Which Rolling Releases Can Be Recommended?

I just read that in 2013 nasa stopped using windows and moved to linux quoting the need for a more stable ssystem with better security. They also said that they were using debian.

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/1...ed-reliability

They also use lenova thinkpads for the same reasons.

My question is, what is the functionality difference with debian? Is it more stable than other distributions? If ubuntu is Debian based, what is the difference?

I'm currently using ubuntu studio Distro and very happy with it but I'm very interested in the reasons why nasa use Debian.

I'm running kali linux. I'm having troubles installing pretty much anything, because when I add any ppa using the add-apt-repository command, I get an error message. I'll use simple screen recorder as an example

add-apt-repository ppa:maarten-baert/simplescreenrecorder

maarten-baert/simplescreenrecorder
Executing: gpg --ignore-time-conflict --no-options --no-default-keyring --secret-keyring /tmp/tmp.EQM7zzCyye --trustdb-name /etc/apt//trustdb.gpg --keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg --primary-keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg --keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d//debian-archive-jessie-automatic.gpg --keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d//debian-archive-jessie-security-automatic.gpg --keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d//debian-archive-jessie-stable.gpg --keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d//debian-archive-squeeze-automatic.gpg --keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d//debian-archive-squeeze-stable.gpg --keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d//debian-archive-wheezy-automatic.gpg --keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d//debian-archive-wheezy-stable.gpg --keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d//kali-archive-keyring.gpg --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com

Can someone please tell me what is going on? I have never been able to add a ppa before using kali linux.

I'm quite new to Linux, and after a lot of trials ended up with Mint Mate (dual boot with Win7). I've been using it for a few weeks now with no real problems.
However, I've just transferred my system to a new pc case. The only alteration I made was to change the sata connector cable from sata 1 to sata 0. When I tried to boot to Mint I got screen after screen of errors (all unintelligible to me). I tried the recovery boot and got even more screens of errors. I did once get a desktop showing but it wouldn't actually do anything. So I'm now unable to open Mint – it just says there is an error on the disk drive.
Thank goodness for Win7! That opened first time, no problems – and continues to open fine (and I can access and copy files from there).
Obviously after such a catastrophic experience with Mint I'm going to always stick with dual boot. Unfortunately I'm now very reluctant to trust Linux with anything important – though I do want to go on using it for internet access. Can someone recommend a really stable (but easy to use) Mate distro please? Thank you.

Hello, I want to deploy some AD-like login and user management. All devices in network use Linux (Debian, 5-10 workstations).
The first idea is to use Samba4 because everyone is talking about how it is AD-compliant, but I think it's not needed, because there's no windows workstations, and it gives additional windows-specific tools and protocols like netbios, etc.

Next thought is, that FreeIPA is good idea, but I don't see it in Debian's repos (only sid).
I could try to install it from sid, but I'm afraid it's not stable and production ready. I see it stable only in RedHat family (centos/fedora).
What is more, freeipa-client is not even in jessie's repo. I heard about sssd as a client in Debian for FreeIPA.

The last idea is to use OpenLDAP. I'm sure it's supported by Debian very well, but I'm afraid of lack of integration with other tools like kerberos, etc. I've got ntp, dns, dhcp, some file sharing, etc. done right now without ldap, so I don't really need all that additional stuff.

Is using Centos/Fedora is only way to have FreeIPA?
Is it possible and supported to use Debian as client of FreeIPA?

Do you have any advice on the best way to do this?

The general question is: How behind are packages being packaged in Ubuntu? I know that this depends on the package and a ton of things, but I just want to get a sense of (stable vs. cutting edge--is there a good balance of both?) Ultimately, I want a system that fast, reliable, up-to-date, and easy to maintain.

I find myself debating whether to go with minimal Ubuntu, Arch Linux, or Slackware. I did some reading and realize that Ubuntu and Slackware are considered stable while Arch Linux is considered bleeding edge (yes, I realize Arch and Slackware require more work to maintain) but never to what extent. For example, I don't mind at all spending a ton of time setting things up since it is a one-time process, but I don't want to spend more than say 10 minutes a month for maintenance and ensuring things to work. From what I've read, Arch actually doesn't require much.

I'm not sure how behind the packages in Ubuntu/Slackware are to warrant me switching to another distro. I'm also not sure how stable Arch Linux is to warrant me to switching to a cutting/bleeding-edge distro for up-to-date stable packages (NOT anything newer, I don't want bleeding edge). I know that Arch has tests its packages too, but people often say "expect breakage".

Thanks!

Some notes:

- Don't recommend Ubuntu simply because Arch/Slackware requires a higher level of understanding to make it work. I intend to read documentations.
- I get the sense that Canonical is in the direction of "my way or the highway" and I really align with the Arch Way, but these are just philosophies that shouldn't have too much say in choosing a distro.
- Package management is important to me in sense that the system is tidy. For now, I have avoided PPAs on Ubuntu for this reason (apt-pinning is a solution but I don't know if it's a complete solution--if it is, I would have no problems with PPAs and actually use them).
- I like a system where it is bloat-free and has what I want, perhaps building from the base up. I don't know if this would necessarily provide me better performance though. I think Slackware kind of goes against this, but it's not a big deal especially because I heard Slackware is quite optimized somehow.
- I was originally set on Arch, but there are people telling me "expect breakage", "never update before an important event because of this" , "too much work to maintain when I just want to get things done" , and highlighting the disadvantages of a rolling-distro. This while I read things like "the only time Arch has broken for me was cause of my mistake in 3 years of using it" , "maintaining Arch takes like 5 minutes a month" , "as long as you subscribe to Arch news and don't do crazy stuff, Arch is as stable as any distro".
- I intend on being a programmer/doing software engineering if that matters. Maybe it means I don't want to spend too much time maintaining (not setting) the OS when I've got other things to do.

