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Debian 3.0 (Woody) May 1?
dex@ruunat noted that this morning, in a message to the debian-devel-announce mailing list, Anthony Towns, Debian's Release Manager, wrote: "I'm becoming increasingly confident in woody's release
readiness. So, to go out on a limb: Debian 3.0 (codenamed woody) will release on May 1st, 2002."
Congrats to all the debheads putting this thing together. I have a blank
CDR waiting ;)
I'm confident in my woody as well, so much so I'm ready to release it too!
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
Like anyone else does so? ...
Mandrake 8.2, RedHat 7.2,
Release numbers for packaging distributions are, and should be numbered by the people maintaining the distribution, to reflect their own perception of whether the release is a major, or minor improvement over the previous release.
For Linus and co, the enhancements to the kernel that moved it from 2.2 to 2.4, were minor changes, things like adding USB support, do not warrent a major version number. If the scheduler or virtual memory manager gets a major improvement, that would probably warrent a version 3.0, or so.
With Debian, the kernel is not the only thing that gets improved by moving from potato to woody. Updates to the user interfaces; Gnome and KDE; many packages, OpenOffice, ssh, and others; as well as the improvements to the kernel, moving from 2.2 to 2.4; suggest that this will be a Major improvement to the Debian Distribution.
Then again, they may be looking at other distribution version numbers and thinking that the public will percieve Debian 2.4 to be less "market" friendly than Debian 3.0.
After all, I wasn't in on the decision to version the software, and these are only my opinions. I could be wrong.
-Rusty
You never know...
Yes: 1 blank CD-R to boot from.
/var/cache/apt/archives of packages that I've apt-getted in the past.
Why bother downloading 8 images when most of the stuff isn't going to be used? Well, I speak for myself there... I need a portion of the distro. Use 1 disk to boot from, and then apt-get what I need. Which reminds, I need to clean out some 530MB from
Don't get me wrong -- this is a minor bitch about an otherwise great distro, and it's very much IMNSHO. I seem to be moving more and more to FreeBSD these days, but whenever I need or want Linux I always pick Debian. It's easy, it's stable, I absolutely love apt-get install/dist-upgrade, and and and...yeah, it's pretty much all great. I think I'll be waiting w/CD-R in hand, too.
(One other minor complaint, something I found on my box at work: why the hell does suidperl conflict with lynx? I had to install lynx from source, because Debian kept removing it when I installed suidperl for a webmail package I was testing. Anyone?)
Carousel is a lie!
Funny.. in 5 years of Linux use, I have yet to see a kernel segfault.
:
:)
Oh, and you missed a step
3.5 - Go to local PC shop, and buy a copy of Windows XP Professional for the princely sum of $296.99 (not the upgrade).
Alternatively you could spend the same money on Blank CD-R's (going by Amazons prices, I estimate you could get about 740) and burn many many copies of Linux for you and your friends
If you were REALLY against free software, you could even sell them at $1/CD and you would make a tidy profit.
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
I did a fresh install of Woody (debian/testing) on one of my machines this morning and it seems the pine and pico sources have disappeared from the packages list. Yes, I do use non-US and non-free packages so that can't be the problem.
For the rest, it runs quite well, but I still prefer debian/unstable because of the more recent packages.
Does this "Windows XP" you speak of work on my Pentium 66mhz machine? Because I use that as my IP Masquerading firewall and FTP/SSH server and I think it needs an upgrade. It has 250mb of HDD space and 32mb of RAM, will Windows XP suffice? Does it do IP Masquerading properly?
Oh and also, will it run on my two Apple machines? I might look into it.
KDE 2.2.2 , 3.0 prolly wont make into unstable until 2.2.2 has passed to testing. Its the same situation with Xf86 4.2.0, untill 4.1 makes it into testing, then there is no 4.2.0 for unstable.
"My head hurts, My feet stink, and I dont love Jesus." -Jimmy Buffett
if you have a fast connection. if not you might want to build a local repository. this would take much more than one cdr. apt-getting 600 megs of stuff over a modem is not a happy thing.
on a side note. many people say with respect to debian: just apt-get blah and it will install it. they never say apt-get blah and if it fails try apt-get -f. if that fails try touching the file it's looking for, etc. point: apt-get doesnt work 100% of the time-especially when you're not using potato. when it fails, a new user will find it confusing and might be turned off by all the posts where people say: oh well that always works fine for me.
this is not a troll, but a serious comment. apt is a great thing, and when it works correctly it is wonderful. this is also not ment to slight the debian developers. they work hard to make sure all the packages work together and all of the dependancies are met.
