To make Debian a real success, its many advocates and vendors must pool resources. But columnist Jason Perlow says that makes too much sense to actually happen.
In this month’s “On the Desktop” column (beginning on page XX), I go into detail about how to install and configure an Ubuntu system. Now that I’ve actually spent some time with Ubuntu, I’m now convinced — bar none — that it is the best free Linux desktop operating system available for end users, combining all of the best aspects of Debian and Fedora into one distro. Ubuntu has the strong community and complete package repository of Debian and the cutting edge and constantly updated technology of Fedora.
If there’s any hope of a free version of Linux usurping users from Microsoft Windows, the obvious path leads to Ubuntu. Its got a billionaire patron, Mark Shuttleworth, that clearly “gets” what community is all about, he’s committed his cold, hard cash to ensure Ubuntu’s survival, and Ubuntu has developers that understand what needs to go into a desktop version of Linux that will please end-users.
That being said, throwing money at Ubuntu alone is not going to guarantee its success. Ubuntu is still dependent on the Debian community for many of its upstream packages.
Ubuntu has different goals from Debian, and that’s perfectly okay. For instance, Ubuntu is on a much faster development cycle and its not trying to be all things to all people. But it would behoove Debian and Ubuntu to come to some sort of arrangement where the two communities are actually cooperating with each other instead of working in parallel. To add insult to…
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