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By late October, Mr. Srivastava's team was beginning to
automate the testing that had historically been done by hand. If a feature had too many bugs, software "gates" rejected it from being used in Longhorn. If engineers had too many outstanding bugs they were tossed in "bug jail" and banned from writing new code. The goal, he says, was to get engineers to "do it right the first time."

All in all, the description sounds a lot like the Debian QA and build processes; automated builds, bug rates oncontributors and actions on contributors who bring in too many bugs.

By late October, Mr. Srivastava's team was beginning to
automate the testing that had historically been done by hand. If a feature had too many bugs, software "gates" rejected it from being used in Longhorn. If engineers had too many outstanding bugs they were tossed in "bug jail" and banned from writing new code. The goal, he says, was to get engineers to "do it right the first time."

All in all, the description sounds a lot like the Debian QA and build processes; automated builds, bug rates oncontributors and actions on contributors who bring in too many bugs.

To answer the question in your subject, I'm right here. Where've you been? :)

This doesn't bode well for the future of Debian.

To be fair, the imminent death of Debian was predicted steadily for years before I became Project Leader, was again immediately upon my election, has been again today (by you), and, I'm confident, will continue to be well after I'm gone. I hope you'll forgive me if I therefore cannot find the substance in remarks like the above.

Leaving aside squalid arguments about whether a local user group is entitled to use the term "Debian" when organizing a whip round for a barbeque (yes, a real example from the Debian mailing lists),

Well, a whip round that involved constituting a formal organization under UK law, yeah. I presume you're referring to this thread, in which, rather than pontificating like a gasbag, I actually, er, granted the Debian UK Society a license to use Debian's name so they can continue to get themselves set up while their critics make whatever case they're going to make about the organization's shortcomings. The issue seems to largely to have burned itself out at this point, and I expect the Project will continue to tolerate this particular usage of its name as long as the Debian UK Society behaves itself.

the real question is how and whether Debian reacts to the commercial pressures now being placed on it from other software outfits (some of whose guiding lights are themselves long-time Debian players).

I agree. That's an important question. I wouldn't call it "the real question" because that just puts us in a reactive mode. Our trademark policy needs to be founded on some concrete notions of what we want to accomplish. The ad hoc policy of 6 years ago, as I discussed in the message you seem to be disparaging, is no longer sufficient to guide our actions. Years ago, VA Linux Systems and Progeny slapped the Debian name on retail boxed OS products (incidentally, both were derivations of Debian GNU/Linux, not official versions). Back then that didn't raise much of a fuss. Things of changed. I think we should develop a coherent concept of what "trademark" means to us. With that coherent concept, we can establish a policy that can be efficiently and fairly enforced. Without one, we risk being perceived as capricious. As a hypothetical, "it's okay for DCC Alliance to use the Debian marks, but SLX Debian Labs and Ubuntu are right out." Any given user with a bit of analytical reasoning ability should be able to look at a trademark policy page on the Debian website, and given sufficient knowledge of an organization's activities, deduce whether or not their usage of Debian's mark meets with out approval.

For example, the new DCC Alliance seems to have gone right ahead as it pleased, helping themselves to Debian's good name with a contemptous "and what are you gonna do about it?" Not much, it would appear (or, at least, not much that's been made public).

As mentioned at the very beginning of the message I wrote which you seem to be disparaging, I've delegated the specific task of handling DCC Alliance's usage of the Debian mark to another Debian developer, because I personally work for a DCC Alliance member corporation and want to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest. I've been communicating with Don reguarly, and on 19 September he posted a status message to the debian-project mailing list. Don and I both wish things were moving more swiftly, but he seems to be stuck mainly on the mail-response latency of the corporate executive types he's dealing with. He doesn't feel he's been jerked around y

To answer the question in your subject, I'm right here. Where've you been? :)

This doesn't bode well for the future of Debian.

To be fair, the imminent death of Debian was predicted steadily for years before I became Project Leader, was again immediately upon my election, has been again today (by you), and, I'm confident, will continue to be well after I'm gone. I hope you'll forgive me if I therefore cannot find the substance in remarks like the above.

