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This is kind of worrying. See, unlike Firefox and Thunderbird, Bugzilla is only licensed under the MPL. Debian considers the MPL non-free, at least because it requires that source code be available at least six months after you stop distributing a binary, if you distribute the binary over a network. This is considered too onerous a restriction, as unavoidable circumstances (e.g. a Slashdotting) might prevent the availability of the source code. [Note that the GPL does not require this: if you distribute source code side-by-side with binaries, you can stop distributing both at the same time].

I've not got anything against Bugzilla as an application besides this freeness issue. I've used it for GNOME bugtracking, and it seems quite, er, good.

Come on guys, is it really news every time Microsoft patches a new security flaw in Windows? When are we going to see the weekly Slashdot articles about the Linux security patches?

https://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2007-0338.html
http://support.novell.com/linux/psdb/bydate.html
http://www.debian.org/security/
http://www.slackware.com/security/list.php?l=slack ware-security&y=2007

I have recently been engaged in a serious effort to learn about Solaris 10, and have been very pleasantly surprised at what I have found...

...In fact, I am right now thinking that Solaris offers a lot of technologies that Linux can't touch ...

Could you point out some of them? I used to use Solaris a lot, a long time ago, but that was never as a system administrator. It was rather good then, but over the last 7 years I've moved to linux, OS X and OpenBSD. Last time I used Solaris for work was in 2003. What's better with Solaris these days?

dtrace, if I (mis-)understand correctly, is mainly useful for kernel work and is available on other platforms. What other uses might there be, if any?

zfs seems to have some kind of RAID capabilities, but last I heard can't be used as the root file system.

zones seem intriguing, but a cursory examination does make it stand out over other virtualization / paravirtualization methods.

If Ian Murdock is able to get Sun to adopt apt, that would bring me and a lot of others in again. If they can make the install as easy as Debian or Ubuntu, then that will pull in a lot of the curious: as of a few weeks ago the installation process required a serious time commitment and patience.

Debian GNU/Linux is already being ported.

To implement keyboard sharing at the OS level, we could use technology from here:

http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/pornview

Yeah, we should totally let these people die just because they can't afford the overpriced medicine. It's their own fault for being poor! You make a good point, if this keeps happening there won't be any more drug companies to make drugs.

As we all know, NO ONE does anything unless they are paid to do it.

There used to be another site that you could compare one language's speed relative to another that also showed PHP as one of the slowest.

That's pretty damning... If C# and Mono are faster, I can only imagine that MS's CLR would be even faster. Java's results vs. PHP are very similar.

Perl is usually better as well, as is Python, Tcl, etc.

In PHP's defense, how does performance compare once some sort of accelerator is involved? Are those fancy output caching engines or do they actually precompile/cache the code or something like that?

At first I thought you were trolling but from your "fix their performance" statement I realize you just don't know what the hell you're talking about.

Right. PHP's the fastest language out there, as proven in this test.

Mate: high 5 on wanting to help out. I'm a coder who doesn't contribute to existing projects (mostly due to time contraints and not for a lack of interest or desire) but releases the odd tool under a GPL or BSD license (or similar).

The lack of documentation in FLOSS aside (no flames please) you'd obviously be contributing to user documentation. I personally favour "complete" user documentation for a single system such as the FreeBSD Handbook (Gentoo and Debian have similar efforts). Of course even blogging HOWTOs may be useful to some one some day.

There are other ways to contribute. Hanging out on forums or IRC channels designed for helping end users in need is useful.

I've been able to get armedslack up and running on an arm board with 32 meg of ram. It worked quite well. Eventually ended up with debian-arm for production because of specific glibc and kernel versions which were available. I was able to use NFS and ssh on the ARM system and didn't notice any oddities with the networking stack (2.4 kernel). Some sites below where you can get a few of the arm distros I used.

Snapgear
          http://ftp.snapgear.org/pub/

armedslack
          http://www.armedslack.org/

debian
          http://www.debian.org/ports/arm/
          http://mirrors.midco.net/debian/pool/main/
          http://mirrors.midco.net/debian/pool/main/
          http://ftp.egr.msu.edu/debian/dists/sarge/main/ins taller-arm/current/images/netwinder/

GPG is used daily to sign releases and histories and patches on several revision control systems. I guess you mean signing for runtime loading like in ACS. When patches signing with GPG was implemented in GNU Arch, I remember someone said on the mailing list: "I'd rather have a key signed by Manoj than one signed by the pope". I think that this represent well how decentralized trust (GPG, PGP) compares with centralized trust (SSL). Centralized trust works if you trust the CA. But, being the CA gives you enough power to get corrupted. So we end up with Verisign on top of all the CAs and we don't really trust anything. I really like how signing is implemented in GIT.

