SQUEEZY OR WHEEZY? Debian Distro's Examined
In this article I look at the differences between the Debian 6 (Squeeze) and Debian 7 (Wheezy) distributions. SQUEEZE (Debian 6) SPEED Things are very slow - particularly if you are attempting to run larger apps such as Scribus.
STABILITY Squeeze would randomly freeze or completely lock up requiring a reboot.
IMAGING AND PARTITIONING If you have imaged Squeeze onto a larger SD Card, you will most likely want to expand the size of the primary partition, to make use of the available space. This is not a very easy or fun task. The MagPi covered this procedure in Issue 2, but it required use of a Linux based PC or a Linux LiveCD, and a tricky set of instructions for the resize using the 'GParted' application. It's an annoyance that slows down the installation process.
RANGE OF PACKAGES During the making of Issue 3, The MagPi tested and provided a long list of apps and games that work on the Pi under Squeeze.
INTERNET Squeeze comes with a version of Midori which is rather limited. It struggles with many websites. I would recommend installing the chromium-browser which seems to work with more websites, however the downside is slowness - the browser is rather cumbersome compared with Midori. You can get by with Google's Gmail, IRC chat and Dropbox as well as many other websites.
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MULTIMEDIA This is probably the one area where Squeeze currently has the edge. You can play mp3 and wma music as well as most video formats, providing you choose the right apps. OMXPlayer is a good all-rounder, but can sometimes be problematic with WMA files. 'avifile-player', however, seems to handle WMA music better, but is not good for video. Unfortunately development of 'avifile-player' seems to have been discontinued and it is not available for Wheezy.
GEANY & PYTHON The programming text editor is great, but unfortunately you do have to make a small configuration change to get programs to execute from within the IDE (Integrated Development Environment). Python programs run reasonably well.