-- john
The first netinst cd for debian that I ever saw was here. Now, we also have this one and this one.
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
Debian includes more applications. And it's cheaper (even if you buy the CDs). It tends to be lag behind other distros when new stuff comes out (for example the current Debian stable distro, 'potato', is still using the 2.2 kernel - Woody will be the first Debian stable release based on 2.4). Part of the reason is that a Debian release is tested on 11 different architectures including Sun Sparc, 68000, alpha, etc whereas Mandrake is available only for 4 architectures (and most distros are just for Intel). OTOH this extra testing uncovers bugs that other distros just ship; Debian is widely believed to be the most stable and most nearly bug-free of all distros. Mandrake's main distinguishing feature is its GUI. It's supposed to be the easiest distro to learn and use. Debian is at the opposite end of the GNU/Linux spectrum in this regard, you need to be comfortable with the command line to like Debian.
Which kernel would that be? A BSD kernel perhaps? OpenBSD is at 3.0 last I checked, so that works out, unless you believe that Debian/NetBSD is more realistic.
Facetious, perhaps, but you fail to acknowlegde that Debian is a "kernel independant Operating System" that is popularly based on Linux. There is nothing stopping debian users from chosing KDE if that is their preferred desktop environment, just as there is nothing stopping x86 users from choosing The Hurd if their hardware supports it.
Debian has a larger scope then you seem to realize. Distinction from the Linux kernel is the best reason I can see for supporting a Major release increment to 3.0, as otherwise I would much prefer a more conservative path better utilizing the range of our decimal counting system under the auspices of 2.x.
While I hope my post has contained a modicum of sensibility, I fear that this is not the case.
Please, just try a netinst image.
It's about 30MB, and only retrieves the necessary packages off of the internet / other sources.
Thom has the debs available, along with vhost-base, at pandora.d.o, and they're stable, and good, and stuff, but they will NOT go into woody.
Not planned:
-KDE 3.0
-Apache 2.0
-XFree 4.2
Not good, eh?
have you been defaced today?
If the scheduler or virtual memory manager gets a major improvement, that would probably warrent a version 3.0, or so.
Which is why they changed the VM in the middle of the 2.4 series :)
Fromo .h tml
http://packages.debian.org/unstable/editors/nan
"GNU nano is a free replacement for Pico, the default Pine editor. Pine is copyrighted under a slightly restrictive license, that makes it unsuitable for Debian's main section. GNU nano is an effort to provide a Pico-like editor, but also includes some features that were missing in the original, such as 'search and replace', 'goto line' or internationalization support. As it's written from scratch, it's smaller and faster.
"
alien does this.
I am seriously switching from slackware to something else, for the lack of tgz nowadays.
.tgz packages.
Try here. They have a good repository of recent stuff bundled as Slackware
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
Go Here and read Q0.
I hardly consider a version jump to be a "dark spot." Version number schemes have absolutely DICK to do with the quality of the distro. I'm still a happy Slackware user, and I don't see that changing any time soon.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
Debian is different in that:
I started with RedHat and Mandrake back four years ago. Went to Slackware so I could get things configured the way I wanted them. And ended up at Debian because it was the best of both worlds.
Generally, if Debian-Stable is too slow for you, run Testing or Unstable. That will get you the very best of the bleeding edge software, along with all the bloodshed that goes along with it.
I have been running with Testing for about a year plus. Last month I was really disgusted with Debian. After looking at the other Distros out there. Debian still rocks!!!
What a waste of a perfectly good CD! I would prefer to precisely scratch the reflective media off using a microscope and write a script to read the bad sectors. Then you could store DeCSS or even the Linux kernel superimposed on an XP CD. Who says trash CDs are useless?
What do you think of MusicCity now?
They are both excellent. It's like comparing apples and hamburgers. I have both on the drive (no win$low os in sight)... Mandrake can be made to install .debs and Debian can handle rpms, so I have the best ot both worlds. The APT labyrinth in debian is not easy to learn. You hit the wrong button and you're in for a 500MB download. I have used Debian since the very beginning of debian. Mandrake, however, is the only rpm based distro I like, the community is strong, and they are truly open. The PreZ of Mandrake, LeMarois, is a fine person, and devoted to Open Source.
The ideal is to have both Debian and Mandrake. That way you can take your time learning Debian.
Rien n'est plus beau que le creux du 0.
LOL.... I like your spirit!!! Now the question is, what to do with Anonymous Coward's PC after he trashes it by installing XP on it. I was thinking in the line of a good hammer or possibly a cup of graphite dust sucked in by the input fan.
Rien n'est plus beau que le creux du 0.