Leaving aside squalid arguments about whether a local user group is entitled to use the term "Debian" when organizing a whip round for a barbeque (yes, a real example from the Debian mailing lists),

Well, a whip round that involved constituting a formal organization under UK law, yeah. I presume you're referring to this thread, in which, rather than pontificating like a gasbag, I actually, er, granted the Debian UK Society a license to use Debian's name so they can continue to get themselves set up while their critics make whatever case they're going to make about the organization's shortcomings. The issue seems to largely to have burned itself out at this point, and I expect the Project will continue to tolerate this particular usage of its name as long as the Debian UK Society behaves itself.

the real question is how and whether Debian reacts to the commercial pressures now being placed on it from other software outfits (some of whose guiding lights are themselves long-time Debian players).

I agree. That's an important question. I wouldn't call it "the real question" because that just puts us in a reactive mode. Our trademark policy needs to be founded on some concrete notions of what we want to accomplish. The ad hoc policy of 6 years ago, as I discussed in the message you seem to be disparaging, is no longer sufficient to guide our actions. Years ago, VA Linux Systems and Progeny slapped the Debian name on retail boxed OS products (incidentally, both were derivations of Debian GNU/Linux, not official versions). Back then that didn't raise much of a fuss. Things of changed. I think we should develop a coherent concept of what "trademark" means to us. With that coherent concept, we can establish a policy that can be efficiently and fairly enforced. Without one, we risk being perceived as capricious. As a hypothetical, "it's okay for DCC Alliance to use the Debian marks, but SLX Debian Labs and Ubuntu are right out." Any given user with a bit of analytical reasoning ability should be able to look at a trademark policy page on the Debian website, and given sufficient knowledge of an organization's activities, deduce whether or not their usage of Debian's mark meets with out approval.

For example, the new DCC Alliance seems to have gone right ahead as it pleased, helping themselves to Debian's good name with a contemptous "and what are you gonna do about it?" Not much, it would appear (or, at least, not much that's been made public).

As mentioned at the very beginning of the message I wrote which you seem to be disparaging, I've delegated the specific task of handling DCC Alliance's usage of the Debian mark to another Debian developer, because I personally work for a DCC Alliance member corporation and want to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest. I've been communicating with Don reguarly, and on 19 September he posted a status message to the debian-project mailing list. Don and I both wish things were moving more swiftly, but he seems to be stuck mainly on the mail-response latency of the corporate executive types he's dealing with. He doesn't feel he's been jerked around y

The logo these guys (still) have elektrostore.se

some debian-legal discussion

But for Debian users, you aren't supposed to even be able to have 64-bit and 32-bit binaries co-existing on one system.

"Despite the original post, it wasn't Debian who pledged to conform to this standard, but the Debian Common Core Alliance [dccalliance.org]."

Debian has supported the LSB in the earlier versions, what makes you think it would be any different with 3.0.

You can go to their website now:

http://packages.debian.org/cgi-bin/search_packages .pl?keywords=lsb&searchon=names&subword=1&version= unstable&release=all

: and see these.

Package lsb

        * unstable (misc): Linux Standard Base 3.0 support package
            3.0-7: all
            3.0-6: all

Package lsb-base

        * unstable (misc): Linux Standard Base 3.0 init script functionality
            3.0-7: all
            3.0-6: all

Package lsb-core

        * unstable (misc): Linux Standard Base 3.0 core support package
            3.0-7: alpha arm i386 m68k mips mipsel powerpc s390
            3.0-6: amd64 sparc
            3.0-5: hppa hurd-i386 ia64

Package lsb-cxx

        * unstable (misc): Linux Standard Base 3.0 C++ support package
            3.0-7: alpha arm i386 m68k mips mipsel powerpc s390
            3.0-6: amd64 sparc
            3.0-5: hppa hurd-i386 ia64

Package lsb-graphics

        * unstable (misc): Linux Standard Base 3.0 graphics support package
            3.0-7: alpha arm i386 m68k mips mipsel powerpc s390
            3.0-6: amd64 sparc
            3.0-5: hppa hurd-i386 ia64

Package lsb-release

        * unstable (misc): LSB release command
            1.4-8: all

Package lsb-rpm

        * unstable (devel): Red Hat package manager for LSB package building
            4.0.4-31.1: alpha amd64 arm hppa i386 ia64 mips mipsel powerpc s390 sparc
            4.0.4-31: m68k

Package lsbappchk

        * unstable (misc): Linux Standard Base application compliance checking tool
            1.3.4-1: amd64 i386 ia64 powerpc s390

: looks like support to me. ;)

Later, Seeker

Four down, only 458 to go.