The latest version of Debian Stable, codenamed 'Etch', has the ability to set up a fully-encrypted system (except for /boot of course) right from the installer.

It's amazingly simple to use, and great for laptops. (I'm running it on my dual-core laptop)

Check it out: http://www.us.debian.org/CD/

a couple more links

http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2006/12/msg015 71.html
http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2007/03/msg005 11.html

despite the titles of the emails, he's got it working and there is an xorg.conf and gdm.conf at the bottom.

I think he did a real how-to somewhere, but I can't find it.

a couple more links

http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2006/12/msg015 71.html
http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2007/03/msg005 11.html

despite the titles of the emails, he's got it working and there is an xorg.conf and gdm.conf at the bottom.

I think he did a real how-to somewhere, but I can't find it.

The Debian Policy Manual codifies the whys and hows of basic unix operation. Some of it is debian-specific, but debian is a pretty big chunk of "the world of linux" and their policy manual reflects a whole bunch of that common / shared knowledge. What goes in "/var"? How to be sane with "/etc/foo" v. "~/.foo/"? Cron + Init. Basically if a package does something "not in the debian way", then their policy documentation is designed to be able to point to a section and say: "we'd really prefer something like the following..."

It's a great resource. Also if you really feel like a challenge, grab an older version of debian and do an install. I thought I knew my PC until it blew up back in '99 and I (being tired of windows) installed debian. And proceeded to have to take out every piece of hardware (including memory sticks and floppy drives), putting them back in one by one until I could figure out what was causing XYZ to work or not work. Good times, and you learn a lot.

--Robert

Wow, now people can only criticise Debian out of 'ignorance or malice'?

It's strange, then, that some people can sing about it. Check out the list of complaints underneath - is that out of ignorance, or malice, or both?

My favourite is "Debian is being ruined by morons".

one big fat Microsoft Fanboy/Salesman argument isn't true for Vista: "Windows has more applications..."

That lie has been dead for a long time. Debian has 18,733 packages now. I doubt they will ever be obsoleted the way non free software is and Debian, while huge, is only a part of the free software world. You have to go back 20 year to be in a world where non free software outnumbers free. Today, you can easily run systems that are completely free.

The M$ fanboys will say silly things now about how those 1,000 Vista ready applications you don't have to fiddle with too much are the ones that matter and are better in some way than others. That too is a lie and the difference is only going to become more obvious.

Developers left the non free world long ago when it was clear that only M$ and friends got anything out of it. The non free software world collapsed more than ten years ago as M$ crushed rivals like Netscape, OS/2, Word Perfect and others. Everything since then has been a desperate struggle by M$ to stop or steal free software.

1. Download Debian 4.0 [http/ftp][torrent]
2. Install
3. Don't give a shit about Microsoft or Windows anymore.

I went Debian (sid at the time) five years ago when XP started edging out Win2k installations. Now that Etch is out I've moved back the stable branch. It just works, it comes with everything I need, and I don't have to spend all of my time babysitting all of the add-on crap and drivers that inevitably comes with owning a Windows PC.

1. Download Debian 4.0 [http/ftp][torrent]
2. Install
3. Don't give a shit about Microsoft or Windows anymore.

I went Debian (sid at the time) five years ago when XP started edging out Win2k installations. Now that Etch is out I've moved back the stable branch. It just works, it comes with everything I need, and I don't have to spend all of my time babysitting all of the add-on crap and drivers that inevitably comes with owning a Windows PC.

Finally, note that free software distributions like Debian, clearly label n binary blobs required by the Madwifi drivers as non free and these are not included by default.

The point that PC World misses is that non free has problems in both the Linux and Windoze world. The magic of GNU/Linux is that it's Free Software. When you mix in binary blobs, you are once again a helpless user. Others have noticed that Atheros does not release specifications required to build drivers. That's too bad, but they are not the least friendly wireless company.

It looks that way to me.

Unless this is a different vulnerability, Debian applied the fix over four months ago, two days after the patch was available, and eight days after the vulnerability was first reported

I saw the article and immediately started aptitude to get the fix, only to discover that I already got it, two weeks before Christmas. Nice.