I guess for most users, it would make more sense to name the distribution after which version of Gnome or KDE that is bundled.
From a technical point of view, the most important single package is probably glibc, as that is what most other packages talk to.
If they should name it for my convenience, they should call it Debian 21. It will be the first stable Debian featuring Emacs 21, which is my primary interface to the system.
The version numbering is on the distribution package, not the OS. Linux users generally recognize that the Kernel is the OS, not the collection of packages that sit on top of the kernel, or even the collection of modules that get plugged into the kernel.
A distribution such as Debian, Redhat, Mandrake, SUSE, Slackware, or any of the dozens or even hundreds of others in existence are a combination of one or more kernels, with a collection of software that sits on top of the kernel to make a potentially useful collection of software for users or server administrators.
What that collection consists of will depend upon the maintainer of that package.
The User Interface may be anything from terminal interfaces such as supporting vt100's attached to serial ports, through complete desktop interfaces consisting of Gnome, KDE, BlackBox, WindowMaker, or other Window Managers riding on X, or any other Windowing system that the package maintainer chooses to use.
There are efforts to port the BeOS ApplicationServer interface to run on the Linux 2.4 kernel. The collection of software that runs under such a port would generally be different from that which will run on a Mandrake distribution using X11r4.x, with a KDE or Gnome window manager.
Likewise if someone really likes the BeOS interface that has been ported to Linux, but does not like the Linux 2.4 kernel for some reason, they are welcome to port it to a BSD, or Hurd varient kernel, or whatever kernel they choose to use.
Just because the latest version of some software may be available from some official web site does not mean that that version will play well with the collection of software you already have on your system. A package is a collection that the people distributing that package included it in the distribution was found to work at a satisfactory level with the other software included in the distribution.
These decisions are far from perfect, and users are generally considered welcome to roll their own distribution by building a boot/root disk and downloading and compiling from source, the software that is available from the official web sites.
Another reason that people chose to use packages is that the developer can indicate in the package what software is required to make this software work, as well as providing recomendations as to what software and documentation might be handy to have around when installing, setting up, and using the software in the package.
If an individual was required to review the offical web site for every package to verify that they had all the required or recomended software, it is unlikely that more than a handful of people would have a system running at all.
On top of this as the "latest version" that is not in a package is generally considered to be bleeding edge software, is is probable that the system would be continuously in a very unstable state.
Then again, if you choose to build and run your system with the latest version of everything, that's your choice and I happen to think that you deserve the respect you will get for a stable system, or the lack of respect you might get from an unstable system.
That's my opinion, I could be wrong.
-Rusty
You never know...
One argument is of course that the size of the distro has about doubled since 2.2, but I'm kind of curious about the version numbering nevertheless.
That being said, Debian is my favorite distro, and woody's going into my machine regardless of version numbers.
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
Updates to the user interfaces; Gnome and KDE; many packages, OpenOffice, ssh, and others; OpenOffice isn't in Debian (yet).
Gnome 2.0 - Just got released. Doesn't belong in a stable distro. It needs testing first.
KDE 3.0 - See above.
Mozilla 1.0 - See above.
Apache 2.0 - See above.
XFree86 4.2 - See above.
Linux 2.4 - It's in woody. If you want it, just run testing instead of stable. It'll be in stable on May 1, according to the above article. Or did you read it?
If you really want the above software, get it from sid/unstable. And don't bitch if it breaks.
What the heck do user interfaces and packages have to do with an operating system? Why would any developer include packages when latest versions can be downloaded from the official web sites? Linux people, I'll never understand them.
Point for point:
In the case of the Debian Operating System, they are more significant than the fallacious significance of a kernel to the entirety of an OS. Some reasons include the desire for permanence and local reproducability of an instance of an OS enviroment, as well as potential scarcity of Web connectivity. The final statement is not a question. If you are referring to AI, then I am amazed that there are "Linux people" that are beyond the comprehension of the average HomoSapiens Technophilia. If you express puzzlement over the preferences exhibited by Linux-based OS bigots, then perhaps I can help point you in a direction to enligtenment. If youd rather remain Linux segregated, then go in peace; we are done here.
The confusion over the importance of UIs to OSes in my experience indicate an affinitty for Unix. Perhaps it would be a better world if an OS were naught but embedded daemons. There was a revolution, for better or worse, in which the "Personal Computer" lead the forefront, resulting in the sanctity of computer becoming debased. Now computing is a public phenomenon, and has at the very least benefitted from economies of scale. Your elitism against common "lusers" seems naive.
