Debian 2.2r4 (Potato) Released

codazzo writes "Debian 2.2r4 is out. As their website states, "The fourth revision of Debian GNU/Linux 2.2 (codename `potato') has been released. This point release, revision 2.2r4, mostly includes security updates, along with a few corrections of serious bugs in the stable distribution." " You can see the press release - or get it from the FTP list.

Comments

Where's 3.0

[The 14 year old]

3.0 (Woody) was frozen around July, and they said it would be ready around November. I guess that was just wishful thinking.

Re:Where's 3.0

[HoserHead]

Firstly, Debian 3.0 will be released when it's ready - which means sometime in 2002.

Woody wasn't frozen in July, Policy was. The base base system was frozen later, in August. Everything else remains unfrozen, though those packages in 'standard' and many tasks (such as GNOME and KDE) should be on the block to be frozen pretty soon.

We're going about it in a different way this time; different parts of Debian are being frozen at different times. Because base and standard packages are more important than Priority: extra packages, they're being frozen first so all bugs can be shaken out and fixed.

For more information, search the debian-devel-announce archives or see the most recent mail from one of the release coordinators, Anthony Towns.

Basically, be patient. The reason that Anthony whipped together Debian 2.2r4 is simply because 3.0 won't be ready for a while.

Re:Where's 3.0

[Hater's Leaving, The]

Where do you get your supposedly up-moderation-worthy information from?

Debian do _not_ specify release dates in advance. It's ready when its ready, and not before. It annoys some, but it ensures the quality of the release.

Hmmm, actually, here's what Debian say:
"
As usual, no specific release goals are being set, nor will a release date be specified in advance. To put it simply, "Debian releases when it is time".
"

THL

Where's the stable kernel?

[Kenneth Stephen]

The last I heard, Debian was waiting for a stable kernel to appear. And please dont tell me that the 2.4 kernels were announced a while back by Linus - I have any number of machines (of varying hardware) on which 2.2 kernels run fine but the 2.4 kernels are unstable. Granted, 2.4.13 is billed as the stable kernel we've all been waiting for. However, given that it made its appearance only last week, I think we should excercise some patience. It will take a while to test all the OS packages with the new kernel.

Re:Where's the stable kernel?

[Genom]

I'm sure it is possible to fix if you know what you are doing but the whole point of apt-get is that it is supposed to take care of that instead.

Actually, it's not supposed to take care of *everything* for you -- it just takes care of most dependency issues, so you can concentrate on which software you want to run. You still have to understand what the software you're installing is going to do.

If there's a major problem with an often-used package (or set of packages such as KDE, Gnome, etc...) there's generally some press about it over on Debianplanet - as well as on the mailing list. If you're going to run "unstable", then you generally should check those places before you do any major installing, just to be safe.

As far as installing KDE2 -- Here's my install process (which has worked with "unstable" every time I've tried) from a 'clean' system:

• Install base system (stable)
  
• Upgrade base system (stable)
  
• Check Debianplanet for any caveats with the current packages
  
• Change /etc/apt/sources.list to point at unstable
  
• dist-upgrade to unstable (gives the "unstable" base system)
  
• install/configure xfree86 (should give you Xfree4.xx at this point)
  
• install kde
  
• install kdebase-crypto (to give konq SSL support)
  

Thusfar, that's worked for me on quite a few new boxes -- I don't play around with Gnome too often, so I can't help out there.

I guess the real bottom line is that just because an "easy-to-use" tool exists, doesn't mean that you can just be lazy about the stuff you install - you still have to keep up on what's broken at any given point. That's the drawback of "unstable" - if you want everything to "just work", then "stable" is the answer, although you'll get a lot of outdated stuff, it's been tested quite extensively. If you want newer stuff, but don't want the bleeding edge, then "testing" is where you should be, although I've found it tended to break a lot more than "unstable" when I tried it (this was a while back - maybe things have changed since then). "unstable" is for us bleeding edge freaks who want to run the latest versions of everything -- at any given time something could bust - but it's generally fixed within a day or so.

Re:Where's the stable kernel?

[Floris]

First: debian unstable has KDE 2.2 right now. It works. (haven't had it do anything funny on me yet anyway)

Secondly: sid breaks now and then. Known fact. But that really isn't the only option.
You have:

stable -> potato
testing -> woody
unstable -> sid

Woody is the 'best of both worlds' choice: reasonable recent stuff without major instabilities or installation issues.

Finally: If you run into trouble, fire up your irc client and go to irc.debian.org (irc.openprojects.net) channel #debian. If the people in that channel can't help I'd be very surprised. Some of them plain ROCK.
Besides, most big issues get posted there pretty much instantly, either in the subject or by means of the bot called 'apt'. That one is also a big repository of good / fun / interesting / useless factoids and oddball enhancements.