You shouldn't be trusting Slashdot articles either, given that this whole story looks like a work of fiction

My way of avoiding this sort of problem is just to allow other users to play with new releases of software for a few weeks before installing it myself.

New versions of Firefox, for instance, never contain anything too exciting

Linux (debian) first visited space in 1997: Debian Rides Space Shuttle.

http://www.addonshop.com/
http://www.sub300.com/
http://www.linare.com/
http://www.linspire.com/
http://www.linuxcertified.com/
http://www.microtelpc.com/
http://www.outpost.com/
http://shoprcubed.com/
http://www.systemax.com/divisions.htm
http://www.walmart.com/
http://www.xandros.com/
http://tuxmobil.org/
http://www.us.debian.org/distrib/pre-installed
http://www.linux.org/vendor/system/index.html

Couple this with the fact that 99% of all of the world's software is written for x86 and you have a very large inertia to overcome in order to change the ISA.

Really? Better tell the Debian guys then. They ship their distro for 10 platforms. Then there's the BSD's: NetBSD takes the cake with 49 platforms listed as stable. OpenBSD has 16 platforms and FreeBSD has 9 platforms.

I think you'll find that most software nowadays is written in a high-level language and not for a specific processor. If you have access to that source code and a compiler for your processor, then it doesn't really matter what it is. The big issue in porting is the operating system and GUI (and other) toolkits, not the CPU architecture.

Couple this with the fact that 99% of all of the world's software is written for x86 and you have a very large inertia to overcome in order to change the ISA.

Really? Better tell the Debian guys then. They ship their distro for 10 platforms. Then there's the BSD's: NetBSD takes the cake with 49 platforms listed as stable. OpenBSD has 16 platforms and FreeBSD has 9 platforms.

I think you'll find that most software nowadays is written in a high-level language and not for a specific processor. If you have access to that source code and a compiler for your processor, then it doesn't really matter what it is. The big issue in porting is the operating system and GUI (and other) toolkits, not the CPU architecture.

Native packages are better than a custom installer that doesn't integrate with the distribution and doesn't grok dependencies using existing libraries wisely.

My suggestion would be simply to provide a neutral .tar.gz or .tar.bz2 of your application. The tarball would unpack into one directory in which all required files are, including the main executable which could be run straight from that directory. For many, even that would be enough. Gnome and KDE come with built-in archive managers that unpack a tarball somewhere with a single click, and likewise run executable or .sh scripts from Nautilus/Konqueror.

However, the ultimate key here would be to tweak your license to allow re-packing that directory verbatim for redistribution in a Linux distro: if your software is good enough, distribution makers will use their RPM/DEB packing power and merge your software for you for the benefit of themselves and the users of their distribution. I shall remind you that they've already went lengths to provide installation packages for software that doesn't allow being included in their Linux distribution. Compare that to a simple tarball that could be simply repacked by anyone. If your software is good, it would be a service to the community.

Native packages are better than a custom installer that doesn't integrate with the distribution and doesn't grok dependencies using existing libraries wisely.

My suggestion would be simply to provide a neutral .tar.gz or .tar.bz2 of your application. The tarball would unpack into one directory in which all required files are, including the main executable which could be run straight from that directory. For many, even that would be enough. Gnome and KDE come with built-in archive managers that unpack a tarball somewhere with a single click, and likewise run executable or .sh scripts from Nautilus/Konqueror.

However, the ultimate key here would be to tweak your license to allow re-packing that directory verbatim for redistribution in a Linux distro: if your software is good enough, distribution makers will use their RPM/DEB packing power and merge your software for you for the benefit of themselves and the users of their distribution. I shall remind you that they've already went lengths to provide installation packages for software that doesn't allow being included in their Linux distribution. Compare that to a simple tarball that could be simply repacked by anyone. If your software is good, it would be a service to the community.

Native packages are better than a custom installer that doesn't integrate with the distribution and doesn't grok dependencies using existing libraries wisely.

My suggestion would be simply to provide a neutral .tar.gz or .tar.bz2 of your application. The tarball would unpack into one directory in which all required files are, including the main executable which could be run straight from that directory. For many, even that would be enough. Gnome and KDE come with built-in archive managers that unpack a tarball somewhere with a single click, and likewise run executable or .sh scripts from Nautilus/Konqueror.