As for "packages", I can only assume that that you are a BSD fan. You already implied that you don't use a package independant Linux distribution, and I infer from your championing Web downloads that you aren't likely a commercial Unix weenie. Commercial Unices do tend to be use packaging systems in my experience. If I am correct in considering you a BSD fan, then statstically I can consider you a FreeBSD user.
Why exactly do you find Linux people inferior? Unless you are among the minority of kernel hackers, you likely find the userland inferior. UIs differences between BSD and Linux based "Unices" being as trivial as the are, the only deficiency apparent from your message is that of many packaging systems associated with Linux. In that case, May I suggest that you give Rock Linux which doesn't use packages, but rather compiles binaries from officail sources, much like FreeBSD ports. It isn't makefile based, but maybe spending time with it will enlighten you, or at least elucidate your perceptions of Linux's apparent shortcomings. Note that FreeBSD also offers packages, so your criticism isn't very valid as it stands. Perhaps you have more fruitful criticisms to offer. Most likely, IHBT, IHL, HAND.
In any case, Debian news items should contain a disclaimer that Debian is not Linux! Debian is a very modular and comprehensive system that offers Linux, just like it offers GNOME and Emacs. Debian needs GNU, but it doesn't need Linux, and there are plenty of Debian users that aren't "Linux people". Debian can just as easily look like VIM running over the Hird. I look forward to a stable Debian/NetBSD running on SGI MIPS R5K hardware, hopefully decades before Debian "Soldier" release 4.0.
-castlan
Last time I installed Woody, about 2 months ago, the kernel was still at 2.2.20. Have they finally gone 2.4.x yet?
(I've sinced moved on to Unstable and use my own kernel)
Debian is very "UNIX'y" in that IMHO it more resembles real System-V in it's look and feel, boot behavior, and compiler functionality. I really like it myself. I have messed with RedHat a bit and really don't care for it at all compared to Debian. I think Mandrake is more Debian-Like, and may be superior in its ease-of-setup for a total newbie, but once you start running on weird non x86 platforms Debian really shines because for all intents and purposes it appears to be and acts just like the x86 versions.
Clickety Click
Right now, the non-x86 developers are furiously trying to compile/patch a few pesky yet important packages on whatever platform they work with. I have been using 3.0 "testing" for over six months, and have Linux and Hurd working on X86, and Linux on a HP 9000 715/80 PA-RISC box, and a StrongARM SA110 Netwinder machine. In each case it works great! "Unstable" is a misnomer in that the OS itself is not unstable (doesn't crash), what is unstable is that the packages are constantly being updated so an apt-get upgrade might list 1000 new updated packages every week! With something like 9500 packages in Woody there is a lot going on all the time.
Clickety Click
I was running XFree 4.0 on Potato with a 2.4 kernel a long time ago. Just compile the stuff and stick it in /usr/local. You don't have to use just Debian packages. Its compiler setup is great and it is trivial to compile most tarballs.
Clickety Click
I see no purpose of duplicating the source in a so-called "deb" file, when all users of every Unix including Mac OS X can get the Pine source in it's raw, unaldultered form from the official site
Let's say you want the sources for six different packages. Let's also say you want to keep them current.
With Debian source packages, you use "apt-get" or some other tool to subscribe to those packages, and then every time you update your system, you get the latest versions of those packages. (The latest versions in Debian, of course.) I update my system at least once per week; would you prefer to run an updating tool once per week, or would you prefer to visit six different FTP servers once per week?
And the source packages always reflect the source used to build the matching binary packages. If there were no source packages, and you wanted to build a package yourself, you would need to seek out the exact version on your system. Maybe you just want the newest version, so it may be no problem, but what if you have a computer running an older version and you just want that source version?
Debian's "stable" version has stable packages. If the "raw, unadulterated version from the official site" has a bug introduced in a new version, you will get that bug if you get the new version; with Debian, you won't get that bug in the "stable" version of the system because people will check it out and will not include it. (If you really want it, you can pull it in from the "unstable" version of Debian. So there is no down side.)
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Actually Galeon is not completely dead in Debian. You can install it from the unstable tree. Also it will only uninstall Galeon if Mozilla increases by a milestone, ie .9.8-.9.9.
Disclamer - Opinion of Person
Not only does some moderator need a flogging, but this post should be distilled into a Slashdot Advocacy summary that all Debian Related Slashdot News items automatically link to. This would really make the comments for Debian items much less trifling.
I'd remove all of the political/economic theory references in the first point, and maybe just illustrate how Debian quality isn't compromised by profit-motive based considerations, or externally imposed deadlines.
