh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I buried this as inaccurate. The conclusion reached by the title is not supported by the article, which itself spends 80% of its time talking about how the author was an idiot, 15% about how great Debian is, and the remaining 5% on a brief mention of the desktop with no supporting arguments to the opinion expressed.

    Yes, there are other distributions (funny enough, mostly Debian-based) that are targetted at the desktop and do a better job than plain Debian. Does that mean Debian is bad, or simply that Debian makes it easy to customise to any particular purpose while retaining sensible administration and ease of use? I think its more a testament of Debian's success and achievement.
  • Stonekeeper, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I dont know what this guy was doing wrong but ubuntu server has worked first time on all HW configurations I've chucked at it....
  • mickstephenson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1what really annoys me is this
    "As google kindly reminded me, there was a time back in the latter years of the 20th century when you had to install the MBR (master boot record) in a small partition at the beginning of your hard drive -- otherwise the BIOS couldn't boot from it."
    what a moron, there is a difference between the MBR and a boot partition, everyone has an MBR with or without a boot partition, windows only has 1 partition, it still uses an MBR, people like this shudnt be writing articles which people will assume is informed, i use debian as my desktop, and the major advantage to ubuntu is a more advanced tab completion system in bash.
    buried
  • xerox, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1he installed apache without a sql server? people still use sites that aren't database driven?
  •  

    Login or register to add a comment

    Create a new account or login to join in the conversation on Digg. You'll also be able to Digg stories to help promote things you like.


© Digg Inc. 2008 — Content posted by Digg users is dedicated to the public domain.
DIGG, DIGG IT, DUGG, DIGG THIS, Digg graphics, logos, designs, page headers, button icons, scripts, and other service names are the trademarks of Digg Inc.