However, the ultimate key here would be to tweak your license to allow re-packing that directory verbatim for redistribution in a Linux distro: if your software is good enough, distribution makers will use their RPM/DEB packing power and merge your software for you for the benefit of themselves and the users of their distribution. I shall remind you that they've already went lengths to provide installation packages for software that doesn't allow being included in their Linux distribution. Compare that to a simple tarball that could be simply repacked by anyone. If your software is good, it would be a service to the community.

First, to all you Slashdotters out there - I'm not trying to feed the trolls - this post looks legit to me - I'm just trying to help someone navigate what I'm sure you realize is very confusing - the Open Source world.

I'm posting anonymously because this isn't really the proper place to discuss this (don't ask me what the proper forum is - it probably isn't on Slashdot, although you might try the Ask Slashdot section), so this will very likely get modded down. Also, let me say from the beginning that I am still learning Linux myself, but I know several people who are bona fide experts, and am fairly familiar with the basics of the open source community. A full primer on open source and Linux is far beyond the scope of this post - I suggest spending some time with Google and perhaps Wikipedia for more in-depth information. Your IT consultant may also be a good resource since he or she installed Firefox on your computer.

First, let me say that - in my opinion, others would disagree - Linux is going to be more complicated for a non-technical user than Windows. My experience has been that Linux is more complicated and harder to install and operate. I would venture to say that to run Linux, you will need an expert of some sort - either you must become an expert yourself, or you must get an expert to help you. You can do this by hiring an expert, or by purchasing support for the version of Linux you use. Be sure, however, not to confuse software with support. There is such a thing as software that you don't have to pay for. You will probably always have to pay for support for that software, no matter what operating system you use. Everyone has their own opinion on what operating systems require the most support (my personal opinion is that Linux requires more support than Windows); many people will agree that if you want to minimize the the amount of support that you need, you would be well advised to look at Apple's OS X.

I'm not familiar with Redhat's business plan, but I do know that they cannot (legally) charge for the portion of Linux that is licensed under a legal contract called the GPL (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gpl/, http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html). I think (but don't quote me) that what they charge for is their add-ons to the core Linux operating system and for support of the operating system. Novell does a similar thing with SUSE Linux - although I know for a fact that you can download SUSE Linux for free - remember, that's just the actual software you get for free, no support is included (http://www.novell.com/products/linuxprofessional/ downloads/suse_linux/index.html). The bottom line is that you can get good, stable, production-ready versions of Linux that are totally free, and not maintained by any commercial entity. Some of the best known are Debian (http://www.debian.org/), Ubuntu - a derivitave of Debian (http://www.ubuntulinux.org/), and Gentoo (http://www.gentoo.org/). As for the "source" (or source code) of Linux or any other Open Source software, this is not something that will do you any good unless you are an advanced user. A discussion of what source code is goes far beyond a Slashdot post - suffice it to say that it isn't something you need to worry about at this point, and that you will need to become much more experienced with Linux before it will help you at all. Suffice it to say that source code is helpful because if a programmer has the source code to a piece of software, he or she can modify that software and make whatever changes he or she wishes. This is why open source software can be modified by anyone, whereas with commercial software, the source code is almost always a heavily guarded

Maybe apt-build does what you want?

Debian/kFreeBSD has its web site's pages copyrighted by SPI, web pages which mention that "Debian" is a registered trademark without mentioning the status of "FreeBSD".

But the people I blame are the directors of the FreeBSD Foundation which now owns the FreeBSD trademark at least as far as it applies to "CD ROMs featuring an archive of computer programs which may be accessed for use archived on a CDROM." (And it appears the FreeBSD Foundation is working to expand the applicability of the FreeBSD trademark.) But there is already a Debian/kFreeBSD iso.

Considering that a simple cease and desist was sufficient to force CentOS to scrub references on its web site to the phrase "Red Hat" and other such trademarks (other than apparently a link to someone else's article), I am baffled what either Debian/kFreeBSD or the FreeBSD Foundation is waiting for.

Debian/kFreeBSD has its web site's pages copyrighted by SPI, web pages which mention that "Debian" is a registered trademark without mentioning the status of "FreeBSD".