Also worth mentioning is that Debian is not Linux, unless you want it to use Linux. If it can be phrased lucidly and marketably, a bullet might be spared for the "Open Organization" of the Debian Project, with it's clear policy and democratic operation which gave rise to "Open Source" as we know it today. That last bit might not be worth mentioning, as this document would ideally be less propeganda than a premptive strike against ad Nauseam misguided advocacy and "Linux" postings in Debian topics.
If such a document were to be made, would there be any way to float it by the Slashdot powers that be? If I weren't wasting my time, I'd gladly write it, and submit it to Debian Proper for approval. Is there any red tape trail that might end with an automatic footnote/link to Debian related items on Slashdot?
For those of you who are unhappy with the purity aspects of Debian there is at least one place that I have found that has some unofficial packages like mplayer and the flash plugin for Mozilla.
I haven't had any problems with the packaging that has done by the maintainer.
Disclamer - Opinion of Person
Yes, I have heard that there are bf- prefixed images that have the 2.4 kernel and ReiserFS/ext3 support.
I have been patient with Debian. I have been persistent with Debian. I come bearing the news to Debian webmasters everywhere that the "bf-something Woody install" is not obvious. Not only in name obscurity when a Debian newbie would only know to look for 2.2 or 3.0 disc images, but also in placement on the website.
I have gone searching in vain for this bf-something install. I have looked in all of the obvious places on the website under such topics as "Getting Debian," "Debian on CD," and ""Download with FTP." This is bullshit. If this is everyone's definition of publically available, I must have missed that day of class. I even download some of those potentially nifty netinstall CD images in the hopes that they simply weren't labelled correctly with the magical bf- prefix.
Believe me, I have gone through a lot more effort than most casual visitors to the Debian site would have gone through. Unfortunately this is one area that Debian could learn from RedHat, Mandrake, SuSe, et al in that the others provide an iso image, you download it, you burn it, and off you go. If the newer install with the updated kernel works so well, why hasn't the old installer been mothballed? Why would the old installer be offered? If the new installer has problems that preclude its replacement of the old installer, then the appropriate answer to my previous post would have been "they're working on it and it should be ready when 3.0 is released."
Is it a work in progress? Sure! I acknowledge that. I am used to that. I have no illusions that any Linux distribution is without its rough edges. But how much effort is it really to have in the download area, clearer instructions for creating a up-to-date install disc? All I see is the same old crap that makes me jump through hoops and auto-detects nothing (another gripe that I will forget for now simply because I know my hardware well enought to answer the endless series of questions) while making use of journalled filesystems far from the simple case it should be.
By all means, prove me wrong. By all means, show me an obvious link that demonstrates me to be a dullard who cannot read a web page. I am not above humility. Otherwise I will assume that a clean and complete Debian install is bullshit, must first be excavated by a Debian veteran who knows how to find it, and/or is of no use to the general public. Debian may be a great distribution, but that's pointless if most people can't install easily without sacrificing popular features (like journalled filesystems) or hunting through mailing list archives without really knowing for what they search.
- I don't need to go outside, my CRT tan'll do me just fine.
There was a nifty presentation given in support of Debian/OpenBSD, which likely still has the slides available for browsing via the web. Since then, it seems that Debian/NetBSD has more chance of (initial) implementation.
I am pleased as well, because AFAI can tell, NetBSD has a bit more to offer Debian than OpenBSD at the moment. This is in no way a value judgement of the merits of OpenBSD versus NetBSD; I actually slightly prefer OpenBSD at the moment as a distinct OS. But it looks to me that NetBSD has a few architecture related bits that if incorporated into Debian could prove fruitful for the entire Debian Universe. Foremost is their modular alternative to Debian's vestigal runlevels. To date, NetBSD still offers greater architectural diversity than OpenBSD for maximal Debian distribution. Finally, OpenBSD's strongest trait, Security through correctness, would definitely be shattered by tearing the OBSD kernel from its solid and familiar userland, and abandoning it, dazed and confused, into the wild forests of Debian. NetBSD is a much more suitable candidate for transplant to date.
After the initial foray into BSD, then the further effort to incorporate OpenBSD and FreeBSD kernels will be much less daunting. Out of curiosity, where is Debian for OpenBSd offered?
One thing that baffles me to date, is why would anybody want a FreeBSD kernel in Debian? I'm not too clear on what Debian/FreeBSD has to offer that couldn't be better had elsewhere. After all, the Userland would still be Debian. Linux is IMHO more SMP accomplished than FreeBSD. What else does the FreeBSD kernel offer that can't be had in NetBSD or OpenBSD?
-castlan
Was that "Woody" is such a major improvement over "Potato" that they felt it was justifiable to go to the next major version number; i.e. 3.0.
