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Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 Released
emissary47 writes "The Debian Project is pleased to announce the release of Debian GNU/Linux version 3.0. Debian GNU/Linux is a free operating system, which now supports a total of eleven processor architectures, includes KDE and GNOME desktop environments, features cryptographic software, is compatible with the FHS v2.2 and supports software developed for the LSB. The Release Notes are available here."
For God's sake! Please use more recent software, like XFree 4.2 and KDE 3. Maybe not yet Gnome 2, but especially XFree 4.2 is solid enough.
:(
If Debian continues to be SO behind the times in the software they use, I am sorry, but Gentoo awaits for me around the corner.
It is so bad that the real community project, Debian, really fails to impress so much.
Please stop trolling. Check out these links if your mom and dad haven't already pulled the plug:
0 02 /debian-devel-announce-200207/msg00011.html: //www.debian.org/News/2002/20020719e bian.org/releases/woody/releasenotes
http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2
http
http://www.d
The whole point of Debian is that everything is done in the open. There's very little to be an "insider" on. Just subscribe to the mailing lists or read the archives and you'll be an insider.
Having said that, the future of Debian looks like a blue sky, with fluffy white clouds here and there. And a little flying saucer off in the distance.
noah
There are numerous reasons why KDE 3, Xfree86 4.2, Gnome 2, Openoffice, Mplayer, et al are not ready for Debian primetime. They are all outlined in the developer mailing lists, if you bothered to read them, and most stem from the fact that Debian developers do not release software that only builds on i386 or with certain 'golden' compiler releases.
In the meantime, installing from unofficial sources takes no more effort than adding lines to your apt sources.list. This information can be found at http://www.debianplanet.org if you were so inclined to look.
(because it's getting Slashdotted like mad)
The Debian Project is pleased to announce the release of Debian GNU/Linux version 3.0. Debian GNU/Linux is a free operating system, which now supports a total of eleven processor architectures, includes KDE and GNOME desktop environments, features cryptographic software, is compatible with the FHS v2.2 and supports software developed for the LSB.
With the addition of the IA-64 (ia64), HP PA-RISC (hppa), MIPS (mips, mipsel), and S/390 (s390) architectures, Debian GNU/Linux now supports a total of eleven architectures. It now runs on computers ranging from palmtops to supercomputers, and nearly everything in between, including the latest generation of 64 bit machines.
This is the first version of Debian to feature cryptographic software integrated into the main distribution. OpenSSH and GNU Privacy Guard are included in the default installation, and strong encryption is now present in web browsers and web servers, databases, and so forth. Further integration of cryptographic software is planned for future releases.
For the first time, Debian comes with the K Desktop Environment 2.2 (KDE). The GNOME desktop environment is upgraded to version 1.4, and X itself is upgraded to the much improved XFree86 4.1. With the addition of several full-featured free graphical web browsers in the form of Mozilla, Galeon, and Konqueror, Debian's desktop offerings have radically improved.
This version of Debian supports the 2.2 and 2.4 releases of the Linux kernel. Along with better support for a greater variety of new hardware (such as USB) and significant improvements in usability and stability, the 2.4 kernel provides support for the ext3 and reiserfs journaling filesystems.
Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 features a more streamlined and polished installation, which is translated into numerous languages. The task system has been revamped and made more flexible. The debconf tool makes configuration of the system easier and more user friendly. Debian GNU/Linux can be installed from CD, or from the network and a few floppies. It can be downloaded now, and will soon be available on CD-ROM from numerous vendors.
Upgrades to Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 from earlier releases are automatically handled by the apt package management tool. As always, Debian GNU/Linux systems can be upgraded painlessly, in place, without any forced downtime. For detailed instructions about installing and upgrading Debian GNU/Linux, please see the release notes.
This is the first release of Debian that is compatible with version 2.2 of the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS). Debian GNU/Linux now also supports software developed for the Linux Standard Base (LSB), though it is not yet LSB certified.
