In Ubuntu, less is more

Both Ubuntu and the Debian distribution on which it's based use the GNOME desktop. Many applications appear in both systems, but there are differences.

Debian is primarily installed with a network-install image of about 150 MB, and most of the 700 or so packages that make up what's called the Desktop installation come over the Internet.

Ubuntu is primarily installed via a live CD, and all of its packages must fit on a 700 MB CD that the user either burns themself from an ISO image or gets pre-made from another source. There is an alternate install image available that works much like Debian's text-based installer, but it still pulls all of its packages from the CD and not over the network. Pulling all packages from the CD means a network connection isn't needed for the install, but many packages will need to be updated once a connection is established. In Debian, since the majority of packages are pulled from networked repositories, there are fewer that mus be upgraded immediately following the installation.

And the Ubuntu philosophy doesn't call for packing as many things into the installation by default. The menus are more spare, and there is no equivalent to the "Debian Menu," through which just about every application on the system can be started.

So whether you call it clean and logical or sparse and lacking, the Ubuntu GNOME desktop starts out quite a bit more lean than the equivalent in Debian.

I use both systems on many different boxes, including i386 and Mac Power PC, and I see good reasons to use both.

At this moment in time, I'm seeing the wisdom in the leaner Ubuntu menus, which can be fleshed out with the exact apps the user needs.

But both systems have a whole lot of applications in their repositories, so it's equally possible to make a Ubuntu system act and look just like a standard Debian system, just as it's possible to make Debian look like Ubuntu -- in terms of application choice and placement in the menus, anyway.

I've advocated in the past for a Debian installer and/or live CD that installed the exact same applications as Ubuntu, but in the Debian environment. It'd would be a great way to get Ubuntu people to try Debian, and I think the relatively stripped-down menus in such a version of Debian would be attractive to a great many users.