Clickety Click
try this package: http://packages.debian.org/testing/admin/pine-trac ker.html
Desperation is a stinky cologne
That can't be good for the drive.
The evaluation of an action as 'practical' . . . depends on what it is that one wishes to practice.
If you updating using apt-get update instead of dselect, it won't remove galeon at all - it'll put mozilla on hold until the packages are in sync.
Desperation is a stinky cologne
Also, the GNU Public License (GPL) requires you to release source code when you release a binary package. The .DEB source packages comply with this requirement.
Also, the Debian project has mirror servers all throughout the world. If I made some package that went into Debian, I would want the world to use Debian servers to grab the source, rather than having the whole world beat on my FTP server every time I came out with something new.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
One of the things Debian people were supposed to fix was the abyssmally slow release cycle. Well, it's still abyssmally slow.
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
apt-get build-dep pine
apt-get source --compile pine
dpkg --install *.deb
There's also a pine-tracker package, which apparently reminds you to upgrade when appropriate. I hope the standard tools make this unnecessary some day.
The evaluation of an action as 'practical' . . . depends on what it is that one wishes to practice.
If you haven't been following Debian's last few releases, you missed Slink and Potato. Coming up after Woody is Sid.
They seem to have a habit of actually using names from Toy Story...
Thank you for the info but once again I must point out that none of this information is apparent from the main web page (or its primary links). If individuals (like myself) are looking into a distribution's feature set, they will not see journalled filesystems as an option; They will see it as an option for Linux, but not Debian. What's the difference? With RedHat, for example, you can set up a kickstart disc to handle bulk, unattended installs of RedHat Linux (since v5 or something like that). Journalled filesystems are available by default in the RedHat installer and therefore are available to kickstart.
Now let's look at Debian: install must be manually performed for each workstation/server and an extra setup tax is imposed to get it working with a journalled filesystem (to beat a dead horse). Therefore Debian doesn't support journalled filesystems. Linux supports them and Debian tags along for the ride.
With regard to Ext3 being "safer." How do you figure? Have you come across more failures (catastrophic or otherwise) with ReiserFS or XFS vs. ext3? Is it safer because you can revert back to ext2? I have not seen the former and don't consider the latter to be an advantage or inherently safer. FWIW I used XFS for months on several boxes both at home and at work and never had any problems. Why did I even try XFS? Because it was easy to setup with SGI's custom installer for RedHat.
And as the AnonCoward mentioned, what does recompiling a kernel have to do with the quality of install programs or a person's choice of distribution? For the record, I can and have patched and recompiled my kernel. I can also program in C, C++, Perl, Java, and a few others. I am well versed in multi-threaded and multi-process programming as well as distributed programming. What are your credentials?
Now that the big-dick thing is out of the way, I feel it necessary to point out that Debian's big advantage over RedHat (aside from being completely volunteer-driven) is maintenance after install while RedHat is historically easier to install. Recently with utilities such as up2date and red-carpet, RedHat has become much easier to maintain. So what is Debian offering me other than a warm, fuzzy feeling? People in general don't start or stop using a particular distribution (or Linux or BSD) because of a warm, fuzzy feeling.
RedHat (and others) are finally catching up with maintenance. If this "if you can't recompile a kernel" crap continues to be spewed from the Debian community, you may find that it gets ignored not because of technical inferiority but because most people don't care about comparitive excellence as long as the job gets done. An easy install program is the first step in making sure you keep people's attention long enough to demonstrate technical excellence.
- I don't need to go outside, my CRT tan'll do me just fine.
Why is Debian cheaper when Mandrake is freely downloadable from lots of places ? And freely useable and copyable ?
This isn't a point against Debian, but one possible reason for the stability of the packages it uses is that distributions like Mandrake have included more "cutting-edge" versions of packages, which have therefore been "tested" by a much greater number of people, and had the opportunity of bugs being found and corrected.
Not that there's anything wrong with the extra stability Debian has. If I was running Linux on a server, I think I might well use it. I've also considered it for my desktop, but right now Mandrake is good enough for me.....
This is of course the type of thing that makes the LinuxFromScratch distribution so popular. However, would you suggest setting up a Debian box manually without an install program? Just compile and install the basic system utilites. Compile and install dpkg, apt, dselect, and the rest.
