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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 ;)
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
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.
Why the *hell* is this not good?
KDE3 is not yet tested enough for a Debian stable release, trust me. Neither are the debs, packaging issues can play a significant part in some problems. I'm personally waiting for 3.0.1 or 3.0.2 before I start deploying it throughout work, although I tracked KDE3 CVS for some time at home (I can deal with segfaults, and it makes it easier to package if you only have to make slight changes every time, instead of being hit with one big lot in the tarballs).
apache2 is NOT NOT NOT ready for prime time. I would not deploy this in a Debian stable release; luckily, neither would Thom. When I maintained it, I always said it would wait until after woody, and luckily it will. The GA was only announced today, and so Thom would have to upload it as NEW, which means it wouldn't make it into woody, even if it could. Even offering it side-by-side with Apache 1.3.x in a stable series is irresponsible.
As for XFree86 4.2, Branden's been too busy with fixing up 4.1.x to do 4.2.x well. XFree86 is one of those dead core packages that need to just WORK every single time, and cannot screw up. There was never enough time to give it the thrashing it needs; I think that having XF4.1.x in a stable series is a pretty sweet effort; Branden deserves a pat on the back. He has a reputation for quality, well-tested packages, and I somehow doubt he'd shatter that this close to a release. Plus, we'd all rip his arms off and beat him to death with the limp end if he did.
Thanks for listing the good points of Woody.
Check out the aptitude program (you'll have to install the package of the same name) -- it's really good and getting even better fast; the author really seems to be on the ball (it used to be pretty bad, so if you tried it before and dismissed it, try it again). Not only does it provide a great full-screen apt interface, but it also has a command-line mode that improves on apt-get!
This is the package management interface that debian's been waiting for, IMHO.
[another alternative is `deity' (ne `console-apt'), but though it's rather colorful, the UI basically sucks; aptitude is much better.]
We live, as we dream -- alone....
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.
- It tracks which packages were installed `automatically' (e.g., to satisfy a dependency). If such `auto' packages later become unnecessary because nothing depends on them anymore, they will be uninstalled automatically.
- It has a powerful and useful search system -- you can search not only for package names, but for descriptions (and other package fields), various special attributes, and boolean combinations of these things. For instance, the search string `(lib)~i!~M!-dev' will find packages who's name matches the string `lib', and are installed, and were not automatically installed (see above), and who's name doesn't match the string `-dev'.
- These search expressions can be used not only in interactive searches (which, incidentally, are incremental, like Emacs's isearch), but also to limit the set of packages displayed, or to perform various operations in command-line mode. I could use the command `aptitude remove "(lib)~i!~M!-dev"' to remove all packages matching that expression (but I won't, since that it happens to match libc6).
As you can see, although aptitude is great for the non-expert user, because of the simple and intuitive interface, it's not just for them. Even when I want to install something from the shell, I now always use aptitude's command-line interface instead of apt-get, because of the above features.We live, as we dream -- alone....
You obviously haven't looked in the directory which contains the woody install disk images, because it's plain as day. The instructions for finding this and a description of what it's about are in the "Installing Debian/GNU Linux 3.0 (woody) for i386" guide that IS linked to from the woody webpages, which are linked from an obvious place on www.debian.org. Here is the direct URL since you're so dumb: http://www.debian.org/releases/woody/i386/install. en.txt
i 386/current/bf2.4/
t =14491123&action=serve&item=woody.html
Here is the url to take you directly to the bootable 2.4 disk images.
http://http.us.debian.org/dists/woody/main/disks-
ISO images for woody aren't provided yet since the package list is currently changing; however, the instructions on the debian CD site and the scripts there will make you an ISO of this unrelased software easily. If that's not enough for you you can try some premade images from a source like http://www.linuxiso.org/debian.html Hell, there's even DVD images floating around. You can buy a preburned one here: http://www.linux-cd.com/store/cgi/store.cgi?clien
Premade ISO's won't be available for woody until it is released. "Official" ISO's are available for previous relases from the official site at http://www.debian.org/CD/. Minimal images designed to replace a set of boot floppies, "netinst" cd's, are also linked to from that site at http://www.debian.org/CD/netinst/
I find it ironic that you seem to be capable of writing a novella about how inept you are at reading. You seem to know exactly what you want, but since www.debian.org doesn't show it to you in big bold letters on the front of the page, why you didn't click on the search button is entirely beyond my comprehension.
I will give to one of your points: that the default installer can be improved. For the woody release, it was decided "if it ain't broke don't fix it." The next release will contain a better one. If you really can't wait, make a woody netinst cd with the Progeny installer. Or can you not type "apt-get install pgi" successfully? Someone will probably make one of these available with the progeny installer after woody's release.
Think you can put together a better debian website? Why don't you sign up?
As for XFree86 4.2, Branden's been too busy with fixing up 4.1.x to do 4.2.x well. XFree86 is one of those dead core packages that need to just WORK every single time, and cannot screw up. There was never enough time to give it the thrashing it needs; I think that having XF4.1.x in a stable series is a pretty sweet effort; Branden deserves a pat on the back.
Well, I myself am not exactly thrilled that woody won't have 4.2 in it, but:
So, that's why XFree86 4.2 isn't in woody.
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