But the people I blame are the directors of the FreeBSD Foundation which now owns the FreeBSD trademark at least as far as it applies to "CD ROMs featuring an archive of computer programs which may be accessed for use archived on a CDROM." (And it appears the FreeBSD Foundation is working to expand the applicability of the FreeBSD trademark.) But there is already a Debian/kFreeBSD iso.

Considering that a simple cease and desist was sufficient to force CentOS to scrub references on its web site to the phrase "Red Hat" and other such trademarks (other than apparently a link to someone else's article), I am baffled what either Debian/kFreeBSD or the FreeBSD Foundation is waiting for.

The correct answer is Debian. Next question?

FYI: http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/04/msg00 229.html

Two things are being done. First, the FBI is nailing inept perpetrators as they can. This is like trying to cure a flea infestation by pinching the fleas off your friend's back. The second, more effective thing is the replacement of Windoze. Without Windoze, there will be no botnet. If you are new here, I suggest you get one of the following to improve your computing experience and help stamp out the weakness that will destroy the net:

• Mepis, auto configures and runs live off CD. If you like it, the "install me" button does it's business in 20 minutes.
• Xandros, what's left of Correl Linux, even easier for Windoze refugees with as much of the look and feel as possible.
• Fedora, Red Hat's free software offering.
• Debian Proper, harder than the others to set up but of much higher quality and easier to maintain.

With so many choices, there will never be Windoze type problems on free software. The exploits will not carry into more than 10% of the install base at a time. Go get some and take a bite out of crime.

- Vista Secure Edition
http://www.openbsd.org/
- Vista Compact Edition
http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/
- Vista Instant Edition
http://www.knoppix.org/
- Vista Grandmother Edition
http://www.apple.com/
- Vista Open Edition
http://www.debian.org/

So who funded this study? -- Debian GNU/Linux http://www.debian.org/

He was polite on the phone, but then he claims to have sent the quoted email.
ESR used email to threaten to to shoot Bruce Perens, don't forget.
I've not met the man, but he seems too timid to say such things face-to-face, but from the safety of his computer screen, he can be most excessive.
Whether he actually does anything beyond shooting guns at inanimate objects and bizarre witchcraft, I can not say.

I take your point, but it seems to depend on context. The major Linux distros, for example, seem to be seeling pretty well from my local PC store at around 30-40 pounds (I'm in the UK), which is a pretty significant fraction of the asking price for Windows XP Home.

Said distros are sold that price for price of the support and documentation that come with them (support you don't have when you buy WXP Home), and sometimes for price of paid softwares bundled in the package, not for the distro itself.

I guess it's all about convenience. Whereas things like Firefox or OpenOffice.org can usually just be downloaded from the project's web site, it's harder to find a "pre-fab" version of SUSE Linux for example.

Ah yeah, really hard, I mean you have to click on links to Novell from suse.de, really really hard walli walli walli

and everyone clearly knows that one can't find any freely downloadable distro on teh intarweb

According to http://packages.qa.debian.org/k/kdelibs.html and
http://packages.qa.debian.org/k/kdelibs/news/3.htm l

it seems like 3.4.2 started entering unstable more than 2 weeks ago. And you could have gotten 3.4.1 from experimental end of May.

The delay may have been partly incured by the gcc 4.0 upgrade.

According to http://packages.qa.debian.org/k/kdelibs.html and
http://packages.qa.debian.org/k/kdelibs/news/3.htm l

it seems like 3.4.2 started entering unstable more than 2 weeks ago. And you could have gotten 3.4.1 from experimental end of May.

The delay may have been partly incured by the gcc 4.0 upgrade.

if your talking about mms:// streams http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/mimms will do that. i normaly use it to record from xfm.co.uk and steal music when i cant be botherd to pay for the album or when there is no album out yet.

Nine reasons to use aptitude instead of apt-get or dselect.

"what's the point in taking the NetBSD kernel and wedging it into a big sloppy Linux userland?"

Actually, it seems like there's so much of a point that I was wrong about the project's demise. Here's the mailing list:

http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/gl ibc-bsd-devel

and here's the page for a live CD project, released just this month, called "Ging":

http://glibc-bsd.alioth.debian.org/ging/

If you're really still confused about the value of the Linux runtime, try it out sometime....

"what's the point in taking the NetBSD kernel and wedging it into a big sloppy Linux userland?"