Thanks once again.

Since I have not found a solution to my intermittent boot problem I'm thinking of reinstalling Linux Mint, switching to a different Linux distribution, or turning back to the dark side, i.e. Windows. This was my first Linux install and I was really impressed with the OS and the applications. I like Linux Mint but I want a reliable computer and if I cannot even get it to boot properly then that's a long-term concern.

The problem with a reinstall of Linux Mint is that I don't know what to do differently. I don't know what, if anything, I did wrong the first time. Of course, switching to a different distribution is also a crap shoot since I don't know what went wrong with Mint. I don't really want to go back to Windows but it's been a stable, reliable OS for me for years.

Anyone have any advice?

There are so many Linux distros, and they all look good, but which one is right for me?

That is a question that almost all new Linux users ask. Really, it just depends on you. What do you want to use it for? I’ll go through a brief rundown of some mainstream Linux distros, and maybe from there you can make up your mind. I’ll sort by the most popular ones.

Ubuntu
I don’t particularly care for Ubuntu for a few reasons: It is ad supported because they lack support from users, It comes with spyware pre-installed, and they try to act like they’re the best despite all that. A lot of people who have been using Ubuntu for a while don’t care for the new UI that they’ve installed, which is the defacto option for Ubuntu. Not only that, but they, unlike any other distro, have a very distinct security hole: a guest session that can be accessed without a password. NOT the best for use...in really any environment.
But, to their credit, they’ve got the largest software repository second only to Debian, even though there’s a lot of applications that do the same exact thing. Their UI is very polished considering that they released it just in 2011. And their forums have a ton of helpful Ubuntu users.

Linux Mint
LM is pretty much just like Ubuntu, only instead of everything being either purple or orange, it’s green or white. Much like Ubuntu, they have their own UI, and their own Software Center.. But, because they are rooted in Ubuntu (http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=mint) they may inherit some of Ubuntu’s problems. You guess which ones.

Fedora
Of them all, Fedora is probably the most user friendly, except for the fact that they use cutting edge packages that may/may not be 100% stable, and Fedora is making a change as of 21 to focus more on stability. (Personally, I’ve had very few issues with stability, and the issues I come accross seem to apply to most distors) Other than that, it’s a great distro, asthetically pleasing, Fedora comes standard with GNOME Boxes (lets you run another OS within Fedora, like Windows), an app store like thingy, and many nice GNOME applications.. Fedora is suitable for most any machine, including tablets and hybrids like the Lenovo Yoga, thanks to GNOME.

Debian
Debian is really in a world of their own. In an effort to focus on stability, they sacrifice reasonably up-to-date software. If you have old hardware that was supported, but is not now, Debian is for you.
Debian also has a lot of software, but I’ve had trouble with broken packages, dependencies completely missing, and whatnot.

openSUSE
Like Linux Mint, everything in openSUSE is green. Unlike Linux Mint, openSUSE is rock stable, mature, and has great avenues for customizing it to your specific needs, using the GUI. Most everything configurable is made much easier with YAST, rather than using the command line. openSUSE features something no other distro has: a one-click install for applications. Ubuntu is trying to copy it...good luck with that. And, like Debian, they've got most every package under the sun...which can be good and bad at the same time. The packages in openSUSE are complete, no missing dependencies from what I can see. The only problem I can see with it is that WiFi drivers and nonfree codecs can be a pain.

Now the reason you're reading this is to get an idea of what's out there as far as Linux goes. But maybe you haven't thought about Unix as a viable option.

Solaris
If you have an i386 arch processor, you can forget trying to boot up with Solaris 11. But once you get it running on an x86_64 machine, it's pretty decent, considering that it is an enterprise OS. It's stable. It's fast. And it has some proprietary Oracle tools to help administrate it, much like YAST on openSUSE. Solaris is targeted at being a workstation OS, so you won’t find things like games in abundance in it. Considering what it is, Solaris rocks.

Is it safe to use git or svn packages if a package is not available in the repos? Are git and svn stable or testing projects?

I am a basic computer user as far as operating systems are concerned. I do a little programming here and there but nothing special yet.

I have tried Linux many times, but I'm always left to getting *another* distro, after I fail to properly install Linux. Basically I resort to simple installs and found that Linux Mint and Ubuntu, most of the time work out of the box. However, after an installation, ... here and there I get error messages and sometimes crashes and i understand that my installation is not stable, simply because I did not properly configure some conf file or similar.

Another even more important problem I have is device drivers. Working from the command prompt (console) and the GUI is very confusing to me. I'm not sure if I'm setting something right with one and then unsetting it with the other. So basically I'm here with some noob questions and a couple specific ones.

1. Can someone recommend a good distro to learn to correctly configure drivers with manually. Remember, that I understand that there are distros that work out of the box mostly, but I actually am not worried about complexity as far as someone can guide me through errors. Which will lead to more questions of course.

2. After an installation there are sometimes a dozen errors during bootup, but no stops. Since it all scrolls by fast (most distros), where can I check after bootup what I need to fix?

The Goal is an *error free* stable installation of a linux distro, with enough common sense learned to take it to other distros.

hi

Why is Openoffice not included in the latest stable of Debian and why is it replaced by libreoffice? any insight would be great because i need openoffice for my uni work and i am having difficulties installing it.

thanks.