Or AZERTY for the french!
I have used qwerty, qwertz and azerty, but never yet dvorak. I'm getting curious about it though, so I installed dvorak7min (debian: http://packages.debian.org/stable/games/dvorak7min ) hoping it's any good.

One of the cool features of Debian is that one can download loads of packages from the net (3 dvd's in this case, and already the first dvd alone is sufficient to get a pretty decent system) and install them on box w/o internet connection (which happens to be exactly what I need). The only other distro that I know of with the same capability is Fedora Core (ok, CentOS too but with less "edge"), so it seems that Debian was just enough faster with the release of Etch than Fedora with FC7 (even if the later will be edgier it is still probably a month of CPU time for me).

In any case, AMD64 Etch ended up on my new comp (Core 2 with one of the fancier nvidias) last night, and the installation (using installgui option, dual boot) was trivial, particularly comparing with the previous installation of Debian I did about a year ago, and just as easy if not easier compared with other distros I tried (Xubuntu 6.05, Gentoo 2006.1, FC6 and one Mandriva power pack, all 64bit). Almost all of things just work without any editing of any files, only installing of packages from dvds (in particular, movies do play; I didn't configure any nvidia specific stuff yet; desktops are all there working fine). Now I'll have to tweak few things but overall it is already usable (things compiled and running full speed).

One thing I miss is ntfs-3g. Sure, it's not stable yet but it did work for me (on another comp with FC6) and it seems that what is packaged is just not enough to get my ntfs partitions and external drives writable, but then I might just not know how to do it with what's in the distro.

Plenty of people are willing to take your money to support Debian for you, if that's what you want.

Doesn't Linux have ways of copying only those bits of the file that actually changed?

Also beginning with Debian GNU/Linux 4.0, the package management system has been improved regarding security and efficiency. Secure APT allows the verification of the integrity of packages downloaded from a mirror. Updated package indices won't be downloaded in their entirety, but instead patched with smaller files containing only differences from earlier versions.

The Jigsaw Downloader (jigdo) can be used for this, it was developed to help with distribution of Debian ISO images. It is being used to build Debian ISO images from the packages located on the Debian mirrors. You don't have to worry about distributing the ISO images to the mirror sites or need additional disk space to store them either. The best thing is that you can update your local ISO to include new packages, etc, as things change. Have a look at http://www.debian.org/CD/jigdo-cd/ and http://atterer.net/jigdo/

If you want to be serious, take a look at this C++/OCaml raytracer comparison and a random benchmark.

Functional languages will let us utilize multiple cores without the headaches and performance is acceptable, to claim otherwise is plain short-sighted. Programmers are not going to be doing manual memory management or thread handling in application level code.

Actually... Looking at Haskell, and clean in the debian language shootout, both are beating C# in terms of memory usage, and CPU usage.

Actually... Looking at Haskell, and clean in the debian language shootout, both are beating C# in terms of memory usage, and CPU usage.

Actually... Looking at Haskell, and clean in the debian language shootout, both are beating C# in terms of memory usage, and CPU usage.

And on top of that, according to reliable reports, cedega is only marginally more stable than Wine ever was. Which in my opinion is not worth five bucks, especially given how much progress Wine has made in the last year or so in terms of compatability. Heck, the latest version can even run WoW with minimal amounts of fuss (according to its rank, which is Gold). And I'd rather wait for someone to brute-force copy protection in a free way instead of having to be at the mercy of those that provide it.

Cedega doesn't need your support. Wine does. Give the latest version a spin, download it, and provide bug reports for your favorite games so the remaining bugaboos can be fixed up.

But if you try to redistribute it, Transgaming will change their license to prevent you from doing so.

rsync is very complex protocol (to me), it does find matching chunks at different offsets:

http://samba.anu.edu.au/rsync/how-rsync-works.html
"The sender process reads the file index numbers and associated block checksum sets one at a time from the generator.

For each file id the generator sends it will store the block checksums and build a hash index of them for rapid lookup.

Then the local file is read and a checksum is generated for the block beginning with the first byte of the local file. This block checksum is looked for in the set that was sent by the generator, and if no match is found, the non-matching byte will be appended to the non-matching data and the block starting at the next byte will be compared. This is what is referred to as the "rolling checksum"

If a block checksum match is found it is considered a matching block and any accumulated non-matching data will be sent to the receiver followed by the offset and length in the receiver's file of the matching block and the block checksum generator will be advanced to the next byte after the matching block.

