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Sure, Java is more efficient than Python. But is it more efficient than native code? http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/ has statistics and comparisons for many languages. They wrote the best programs they could to perform different tasks in each language and compared the results.

Java compared to Python
Java compared to C
Java compared to C++

C++ is slightly faster on all the tests, but not by as much as I'd expect, and Java is faster than some of the C implementations. At best, C++ is 3x faster and at worst it's about the same. Java does have a 10 to 30x memory footprint, though.

So I hope GAE charges by the CPU hour and not the amount of memory used :)

Groovy is very slow. Maybe that will get better in Java 7. There are probably other meaningful differences that I would be able to point out if I were better versed in Groovy.

Hm. According to the Computer Language Benchmarks Game, Ruby is 140 times slower than C (the median, across all tests). Ruby 1.9 is "only" 52 times slower than C. Three times faster than that means that MacRuby is only 17 times slower than C. Which makes it only twice as slow as Lua and only three times as slow as Lisp. I wouldn't classify that as "quite fast", although that's a bit more than twice as fast than Python, which is pretty good.

God, I love the CLBG (which used to be the GCPLS).

In any case, I love Ruby for what it is good at -- one-off scripts that grow gracefully. I've grown distrustful of languages that don't support any form of pre-runtime type checking for non-trivial application development. That's not a failing that is particular to Ruby, though.

In Debian, simply enabling apt-src does not get you a fully populated /src tree, and getting the source to start looking at to see if you can make a patch is a pain.

A pain? Really? It's just a few commands. I've built from source before many times.

http://www.debian.org/doc/FAQ/ch-pkg_basics.en.html#s-sourcepkgs

Debian added:
Hurd kernel port in ? 1999 ? (may have been earlier, wasn't later)
Netbsd kernel port in 2002

And there was an unofficial port of the Open Solaris kernel to Debian a couple years back.

http://www.debian.org/ports/

http://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/

Okay, summary is definitely wrong, Debian already supports four completely different kernels. See here.

Gentoo managed to get this kind of setup working years ago, didn't they?

So did Debian. Debian GNU/kFreeBSD as the port is poetically named has existed for a long time (see mailing list archives). This story is just about it being accepted as an official part of Debian. Who got there first? Who cares.

I'm still waiting for an official release of Debian GNU/Hurd.

Is available at http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/

There isn't much, but a little bit in the install notes.

IcedTea - http://iced-tea.org/wiki/Main_Page

Red Hat is already doing this. IcedTea has been released as a official supported and certified version of Java. Red Hat shipped this with their Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3 operating system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icedtea
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/packages/name/java-1.6.0-openjdk
http://packages.ubuntu.com/jaunty/openjdk-6-jdk
http://packages.debian.org/lenny/openjdk-6-source

https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/packages/bugs/java-1.6.0-openjdk
http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/packageinfo?packageID=5920

With surfraw, you can type things like "google [keywords]" directly in the shell and get the results page in your preferred browser. Or include those commands in a script. Etc.

Yet it's not perfect. When you really start to use surfraw, the next thing you realize is that commands alone just aren't enough, you probably also want a facility for aliases, like when you inadvertently type "gogle [keywords]". The other thing you need after that is a simple postprocessor for the command parameters to fix quoting issues and special characters. Those come up quite frequently when cutting and pasting keywords, and because search engines have their own character preprocessing semantics (things like +/- have special meanings which can yield nonintuitive results). Then if you use the shell much at all, you probably want to be able to pipe the results into another command such as grep or sed. With surfraw, simply choose a text browser as the target, and you can type things like "google keyword | grep keyword".

Wake me up when firefox can do all that.

Even Debian gave up on that

http://lists.debian.org/debian-security-announce/2009/msg00063.html

If you're talking plain Java vs Python [debian.org], Java looks to be quite a bit faster

The first link above refers to Java used with "Hotspot" and it is really fast. If you select the Java Xint, they are a lot closer although Java is still faster. But that "Hotspot" option looks to me to provide about a 10x speed improvement over plain interpreted Java. http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u32q/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=javaxint&lang2=java&box=1 If Python were to do something similar, I would expect a significant improvement in its performance too.

I know you're trying to be funny but... If you're talking plain Java vs Python, Java looks to be quite a bit faster. You don't have to look hard to find benchmarks that show java is faster.

Jython seems to be about 2-3 times faster than CPython according to those test.

This could give CPython the performance edge over Jython, but it still has a way to go to catch up to Java.

That can't possibly be expected behavior. File a bug with your distribution if it's not already known (see the following; I don't know what distro you're using).