Current Debian users may be interested to know that this release of Debian supports build dependencies, to aid in building packages from source, and apt pinning, to ease partial upgrades to our testing or unstable branch. This release of Debian features aptitude as an alternative for the venerable dselect program, which will make it easier to select packages. About four thousand new software packages were added to the distribution in Debian GNU/Linux 3.0.
To make a pun demonstrates the highest understanding of a language
Add these to your sources.list and be thankful for all the good things Debian _has_ that other distributions _don't_. ;)
deb http://kde3.geniussystems.net/debian ./ ./
deb-src http://kde3.geniussystems.net/debian
niko
It installs the new kernel for you first. Then you choose to boot it at your leisure. No FORCED downtime.
come check out the wonders of apt-get dist-upgrade, you don't need a new kernel in order to upgrade all of the packages...
The kernel is probably the one and only package that you need to reboot for to have "changes take effect".
But you are not forced to do so. The system will continue to work if you don't.
Thus: no *forced* reboot.
You might want to check this before shutdowning in any case.
my
Well today is (Release Manager) aj's mother's birthday, and I'm afraid she has priority over you. Sorry 'bout that.
To get something done, a committee should consist of no more than three persons, two of them absent.
Just for the record:
Sid will never freeze. The next release will be named "Sarge".
Supposedly, they're aiming for Woody+1, so give it a couple of years.
There is no KDE3 in Unstable yet because everyone has been waiting patiently for Woody to be released. Just wait a little bit, and it will start to appear. Along with Gnome 2, I expect.
Can any of the Debian insiders comment on what the future of Debian looks like?
:)
:) What else would be in Debian's future? :)
Well, there are no real "Debian insiders". However, not everybody is an active member of Debian community, so I can explain a few things in that context.
First, before I go into what's being discussed with respect to Debian's very long release cycle, I'd just like to explain a few things.
Debian/stable releases are typically meant for server environments, and as a stable development platform. With that in mind, where tradeoffs are made, stability is favoured over the newest software available. "Stability" doesn't just mean apps that don't crash. It also means things that don't change out from underneath you.
System integrators, OEMs, businesses with a large base of deployed Debian machines, and developers of commercial, closed-source software all appreciate slow release cycles. A distribution which gets only critical updates over a few years is an easy distribution to target. Nothing will break for them, they can get to know the system extremely well.
For the server environment, well-proven applications will almost always be preffered. Where a newer package is required for some feature that they wish, options ARE available.
Debian is split into three trees. There's Debian/stable, Debian/testing, and Debian/unstable. Generally speaking, when a new package is uploaded to Debian, it first goes to "unstable" . After a suitable period of testing, and if there are no more bugs in the new package than the old package, it will be migrated to "testing". Actually, a lot more is considered, but those are probably the two most important aspects of the process.
So, first a package is uploaded to "unstable". If it's good, it's migrated to "testing". At an arbitrary point, when things seem pretty stable, "testing" will be frozen. Developers have ample warning of this; if a version of their package in "testing" is too old for their liking, they have the opportunity to update it before the freeze.
During the freeze, only important updates are made to packages. Security updates, updates which fix release-critical bugs, etc., etc.. When all the release-critical bugs have been fixed, the "testing" tree is made the "stable" tree, and we have a new Debian release. That's what we saw happen today
Once a Debian tree has been released, only important updates are made. If Debian/stable has OpenSSH version 3.4, and there's an important security fix made in 3.5, instead of 3.5 being uploaded, the fix will be made to 3.4, and a new update to that package uploaded.
This is all done in the interest of providing a robust, stable, easy-to-target distribution.
The "testing" and "unstable" trees will almost always have newer versions of packages than "stable". If a user using "stable" wishes a newer package, then they can either migrate to "testing" or "unstable", or simply install the newer package and its newer dependencies. Simple as pie.
So, really, a faster release process isn't strictly required. However, there are some very vocal parts of the Debian community which would appreciate a faster release cycle. I'm undecided on my own feelings, but there have been many, many, many suggestions.
Basically, they all revolve around freezing "testing" earlier than has been the norm. For more information, read the list archives at http://lists.debian.org/
For the rest of Debian's future? Package updates
Thanks
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
I agree. I dunno why the parent post is at -1, but it's exactly what I experienced. I started using Mandrake about a year ago. I got used to the enviroment a bit, and really started liking it.
