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The Importance of Being Debian
Orre writes "This is an interesting article on why we should be interested in this non-commercial linux distribution. Some of the points: No lies, Suit-Free Zone, Apt-get. And by the way, Hewlett-Packard has chosen Debian to be their standard linux distribution."
well that's no surprise. HP has supported Debian quite a bit and they employee a few people that have been Debian project leaders including current leader Bdale Garbee.
This is left as an exercise for the reader.
I have preferred Debian for years, even though I don't spend a whole lot on time in Linux these days. Apt-get makes upgrades/installations much easier.
I belive many of the benefits of Debian would transition it well to Joe Average level users, once the interface/windowing stumbling blocks are overcome.
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
Hi there. The article is nice, but yet it describes Debian just as another Linux distribution. Don't get me wrong, but I think that you can write and say a lot of good things about any Linux distribution, as long as you're the one who runs it. I have nothing against Debian, RedHat, Slackware, etc., but I think that every distribution is good in its own way. The article is nice, but I do not think that it should be 'another reason' for using Debian. Come on, people, it is just a matter of personal preference. Let's not start 'emacs vs. vi' or 'us vs. them' wars again. If it works great for you... that is just wonderful! Thanks,
Debian has long been one of my favorite Linux distributions. It's nice to see it get some coverage from mainstream Linux media (other than Taco's postings).
However, I've recently begun to be put off by Debian's pace of accepting newer desktop technology. Yes, Debian is a truly free Linux distribution, with a great social contract. But I'm wondering if that's now starting to affect the quality of the distribution. Because it's a volunteer effort, packages updates are slow to come for new versions. The maintainers that do keep their packages updated regularly are often held back by other maintainers of depended packages. This makes it very frustrating for the users who just want to be able to run KDE3 (for instance). Potato is now several years old, but it continues to be the stable release. I can't even consider running Potato on my servers, because older packages are holding back newer, exciting features, such as winbind or iptables.
I will always love Debian, and will probably continue running Woody on my servers. However, I've switched my desktop over to Gentoo, and I haven't looked back. I'm still running a truly free, volunteer Linux distribution, but at least I'm not held captive by slow package maintainers.
Well I was a Debian user from 98 till last month when I found that on not 3 completely different system could I install debian. (going from the stable 6.2r6 cd's to unstable for X4 which I have to have) A laptop, desktop and small X-terminal type box. The big problem was that there is parts of X3 and parts of X4 tossed all over the place so attempting to upgrade X is just about impossible and after 2 1/2 months I finally gave up and loaded Red Hat to my dismay. (At first I thought it was just a bad package, but those are normally fixed within minutes and not months) On the bright side Red Hat has a nice cool installer and gives me a lot more of what I want to start from. I remember spending a good day after getting Debian up and running configuring everything from X11, my mouse, my network, my firwall, etc etc. Untill there is a debian release that has X4 as the default I will be unfortunettly watching from the sidelines, but when it does I will be back there in a heartbeat simply for apt-get.
-Benjamin Meyer
P.S. Why isn't kde3.0 intigraded into unstable yet???
Do you changes clothes while making the "chee-chee-cha-cha-choh" transformation sound?
Debian may be great at what it does, but Red Hat and others that offer a support model will continue to win enterprise contracts because the manager types want three questions answered:
1) Does it do what we need?
2) How much does it cost?
3) Can we get support for it?
If any of these questions can't be answered positively, then chances are they aren't going to approve it. With support they usually mean "from the same person that sells it."
- Being non commercial doesn't prevent lies.
- Judging people by the clothes they wear is immature.
- Most RPM based distributions have been able to download a package and all their dependencies a while now using a variety of different mechanisms. There's a few good uniques features of dpkg (just as there are rpm feaures) but its easier to implement these features on rpm than to convert most Linux systems to using another packaging format.
The LSB exists to provide the standards. No Linux distribution, not Debian, not Red Hat, not anyone else, has a current LSB complaint distribution. Download the test suites from linuxbase.org and see for yourself.F**k advocacy. Use the best tool for the job.
My /etc/apt/sources.list (extracts):
../project/experimental main contrib non-free
./ ./
# Gnome 2:
deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian
# KDE 3:
deb http://kde3.geniussystems.net/debian/
deb http://people.debian.org/~bab/kde3
# E17:
deb http://people.debian.org/~ljlane/downloads e17/
'nuff said.
If you want the greatest and latest, you got it. Debian Developers are not necessarily using potato, they like features as much as anybody else. But Debian's "stable" stamp is something that has much more weight than that.
Besides, Debian has that annoying habit of usually doing the right thing. That's what the article is about, really.
-- don't discount flying pigs until you have good air defense
I ripped off the entire Debian. I'm running it on my machine now. :-]
"I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them." -- George H. W. Bush
Your comment seems to me to imply that one cannot buy Debian with support. However, the article specifically states that HP sells and supports Debian. If one buys a system configured with Debian from HP, HP supports it.
