Debian 5 ‘Lenny’ Quick Review

Background: I’ve used Linux for several years now, tried most major distributions in the past including previous versions of Debian. Just before Lenny, I was running Mint Linux (an Ubuntu derivative) and Ubuntu before that (a Debian derivative), so I have actually been a Debian user for much of the time . . . it’s just been once or twice removed. Here’s my hardware: AMD Athlon thunderbird 1.3 GHz cpu; 1 GB ram; Geforce 7600GS 256MB video; Acer widescreen lcd.

Downsides: Lenny, like Ubuntu and Mint, has had trouble installing the driver for my video card – this means I won’t be running any 3d accelerated games and my screen resolution is a touch off (perfectly fine for most use, but I’ve noticed that all my photos appear slightly wider than they should be – for an artist who uses his computer to display reference photos, this is a problem). One other problem, I’ve run into has to do with the third-party nautilus plugin for Dropbox – it works fine, but it cannot install the newest version because of dependency issues . . . this is a very minor problem, because it works just fine. Lastly, the Debian community and resources, while vast and helpful, have been overshadowed by Ubuntu’s superior online community, as well as their six-month release cycle [contrasted with Debian's finished-when-it's-finished release cycle]. The slower release cycle of Debian, however, is exactly why it’s so much more stable an OS, and Ubuntu’s greater online presence, isn’t so much a downside since most of what works with Ubuntu works with Debian. As far as downsides, that’s it. So, in the end, the only problem I have is due to older hardware (both my video card and my cpu), despite this longish paragraph on the subject.

Upsides: Stability. Stability. Stability. Seriously, Ubuntu is stable and so is Mint, but once you get Debian running and configured the way you want it, it does have that advantage. Thing is: you are working with the baseline of those other two distros (Ubuntu and Mint) without any of the complications that those distros have added to it. Then, you start customizing and adding in programs that you were used to with Ubuntu or Mint and at the end you have a system that has all the advantages of those derivatives while maintaining the stability.

Conclusion: Fabulous. Five thumbs up.

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