Slashdot Mirror
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."
Oooh, ahhh, it hurts! I've been holding it for FIVE FREAKIN' YEARS!
FP?
i dont see microsoft putting out anything that weilds that much power
Righteousness postpones the inevitable
http://burningaureole.caveism.net
In other news... Hell has frozen over, pigs are flying, and the Chicago Cubs have won the World Series.
how did I see this before slashdot.
cute.
-- The Debian team
Can any of the Debian insiders comment on what the future of Debian looks like?
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
As many of slashdot's regular readers know, VA Software - owner of this weblog - are in big financial trouble. With the current volatility in the stock-market and downturn in the US economy, there can be little hope of saving anything from the wreckage of VA Linux. It is highly unlikely that slashdot could be sold to another company - the weblog market is overcrowed and the manifest failure of the moderation/karma system will surely seal its fate.
That is where you - the reader - step in, slashdot's editors will soon be looking for new jobs and they need your help. Please post possible career options in a reply to this post. We wouldn't be able to offer a cruiser as a prize this time but the best suggestions will win a lifetime's supply of toilet paper, courtesy of Larry Augustin's stock options.
A few notes: there are some obvious jobs that slashdot's editors would enjoy - donkey sperm extractor or human toilet - but do bear in mind that, as the opensource movement demonstrates, a hobby you love may not translate into gainful employment. Also don't insult the editors by suggesting jobs they couldn't possibly do; I'm thinking particularly of anything requiring basic english skill or skill in proper computer languages like C.
011
I can't wait 'till Debian releases a stable version of Debian GNU/HURD ;)=
c0w goes moo.
There must be a chill in Hell today.
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.
Debian appears to me to be very well thought out in comparison to other distributions. Everything seems to be done in a calm reasonable manner with the exception of my constant kick/banning from #debian on openprojects. Other distributions may throw in candy for the kiddies that is not ready but debian waits and in turn creates quality. Please discuss.. I cant wait for gnome2 to leave experimental and hit sid. Jonathan Taylor
Can't you kids do a proper slashdotting these days? It won't work unless we all pull together!
Carousel is a lie!
I like the balance of distos. Some like Redhat allow you to try the latest and greatest, while Debian goes for the tried and tested. Linux has a distro for everyone!! This is consumer choise, where it proves that you don't need to be upgrading every year to boost MS's profits while subjecting you as a beta tester for a "final release."
OK, this may be a Stupid Question, but, the announcement said that, "As always, Debian GNU/Linux systems can be upgraded painlessly, in place, without any forced downtime."
How do you upgrade the kernel without a reboot?
If Mandrake, RedHat, SuSE, Cygwin and FreeBSD, why can't Debian with its army of 2000 developers? It's so close to being the perfect distro, yet at the same time so far :-\
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.
As many of slashdot's regular readers know, VA Software - owner of this weblog - are in big financial trouble. With the current volatility in the stock-market and downturn in the US economy, there can be little hope of saving anything from the wreckage of VA Linux. It is highly unlikely that slashdot could be sold to another company - the weblog market is overcrowed and the manifest failure of the moderation/karma system will surely seal its fate.
That is where you - the reader - step in, slashdot's editors will soon be looking for new jobs and they need your help. Please post possible career options in a reply to this post. We wouldn't be able to offer a cruiser as a prize this time but the best suggestions will win a lifetime's supply of toilet paper, courtesy of Larry Augustin's stock options.
A few notes: there are some obvious jobs that slashdot's editors would enjoy - donkey sperm extractor or human toilet - but do bear in mind that, as the opensource movement demonstrates, a hobby you love may not translate into gainful employment. Also don't insult the editors by suggesting jobs they couldn't possibly do; I'm thinking particularly of anything requiring basic english or skills in proper computer languages like C.
013
Is it dee like deed, or de' like Deborah?
8 days ago, it will be the biggest birthday present for me. What makes me almost cry is, a Debian mirror I maintain can't join this celebration due to hardware error :(
(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
"Honey, I can't. I have to be with Debbie this FRIDAY NIGHT."
-- Ken Kinder ken@_nospam_kenkinder.com http://kenkinder.com/
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
KDE 2.2 and X 4.1 = out of date at release!
