Debian 8 Review Part 2

Now with the install completed I booted into the newly installed Debian system. The virtual machine booted very quick and I was greeted with a basic debian themed greeter (login screen)

Default debian 8 greeter.

Simple and easy. I entered my username and password (that was configured during install) and was quickly presented with the default xfce desktop. Although, it did ask me to confirm if I wanted the default "panel" setup, or a custom one. (I went with the default).

The XFCE default. Beautiful.

Like I said previously. It's functional, and dull looking. It doesn't take more than a couple of minutes to tweak a few things and make it a bit nicer. Not to mention with a little attention it's possible to make xfce look damn good indeed.

A wallpaper selection and a few panel settings tweaks.

Default Software

Debian 8 seems to ship with the basics to cover the average user. A lot more installation and configuration would be required to setup a developer workstation or similar but for an average user it has installed.

- Iceweasel - A de-branded version of Firefox. The same browser in all but name.
- LibreOffice suite - Word processing, Spreadsheet, Presentations, all compatible with the Microsoft document formats.
- GIMP - The awfully named image editing tool. (Think (almost) photoshop)
- Quod Libet - for playing music
- VLC Media Player - for playing videos
- Synaptic Package Manager - for software management

It seems the only e-mail reader installed is Mutt... but everyone just uses Gmail these days don't they?

Of course, all the standard system utilities are there and it retains the innate ability to read PDF files without having to go and download extra additional stuff.

It's an okay base to begin from but most users (especially those familiar with Linux) will find themselves having to hit synaptic (or a terminal) and install the rest of the stuff they use.

The not so good

Like with any distro there is always the not-so-good things.

• As a software management tool, synaptic is powerful but not the most user friendly for new users.
• The lack of more friendly email software could be a problem for some.
• The lack of software updates may ensure a completely stable system, but at the expense of features available in more up to date applications.
• The default look and feel of the desktops are pretty bland and in many ways look out of date and old fashioned despite being able to be customised to be amazing. 

Overall, I think Debian 8 is an excellent release and certainly a great choice for more advanced Linux users who know their way around the system. I don't think it's a good choice for the average user unless they are really keen to be thrown into learning more about the OS. Someone looking for a system that can be used comfortably out of the box would be disappointed. imho

That being said, users who install Windows usually need to go and download or install of bunch of extra things in order to get a comfortable system anyway. So perhaps that is something of a non-issue.

If you're looking for a distro that makes software easy to find with an "app store" style tool, or something you can use with minimal impact. Or something that allows you to play your mp3 collection right away then this isn't the best choice.

If you're looking for a system that is powerful, stable, quick and has a huge amount of software available (if you know where to look) then this is a great choice. Provided some out of date applications don't worry you too much.

Debian 8 Review Part 1

After having failed the installation of Debian 8 from the live session and the associated issues I had with that. I moved on to do an install from the first installation ISO.

Once again I am doing this in a virtual machine running on my desktop along side multiple other browsers and ide's and applications. I have allocated 1Gb of RAM and a limited but sufficient drive space. The VM software is Virtualbox.

The first thing that hit me is that when starting, Debian defaults the GRUB boot menu to selecting a text mode install.

Defaults to text mode install.

This leaves it to the user to specifically choose to use the graphical installer. In this day and age, defaulting to a text mode over a graphical installer just isn't something I would consider a wise choice.

Having selected the graphical installer, I continued on.

Despite running in a 64bit virtual machine with only 1Gb of RAM allocated, the installer is fast. It is simple and easy to understand, whilst still providing the required options.

Here are some screenshots from the install process.

Initial language selection

Disk partitioning options

Offering the ability to configure separate /home partition during guided partitioning is a nice touch. Although, some explanation as to the benefit of doing so would help educate new users.

There is no warning of weak passwords. Yes, using a strong password should be a standard thing, but it's surprising how often it's not done.

After the partitioning and base system install. The installer gives the option to select additional packages. This is a pretty basic list, comprising a choice of desktop environment and some other (mostly server related) options.

Note: Despite the option to disable standard system utilities, I wouldn't recommend doing so unless you really know what you're doing.

I chose an XFCE desktop because it is fast and clean and simple. You're free to choose from the standard options. (Gnome, KDE, xfce, cinnamon, etc)

Basic desktop environment and package option selection.

Having done that and hit continue I waited a few minutes for the packages to install. Eager to reboot into the shiny new Debian system.

The install was straight forward with no real surprises. It's worth noting that when installing the GRUB bootloader, it doesn't default to the first hard drive and must be selected.

It hasn't got the flash of the likes of Ubuntu and I feel this is going to be the case with Debian as a whole.

Debian isn't the sort of distro that is big on providing a customised experience out of the box. It provides the default desktop experience direct from the developers of the desktop environment. This isn't a "bad" thing, but it does tend to mean the initial system is somewhat bland.

On the same note, from a user point of view it is important to understand that the stable Debian release only receives security updates and not updates to desktop environments and applications.

This tends to mean that the Debian packages can be somewhat out of date compared to distros that are more regularly updated.

For example: Debian 8 features pretty up to date packages for things such as the Apache web server and PHP, whereas Darktable remains back at version 1.4 when other distros have it at 1.6+.

Continue to Part 2

Debian 8 : My failed first attempt

After hearing from a number of places how excellent Debian 8 was, I finally decided to get round to giving it a try. I quickly found the reference to the live system iso on the Get Debian page and downloaded the 64bit xfce image.

I created a new Virtual Machine and started the live session and was met with a pretty standard xfce desktop.

Debian 8 Live XFCE session

Now, XFCE might not be the prettiest desktop environment, but it's quick and functional. The first thing that jumped out at me though was the installer icon on the desktop labeled as Install Debian sid.

I was a bit confused given that this was meant to be Debian 8, also known as jessie, and sid is the unstable version. (I was beginning to feel a bit like this was something from Toy Story, and half expected references to woody or buzz lightyear.)

Ignoring that I went for it. The installer was pretty much similar to most others and soon enough it was installed, and grub was installed and I was ready to reboot. So I did. Only to be met with a console screen complaining it was giving up waiting for something and couldn't find a volume group.

Ugh.

I went back to the Debian site and downloaded the cinnamon live system iso just in case it was something to do with the xfce one. I started that up, started installing "sid" and went to make a coffee. Upon my return, I was greeted by a lock screen which then prompted for the live session password.

Since I didn't know the live session password, and various attempts at Toy Story character names and other generic options yielded no results I terminated the virtual machine and gave up.

Now, I can almost here some people out there muttering about how it serves me right for using a live session and I should have just installed it from the normal install DVD edition.
Yes, perhaps that's true. The fact is though, the live session version is there in plain view on the Debian site and may (or may not) be attempted by some. Perhaps they will succeed with the live sessions where I did not. Perhaps it had something to do with the virtual machine.

I don't know. I will try installing from the normal DVD next and see how that turns out.

I am curious however. Debian prides itself on being stable, to the point that only security patches are applied to the stable release. As someone coming from more "bleeding-edge" side of things... how do you find sticking with outdated software packages and libraries for a long period of time?