The Difference Between Debian and Ubuntu (part 1)
Since Ubuntu showed up on the scene many people have asked what the differences between the Debian based distribution and Debian GNU/Linux actually are. Ubuntu as most of you know is very much like Debian in many ways from the package system to the user community Debian and Ubuntu have done a great job coinciding. After hearing people say that Debian and Ubuntu are the same thing, except Ubuntu is easier to use, I decided it was time to look in to the differences between the two distributions. I first decided to take a look in to the technical differences but after a while of reading I learned that a lot of the difference comes from the developers, community, and general goals each distribution has for itself. Since this will be a rather large post I have decided to split it up in to smaller parts and will add the next part each day until everything is up.
Platforms
Debian is officially available for 11 architectures. Release critical bugs can be within any of these architectures and can possibly delay a testing distribution from going stable. Debian is very specific in what they want as far as compatibility, security, and over all usability before it can go stable. The current official architectures that Debian is designed for are as follows.
- Intel x86 / IA-32 (“386″)
- Motorola 68k (“m68k”)
- Sun SPARC (“sparc”)
- Alpha (“alpha”)
- Motorola/IBM PowerPC (“powerpc”)
- ARM (“arm”)
- MIPS CPUs (“mips” and “mipsel”)
- HP PA-RISC (“hppa”)
- IA-64 (“ia64″)
- S/390 (“s390″)
- AMD64 (“amd64″)
Ports that haven’t been released yet
- ppc64
- SuperH (“sh”)
- armeb
- m32r
Ubuntu has a more narrow focus than Debian in many ways. Ubuntu supports only a few of the architectures that Debian does and is targeted to specific types of users mostly desktop and server administrators. Debian however has made a point to be available for more architectures as well as a wide variety of users. Ubuntu is available for the following platforms.
- Intel x86
- PowerPC*
- AMD64
*Not officially Canonical supported
Package Licensing
Debian currently has 18733 packages available in the main distribution. The different categories hold packages that are licensed differently.
In addition, the packages in main
- must not require a package outside of main for compilation or execution (thus, the package must not declare a “Depends”, “Recommends”, or “Build-Depends” relationship on a non-main package),
- must not be so buggy that we refuse to support them, and
- must meet all policy requirements presented in this manual.
- must not be so buggy that we refuse to support them, and
- must meet all policy requirements presented in this manual.
Examples of packages which would be included in contrib are:
- free packages which require contrib, non-free packages or packages which are not in our archive at all for compilation or execution, and
- wrapper packages or other sorts of free accessories for non-free programs.
Packages must be placed in non-free if they are not compliant with the DFSG or are encumbered by patents or other legal issues that make their distribution problematic.
In addition, the packages in non-free
- must not be so buggy that we refuse to support them, and
- must meet all policy requirements presented in this manual that it is possible for them to meet.
Ubuntu has four components that are similar to Debians main, contrib, and non-free, distinguished by a licence policy. This table from the Ubuntu wiki summarizes them
Source packages in Ubuntu components:
|
|
Free software |
non-free software |
|
Offically supported |
main (~2000 packages) |
restricted (~5 packages) |
|
Unofficial |
universe (thousands) |
multiverse (hundreds) |
Officially supported packages (main and restricted) receive security updates sponsored by Canonical, and more rigorous QA relative to the Ubuntu release cycle. The efforts of the Ubuntu core team are focused there.
The MOTU team cares for the packages in universe and multiverse (which are comprised mostly of packages from the Debian archive) on a best-effort basis, as there are a large number of packages relative to the resources of the team. Therefore, a vast majority of these packages are used unchanged from Debian, rebuilt in an Ubuntu build environment, and do not receive personal attention from an Ubuntu developer.
Some of this information was taken from the Debian wiki, Ubuntu wiki, as well as the respective official sites. Some of the material is exact copies while others is not.
Articles That May Be Related
Tags: Ubuntu
•
September 13th, 2008 at 6:04 PM
Thank you, I have found this article extremely useful.
September 13th, 2008 at 7:11 PM
A good post.
Debian also runs on the Maemo platform which runs the Nokia N800/N810 internet tablets with a sizable selection of packages. With the future release on the N-series combined with mobile phone features, you could see more and more Nokia users using Debian Linux without realizing it. I know Canonical is sponsoring moblin but I think Nokia will have them beat for awhile in this area.
September 13th, 2008 at 8:43 PM
Ubuntu isn’t available for PowerPC… it is however available for lpia (Intel x86 Low Power).
Ubuntu 8.04’s main lists 5806 packages, and restricted 36.
September 13th, 2008 at 11:58 PM
Ubuntu ~is~ available for PowerPC; it’s just lost full Canonical support, in the sense that Canonical staff will not provide customer/user tech-support services (paid nor otherwise) for PPC anymore, altho’ the platform is still fully supported in the Developmental sense, and tech support is available in their community forum and wiki. Installer ISOs for Hardy PPC are available here:
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ports/releases/hardy/release/
…and copies of the installer kernel and initrd (e.g. for a netboot install that can download the OS and packages as you go, recommended if you have a wired, DHCP’d broadband connection and an afternoon to burn) are posted for download here:
http://ports.ubuntu.com/dists/hardy/main/installer-powerpc/current/images/powerpc/
For anyone with an “OldWorld” PowerMac (beige PowerPC prior to G3s) that wants to finally ditch Mac OS 9 (or revive that trusty old hardware sitting in the closet) and move into the 21st century OS-wise, I wrote up some step-by-step instructions on how I installed Xubuntu (you will want this variant for a usably responsive GUI on such old hardware) on my old world Power Mac clone (a Umax S900/dual-200) here:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=2419715
September 14th, 2008 at 7:25 AM
Well, I thought the point was official support, not “whatever platform you manage to run it on counts”.
September 14th, 2008 at 7:33 AM
[...] The Difference Between Debian and Ubuntu (part 1) [...]
September 14th, 2008 at 3:11 PM
The main difference between Debian and Ubuntu is that under Debian you control your machine. 9 out of 10 Ubuntu How-Tos wouldn’t be necessary if the default install wasn’t so bloated and the dumbing down hadn’t made things so transparent as to disenfranchise the user. The existence of How-Tos for removing bloat is a dead certain indicator for a troubled OS.
September 15th, 2008 at 5:08 AM
[...] DebianToday han realizado un interesante artículo en dos partes (por ahora) en el que analizan esas [...]
September 17th, 2008 at 9:16 AM
Good intro — needs expansion ;)
imho, Ubuntu is more granny-friendly, and more inclined to the user who doesn’t worry too much about proprietary formats/software. For the ardent Freedom advocate, Debian will keep you on the straight and narrow.
j0nn0
–
Choose Freedom!
July 10th, 2009 at 2:17 PM
[...] Continuing The Difference Between Debian and Ubuntu (part 1)t… [...]