Just because a group doesn't profit off of something, doesn't mean they won't lie. Most of these people hack for prestige instead of profits. And prestige can be even more of a motivator to lie than profits..
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
The maintainers of gcc pointed out that development branches of gcc are not intended for production purposes and that any software which is compiled with the forthcoming, stable version of gcc (gcc 3.0) would simply not run on Red Hat 7.
What the article omits is that Redhat were right, and the gcc developers were wrong. Sure, you couldn't run gcc 3.0 software on Redhat, but so what ? gcc 3.0 was a botched, DOA release, containing an embarrassing bug that prevented it from compiling KDE correctly, which is why it was "skipped" as a distribution compiler. Redhat havereleased an extended 7.x series waiting for an acceptable distribution compiler (gcc 3.1).
The gcc team are within their rights releasing something that isn't known to compile a package as important as gcc. Redhat, on the other hand, have to make sure that their distribution compiler can build hundreds of packages. In hindsight, it's very clear that Redhats move on gcc was the right one.
I've been using Debian for almost a year now, and I couldn't be happier. As for the article making it seem that you can't get the latest goodies from Debian, that may have been misleading.
The Debian team maintains 3 branches, Stable, Testing, and Unstable. While Stable uses Kernel 2.2 and XFree86 3, Testing gives you kernel 2.4.16, XFree86 4, and other, up-to-date goodies.
My only complaint about Debain is that the install can be painful, especially to those used to more graphical oriented tools. But the fact that you can burn a 30meg CD and do an install over the internet is very nice (netinst), and once you get used to apt-get, you'll wonder how you got by without it.
Use athlon builder or pentium builder, it will compile optimized binaries
Doing so automatically would be nice
Non-commercial Linux distributions like Gentoo or Debian are impressive. They have more package than most commercial distros, they are actively maintainer, they have an amazing packaging system, they are free and everyone can put his finger in the pie.
.
But *commercial* distros are really important. Why? Because companies like SuSE or RedHat have a marketing force. Without them, a lot of companies would never have heard about Linux. Just like a lot of other free operating systems, Linux would have been something designed by geeks, and for geeks. SuSE, RedHat, etc. give an important professional aspect to Linux. Thanks to them, some hardware vendors gave specs or developped Linux drivers. Thanks to them, web plugins like Flash are supported on Linux. Thanks to them and their money, Linux has been ported to Intel and AMD 64 bits architectures. Thanks to them, any dummy can buy a SuSE package with a comprehensive printed manual, everything on CD's and DVD's, and get technical support.
Sure, once you are familar with Unix/Linux, you can easily use any distro, commercial or not, or even switch to BSD. But I guess a lot of people would never have installed Linux/Unix on their computer if the only thing they was given was http://www.debian.org/ or http://www.openbsd.org/
So please stop bashing commercial Linux distributions. Linux would never have been what it is nowadays without them.
{{.sig}}
Hmmmm, lots of people are missing the other part of Debian being kernel independant, there is already a port to a BSD kernel in progress and also you can install it with GNU/HURD if you want.
"It's better to regret something you have done, than to regret something you haven't done" - Orbital
I've used Debian a couple of times, and I must say it is one of the better linux distributions. However, I don't use it on any of my machines. The reason for this is the Debian Installer. It is a pain the butt to get the thing installed. And the benefits for doing so don't outweigh the horrors of getting it installed.
If you took the Mandrake installer. Mandrakes up-to-dateness (stable debian isn't current enough), and mandrakes cool graphical tools and combine them with debians apt-get and overall os quality, I think you would arrive at somethign very close to the best linux distribution possible.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
I've been using debian for several years and really find it to be a stellar distribution. I love apt-get and the fact that it has been a solid system (even though I'm running unstable). My only gripe is that the install system and process for configuring X could be improved greatly. My roommate just tried installing Debian and configuring X (and getting nvidia drivers to work). His response was that maybe he should really go back to windows! OUCH! I Downloaded a few other distributions and he was much happier with his experience with all of them. (SuSE Mandrake and RedHat)
Don't get me wrong, I love deb and will keep using it, however, getting it to be a bit for friendly to the first time user couldn't hurt either.
Thanks, I didn't want to burn the karma to flame him, so I'm glad you did it first. For a people who call themselves 'educated' or 'L337' or whatever, why is it that linux users assume that their distro of choice is the only only one with even the simplest of features? Just because *you* can't update the system effectively with rpm, doesn't mean it can't do it. We're all glad that you've found nirvana with debian - kudos to you. I personally prefer mandrake - I like my linux, but I like it to work pretty much out of the box, and debian hasn't done that for me in years. I learned linux on debian, but it refuses to cooperate with my new hardware, and I don't really feel the need to spend weeks getting it to work when mandrake just installs and goes. So for all the twits out there saying 'redhat sucks because rpm doesn't work the same way as dpkg/apt', maybe it would if you'd put down the torch and pitchfork and follow your own advice - RTFM.
do not read this line twice.