Matching blocks can be identified in this way even if the blocks are reordered or at different offsets. This process is the very heart of the rsync algorithm. "

While you are right that rsync has a much simpler job, it is still based on exchanging a list of checksums.

A long, long time ago I was trying to download a Debian iso image. The howto to generate one was kinda like:
-download "this list" of packages from you favorite mirror
-cat *.deb > foo.iso
-rsync the remote iso image to your local foo.iso

The result was an iso generated from files that could have been downloaded from n sources.

This method is still mentioned under the "Aargh! The script fails with an error - have I downloaded all those MBs in vain?!" section on http://www.debian.org/CD/jigdo-cd/

Freedom.

The Debian team is working on a new multiarch system that will address this, making it simple to install mixed architecture software on machines that support it. Basically, the packaging system will understand all of the various ISAs and their relationships, and which ones will run on which processors, and the package dependencies.

This means that rather than having aptitude (or your apt front end of choice) show you six different versions of the linux-image package (-486, -586, -686, -k7, -k8, -amd64, etc.) or the mencoder package, there will only be one linux-image and one mencoder in the list. The various binary versions will still exist, and by default apt will pick the best of those available for your platform. If you want, however, you'll be able to override its choice and pick a different one. If the one you pick requires different versions of support packages, then dpkg will also know that and apt will handle all of the dependency management, making sure that the right versions of everything are installed.

So for example, if you have an Athlon 64, by default apt will install 64-bit versions of everything. If, however, you decide to install the flashplugin-nonfree package, which is 32-bit only, apt will recognize that it cannot be used with your 64-bit browsers and offer to replace them with 32-bit versions. Since the 32-bit versions require 32-bit libraries, it will also offer to install the required libs. Part of the multiarch specification is a scheme for making it easy to install multiple versions of a given library side by side, and for automatically configuring apps to find the correct library versions.

This might seem like an overly-general solution for addressing the temporary x86 32- to 64-bit transition, but the Debian developers doing it have recognized that as just one example of a much larger problem, including:

• A half dozen of Debian's target platforms are already in the same position with processors that support 32- and 64-bit versions of the same ISA. This isn't just an x86 issue.
• Some processors support running other ISAs via emulation, software or hardware. For example, you can run lots of ISAs via software emulation on i386 via qemu, and Itanium runs ia64 natively but provides hardware emulation for i386.
• It's possible to use compatibility libraries to run software from other OSes. You can run some Solaris/sparc applications on Linux/sparc, for example, and you can run DOS and Windows software on Linux via FreeDOS, WINE, etc.
• Some processors support mixed-endian binaries.
• Many processors, particularly in the x86 world, support lots of different ISA subsets -- i386, i486, i586, i686, k7, k8, MMX, SSE, etc.
• All of the above is complicated by the fact that some packages can run on multiple architectures, but perhaps not all architectures.

So, the plan is to develop a solution that addresses all of these issues in a general way, rather than continuing to use various architecture-specific hacks to get around the fact that dpkg currently believes a machine has only one architecture. It's a pretty big project, but people are pushing to get it included in Lenny (which, judging by past releases should be out mid-2009), and users of unstable and testing should see it much sooner.

Debian - Gives the user control to choose what they want to use, more packages more options..
Ubuntu - Makes most of the initial choices for the user..

Debian - manual configuration of a lot of items..
Ubuntu - a bit better at auto-configuration of hardware.

Debian - Etch 20,400+ Packages in the official repository
Ubuntu - Fiesty I think it's around 6000 Packages but can't find a stat anywhere to confirm exact munber.

Debian 13 hardware Architectures i386, x86-64, PowerPC, 68k, SPARC, DEC Alpha, ARM, MIPS, HPPA, S390, IA-64, AMD64, Intel EM64T
Ubuntu 3 Hardware Architectures i386, AMD64, PowerPC,

I've used child distros in the past an always ran into problems. I would then switch to the parent distros to get away from the problems.. So I use Debian rather than one of it's numerous children to prevent a repeat of my previous experiences. http://www.debian.org/misc/children-distros

As far as I'm aware from looking briefly at the Debian website, I think so.

