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deb http://www.backports.org/debian/ etch-backports main contrib non-free

to your /etc/apt/sources.list file. (contrib and non-free might not be required) Be sure to remove the "[backports.org]" thing that slashdot adds behind links.

FYI, you could always have used etch's kernel 'backported' to sarge if you went to http://backports.org/. Another option is Kenshi Muto's Backported d-i images archive page.

These pages will probably continue to be useful once Etch's default kernel gets out of date; although they may not be necessary as I have heard rumours of plans to push out updated Linux kernel image packages from time to time, with point releases of Debian 4.0 (etch).

To address the rather immature "needs newer packages" complaints, may I refer you to http://www.backports.org/dokuwiki/doku.php

If only that were true.

If they had a decent backport of a *recent* php4 and if they kept it recent then debian stable + backports might be an option. But they don't and it isn't. Not when you have to support 3rd party php applications and keep them up to date.

Let's get a few things straight.

1. Another post mentions a concatenation of problems. I agree with this post.

2. Ubuntu is not a good server distro!
Stable and well-tested older packages are a strength of Debian. Yes there is a large class of sysadmins that like keeping odd hours running buggier systems. They generally burnout or learn how valuable stable is. To address the rather immature "needs newer packages" complaints, may I refer you to http://www.backports.org/dokuwiki/doku.php

3. Depth of Knowledge
There are still, many excellent Debian sysadmins out there that share and certainly have brought my skills up to a higher level. I don't see the same depth in Ubuntu forums.

4. Ubuntu Money
Mark's bringing money to the table, he gets to call the shots. That's well and good because the honeymoon is on right now. What happens when the honeymoon is over? Debian doesn't look organized compared to a guy calling the shots with his bankroll. It's an apples-and-oranges comparison.

5. Etch
I'm running etch right now on my desktop and in testing. It was ubuntu-release quality months ago.

Wait a second, I just realied the mistake I made. I guess the problem is that your package encodes video (or depends on another program that encodes video), and so can't go into Debian because of the patents that Debian would then be violating.

Until the patents expire, I guess that you'll be stuck in the debian-multimedia.org repository.

I do think that Debian should link users looking for updated software and multimedia software to http://backports.org/ and http://debian-multimedia.org/ more prominently (or even at all).

Run a mix of unstable/stable. What's the point in a supposedly "stable" distro then?

Run "stable" and live with the old software.

What almost everyone who really uses Debian in production does is run the stable software for everything that can be gotten away with running the stable version, and specific backports of sandbox tested versions from unstable. (In many cases backports.org or other publicly available repositories have actually done the hard work for you.)

In this way you avoid having changes that you haven't specifically asked for sinking your production machines, and can easily keep up with security updates. When you're dealing with whole fleets of systems, this becomes a not inconsiderable advantage.

Is the reference that most everyone here is commenting on.

Best case scenario for most sysadmins is backward compatibility is the equivalent of a broad fallow field with landmines randomly placed. Everything else is just arguing how many angels fit on the head of a pin.

I will argue that backward compatibility is something a PHB throws out when she/he wants to say no to something without having to specify their concerns. It's not a reason why the purchase order is cut for your company versus your competitor.

I'm positive I'm not the only one who has had backward compatibility issues with Microsoft apps. IMHO backward compatibility has fallen out of favor for Microsoft. My last nightmare was installing a clustered instance of MSSQL 2000 running on a new win2003 cluster node. Yet there are many fanboys who will claim exactly the opposite.

I also admin Linux servers and find "backward compatibility" is mostly solved with backports. Debian is one distro that provides backports. http://www.backports.org/dokuwiki/doku.php Double-plus goodness right there. If you really -must- have it in Linux, downloading sources and working out libraries is not hard. Time consuming, but not hard. I speak from experience.

This is not a political issue. Mozilla will sue Debian unless Debian changes the name of its Firefox package!

As for your SATA issues, I suggest that you do an iota of research before splashing out on new hardware. Making sure that hardware is capable of running the software you want to run on it is always a good idea; after all, the hardware only exists to run your chosen software--it should not dictate that choice itself.

