Unless it’s just a hardware driver issue?
If you are in an enterprise environment, it is easier to sell Ubuntu - at least there is a company that can provide support for it behind. Companies want to make sure someone is on the hook to fix an issue that would be blocking to them, and this is much harder with something like Debian.
That’s why Red Hat is used that much in companies, and what Canonical main revenues are coming from.
But as a selfhoster, I use Debian by default for my servers. Only if there is a very specific need for Ubuntu would I switch, and I am frankly tired of the Snap shenanigans on my desktop (thinking of migrating to PopOS or KDE Neon).
I’ve really enjoyed Neon. It still has snaps, but everything going through the Discovery app makes installs of flat oaks or snaps seamless.
PopOS is great but threw me for a loop with its lack of GRUB.
Having experienced Canonical’s support, if anyone actually needs it they go to RHEL.
This is the best answer.
Support & community come to mind.
To a typical user/newcomer to servers it’s easier to find some solution for Ubuntu, than for Debian. And boy, can Debian users be full of themselves… 😑
Could be worse, could be Arch users
Ubuntu solutions are Debian solutions
Ubuntu is what grew out of Debian.
But it’s radically different ENVIRONMENT these days.
Yeah, but the essentials still map like 90% of the time, unless you are using their paid stuff
I agree, but the question wasn’t about the percentage of cases, but about the possible reason to choice Ubuntu over Debian…
In my limited experience, that’s pretty accurate unfortunately. But with so many Debian tools becoming more popular, I bet that attitude will change soon
Hard to tell.
Whole Linux movement has plenty of classes to take, if it wants to become more relevant. And social skills is one of the most important among these…
Because when you use Debian and you find a bug, you will notice that it was fixed years ago but for “stability” you are using an ancient version
For example if you use samba as active directory domain controller on Debian, it doesn’t let login windows 11 users. This bug was fixed in 2019
I’m really curious if that’s still true for debian 12, it’s using a 6.1 kernel and stuff isn’t nearly as old.
Because Debian 12 has come out relatively recently
I recently switched one of my VPS to Debian 12.1 coming from Ubuntu 22.04.* LTS, because of the newer kernel and newer packages. I think there was an Ubuntu update this week, didn’t have time to look into it, so I’m not sure if it still applies.
I’m using “testing” repos for this reason (testing is still stable, it’s the next stable)
It might be late still, I don’t know
Yep. I once heard on an IRC room about testing being “highly unrecommendable” because it could break at any time! I rolled my eyes. Testing branch is fully usable, and it rarely breaks if you are a mindful user.
I understood the problems are about security patches being late there, and the freeze periods. Why not usw unstable?
Having worked at a cloud provider for awhile and also done support, the reasoning is generally that Ubuntu is the “path of least resistance” to getting running. They have a super engaged community and the market share leads to a lot of guides across the web being primarily made for Ubuntu.
To be fair, it also helps that their LTS support is really nice and their repos are a lot closer to up-to-date than a bunch of others.
I like Ubuntu Server. It’s got a nice installer that is simple and straight to the point, and lots of documentation. I’m also very familiar with it if I need to troubleshoot.
That said, I don’t like snaps and every new version pushes them harder. I’m currently learning openSUSE to see if it can become my new go-to for servers.
I always run Linux servers headless, so how the distro does GUI (if an option) is not relevant to me in this scenario.
Yeah I swore off Ubuntu the moment Apt started installing snaps unprompted.
Same. I’ll take dkms for zfs over snap every time.
The installer is much easier, and the github keys import is a nice touch. Last two servers I set up were Debian, because fuck forcing LXD as snap, and the installer was inferior to that of Ububtu took me about 3x the time to do the same setup.
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10? I thought lts is 5y?
But yeah, 10y on a version would have all sorts of versioning issues. Though I have seem some old industrial pcs running on xp for a long time!
It’s 10 with a pro license. And everybody can register 5 machines to pro for free
5 yrs for free is LTS, 10 for “Pro” enterprise subscription ($$$).
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Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters LTS Long Term Support software version LXC Linux Containers NAS Network-Attached Storage VPS Virtual Private Server (opposed to shared hosting)
4 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 9 acronyms.
[Thread #35 for this sub, first seen 13th Aug 2023, 09:35] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
Need to add DKMS. I have no idea what that is.
Dynamic Kernel Module Support.
[https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Dynamic_Kernel_Module_Support](You can read more about it on the Arch Wiki) or [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Kernel_Module_Support](on Wikipedia).
If you’re a Windows user, it’s almost like installing drivers in a sense.
Thanks
Ubuntu has a bigger market share in the support department. Makes it easier to find advice that applies specifically to your setup.
Cuz it doesn’t really matter that much
Why wouldn’t they? I use arch btw. No joke intended.
Familiarity (my client distro is Pop and is based on Ubuntu), and I like the LTS life cycle (predictable).
I do uninstall snaps, though, and mostly just use Docker for things. I could use Debian, but again, for me it was about familiarity and support (a lot more Ubuntu specific documentation).
I used Ubuntu for a while and distro-hopped before deciding to land on Debian. I figured major distros used it as their base for a reason. The older I get the more I appreciate the “it’ll release when its ready” approach that Debian takes. There’s no economic pressure to release with major bugs hoping the next sprint will fix most issues, like a lot of “enterprise” software. The Debian release cycle is not 100% predictable, but it is reliable. I’ve had a server go through a few major upgrades for nearly a decade before the hardware itself gave out. The OS was rock solid the entire time. Additionally, with flatpak, outdated desktop apps are no longer an issue and I use docker for hosting services.
I will admit that Debian is pretty “bland” from a fresh install, but I don’t mind that at all.
Started with RaspiOS and transitioned to vanilla Debian + OMV5 later on.
So far I never had issues whatsoever withy server. If there was an issue usually not due to debian but me learning to work with linux.How are you liking OMV5? Pros/cons?
Didn’t try anything else like TrueNas so take it for what you want.
OMV5/6 are pretty good NAS softwares with an out of the box working interface. Nothing really you don’t want.
Upside: It’s Debian under the hood. So if you want to dip into Linux I think it’s great.My only gripe is, it’s impossible to upgrade between versions. You’d need to wipe the OS and restart (afaik).
In years past, I chose Ubuntu over Debian because of some key packages that were more up to date on Ubuntu LTS then Debian. Now that I’m running basically everything in containers I’ll be switched back to Debian over the next upgrade cycle
Anytime is an upgrade cycle when youre indecisive as hell
(Almost don’t even use my PC cause its always migrating somehow lmao)
Historically I’ve done exactly that. Debian for servers, Ubuntu for workstations (because I like GNOME). But my hate for Snap runs so deep that I’ve started using Debian w/ GNOME more and more often over the last year or so.
But my hate for Snap runs so deep that I’ve started using Debian w/ GNOME more and more often over the last year or so.
As a Linux Mint user I’ve seen the writing on the wall and will be switching to Linux Mint Debian Edition next time I reinstall my desktop.
ZFS without having to faff around with DKMS
This is huge for me as well and is what will keep me on Ubuntu Server until I have a very very good reason to leave or someone else adds it.
zfs dkms on debian prompt to be non problematic for me. ZFS is standard storage back-end for our docker swarm hosts, and I have plenty of them. Same DKMS work fine on my desktops too.
wasn’t zfs deprecated from the installer in ubuntu server?
Think it’s not supported for the root filesystem anymore but that’s not my usecase anyway. Still supported for non root filesystems.
Before self-hosting web apps became one-click install away, Ubuntu was a lot more convenient with newer technologies, readily available documentation, and a clear update schedule. At least, that was my case.