I was quite appalled to read this:
Where did you read this? It wasn't in the linked article, and Google didn't help me at all.
Talk about putting words into the mouths of your opponents.
deus does not exist but if he does
Everybody goes on and on about the wonders of apt-get, as if it were the only good thing about Debian. (By the way, you guys should be using aptitude now. Aptitude tracks "auto" packages which have been only been installed to meet dependencies.)
Debian's most valuable asset is its devotion to its users. We are the only GNU/Linux distribution to work on this many architectures. Debian is the testing ground for non-i386 XFree86.
Debian is also invaluable to the developer community because the Project submits bugs upstream! Yes, when a package does not compile on PA-RISC because the code is poor and/or non-portable, a bug report (and likely a patch) is forwarded upstream. Not only does this fix a lot of bugs, but it improves software quality across all architectures. Plus, system administration across the Debian platform is extremely consistent.
Debian considers itself the Universal Operating System. That is why projects such as Debian NetBSD, Debian OpenBSD, Debian FreeBSD and even Debian GNU/Hurd are in active development. I know the GNU/Hurd port has been doing a very good job of making sure programs are truly POSIX compliant.
== I am not Me.
Hewlett-wha? Perhaps you mean "HP" (soon to be known as "Compaq-Fiorina").
(http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/bu siness/companies/hewlett_packard/3282149.htm)
Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachtani?
www.fogbound.net
Yes, but effectivelty no packet management a very bad way to mange most commercial installations (as Slackware fans don't seem to realise).
:-)
:-) In the instance of a personal desktop in your own home it's entirely personal preference, BUT problems do arise when people who only really know one distribution well and don't understand suffer from Fear Uncertainty and Doubt about package managment and so opt for or advocate something like Slackware, which, IMO does not belong in most commercial organizations for the above reasons.
(Disclaimer this post is not entirely directed at you, just an appropriate place to put this, and they are comments I thought were worth making
Most Slackware users I know don't, for example, know much about others systems (e.g. HURD, BSD or Solaris) or more about running a professional system (e.g. running SNMP, tools like HP OpenView, RiverSoft, implimenting Madatory Access Controls, Access Control Lists or Capabilties)
I don't want to get into flame war, but I'm using that to try and illustrate that most of the maintainers of the the few 'production' Slackware based systems I've personally met are amoung the least professional (in my experience) and fall more into the 'quick hack' category and fail to realise why package management is so very important. Additionaly, Slackware has previously contained very serious exploitable holes for over 6 months at a time, but due to it's 'Slack' nature, they were not fixed (despite patched code being avalible in every other distribution) - the idea of a 6 month old distribution with many known holes being installed and no quick upgrade path (via packagemanagement or even service packs) makes me think that many of the holes will never get patched and so the systems will continue to be unpatched and easily exploitable.
I'd certainly say that serious professional production system often require custom complied and installed applications (such as Apache, Exim or Bind), jails configured, ACL's setup, MAC's applied, and an appropriate kernel built or tweaked for inteded use (depending on the OS), but:
(a) these can be easily turned into packages meaning they can be more easily rolled out accross large installations, even automatically using your own Debian package server and a cron job on each system, for example
&
(b) most of the software on a system (small utilites like tar, dd, cron and libraries) do not need to be complied manualy on every machine.
The key benifits of package management, as featured in unix operating systems like Debian, Red Hat, Solaris and Mac OS X, are:
- Stability.
By using prebuilt know-to-work binanies designed for a given platform that have very specific dependancies you are running a known good configuration (by any practicle definition).
- Security.
Using packages insures that patches are always applied in the correct order and it's easy to see which updates have been applied and which have not, by simply listing the installed packages compared with a list from the vendor. This way, thanks to the aid of the vendor (e.g. Sun or Apple, or Debian) you can rely on their knowledge and experience to help keep you secure and up-to-date against known issues.
Additionally, you can do fingerprinting and watermarking to detect modified files.
- Efficiency.
Manually compiling updates on each server, satisfiying dependancies is long and tedious work, even if you only have 20-30 machines.
By having a package management system you can updated them all simply by making a package avalible in a single location and having them all grab it automatically, making upgrades take minutes, rather than hours or days.
-Ease.
By using a 'standard' system like Red Hat, Debian, Solaris or even Mac OS X, it's easy for any other administrator to know where programs and configuration files will be and to see what uprades you've performed and to manage the system.
Through increased efficiency this translates into direct cost savings too (another benifit).
Now of course entirely different rules apply if it's a system for a *personal* desktop!