I'm a long term Ubuntu user who is considering migrating from Ubuntu to Debian (mainly because of Unity and the fact that my school has a Debian mirror). I haven't installed Debian on a system before. But again, I am fairly comfortable with reading manuals and working with the command line. Here is my installation plan (after spending some time reading the Debian wiki):
- Download the Live CD image and use dd to make a Live USB (I think this is the easiest way?)
- Install Debian
- Configure repos using debgen
- Post-install
It is the post install part I am most confused about. I'd like to know some specific things:
- Is there an alternative package to ubuntu-restricted-extras on Debian?
- What the best way to get around with the font smoothing problem in Debian?
- How much functionality can I expect from Ubuntu Tweak on Debian?
Any other tips are also welcome.
I found a solution to the font rendering problem here
Best Answer
Speaking as a long time Debian user I say take the plunge. You're familiar with Ubuntu, so there will be a lot you're already comfortable with. Don't expect to get 100% feature parity on day one though.
Some specific answers:
ubuntu-restricted-extras
looks like it's basically Flash andgstreamer
plugins. For flash, just installflashplugin-nonfree
or get it right from Adobe and plop it into Firefox. For thegstreamer
plugins there are unofficial sources available (although I don't know exactly where) for multimedia packages.And a final note, don't bother using debgen. Just use the Debian mirror for the country you're in (e.g., the U.S. is ftp.us.debian.org). After install your school's mirror to
/etc/apt/sources.list
.