.tar.gz from the net. Sadly, I think it is the easiest option for a installing a lot of the software out there. Tracking down endless lists of dependencies on rpmfind, only to be confused over which of the 10 different similairly named RPMs to pick from is simply not that fun.
:(. Needless to say, it was back to Mandrake for me.
:(. I've heard it said that the install is so bad because you only have to go through it once, but failing at the install one time makes the system unusable.
I was used to the pain of RPM dependencies, and after the initial install of Mandrake (which is done internally completely by RPM), I wouldn't use RPMs much by myself. When installing new software, I'd first check the software manager (which has a nice search for non-installed stuff on the Mandrake CDs), and failing that, go directly for a source
I heard about how great apt-get was. So I figured I'd try to install Debian 2.2. Ouch... not a good idea. I did manage to get it installed.. kind of. Running windowmaker (used KDE almost exclusively in Mandrake, and never anything other than KDE and GNOME) at 640x480 with 256 color on a monitor that supports 1280x1024 because my year old GeForce 3 wasn't supported with the old version of X shipped with Debian. It would have been ok if I had an internet connection, I'd installed the Nvidia drivers a couple times, but I couldn't even figure out how to get the net connection working. No netconf..
One can't experience the greatness of apt-get if they can't make it through the install
However, there can't have been much demand for it, because development ceased back in 2000.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
I know one's not supposed to feed the trolls, but bugs DO get fixed in the stable version. But unlike some other distributions, that just toss in a new package, that *might* break some functionality on a server, Debian backports the bug-fix. The version is the same, but the bugs - and ONLY the bugs - are fixed.
Well, actually, Debian allows you to try the latest and greatest, on the same level as Red Hat, and then allows you to also run the latest and greatest, stuff that's newer than Red Hat. So, if that's all you want, Debian has a branch for everyone. :)
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." - Thomas Jefferson
One can't experience the greatness of apt-get if they can't make it through the install
The first time I tried debian (I think this was Debian 1.3?), I got hopelessly confused by the installation and went back to redhat 4.2 and was much happier.
When 2.0 came out, I decided to give it another try, and struggled through the installation, and finally ended up with a nice system. But great as apt-get was, I felt it wasn't worth the pain.
Then I figured out the painless way to install debian: go through the installation and install the bare minimum that you absolutely need (this means no X!). Then once you've got that running, which is quick and easy, use apt for everything else you use. This has the side benefit that there's no wasted space on your drive.
To a large part: Universities. Many of the mirrors are run by colleges / college LUGS. Of course, that means that the money is coming from 1) Students 2) Government, and therefore all of us through our taxes. Just remember, when paying your taxes, you are buying a faster apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade
Currently sarge == woody. Eventually newer packages will start to trickle down from sid to sarge, the same way the trickled down from sid to woody during the woody development. So yes, if you change to sarge you will be downgrading.
Most Debian users have been running almost exactly this for ages, as "woody" or "testing" --- It works rather nicely.
:-)
That's the point with Debian, you get to choose when to abandon rock solid reliability in favour of shiney new features, and most of the time it doesn't even degrade your reliability.
People seem to miss the point that Debian stable is meant to be STABLE. If you want to install a box in the middle of the desert, 100s of miles from anywhere, then you want it stable, and you don't give a damn about which version of KDE you use. If you want the latest KDE, just grab it out of unstable, or of off the KDE Debian package maintainer's bleeding edge archive --- It's your chouce. If it kills your machine, you get to press the reset button, but generally it won't, and if it does, it's what you decided you wanted, and you get the joy of filing a bug report, and helping to fix the problem.
Would I recomend a switch? Well, if you're happy with SuSE, and you don't care about Software Freedom, then SuSE is a fine distribution, unfortunately YaST is non-free software, so I'll never use it, and SuSE doesn't have apt-get, which makes any other feature they might have pale into insignificance in my opinion. Obviously, I am biased though
Debian: GNU/Linux done the Linux way
KDE 3 is out now, but it wasn't when Woody went under freeze. The point of Debian's "stable" release is to be stable, not to be flashy; the idea is "tried and true", not "latest and greatest".