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/pulseaudio/+bug/207135
http://bugs.debian.org/505097
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/474745
http://pulseaudio.org/wiki/BrokenSoundDrivers

The developers can't possibly have all of the relevant hardware; they need users who run into problems to help them out. Please try to help if you can; it might help the bug get fixed quicker.

True, but: (1) in some sense, package managers have in general been ahead of their time from a Windows point of view. (2) Package managers are really not all that old -- a quick glance of Wikipedia indicates Apt is just over a decade old, and the first version that included it was almost exactly a decade ago. Presumably checking signatures is more recent than that; looking here, it seems that feature is about 6 years old and was only part of Debian proper in the last 4. Even by internet time, that isn't all that long ago (still long after the dot-com bust for instance).

The idea of machines getting faster every year has not just harmed parallel processing, it has resulted in slower and more bloated code written in increasingly inefficient languages...

At http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/ you can see various benchmarks tested in different languages...

Java seems to perform quite well, but has a significant memory and startup overhead (java -server where the runtime is already loaded performs massively better)..
Ruby which seems to be fashionable right now performs terribly...

That's not a good thing. The distro on the Eee is not nice to use. Bypassing sysv init is exactly the kind of "clever" hack that others in this thread are bashing Windows programmers for. I'm also experiencing weird focus problems and the updater seems to want me to click yes on every package.

Just install DebianEeePC and apply the optional optimizations. It's fast enough, and no bullshit.

http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/linux_3x?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs

My GOD, there's three on one page.

Oh my, Installing Ubuntu on a MacBook Pro. I've been thinking about doing it myself. "This page describes how to install Debian on a MacBook Pro.".

http://system76.com/index.php?cPath=28

Can a photographer who's not a Linux guru use Photoshop on it? And apply that to all the other Linux laptops. So where's the lockin?

Falcon

Debian is welcoming students once again this year. I was a 2008 GSoC student at Debian and am returning this year to admin the GSoC program at Debian. I had a very exciting experience, participating in meetups with a lot of Debian developers all over Europe and I recommend you to apply at Debian to share this experience.

We have a huge range of project possibilities, from our famous packaging system (.deb ftw) to debian-specific developer tools and infrastructure (want to work on our multi-arch distributed build farm ?) or hardware support (because Debian runs everywhere, from tiny ARM devices to country-wide computing grids). We have you all covered.

Remember that Debian and its derivatives are the largest group of Linux distributions in the world. That's a huge community you'll be working with, and I should say, an amazing concentration of talent.

If you are interested, visit: http://wiki.debian.org/gsoc, join us on IRC on: #debian-soc on irc.debian.org or follow us on twitter of identi.ca (DebianGSoC).

Also, see our mailing-list announcement for more pratical information.

Debian is welcoming students once again this year. I was a 2008 GSoC student at Debian and am returning this year to admin the GSoC program at Debian. I had a very exciting experience, participating in meetups with a lot of Debian developers all over Europe and I recommend you to apply at Debian to share this experience.

We have a huge range of project possibilities, from our famous packaging system (.deb ftw) to debian-specific developer tools and infrastructure (want to work on our multi-arch distributed build farm ?) or hardware support (because Debian runs everywhere, from tiny ARM devices to country-wide computing grids). We have you all covered.

Remember that Debian and its derivatives are the largest group of Linux distributions in the world. That's a huge community you'll be working with, and I should say, an amazing concentration of talent.

If you are interested, visit: http://wiki.debian.org/gsoc, join us on IRC on: #debian-soc on irc.debian.org or follow us on twitter of identi.ca (DebianGSoC).

Also, see our mailing-list announcement for more pratical information.

No plans to measure Parrot VM on Q6600 (alive part of shootout.alioth.debian.org). There is related discussion https://alioth.debian.org/forum/message.php?msg_id=181415

Hurry up and get the languages that target it up on http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/

They must be crazy to be running that out in the current economic environment.

<sarcasm>Yeah, that sounds like a great idea... When enough people stop doing business, the economy will pick up in no time.</sarcasm>

We'll see how mant they managed to sell...

Not that it's any of your business.

What's the upcharge to NOT get Vista Ultimate 64 on that?

It's called buying your laptop from somebody else. It's a pretty difficult concept.

They call the tech support number on the box.
Not really any comparable options when a package manager spits an error back at you.

Some script reader in India is unlikely to be of any help.

On the other hand:

http://www.us.debian.org/consultants/

Lists a mere 759 consultants worldwide whom would love to trade their real expertise for your money.

Because those are the idiots that have never thought of using the Debian network installation cd. This makes even normal Debian look "bloated". Also, they forget that even as good as pure Debian 4.0 was for me, Ubuntu tends to have the drivers you need for a laptop on the install disc...