My point is that when I want to learn more about the inner workings of Linux in order to look behind the curtain, I use LinuxFromScratch. Unfortunately LFS doesn't scale when you want to setup more than one box (dozens, hundreds, thousands, etc.). No one uses LFS for a company-wide install because it would be a huge timesink on install and a maintenance headache for IT after it's deployed. After all, how can you be sure that they are all the same configuration if they are all done by hand? People make mistakes. This is another reason why installers exist (It's the primary reason computers exist, but that's another argument). People have already written fine installers for Linux that simplify the process and let people get to what they want to do which most likely does not include hacking the inner workings of Linux. They want to get the web site up, the mail server up. They want to get on with their job which quite often has nothing to do with computers.
You shouldn't have to be an expert with Linux or be a programmer in order to use Linux. You shouldn't even have to be a novice if it's just a workstation. You should be knowledgable if setting up a server -- especially if it's connected to the Net -- but a workstation? Can I do it? Sure. Do I want to go through this just to use another distribution? Hell no!
Take a cue from SuSe: bootable CD that lets you demo Linux without even installing. Why? Because unless the user gets past the install process easily, technical superiority be damned, the user won't be using it long enough to recognize it as better.
- I don't need to go outside, my CRT tan'll do me just fine.
It's in testing. Where is it missing?
The evaluation of an action as 'practical' . . . depends on what it is that one wishes to practice.
they did....lsb 1.0 made rpm 3.0 format the standard packageing format
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
http://people.debian.org/~joey/2.2r6/
Gobs of security fixes, few misc fixes, stability fixed. 2.2r6 is the second update of Potato in 2002. Not exactly cold.
"As you've noticed by a careful analysis of the subject line, the woody release will be numbered Debian 3.0, in recognition of the large number of changes made since potato. This is, to put it mildly, a somewhat controversial decision, but it's one I get to make."
So, while the change from 2.2 to 3.0 indeed indicates that this release includes major changes, this is may not be the opinion of a majority of all debian developers.
Personally, I think that many things have been changed since potato, and it's appropriate to call the new version 3.0. And I agree with Anthony in the following sentence: I think by the time it's released it'll easily live up to that number -- and by that I mean the "3", not the ".0".
At long last! Not the most elegant or obvious solution (in my opinion) but quite acceptable under the circumstances (I already have copies of the netinstall CDs).
Thank you very much!
- I don't need to go outside, my CRT tan'll do me just fine.
Looking at:m ain/b inary-i386/Packages
http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/dists/woody/
I see both gcc 2.95 and gcc 3.0 are included as part of the standard packages. But my question is this:
which version of gcc will be used to compile the binary (precompiled) release of Debian 3.0?
If you apt-get install mozilla first and mozilla has had a milestone update then it will remove galeon. I don't use dselect when dealing with unstable because I only want a few things from the unstable branch, galeon, lastest mozilla, nautilus, and evolution.
Disclamer - Opinion of Person
Why bother downloading 8 images when most of the stuff isn't going to be used?
Even some of us "Linux"-heads are still hancuffed to modems. I'll have to wait for CheapBytes to get 'em and go from there. 50 meg of KDE3 overnite isn't a big deal. A gig or two....
I'm not a prophet or a stone-age man,
I'm just a mortal with potential of a super man.
Why would any developer include packages when latest versions can be downloaded from the official web sites?
Why? I have about one thousand packages installed on my computer, it would be impossible to keep track of them all and update each one individually. Instead a simple "apt-get update; apt-get upgrade" will do it for me. Yes there are times that I do not have the most current version, but I have the added benefit that the packages are checked for compatibility before they are put in. On my boxes running unstable, I often get programs updated before my friends who run other distros because they haven't even heard that a new version came out. I used to be hesitant to a system like debian's too, but after using it for a week or two I don't ever want to go back.
I actually had trouble with this in Potato over the weekend, and I found something interesting. While all the mirrors (that mirrored source packages as well) had the pine source in there archives, the package listing did not list it. I don't really know why this would happen, but I checked around and found a mirror that had it listed and used that one.
Personally, I don't care what version number they use. It's Debian, and that's all that matters.
My Karma was at 49, then they switched to words. All that work for nothing!
I see it in unstable and testing. (albiet in non-free, of course)
dburrows@auric:~$ madison pine
pine | 4.44-3 | testing | source
pine | 4.44-3 | unstable | source
You do realize that this is different from the "pine-src" package, right?
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
Mozilla 0.9.9 (is 1.0.0 even released?)
GNOME 1.4, and also GLib/GTK 2.0
KDE 2.2.2, with KDE3 debs to separately available
Apache 1.3.x, because apache2 isn't close to being production-ready
XFree86 4.1.x
Kernel 2.4.x has been here since the dawn of time
I think you're bark^Wlooking up the wrong tree (har har har). Try seeing what woody actually has, some day.
After that I looked at the list of packages, pine4-src (or whatever the name is) isn't there.
