Since Debian is not built with a commercial interest (Canonical is a corporation at the end), the OS doesn't feel like a "freemium product".
As a person who uses Debian for a long time, and Ubuntu for throw-away VMs; Debian feels more "pure" from a system perspective, and it's not just skin deep.
Debian is set-up to be a leaner OS out of the box. Everything is within reach, and deeply configurable from command line. Desktop environments are add-ons to the system, not integrated (even in desktop versions). I don't find surprising choices or hard to reach configuration stuff in Debian.
Even though derived from Debian, Ubuntu "standard" comes with packages from Amazon, et. al., and sends analytics. This is not something that I like. Also, when I install Ubuntu server, I get subtle ads of "Canonical Landscape" and their paid offerings. This signals me that I'm using a freemium product, and as a user, I'm not their primary focus.
Debian is of course sponsored by a lot of corporations, but at the end they are independent and they do as they wish at the end. I'm part of the process, and can talk with devs, and my bug reports and commits are not pre-filtered with "commercial" interests before even discussed.
These are my feelings and experiences though. YMMV.
To be fair, the analytics are opt-in, and they show you the json that gets transmitted prior to sending. It's by far the best implementation of telemetry that I've seen in terms of respecting the user.
The thing I think Ubuntu has over Debian is that they package proprietary software, which often means better driver support. Considering System76 is building the computer, though, this is probably not an actual issue.
System76 Dev here. WRT to Amazon packages and analytics, this is not something we include in Pop_OS. All Pop_OS installs, despite being based on Ubuntu, are free of any type of analytics or other tracking types of software, outside of what is bare-necessary to have a Debian OS. We even switch out the Ubuntu connectivity checking that comes by default with our own, since this service could theoretically be used to log your IP. The server we use for this is controlled by Pop_OS/System76 (whom you need to inherently trust if you're using our software anyway; I technically have root access on any Pop_OS user's computer), and is configured not to store any access logs outside of server-side error messages.
FWIW, recent Ubuntu versions support a “minimum” installation. You get vanilla Gnome with Firefox and that’s about it. No LibreOffice, no Amazon anything. Quite lean and nice.
bayindirh|7 years ago
As a person who uses Debian for a long time, and Ubuntu for throw-away VMs; Debian feels more "pure" from a system perspective, and it's not just skin deep.
Debian is set-up to be a leaner OS out of the box. Everything is within reach, and deeply configurable from command line. Desktop environments are add-ons to the system, not integrated (even in desktop versions). I don't find surprising choices or hard to reach configuration stuff in Debian.
Even though derived from Debian, Ubuntu "standard" comes with packages from Amazon, et. al., and sends analytics. This is not something that I like. Also, when I install Ubuntu server, I get subtle ads of "Canonical Landscape" and their paid offerings. This signals me that I'm using a freemium product, and as a user, I'm not their primary focus.
Debian is of course sponsored by a lot of corporations, but at the end they are independent and they do as they wish at the end. I'm part of the process, and can talk with devs, and my bug reports and commits are not pre-filtered with "commercial" interests before even discussed.
These are my feelings and experiences though. YMMV.
suby|7 years ago
The thing I think Ubuntu has over Debian is that they package proprietary software, which often means better driver support. Considering System76 is building the computer, though, this is probably not an actual issue.
sian92|7 years ago
PopsiclePete|7 years ago
dleslie|7 years ago