Speaking of which, I hadn't known Debian 5.0 was out, but might not matter as much since my use of Debian starting with 4.0 ended up being Sid

For a long time I was running it on an Indigo iBook (366mHz PPC, 192mb RAM).

For a long time I was running it on an Indigo iBook (366mHz PPC, 192mb RAM).

For a long time I was running it on an Indigo iBook (366mHz PPC, 192mb RAM).

For a long time I was running it on an Indigo iBook (366mHz PPC, 192mb RAM).

I've installed it on my little 4G and my wife's 1000HD and it works great.

DebianEeePC

Nice thing about Debian is it doesn't install a ton of cruft like Ubuntu seems to. (I've used both distros.)

Debian Lenny (which was released last weekend or so) supports the Eee out of the box. (I'm using it on an Eee1000 now. http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEeePC has links to a custom installer which will install all the right packages for you, but it's juts Debian under the hood. I get good battery life and everything seems to pretty much Just Work(tm)

Debian works on any of the Eee PC models.
http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEeePC

On my 701 it boots in 20 seconds to lxde, wireless just works, suspend works.On my wife's 1000HE everything also works.

The question boils down to wether you like Debian or Ubuntu more. I like Debian, and now with the release of Lenny, I see it's one of the officially supported sub-architectures.

http://debian-eeepc.alioth.debian.org/
  http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEeePC

The question boils down to wether you like Debian or Ubuntu more. I like Debian, and now with the release of Lenny, I see it's one of the officially supported sub-architectures.

http://debian-eeepc.alioth.debian.org/
  http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEeePC

The question boils down to wether you like Debian or Ubuntu more. I like Debian, and now with the release of Lenny, I see it's one of the officially supported sub-architectures.

http://debian-eeepc.alioth.debian.org/
  http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEeePC

I use plain Debian (Lenny) on my eee 901. Most things work out-the-box and for the things that don't there is a eee Repo.

The things I needed to install from the eee Repo were the wireless drivers (rt2860) and the acpi-scripts.

I personally much prefer using a mainstream distro instead of a small(er) project that might disappear one day.

Powerful. Free.
http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEeePC

There are plenty of PC manufacturers who would be happy to sell you a PC without Windows and without the "MS tax".

You chose to pay the MS tax when you chose not to buy from one of those manufacturers.

Your poor decision making doesn't mean MS has a monopoly.

Donate to Debian and let everyone benefit.

While I'm happy to see that libapache2-mod-python at last supports python2.5, I'm very dissapointed that debian developers didn't include python2.6. Do we have to wait another 22 months for it?

If the debian folks think that python2.6 could cause problems they are free not to make it the *default* python. But not including it at all is insulting for the python development team. Most important, since python2.6 is considered a stepping stone to python3, it is also very inconvenient for those who want to start migrating their code to python3.

That's why you have backports ? A lot of servers run stable with just 1 or 2 backports.

It's available (1.5.1):

http://packages.debian.org/search?suite=etch-backports&section=all&arch=any&searchon=names&keywords=subversion

Or simply use debootstrap. Even more light-weight, but requires some manual configuration.

unfortunately FHS is ambigous on the issues..

http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#LIBESSENTIALSHAREDLIBRARIESANDKERN

> The /lib directory contains those shared library images needed to boot the system and run the commands in the root filesystem, ie. by binaries in /bin and /sbin

Thus, if your /bin contains amd64 binaries needed to boot the system, you should put the amd64 libs in /lib.

FHS is built on assumption that the 32bit userland is the default and only selected binaries (databases, and others who really need 64bit pointers) are 64-bit - which is true for the older 64bit archs.

but lib64 is stupid idea in the first place.

It should be more generic: /usr/lib/$(arch)/

Thus you could support as many 32 and 64bit architectures as your cpu (and kernel) supports (and the rest via emulation).

http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=387446

Also do not forget that Debian currently seeks hardware donations.

I couldn't get apt to upgrade in step 4.5.4 of the process (wouldn't upgrade libc), but the alternative aptitude route seems to have worked, though expect it to bring in a fair bit of more packages than just glibc and locale.

I might be missing something here, but aren't there still 84 release-critical bugs open on lenny? I understand a number of them have been deferred to lenny.1, but I had expected this number to drop further before a release was made. Has Debian changed their release policy?

[captcha: prudence]

Don't forget the 'best' install out there: NetInstall. Unless you actually want to download 31 CDs or 5 DVDs worth of stuff. The best part about Debian is the mix and match of installing what I want. I honestly can't fathom trying to download 20Gigs of stuff just to make a desktop unless I plan on installing in middle of nowhere.

It was also mentioned on the dev announce list:

http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2009/01/msg00002.html