On Fri, Mar 27, 2009 at 06:19:28PM -0000, Ted Harding wrote:
On 27-Mar-09 16:22:13, Chris G wrote:
On Fri, Mar 27, 2009 at 03:07:01PM +0000, mick wrote:
On Fri, 27 Mar 2009 14:51:27 -0000 (GMT) (Ted Harding) Ted.Harding@manchester.ac.uk allegedly wrote:
On the other hand, Ubuntu is more liberal and seems to have more concern for "user happiness". But, that said, I can do without a lot of the Ubuntu "candy" -- I like a "clean & lean" system. And my main usage is in technical areas -- especially statistical and mathemtical computing, and typesetting, so I'd favour a distribution which caters well for those areas. On the whole, it seems Debian is well suited for that. My "test flights" of Ubuntu have not gone as far as digging deeply into its capabilities on such fronts.
Yes, I'd agree in a sense, Ubuntu is aiming at 'the masses' in many ways. I'm use the xubuntu version of Ubuntu which is xfce based and thus somewhat leaner than either Ubuntu (Gnome) or Kubuntu (KDE).
So, while I have also been considering an Ubuntu installation as an alternative to Debian, I'm not sure whether it is the wisest choice. My attitude to a Linux distribution is that, once set up and running, it will on the whole stay as it is while I just use it. Although I have gone along with Debian's propositions for upgrades (with few regrets), I always feel a bit uneasy about it! And I suspect that Ubuntu may be even "busier" on that front than Debian.
Ubuntu keeps things as safe as it can for any particular release, i.e. you get bug fixes and security fixes but it doesn't generally upgrade to new versions of software just "because they're there" until you move to a new version of Ubuntu.
What I do like about Ubuntu is that there is a well defined upgrade path from version to version.
One final question: Debian have very recently released their latest "stable" (5.0.0 "lenny" on February 14th, 2009). It seems that the next Ubuntu released is due in the very near future -- but I have not managed to discover a definite planned release date. Does anyone know?
I think Ubuntu 9.4 is due 27th April. The releases are *always* April and October (hence the .4 and .10). The next LTS (Long Term Support) release is 10.4 due in April 2010.