Debian Isn't Difficult, Fedora Elections Winners, Fav Distro
Prospective users still avoid Debian initially because it's difficult to install, or so they believe. It turns out they're not basing their opinions on real life. Keith Curtis wrote up his experience installing Arch on his new Lenovo laptop, after a fairly complete hardware review as well. Jamie Watson got a new notebook too and today shared a bit on getting it ready for Linux. Part of that was booting Mint 18.1 which gave him something to smile about. Elsewhere, the Fedora committee elections results are in and Dominique Leuenberger posted a review of this week in Tumbleweed. Gary Newell test drove Elementary OS 0.4 and OpenSource.com asked, "What is your favorite Linux distribution?"
Debian has always been said to be difficult to install, even though the same installer was heralded as the easiest ever when released with Ubuntu. Well, anyway, Arturo Borrero recently discovered that reputation is sticking around and that's all it is - reputation. He recently spoke with students about their Linux usage and nearly all replied Ubuntu or a bit of Fedora. When asked why not Debian they replied that it was too difficult to install. Probing deeper he discovered that their professors had believed that and passed it on to their students without any testing or real life experience. It was just a narrative repeated and repeated until all believed it fact. He even asked for suggestions how to make the installer better, but he's still waiting for the first reply. Today Debian's installer is as visually pleasing as any of the other well respected installers and basically functions very similarly. If folks would try to install Debian before declaring it difficult perhaps the truth could get out.
Fedora Magazine carried a "retrospective" of this year's committee elections today saying, "The results are in! The Fedora Elections for the Fedora 25 release cycle of FESCo, FAmSCo and the Council concluded on Tuesday, January 17th." It continued by saying voter turnout was higher than average and early worries of lower voter turnout were unwarranted. The Engineering Steering Committee winners included returning members Kevin Fenzi, Adam Miller, Jared Smith, and Kalev Lember as well as brand new member Justin Forbes. The Ambassadors Steering Committee congratulated seven new members and Robert Mayr was elected to the Fedora Council. The Steering Committee decides things like which new features and software are to be added and which to deprecate, if releases are ready, and release dates. The Council oversee the project as a whole and the Fedora community. They kinda tie it all together. They also take care of the finances and trademark issues.
Once you go Arch you never go back they say and it seems to be true. Today's example is Keith Curtis, a former Microsoft employee that jumped ship and wrote a well-known book comparing a closed project to the open source model. I thought he was a Debian guy, but it turns out he's been using Arch for at least 3 years. That's why when he bought a new laptop his first impulse was to install it again. He said the install went without a hitch and only had to fiddle with WiFi to get it working. Curtis then mentioned the large number of kernel bugs still outstanding before noting Lenovo obviously didn't test the Yogo 900 with Linux before shipping. Nevertheless, Curtis got everything working and is fairly happy but waiting for HiDPI support. Check out his detailed hardware report if you're looking for a laptop.
In other news:
* Poll: What is your favorite Linux distribution?
* Elementary OS Loki 0.4: Great except package management
* openSUSE Tumbleweed – Review of the Week 2017/02