[Tfug] Differences between Ubuntu and Debian

[Claude Rubinson]

On Wed, May 07, 2008 at 12:20:11PM -0700, Matt Jacob wrote:
> Claude Rubinson wrote:
> > The way that you phrase the question is really too vague to be
> > answered.  Differences in what regard?  For what use?  You need to
> > specify what you care about and/or what you're trying to do.  That is,
> > what you care about are differences that are relevant to your
> > particular situation.  (E.g., if you're going to be running everything
> > on x86, it's irrelevant that Debian supports more architectures.)
> 
> Differences specifically in a server environment. And even then, 
> specifically in a web/mail/database server environment. I'm having a 
> discussion with a friend who's a die-hard Ubuntu kool-aid drinker, and I 
> need to "prove" that Debian is a better choice for servers. It's a hill 
> I'm willing to die on, but I don't know how long I want the battle to 
> last before I give in and run into the bayonets myself. :-P
> 
> Like I said, there are lots of intangible reasons why I prefer Debian, 
> but they're more qualitative than quantitative. Since my friend and I 
> are talking about Debian 4.0 vs. Ubuntu 8.04, would it be relevant to 
> point out that most Ubuntu releases are pretty buggy for the first 3 
> months following a release? How can I show that Debian is more stable, 
> and thus, a better choice?

So you're talking about debating religion.  And that's something that
I stay far away from.

If, by chance, you both are *truly* interested in comparing distros
and not simply trying to convert one another, you need to agree upon a
set of measures that reflect what you're both interested in.  Then
compare the distros on those measures.  My suspicion is that, if you
tried to do that, you'd find that (a) the two of you value different
things (and, therefore, the distros are not commensurable), (b) you're
both so locked into your positions that you refuse to consider the
other person's perspective, or (c) you're not so far apart from each
other, after all.

Claude