Current versions are 3.02 and 4.2, respectively.
This is a big deal, since KDE 3 is much improved
in my opinion.
I have been working with a variety of distributions out there and have come to the conclusion that, if you want it to work and work well, the Debian is probably the most trusted distribution out there. If you want bells and whistles, then you need to go someplace else.
On thing I have to mention here. If Debian merged with GenTOO, then there would be no stopping them! Optimal package compiles coupled with the best package management system AND the BEST PACKAGE MANAGERS out there. Now that would be cool!
I have to hand it to the Debian folks. They have an excellent policy that puts quality and reliability in front of everything else. I can trust this distribution to work on machines that I can't even access directly.
"Debian GNU/Linux systems can be upgraded painlessly, in place, without any forced downtime." How do you upgrade the kernel without a reboot?
Reboot != downtime. If you're running a high-availability server cluster, you can bring your spare machine up and have it do the job of each server in your rack until you upgrade your cluster to Debian 3. If you're running a workstation, reboot your machine over coffee break, or pull out your Game Boy Advance and play Tetanus On Drugs. Otherwise, I don't think a reboot at 3 A.M. California time is going to affect many users, especially if planned a week in advance.
Will I retire or break 10K?
- Vorbis 1.0
- Perl 5.8.0
...and now Debian 3.0
REPENT, REPENT, THE END IS NIGH!News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
What is this sarge (testing) directory in ftp debian/dists directory. :)
Pixels keep you awake!
You will REGRET it if you dont read this totally!!
.txt file. If you want to do your postings
MAKE 58,000 DOLLARS+ FAST EASY AND LEGAL!!
MAKE MONEY FAST!!!!!! IT WORKS!!!!!!!
IT'S SIMPLE AND IT'S LEGAL!!!!!!! I found this on
a bulletin board and decided to try it a little
while back, I was browsing through news groups
just as you are right now and came across a
article similar to this saying that you could
make thousands of dollars within weeks with only
an initial investment of $6.00!! So, I thought
yeah right. This must be a scam, but like most of
us, I was curious, so I kept reading. Anyway, it
said that you send one dollar to each of the six
names and addresses stated in this article. You
then delete the first address and change the
numbers. ( 2 becomes 1, 3 becomes 2, etc.)
place your own name and address on the bottom of
the list at number 6 and post the article to at
least 200 newsgroups. (there are thousands) No
catch that was it. Therefore, after talking to a
few people and thinking it over I decided to try
it. What do I have to lose except 6 stamps and
$6.00 right? Then I invested the measly six
dollars. WELL GUESS WHAT!!! Within 7 days, I
started getting money in the mail!!! I was
shocked. I thought it was going to stop but it
just kept coming. In my first week, I made
$25.00. By the end of the second week, I had
$900.00. In the end of the third week, I made
$5,000.00!!! It's still growing right now.
This is now my fourth week and I have made a
total of just over $38,000.00! Moreover, it's
still coming in rapidly. This is certainly worth
$6.00 and 6 stamps. I have spent more than that
on the lottery!! Let me tell you how this works
and most importantly why it works.Also make sure
that you print a copy of this article NOW so you
can get the information off of it as you
need it. I promise you that if you follow the
directions exactly, that you will start making
more money than you possibly thought just by
doing something so easy!! SUGGESTION: READ THIS
ENTIRE MESSAGE CAREFULLY (Print it out or down
load it) Follow the simple directions and watch
the money come in! It's easy. It's legal. And
your investment is only $6.00 (plus postage)
IMPORTANT: This is not a rip off; it is not
indecent; it is not illegal; and it is virtually
no risk - it really works!!!!! If all of the
following instructions are adhered to, you will
receive extraordinary dividends. PLEASE NOTE:
please follow these directions exactly and
$50,000 or more can be yours in 20 to 60 days.