If this is not possible then I suggest you try one of Kenshi Muto's Backported d-i images, or a backported kernel from backports.org.

Finally, next time you need help with Debian I suggest you use one of the known support channels. Off-topic bitching on an un-related internet forum just makes you look like you are trolling. :)

There's always Backports.

Well, I think that you forget Debian in mostly installed on production (server) environments. Because Debian don't provide cutting-egde packages they ARE stable. On a production environment I don't want to update for example from MySQL 4.1 to 5.0. Any idea what problems and bugs such an upgrade could cause?

Ofcourse you can run Debian on your desktop, but I'm not sure whether that is the main target of an Debian distribution. Many spin-offs of Debian fillful that task.

Another benefit of not running the lastest versions is most bugs are already solved. Debian chooses a version of package for it release and stays there. Only security updates are provided.

BTW: If you really want to run some cutting-edge software on Debian Sarge, you might want to check out the http://backports.org/ website that provide more recent versions of software build for the Sarge distribution.

http://www.backports.org/

Just use backports.org. It has up-to-date packages ported from Testing and compiled for Stable. Including PHP5.

It is not in the current stable release (Debian 3.1 AKA sarge). However, users of sarge can download a backport of apt 0.6 from http://backports.org/.

In a way Linux as a whole (the kernel) is now suffering from the same problems as Debian stable once was, at least from my perspective. Do you guys remember the previous Debian stable? It remained stable for such a long time that eventually you simply needed websites like Backports to be able and run some current software since everything included with Debian was way ancient. Naturally you could run Unstable but it wasn't exactly the best approach for servers. I eventually ended up running Testing and keeping a close eye open for bug reports, exploits, etc. while not updating the box every time something new came out.

And that is what I see happening here as well. The last really stable kernel is IMO 2.4.32. There are no new features being added, only bugs being fixed. Which is IMO exactly what is needed for serious usage since every beginner programmer knows that when you add new features to your software you will also increase the risk of more bugs popping up. These could be bugs resulting in the addition of new code and the way it cooperates with the existing code, or simply bugs which only manifistate themselves in the new routines. Unfortunatly the kernel developers don't see this or they don't care resulting in a rather stable kernel 2.4.32 which unfortunatly lacks some hardware support and certain features when compared with the rather unstable 2.6.x kernel branch.

Personally I'm worried about the future. When looking at the 2.6.x kernel I don't like what I see. When looking at the current Debian Sid and the rather rough way they implemented the new X environment I also can't help wonder if there aren't more bugs than "usual" popping up. /usr/X11R6, so why couldn't they add /usr/X11R7 ?

Anyway, this is all moot now since I have lost fait in Linux all together when it comes to server usage for quite some time. I think that Linux is suffering from its own success and it may well proof fatal in the end, although I really hope it doesn't. I still enjoy running Linux on my workstation and I'm not planning to stop. But when it comes to serious work, like my server, my trust is now put into Sun Solaris 10. While Solaris is also moving into the Open Source environment Sun still uses their common sense and as such split their software into 3 parts: Open Source, Unstable and Stable.

found it - http://backports.org/

The Xorg server and libraries regently went into Debian testing and have been backported to Debian Sarge as well. I am running the backport on my Sarge laptop since I needed the latest video drivers.

Or is it when the Debian people say "stable", they mean a stable feature set and not necessarily stable security-wise?

I think that's precisely it.

I just left a job where all the Linux machines were running Debian Stable [Woody], unless there was a specific requirement for something else (e.g. a commercial application that wouldn't run reliably on anything but RHEL).

Everything was buggy as hell, but the admins were okay with this, because it was "stable". Desktop applications had thorougly well documented bugs or feature omissions that had been corrected upstream years ago, but if it wasn't available in stable (or maybe in backports.org, then an upgrade was strictly out of the question.

Therefore, I was constantly explaining to new people why CUPS crashed all the time, or why getting Gaim to connect to the Jabber server was such a convoluted process, or why we couldn't run Thunderbird or Firefox because the standard builds required a newer version of libc than what was locally available. Etc. Ad nauseam.