That's because it's a source package, not a binary package. Type "apt-get source pine" and you can download it (assuming you have deb-src lines in sources.list)
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
There are several different things that I feel that Debian offers over the other distros.
It isn't perfect, so what, neither is RedHat (or others). Sure, by this time the journaling filesystems have been tested and are pretty stable. I myself have been using ext3 for quite some time now. I agree that it would be nice to have a journaling filesystem as a primary installation option, but I also understand that it will, most likely, get done in a update release. Right now Debian is in a bug squashing mode, not adding new features to the system. The attention placed on removing release critical bugs over constantly adding new features is one of the things that I find most appealing about Debian.
Disclamer - Opinion of Person
Mmm hmm... I grant that I could have been more diligent here. I guess I'm just used to every other major distribution not needing a manual for their install -- self explanatory, complete, and all that. But yes, I needed to RTFM here.
Very good point. My primary focus was on the netinstall images for precisely this reason.
Yes, by all means, type in "ReiserFS" into that search box. Please tell me how many documents I must go through in order to find relevent info. But I digress, my main complaint was the fact that Debian's installer is about three or four years behind Caldera, RedHat, SuSe, Mandrake, etc.
I finally finished getting through the network install (writing this with a Mozilla nightly on Woody) and I must say it was one of the most painful experiences I have had with Linux in years. My god, setting up BIND with a few domains was easier than that and that is by no means a compliment.
Nice. If it actually gets through the install without crashing, no matter how likely you are to meet a minotaur during the process, it ain't considered broke.
Much akin to telling a Linux newbie that they're stupid for not knowing to type "ls" at the bash prompt or why the current directory isn't in the default execution path. Wake up! Before you mentioned it, I had no idea what the Progeny installer was or where to find it or that I should have been looking for it in the first place. The reason you know this is because you use Debian, are familiar with Debian and its satellite distributions, and have known it for long enough that you forget that others don't know it yet.
While you're at it, why not go yell at some 5th graders because they don't know how to solve Algebra problems yet. After all, since you know Algebra, they should be expected to know it too.
Good point. Although I think Debian would be better off having this Progeny installer worked on. The best installer is one that doesn't require documentation to use in the simplest case. Note: I am NOT saying that documentation isn't important. What I was looking for what something akin to RedHat's "Workstation" or "Server" install. Hell, I would have settled for something as easy as the "Custom" install. But in the end you're right. I should put my code where my mouth is and help out.
- I don't need to go outside, my CRT tan'll do me just fine.
At the time? No. I had to install it first. Hi chicken! Meet my good friend, Egg.
- I don't need to go outside, my CRT tan'll do me just fine.
Impressive but not as important or appealing to the >90% of Linux users who are on x86.
Hurd is probably not a good example at this point as a case study. The first version of Debian's distro for the Hurd has yet to be released (or reach code completion let alone bugfixing or profiling).
Sane process, yes. However I was under the impression that "testing" was a recent development. Please don't refer to it in a manner that suggests that it has always been this way.
I never said that RedHat was perfect. In fact I have mentioned to the contrary in several posts. I also acknowledge that Debian is in the final stages before release. Believe it or not, but this rant began in the "Better Installer for Debian?" article from a few days ago and I spilled it into this one to make sure the conversation didn't die from age.
However bugfixing should not be an excuse for the installer being at least a year behind for journalling fs in the install and three or four years behind in most other parts of the installer (RedHat 5.0 was easier to install). I imagine that it is because Debian setups are so easy to maintain that install becomes increasingly rare (or maybe the experience of installing was so painful that users avoid it at all costs by keeping a clean system).
At any rate, could someone provide a link or an email address to someone or some project that is working on this. Belive it or not but I would like to help out and not just complain. Considering how verbose I can be, I at least could help on in runtime context documentation.
- I don't need to go outside, my CRT tan'll do me just fine.
Is it just me, or does it sounds like this guy is talking about an orgy?
If you are interested in trying Debian out, but are afraid of installing it, then try out PGI, the graphical autohardware detection Debian installer. Make sure to check out the screenshots.
In my opinion, once the default Debian installer becomes idiot-proof, Debian will take over as the lead Linux distro.
portinstall in FreeBSD is getting some of that now, but still needs some refining (such as listing all the choices before asking you one by one whether or not to install them
Still, dselect wasn't enough to keep me with debian. Between the politics and the age of the packages, I got fed up. Now there is the "testing" distribution, but there used to be no middle ground between a hopelessly out of date stable and the unstable distro that you could count on knocking out your system about twice a year.
hawk, happily with FreeBSD for the last few years, but still using debian on smaller older systems