Actually, it seems like there's so much of a point that I was wrong about the project's demise. Here's the mailing list:

http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/gl ibc-bsd-devel

and here's the page for a live CD project, released just this month, called "Ging":

http://glibc-bsd.alioth.debian.org/ging/

If you're really still confused about the value of the Linux runtime, try it out sometime....

The ABI doesn't matter all that much to you, even if you have to compile code yourself and use the prescribed compiler version. This is important when you are programming assembly, which you have already ruled out with your comment.

In case you actually want to learn something new have a look at this:
http://www.caldera.com/developers/devspecs/

or this to get an overview:
http://www.linuxassembly.org/

You may have figured out by now that ABI means Application Binary Interface (How come you didn't write about it in the article?). As a user you run into trouble mainly when two compilers have to live together on one system, and they support a different ABI.

See here for an example:

http://lists.debian.org/debian-release/2005/04/msg 00153.html

While all those changes may seem a nuisance to you, this may just be the thing some people are willing to accept to get some benefits out of not having to carry along the remnants of a legacy architecture.

If that's not what you want then Windows may just be the thing for you. To say that Linux developers have failed is maybe a sign of a somewhat overboarding sense of self-importance. Don't forget, that those people frequently write the code for fun or to scratch an itch, if they are happy they certainly haven't failed.

People already answered with some apps. The idea is that Windows or DOS install a very simple boot loader in MBR that actually calls the boot loader of some tagged partition (the 'DOS-active' partition). This information should be difficult to find because it's not a Linux thing. Anyway, there's a linux software that creates such a boot sector: mbr. I couldn't find it anywhere but at debian.

Now for the 'get my disk space back' thing, this is both a not-so-easy thing and pretty much requested thing, that already has some interesting software

Many pieces of engineering are named after the one critical component that is essential for it's operation. It's evern sillier when you're attaching a conflicting brand name and you're not the creator of the critical component.

What makes you say that GNU Compiler Collection (gcc) and GNU C Library (glibc), both maintained by FSF, are less critical to a free operating system than Linux, maintained by Linus Torvalds? A GNU system could run on a *BSD kernel for all I care.

Java and .NET Suck for one reason and one reason only... They are Proprietary!

Java is owned by Sun and .NET is owned by Micro$oft and therefore using their code requires using their dlls or runtime compilers etc
http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-java-faq/ ch5.html#s-license-concerns

Oh and btw, anyone who claims that java is good because you can run it on every OS has never written more than a few lines...
any real java program falls into the "if this OS do this" problem meaning that you have to write the program for every OS you want to support and may as well have written the same thing in c/c++ and compiled for the supported OS's resulting in smaller (file and memory size) and faster programs.

Why you would pick a Proprietary language over a language defined by a public standard is beyond me!

No, 'Free' in this sense normally refers to freedom. Something as described in the Debian Free Software Guidelines http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines is a typical benchmark for Free.

Just being without cost ("free") doesn't make it Free!

They seem to have a good relation with both debian and gentoo. I wonder what kind of an imbecile you have to be to get a company to owe you 26860 euro. Even if you make 5000/month you'd still have to work half a year to get to that amount.

See this, computer languages shoutout benchmark Bigger is better, python is at 17, a few places behind C, perl is at 10. You wouldn't disregard perl when it comes to web frameworks, right? I don't know about emerge, or for example, up2date from fedora, but python programs don't have to be slow. I'm using zope and plone, and, for their complexity, they're fast enough. Another example: the Battlefield game series use python as internal scripting language.

Actually I think CherryPy and Zope have been around a while before Ruby on Rails. And speed wise Python kicks Ruby's ass for now.

And actually I don't know of any java frameworks that don't require tons o' xml flinging to get up and running. Please feel free to enlighten me.

Well not all distributions are the same, of course. I run Debian, so I use apt-get, so it is easy: type "apt-get update", then type "apt-get upgrade". The first brings your database of available packages up to date. The second upgrades all of your packages.

I've run Windows since 1.0, and have WinXP as a dualboot option now. Installing and uninstalling and upgrading software is much easier under Debian than windows, no doubt. Especially troubling, under windows, is if you try to install the 2005 beta series of development tools. Be aware that not only is the order of installation important, so is the order you uninstall. In Debian I'd just "apt-get remove" with a list of things to get rid of. In windows, if you uninstall with the wrong order, there is a utility to try to fix your registry (but the disclaimer suggests it isn't expected to work in every permutation of uninstalling.)