RedHat 7.3 shipped with KDE 3. It also shipped with an unofficial, experimental version of GCC that they called 2.96, which causes compilation issues with many major packages. Would you want this running as part of, say, a compile farm? I wouldn't put my trust in a release that can't even compile Apache correctly.
Not all of us use Linux for servers only, but those who do want a system that's solid. If you want more bleeding-edge software in exchange for a bit of risk that things might not work on occasion, you should try Debian's unstable branch. I've been running it on my own machine for the past several years and I find it to be quite nice. And you can always install "stable" and then upgrade individual packages using newer versions from "unstable".
You hear me! Use the beta version of the PGI ISO, the graphical user-friendly autohardware detecting installer for Woody. Check out the website here, and the ISOs are at the first link (only 100MB download for the entire ISO).
Debian truely is the one true Linux distro. Its non-commercial, and developed by an open free internet community. Not only that, but Debian is superior to every other Linux distro. It is stable, easy to maintain, and it runs on any useful piece of computer hardware - no matter what platform that hardware is. Support Debian by simply spending the time to install and use it for your main Linux installation.
But the stable distribution attempts to eliminate even the 0.01% of cases you have allotted due to bugs in all packages across all platforms.
:) Debian has a slow release cycle. This is because they want to document and/or fix all bugs before they release things. This takes a long time. They have a slow release cycle.
:)
I once asked a question in #Debian.
I asked, "Why do bugs in packages which are obviously due to the program itself [menu options crashing the program, false advertising within the documentation, totally broken config parsing, etc], get reported to the Debian package maintainers? Don't package maintainers just package stuff up and put it in the tree?"
The response was, "A bug in a Debian package is a bug in the distribution."
Debian stable attempts to have _all_ bugs ironed out or documented. I'm serious. This is different than RedHat [latest version] which contains an attempt to iron out a lot of bugs, but is spurred mostly by neat developments in the software they distribute. It's not good or bad either way, just different.
You've heard it a million times, but maybe it will register one day.
Debian unstable plus "unofficial" sources is newer than RedHat [latest version]. apt-get resolves a FUCKING SHITLOAD of dependency problems that develop using rpm.
It's simple, really. It's nice. It makes you happy. People like Debian because it makes them feel good to just type in "apt-get install ", twiddle their thumbs for the download period, and then use it. And it almost always just works. The times that it doesn't work, it usually means that there is no such package or you spelled it wrong, and more often than not you got the name wrong.
When this is the worst thing your distribution does, you're doing well.
As my father lik@(munch munch)...
so, you want to recompile package foo, well first you need some source
../foo-1.2.3*deb
apt-get source foo
or maybe some newer source
apt-get source foo/unstable
or maybe you need the source that became available 5 minutes ago, in which case you do one of the above, drop the new tarball in the current directory, go into the old Debian source directory, and run uupdate and maybe fix some patching problems in the new directory that got created for you.
Next, you need to build this stuff, so let's get in the source directory:
cd foo-1.2.3
oh, but we might need some other development libraries to build this, so lets grab what we need
apt-get build-dep foo
that's better, now we can tweak some source or options maybe, and make ourselves a package
debuild
right, so now we have a new package, so we install it
sudo dpkg -i
and it gets installed (or maybe it has some dependencies, if you got this far, you can work it out yourself) just like it was an official Debian package, which means you get to remove it cleanly, etc. if the need arrises.
Who ever said source was difficult to play with in Debian? Debian is by developers, for developers -- we like source. That's why we're into Free Software.
Debian: GNU/Linux done the Linux way
This is supposedly a major upgrade (2.2 -> 3.0) you'd think the least one can get things like the latest desktops.
But it is a major upgrade. Debian 2.2 had KDE 1.2
Not all of us use Linux as servers only.
Then use Debian unstable.. It is more stable than any commercial distribution