[nmglug] Ubuntu Distributions,

[J. Marsden DeLapp]

On Sunday, March 18, 2012 04:50:45 PM Ted Pomeroy <ted.pome at gmail.com> wrote:

> 5. I confess I like the easy way Ubuntu allows addition of the NON
> Free bits, which enable Flash and mp3 and some dvd playing. We
> certainly are in a crush of loss of freedom and I may change my mind
> on these eventually. (Keep reminding me of my errors, all you purists
> and higher beings.)

You should install vrms package.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vrms

> I will not be installing right away, there is a full year to go on
> Lucid 10.04 LTS. I may even extend my use beyond the support as I did
> with 8.10.  I will be using a live disk of the latest stable version -
> 11.10, Oneric, which I have already downloaded. I may also try
> Xubuntu, as an alternative. But I really like all the tweaking
> available in KDE versus other current options. 

As Brian pointed out, you should be able to install KDE, XFCE and any other 
desktop environment you want along with what you already have. Then just set 
your display manager to the one you want to use. 

With KDE, you can select "Switch User" off the menu and start a second session 
and have both a Gnome and KDE session running at the same time.

> May someday I will just
> use Debian stable and pick and choose in the Debian repositories
> directly.

I have been using Debian since I started using Gnu/Linux. I like how easy it 
is to maintain systems. I have one system that has been running since 2004 and 
all updates have been through apt-get update && apt-get upgrade with an 
occasional apt-get dist-upgrade.

Does Ubuntu still require a reinstall to do a distribution upgrade? 

If it were me, I would pick Debian testing for a desktop computer.  Or maybe a 
combination of testing and unstable but only if you are so impatient that you 
are not able to wait a week for something to make it from unstable to testing. 

Here is my interprtation of Debian distributions

What it is called		What it really is
Debian Stable			Ultra super extra rock solid
Debian Testing			Stable enough for ordinary use
Debian Unstable		Bleeding edge


Mars

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J. Marsden DeLapp, PE
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