The logic for Debian stable comes really close to making sense, without ever quite working. You should be able to install the current Debian stable on a system, deploy it, and aside from occasional security patches, it'll always maintain the same state it was in the day you deployed it.... warts and all. And that's the catch -- there's lots of grimy old warts in a lot of the packages that had upstream fixes months or even years ago, but none of this is available to you unless you're willing to [a] build your own packages (and forego the wonder that is apt-get), or [b] upgrade to Testing or Unstable (and abandon the promise of stability & consistency, which isn't without merit).

Debian Stable is a great idea. It's disappointing that the reality of living with Debian doesn't live up to the naive promise of that idea. I can see where it's just the thing for a server that you want to set up and then ignore for a nice, long, mostly reliable decade, but for anything that you plan to put on your desk and have to cope with from day to day, it's just painful to live with.

Can some now scold Debian too? Their focus on social and software perfection, while well intended, can be maddening. I am a long time Debian user but I am about ready to dump them (we'll see when/if Sarge is ever released) because I am stuck in the past due to lack of releases. Long live http://www.backports.org/

Software users don't look at a project's source code and say, "Wow, that source code is pretty, I have to use this software!". Users want the latest features and expect a steady flow of updates. Evolving open source projects that have been most successful are those who have banged out a steady stream of updates and enhancements. Users do not want to wait literally years for a big ball of updates. They want a trickle of updates as they become available.

I disagree. At this point, I find woody too old to even be usable on servers. What's outdated? Well, let's see: the MTA, whichever it may be; the web server, whichever web server you may prefer; the SNMP packages; the various FTP servers; OpenSSH; Kerberos; OpenAFS; PHP; perl; gcc; MySQL; Postgres. The list could go on. Not only are these packages out of date, but they're horribly out of date, in some cases multiple upstream stable releases behind. I run a number of services on woody boxes, and for most of these services I've had to backport packages or use something like backports.org for the important packages, often including their dependencies. Having to do this kind of thing sort of defeats the purpose of a "stable" release, IMO. Just because a machine is a "server" doesn't mean it doesn't need modern hardware support or up to date software. Maybe it's OK if it's just a simple little shell/static HTML server sitting in your closet for you and a few friends to use, but when you start trying to run an enterprise on Debian stable, you find it rather limiting.

noah

No need for Apt-Emerge, just use www.backports.org
Add this line to your sources.list: deb http://www.backports.org/debian stable

Try Debian Backports

Check out http://backports.org/.

As with any tough question this isn't simply answered with Distribution X is obviously the way to go. Corporate focus has been mainly on Redhat and Novell lately. I've heard very good comments from the usability front when it comes from Novell/Suse, although I can't vouch for it myself. But a beginning linux admin can manage their linux servers pretty easily, even in more advanced setups like OpenLDAP.

On the other hand, Redhat seems to somewhat more of a more popular choice for most commercial software and is more widely supported by third parties when it comes to binary drivers. Yet again, your mileage may vary. If you're working for a large company that is willing to pay for support contracts, definatly check out RH Enterprise Linux or RH Advanced Server.

But if you're running on standard hardware, don't need the latest and greatest software (eg. a standard firewall/mailserver), give Debian a try. Together with backports Debian can even be a Samba 3 fileserver, or a mailserver with the latest and greatest spamassassin installed. Debian stable is well, to put it most eloquently, stable.

I've seen a lot of developers start out with a linux from scratch system for embedded systems. Although for server administration, I'd definatly advise not to go down that road. Don't ignore the smaller distros, but remember that your managements warm and fuzzy feeling comes from that reassuring "It's been done before and I have full documentation".

But honestly, do some research on what you're going to run on those machines. Invest a little time into what your management wants, and then use google to find where you get the results you need best. And stop starting flamewars on slashdot :)

If you really need MySQL 4 that bad then why don't you use backports.org which will allow you to run stable and yet keep some newer packages on your box?

One possible solution would be to divide Debian into a "server version" and one for the workstations who actually _want_ (or need) to run stuff from testing.

Or you could, you know, actually run stable on your servers and testing on workstations. Debian will let you mix and match, it's called pinning, and if you're not willing to run testing or unstable, Debian Backports provides modern packages compiled for stable.
The system you're describing already exists, you just need to know how to use it.