I agree. I have recently been in contact with Jeremy Malcolm via an email listserv about the Debian-Lex distribution that he started up a few years ago to cater to lawyers. He was quite willing to let me build upon the original ideas of his, and become the project leader of this as-of-right-now non-existent Linux distribution. And from what I can tell after about an hour's worth of online investigation and reading through comments in this discussion he's getting a bad rap just for being a lawyer.

I can understand how the one dude is legitamately ticked off that he's been attacked by Scientology and all since I view at as a very malicious cult at best too, but I think he's getting pissed at the wrong people. I can't vouch for Jeremy Malcom's ethical stances, but I do know from being married to a lawyer that the everyday conflict that lawyers deal with quite often puts them at odds with at least one party to a dispute.

People! Lawyers do not exist to be the morality police and uphold the law! They exist to fight for their client's rights under the law. They didn't make the laws, they don't uphold the laws (unless they have become judges), but they do fight for people's rights under the law. Sometimes that means they're fighting *against* you. But that certainly doesn't make them all out evil people just because they are representing that which you have come to view as evil, dispicable, and wrong!

When viewed in this light, I don't see how Mr. Malcolm's past or present actions are in any way wrong... he's trying to fight for Linus' rights to maintain the trademarked name "Linux" as a name for a specific computer operating system software package. You may not agree with the fees being requested to be able to use the name "Linux" in your company's or product's names, but that's currently part of the law, and part of good lawyering: defensive lawsuits to protect a name. Bringing Scientology into this discussion only works to drive people into a fury over something completely unrelated to the facts of this particular case. Chill out people! (Even all those /.'ers showing up in this discussion as "Friends of Friends" which I generally respect when viewing comments in the threads of various /. discussion topics)

Woah... Calm down for a second...

Have you ever used Debian or a Debian based distribution? Config files - hell, any type of file - locations are standardized even if it means modifying the source of an app to change the default locations. Package versioning is standardized. Package renames are well handled. You can easily upgrade from version to version and still understand (for the most part) how the OS works and is laid out. Best of all, you can generally expect that your upgrade will actually work because of the well maintained package repository which keeps dependencies in line.

You want standards? Here's some reading for you. It may just turn you into a Debian user: http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/

A world record??? LOL! Maybe for their lame implementation! Others are faster: http://packages.debian.org/stable/math/pi. Try for yourself, using a Debian box:
$ apt-get install pi
$ time pi 1000000 > /tmp/pi

real 0m9.188s
user 0m9.048s
sys 0m0.141s
$ cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : AuthenticAMD
cpu family : 15
model : 5
model name : AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 250
stepping : 10
cpu MHz : 2405.538
cache size : 1024 KB
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 1
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 syscall nx mmxext lm 3dnowext 3dnow
bogomips : 4718.59
TLB size : 1088 4K pages
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management: ts fid vid ttp

I bet you have a few hours to download this update.

Actually there are other fp languages that give a lot more performance than Erlang. Try OCaml with the native compiler, or SML with the MLton optimizing compiler. These can come very close to C in performance. See http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/

And for an ML like language that provides features similar to Erlang (concurrent, distributed programming), but with even more goodies like constraint based programming, check out AliceML. See: http://www.ps.uni-sb.de/alice/

If you make an open source OS that is blindingly simple to install and use, you won't get any money from your support contracts.

find me a Linux distro that even understands the concept of base OS
Here it is
HTH

The major computer OEMs such as Dell, HP, and
Gateway are refusing to offer CONSUMERS a
non-Microsoft choice.
These OEMs are anti-competitve and
anti-consumer-choice. They continue to maintain Microsoft's desktop
monopoly.

I suggest not doing business with these companies until they offer a serious non-Microsoft choice to CONSUMERS.

Here are some companies that DO offer consumers a choice.

http://www.systemax.com/divisions.htm
http://www.microtelpc.com/
http://www.linuxcertified.com/

http://www.outpost.com/ (search for linspire)
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/catalog.gsp?cat=395 1&path=0%3A3944%3A3951
http://www.sub300.com/Skins/greyTech/greyTech_inde x.aspx
http://www.linare.com/
http://www.linspire.com/featured_partner/featured_ partner.php
http://www.us.debian.org/distrib/pre-installed
http://www.linux.org/vendor/system/index.html