Who is using Debian STABLE?

[davidvrbanec]

I'am thinking about installing debian 6 on my other hard drive. I'am wondering how many users actually run debian stable on their main machine? Because it is rock solid, lot of software is outdated little bit. This can be bad for newest audio/video files?

[sagirfahmid3]

I run Debian Squeeze (Crunchbang 10) with Xfce and Openbox on it. I really like Xfce though.
Running the latest media isn't a problem; Flash, VLC, Clementine, Mplayer, all work perfectly. The RAM usage is also nice (It uses 130MB idle, but my Xfce is pimped out XD).
Without Docky and all the fancy apps, Xfce Squeeze uses less than 80MB idle.
How many users run Squeeze? A lot...An estimated 30% of all Linux servers run Debian squeeze (look it on Google). There are lesser home users, but still, a LOT.
Debian is definitely better for older computers.

Screenshot

[zerozero]

[moved here]

[cwsnyder]

I have my backup setup (I dual-boot) as Debian Stable, and have since Lenny came out of testing.

You are confusing the application software with the software codecs. You will have to enable

Code: Select all

deb http://debian.uchicago.edu/debian/ squeeze main non-free contrib
deb http://security.debian.org/ squeeze/updates main non-free contrib
deb http://backports.debian.org/debian-backports squeeze-backports main

or something similar to get your non-security updates in your /etc/apt/sources.list or configure your sources with Synaptic.

You may find system updates work better from the command line than trying to use any available GUI. I usually use

Code: Select all

apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade && apt-get autoclean

from the root terminal in Debian to do my system updates.

You also don't have sudo set up, but you do have a root account set up when you install, and later a key-ring account if you want Debian to remember some of your account passwords. Squeeze will still have GNOME 2.x available and updated even after the release of 7.0 Wheezy. Of course if you really want to stay with GNOME 2.x, you could run CentOS or Scientific Linux (RHEL derivatives) and have your security updates for about 10 years, or do the same with one of the BSD UNIXes, probably for a similar time frame.

[davidvrbanec]

Thanks guys. I'am currently using LMDE but when wheezy become stable i will maybe switch to that because i want rock-solid base. I dont need latest and greatest software. Every two year upgrade to new stable and that is it . What do you guys think about my decision?

[Monsta]

Actually, there's a thread named Linux Mint Debian Stable (For Those Running This Setup) for discussions on this topic

[nextdistroplease]

Without Docky and all the fancy apps, Xfce Squeeze uses less than 80MB idle.

That's very interesting to me.

I use Openbox as my default session and when it boots up and I activate htop it's around 97-98 MB. Yet your XFCE is 80MB!

I'd like to know what services you've disable or removed, if applicable.

I don't use conky or any panels or any desktop icon support at all with Openbox

I'm running Debian sid.

[sagirfahmid3]

There's a lot of factors that affect RAM usage. Graphics drivers for one (without Nvidia drivers installed, Xorg uses less RAM, but with it installed, it uses double the Xorg RAM usage on my pc), graphics hardware for another (Intel graphics come built in with the kernel, so naturally my laptop with Intel GMA graphics uses much lesser RAM than my pc which has a Nvidia GT430 even though they both have 3GB of RAM), RAM plays a role (the lesser RAM you have, the lower RAM it uses--less caching going on), and services that start up automatically on boot. ALSO, the version of Debian you're using also affects the RAM usage--on Wheezy, my idle RAM was ~110MB--so in general, RAM usage usually goes up with further Debian releases.

I disabled all useless services using rcconf (you run this program in a terminal); there's also a GUI program to disable services called bum (short for boot-up-manager).

List of services I have disabled:
Apache2 (I can manually start/stop/restart this)
Bluetooth daemon (I don't have a bluetooth enabled phone so I don't need it)
Exim4 ( https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Exim4 )
Fancontrol (my motherboard can do this just fine automatically, no thank you)
Hddtemp (my case is cool inside as are the components, there's a rear fan)
Keyboard-setup (something to do with setting up what country's keyboard you want. I use English, I have no need for this)
OpenVPN (don't need it)

[nextdistroplease]

There's a lot of factors that affect RAM usage....

Thank you. I believe your post has answered my question well.

I have already gone to Menu -> Settings -> Services and disabled or uninstalled the items yuou've mentioned, and much more.

Your first paragrasph applies in my case in one way or another.

Thanks again

I think I obssess about ram. I'm not hurting for any but I like my system to "buzz", know what I mean? I use a few "high end" programs and i just like the extra boost to go from one to the next, even if I generally don't have to.

[sagirfahmid3]

I think I obssess about ram.

Same here but this site calmed me down a bit: www.linuxatemyram.com