Floris

Re:Where's the stable kernel?

[Fjord]

Debian is no option for somebody who wants to use a linux desktop in a production environment.

I actually believe the exact opposite. Debian is the best environment for workstations. The default listings in /etc/apt/sources.list are just defaults. Because of this, you can change them to point to an internal server. Then an admin updates packages on the single internal server (once tested) and they get pushed out to the workstations. Individual workstations can be rolled back if need be.

Note that I am talking more along the lines of where there are 100+ workstations or where security is a real concern.

(un)accepted packages

[Chocky2]

There's a list of which packages did/didn't make it in available at http://people.debian.org/~joey/2.2r4/full.html

Re:Mirrow Mirrow on the wall.....

[sydneyfong]

The big list is here : http://www.debian.org/misc/README.mirrors

Re:Debian vs. Redhat

[shaka]

You don't need two floppies to do a network install.
One is almost always fine if you have fairly standard hardware and chooses the compact disc, which is only one disc and contains many many nic-drivers.
That said, people who expect a cutting edge dist for desktop use should not run Debian Potato. They shoud run Woody, which poses few problems, or Sid, which probably is the most cutting edge dist out there - I run it and only once have I ran into serious problems; actually only half-serious, it took a couple of hours to fix the problem and I didn't loose data or anything like that.
Debian rocks. That's all there is to it.

What testing is

[PhracturedBlue]

Anyone who wants to know what testing is for should probably read (from Anthony Towns): this

The doc is somewhat out of date, and testing hasn't worked nearly as well as they had hoped for it's primary task (shortening the release cycle), but it certainly fills the need of having reasonably stable packages that are still up-to-date.

Basically the important parts are:
> * New "testing" distribution
> This is a (mostly finished) project that will allow us
> to test out distribution by making it "sludgey" rather
> than frozen: that is, a new distribution is added between
> stable and unstable, that is regularly and automatically
> updated with new packages from unstable when they've
> had a little testing and now new RC bugs.
...
> * Testing updates to frozen is suboptimal: updates go into
> incoming, wait there for a while, get added to frozen,
> we discover they introduce as many release critical bugs
> as they solve, rinse, repeat. The "wait for a while" part
> is particularly suboptimal, but without it, it's not really
> a freeze.

The current way we do things is basically to build a new package, hope it
works as advertised, and let people test it. If it doesn't work, we repeat
as many times as necessary, or eventually just throw the package out.

A better way to handle this, which I suspect everyone's just spontaneoulsy
reinvented as the read the above, is to try to keep around a previous
version of the package that was usable. That way if the new packages don't
work, we can just keep the old one rather than having to throw it out
entirely.

That, essentially, is the point of the "testing" distribution: to contain
a consistent set of the most recent "believed-to-be-reliable" packages.

So the main point of this is to create a distribution that, essentially,
doesn't have any release critical bugs [5] and can be kept that way
with much less effort on the part of the release manager. That should
have a pretty profound effect with regard to speeding up the freeze,...

Read the whole thing, though. And remember that it's a year old, and things have changed a lot since then.

Re:Debian releases

[rlangis]

Hell, even with a 56k connection my system is current on at *least* a weekly basis.

apt-get update ; apt-get dist-upgrade

For a system where uptime and security are the #1 concerns, potato suits me just fine. My workstation runs woody/sid. Potato with the 2.4 kernel packages and security sources.list updates is quite a nice little system.

Just keep 'er updated every week or so, and you'll have no problems.

Re:which Debian should I use

[mvdwege]

Ok, I hope you get to read this.

Do remember that upgrading a distribution is non-trivial, even though Debian does its best to make it as painless as possible. If you have the stomach for dealing with some minor niggles the procedure is as follows:

1. Install the stable distro ('Potato'), but only install enough to get networking going. The base installation with no further package selection should work if you're on a network, otherwise use tasksel to install the dialup utilities.
2. Edit /etc/apt/sources.list to include a line to the testing distro ('Woody') or if you're feeling adventurous, add unstable ('Sid'). Just copy the relevant lines that are already there, changing stable to testing or unstable as you see fit.
3. Run apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade. If all goes well, you should end up with your base system upgraded to testing or unstable (I don't know if you can upgrade straight to unstable yet. 3 months ago I had to upgrade to testing first).
4. Install the rest of your system using either dselect, deity or just plain apt-get install <package-name>.
5. Have fun!

If you do run into any problems, check the docs. If they don't help, or if you haven't got a clue which docs to consult, ask the debian-user mailing list, they tend to be friendly folk. If you have more preliminary questions, check my email on my user page.

Mart