Debian Unstable vs. Ubuntu

Dan R. Hunt dan.r.hunt at gmail.com
Sun Feb 6 02:58:33 UTC 2005


On Sun, 6 Feb 2005 03:51:39 +0200, Rami Kayyali <r.kayyali at gmail.com> wrote:
> This might be a bit of an odd subject, I know they're both Debian, but
> I still don't know what exactly are the differences between installing
> either Debian Unstable (Sarge) and Ubuntu, so could you please give me
> some highlights? Are there any reasons to installing Ubuntu rather
> than Sarge or even Sid, since they both provide up-to-date packages,
> so what's the difference?

One correction to your statement Debian's system works like this:
Stable=Woody     Testing=Sarge  Un-Stable=Sid
You had  "Debian Unstable (Sarge)" which it is not right today.
Debian has a very very large collection of packages and * I think *
only the Stable release has security updates. The testing distribution
currently code named Sarge will move to stable .... when it is ready.
Think large number of available packages and this makes it slower to
update these inter-dependant packages.

And while http://www.ubuntulinux.org/ubuntu/ Ubuntu is based upon
Debian it is polished and sharpened into a ready to use state, paring
down the number of packages to a reasonable level, Ubuntu provides
security for use as a server or a desktop system, and a new version
each six months.

Both Debian and Ubuntu are very good, I use them both every day. 
Ubuntu's provides a smaller set of officially supported packages which
are newer, a great mailing list and it just works.
-- 
Dan Hunt  Saint Brieux Saskatchewan Canada




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