With Debian, you will end up using either a distribution based on kernel 2.2, or one labelled "testing".

Debian stable aka woody has kernel 2.4 for years. And it's stable. And there is such thing as backports.org.

keep an eye on backports.org if you're using debian stable.

I run testing on my web/mail server and recent upgrades have broken Apache twice. ... No enterprise could have their website down for a week.

Giving up mod points to respond to this, because it's stupid.

Microsoft jokes aside, no enterprise should be running testing-grade software. If you want stable, run stable, damnit! I can't stand the posts from people who whine about testing/unstable breaking their systems and being unable to fix it. If you can't figure out how to downgrade from broken packages in testing/unstable, DON'T BLOODY RUN THOSE BRANCHES!

Hey, I was a noob at one point too, and I sure still have a lot to learn. But you have to admit that was a pretty blatant display of ignorance.

As so many other people have mentioned in this article and others, stable is stable. No it's not the newest and flashiest, but you really need to ask yourself if running the latest software on your production servers is the smartest idea. If you really, really need feature X that's in a newer version than what's in stable, consider http://backports.org/ or doing the backport yourself. They're usually not too involved unless you're trying to backport something like Perl.

If you can't/don't want to do backports, then maybe you really should consider something nice and safe like RHEL.

I had to upgrade a few RedHat 9.0 internal development servers. I thought the Fedora release cycle was too rapid and Redhat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) was too expensive for internal development servers. I plan to use RHEL for the production machines. But for internal use I decided to use Debian instead for the following reasons:

* slow stable release cycle
* easier upgrades
* server management and configuration tools

One drawback of the slow release cycle of Debian is that software versions are somewhat old. If you need a newer version of a particular package Debian Backports can help with using newer software with stable Debian releases.

Ethereal gives me a woody.

No, no, no, you must have that backwards... woody gives you Ethereal. I'm sure that's what you meant to type.

Right? Please?

Have you looked at Backports.org?

Not sure if I'd go down that road if I required 100% certainty that they will still be providing security updates a year from now when we're still waiting for Sarge...

www.backports.org

Can you mix unstable and stable apps together with apt-get?

Yes, as others mentioned. And you might want to check out Debian Backports. It is a repository of packages for debian stable that are newer than what is provided in the stable distribution, but designed to work with stable.

The packages in backports are built to work on stable, so they use the libraries and stuff within stable wherever possible. The package selection is smaller than if you just started pulling stuff from unstable, but the changes to your system and risks to stability are minimal.

There are backports of module-init-tools to stable at backports .

www.backports.org has kernel-2.6 backported to stable. I'm using it and it works perfectly.

Specifically, Daniel Stone's backport of 4.3, since June, on a laptop.

Finding more recent but unofficial packages for Debian isn't any more difficult than finding ones for Redhat.

for those who dont know, you've been able to get a back port of 2.6 on woody for the last month (almost).

so go get it, and tell me how it will effect my surfing, emailing, mp3ing and general userish behavour on my P2 400 128RAM...

Go on, get to it! :)

APT::Default-Release "stable";

www.backports.org is also a good resource for finding cutting-edge packages backported to the stable release.

I use Sid (unstable) on my laptop, but on my new desktop PC I haven't bothered to upgrade from Woody, other than KDE 3.1, OpenOffice.org, Privoxy, and a few home-compiled apps. Actually, I find it refreshing to have a rock-solid and stable system. On my Sid laptop, I get all kinds of weird problems. Not often, but occasionally... Like when the printer stops working, or the USB mouse doesn't work anymore, or when X is no longer 3D accelerated. These are the kinds of issues you have to deal with once in a while when running Debian unstable. Not a big deal, but if I could choose again, I would have chosen Woody (with a few selected upgrades) on the laptop as well.

They seem to be focused on testing and integration - with caveats and solutions for problem dependancies.

You're running Debian stable, because you prefer the stable Debian tree. It runs great, there is just one problem: the software is a little bit outdated compared to other distributions. That's where backports come in. Backports are recompiled packages from testing and unstable, so they will run without new libraries (wherever it's possible) on a stable Debian distribution.