This time, however, you have a choice of 3 "first" CDs - the default one that includes GNOME, one that includes KDE, and one that includes XFCE. This should, in theory, mean that you get only the desktop stuff that you need. They are listed on the main iso-cd download page, which for i386 is http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/4.0_r0/i386/is o-cd/

However I will say this - I have not installed a Debian desktop from CD only for a couple of years, and am unlikely to do so in the near future. So I could be wrong...

I've witnessed attempts by various individuals to fundamentally alter the goals of Debian. Most common is trying to make Debian a more "desktop-oriented" distribution. Good attempts turn out as separate distributions. Honestly, that's how it should stay.

See, Debian not only welcomes child distributions, it thrives on them.

http://www.debian.org/misc/children-distros

At some point in time, I would encourage consideration of Debian's slogan, "The Universal Operating System".

Debian has been and always will be an operating system that equally (as in equity) targets all applications; that's why child distributions are necessary, and why Debian Unstable is so damned important. Child distributions are required to pull the Debian project in a productive direction. Debian Unstable is required to tie the required functionality of child distributions together and, in turn, propagate the benefits to all parties involved.

It doesn't make sense to take a piece of software to any sort of bleeding-edge when it will be deployed world-wide on Debian servers and Debian routers. Furthermore, the fact that a child-distribution is already working to "sex up the desktop" is evidence that Debian need not take initiative in such a direction; it's already involved.

[Debian] could instantly surpass Ubuntu by pretty much adding all the stuff Ubuntu does (it's all FOSS anyway, right?),

It is not. Many of Ubuntu's changes involve installing non-free software by default. Debian will never do this. You may feel that this will consign the distribution to obscurity until the end of time; go right ahead, it won't change anything, because Debian is about freedom (and technical superiority) and not market share.

but making these small changes:

1. Give users an option to use commercial drivers right off. The new Ubuntu is doing this, but the implementation is still a little rough around the edges, and it's not at all clear that commercial drivers are frequently better than the FOSS ones, which is certainly true for GPU issues.

What is a commercial driver? There are plenty of commercial drivers that are already in Debian main. It is only non-free drivers that are relegated to the, um, non-free section; they will never be installed by default, because to do so would be to go against everything that the Debian project stands for.

2. Default to Iceweasel and Icebird. Debian does this already, so they are a leg up. True FOSS is true FOSS, right? And for some dumb reason Ubuntu still defaults to Evolution.

In fact the default apps are Epiphany/Evolution if you use GNOME and Konqueror/Kmail if you use KDE. As it should be--these apps are designed to work as a part of their respective desktop environments, rather than in spite of them, like Firefox/Thunderbird.

3. Make it even easier to turn on compiz/beryl. Still pretty hard even in feisty, requires xorg.conf editing and such... Lame.

As for the software, compiz is packaged for Debian, like any other piece of software. Beryl is not because of the upstream developers' rather... cavaliere attitude towards licensing an copyright. It's a sucky situation, but without a radical overhaul of the US legal system this is not going to change. More details at http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=3 88701.

As for editing xorg.conf... once composite is readt to be enabled by default, it will be enabled by default and every distribution will be able to use it by default. This will be up to the xorg developers themselves, since it is they who are in the best position to make this decision. Until then, Debian should not make invasive changes such as enabling optional and experimental features of core system software such as xorg.

4. Make the default menu look more like windows. You know: "Start" menu, Quicklaunch, App running display (with preview), System Tray, Clock/Calender. Eliminate the top bar that gnome defaults to.

Maybe they should just install XPDE by default? Or just give up and tell people to install Windows in the first place?

This annoys me a great deal actually. Every distro apart from Debian seems to think that it is necessary to change the default layout of their desktop environments so much that they become unrecognisable to inexperienced users. This makes it impossible to write distribution-neutral instructions on how to do anything in GNOME, KDE, etc. Grr!

6. Include some really good foss games. You know, games with 3d sound and video, and online multiplayer. Urban Terror is free (as in beer). Use that one, till a better full FOSS alternative comes along. Hell ioquake3 with the original quake 3 demo files would be better than what most distros ship with.

The games you mention are non-free. As I said above, if you want them installed by default then you are using the wrong distro. Try Ubuntu instead.

8. Make it REALLY EASY to get EVERY CODEC.

It is already very easy to obtain every codec that Debian is able to distribute. They are probably even ins

[Debian] could instantly surpass Ubuntu by pretty much adding all the stuff Ubuntu does (it's all FOSS anyway, right?),

It is not. Many of Ubuntu's changes involve installing non-free software by default. Debian will never do this. You may feel that this will consign the distribution to obscurity until the end of time; go right ahead, it won't change anything, because Debian is about freedom (and technical superiority) and not market share.

but making these small changes:

1. Give users an option to use commercial drivers right off. The new Ubuntu is doing this, but the implementation is still a little rough around the edges, and it's not at all clear that commercial drivers are frequently better than the FOSS ones, which is certainly true for GPU issues.

What is a commercial driver? There are plenty of commercial drivers that are already in Debian main. It is only non-free drivers that are relegated to the, um, non-free section; they will never be installed by default, because to do so would be to go against everything that the Debian project stands for.

2. Default to Iceweasel and Icebird. Debian does this already, so they are a leg up. True FOSS is true FOSS, right? And for some dumb reason Ubuntu still defaults to Evolution.

In fact the default apps are Epiphany/Evolution if you use GNOME and Konqueror/Kmail if you use KDE. As it should be--these apps are designed to work as a part of their respective desktop environments, rather than in spite of them, like Firefox/Thunderbird.

3. Make it even easier to turn on compiz/beryl. Still pretty hard even in feisty, requires xorg.conf editing and such... Lame.

As for the software, compiz is packaged for Debian, like any other piece of software. Beryl is not because of the upstream developers' rather... cavaliere attitude towards licensing an copyright. It's a sucky situation, but without a radical overhaul of the US legal system this is not going to change. More details at http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=3 88701.

As for editing xorg.conf... once composite is readt to be enabled by default, it will be enabled by default and every distribution will be able to use it by default. This will be up to the xorg developers themselves, since it is they who are in the best position to make this decision. Until then, Debian should not make invasive changes such as enabling optional and experimental features of core system software such as xorg.

4. Make the default menu look more like windows. You know: "Start" menu, Quicklaunch, App running display (with preview), System Tray, Clock/Calender. Eliminate the top bar that gnome defaults to.

Maybe they should just install XPDE by default? Or just give up and tell people to install Windows in the first place?

This annoys me a great deal actually. Every distro apart from Debian seems to think that it is necessary to change the default layout of their desktop environments so much that they become unrecognisable to inexperienced users. This makes it impossible to write distribution-neutral instructions on how to do anything in GNOME, KDE, etc. Grr!

6. Include some really good foss games. You know, games with 3d sound and video, and online multiplayer. Urban Terror is free (as in beer). Use that one, till a better full FOSS alternative comes along. Hell ioquake3 with the original quake 3 demo files would be better than what most distros ship with.

The games you mention are non-free. As I said above, if you want them installed by default then you are using the wrong distro. Try Ubuntu instead.

8. Make it REALLY EASY to get EVERY CODEC.

It is already very easy to obtain every codec that Debian is able to distribute. They are probably even ins

Debian has turned into a political zoo of OSS dinosaurs, who are too big and too ancient. They spend lots of time arguing over political issues and raise barrier too high for hew developers.

For many years, turning on the register_globals settings in PHP has been known to be insecure and dangerous, and this option has defaulted to off for some time now. This configuration is now finally deprecated on Debian systems as too dangerous. The same applies to flaws in safe_mode and open_basedir, which have also been unmaintained for some time.

Starting with this release, the Debian security team does not provide security support for a number of PHP configurations which are known to be insecure. Most importantly, issues resulting from register_globals being turned on will no longer be addressed.

If you run legacy applications that require register_globals, enable it for the respective paths only, e.g. through the Apache configuration file. More information is available in the README.Debian.security file in the PHP documentation directory (/usr/share/doc/php4, /usr/share/doc/php5).

It would help other Debian users if you either submitted a bug report to the upgrade-reports package describing your expirience and the problems you encountered, or, even better, a bug to the release-notes package to document these issues. Some of them might even be fixed for the next point release, and the bugs will be forwarded to the package maintainers so that etch's packages are fixed. Contributing these issues back to developers is really simple, just read http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/reportingbug s

If you think this should be fixed, please file an appropriate bug report at http://bugs.debian.org/

Does Etch have any showstopping bugs that would stop a 'apt-get dist-upgrade'? Will it fuck up my apache, proftpd, sshd, or smb servers? Anything I should really know before letting some 600 or so packages change?