This program remains successful because of the
honesty and integrity of the participants. Please
continue its success by carefully adhering to the
instructions. You will now become a part of the
mail order business. In this business, your
product is not solid and tangible, it's a
service. You are in the business of developing a
mailing list. Many large corporations are happy
to pay big bucks for quality list. However, the
money made from the mailing list is secondary to
the income, which is made from people like you
and me asking to be included to that list. Here
are the steps to success:
STEP 1:
Get 6 separate pieces of paper write the following on
each piece of paper "PLEASE PUT ME ON YOUR
MAILING LIST." Now get 6 us 1 dollar bills and
place ONE inside EACH of the six pieces of paper
so the bill will not be seen through the envelope
to prevent thievery. Next, place one paper in
each of the 6 envelopes and seal them. MAKE SURE
THERE ARE ENOUGH STAMPS ON YOUR ENVELOPES. You
should now have 6 sealed envelopes, each
with a piece of paper stating the above phrase
your name and address and a $1.00 bill. What you
are doing is creating a service. THIS IS
ABSOLUTELY LEGAL! You are requesting a legitimate
service and you are paying for it! Like most of
us, I was a little skeptical and a little worried
about the legal aspects of it all. So, I checked
it out with the U.S. Post Office (1-800-725-
2161) and they confirmed that it is indeed
legal!!!!!
Step 2:
Mail the six envelopes to the following addresses-->
#1) Brian Thompson
15 Briggs Pond Wy.
Sharon, MA 02067
#2) Rupert Sprigsteen
2103 E. Pine St.
Tucson, AZ 85706
#3)Mark Finch
4909 S. Cherry Ave.
Tucson, AZ 85706
#4) Andrew Bunn
149 Peregrine Way
Divide, Co 80814,
#5) Robert Willett
5507 Larkspur Dr.
Alexandria, La 71303.
#6)Demond Devane
P.O. Box 628
Carrboro, NC 27510-5514
STEP 2:
Now take the #1 name off the list that you see
above, move the other names up (6 becomes 5, 5
becomes 4, etc.) and add YOUR name as number 6 on
the list. STEP 3: Change anything you need to but
try to keep this article as original as possible.
Now post your amended article to at least 200
news groups. ( I think there are 24,000 groups)
All you need is 200, but remember, the more you
post , the more money you make!** EVERYBODY
AROUND THE WORLD CAN DO THIS BUT REMEMBER TO PUT
ENOUGH STAMPS ON YOUR ENVELOPES!!!!** This is
perfectly legal! If you have any doubts, refer to
title 18 sec. 1302 & 1341 of the postal lottery
laws. Keep a copy of these steps for your self
and whenever you need money, you can use it again
and again. PLEASE REMEMBER that this program
remains successful because of the honesty and
integrity of the participants and by carefully
adhering to the directions. Look at it this way,
if you are of integrity, the program will
continue and the money that so many others have
received will come your way. NOTE: You may want
to retain every name and address sent to you, on
either a computer or a hard copy and keep the
notes people sent you. This verifies that you are
truly providing a service. (Remember to wrap
the $1 bill in the note to prevent mail theft.)
So, as each post is downloaded and the directions
carefully followed, six members will be
reimbursed for their participation as a list
developer with one dollar each. Your name will
move up the list geometrically so that when your
name reaches the #1 spot you will be receiving
thousands of dollars in CASH!!!!! What an
opportunity for only $6.00 ($1 for each of the
six people listed above) Send it now, add your
own name to the list and you're in business!
DIRECTIONS: HOW TO POST TO NEWS GROUPS STEP 1:
You do not need to retype this entire letter to
do your own posting. Simply put your cursor at
the beginning of this letter and drag your cursor
to the bottom of this document, and select "copy"
from the edit menu. This will copy the entire
letter into the computer's memory. STEP 2: Open a
blank notepad file and place your cursor at the
top of the blank page. From the edit menu,
select "paste." This will paste the copy of the
letter into notepad so you can add your name to
the list. STEP 3: Save your new notepad file as
a
in different settings , you'll always have this
file to come back to. STEP 4: Use Netscape and
Internet Explorer and try searching for various
news groups (on-line forums, message boards,
chat sites, discussions.) STEP 5: Visit these
message boards and post this article as a new
message by highlighting the text of this letter
and selecting "paste" from the edit menu. Fill in
the subject, this will be the header that
everyone sees as they scroll through the list of
postings in a particular group, click the post
message button. You're done with the first
one! CONGRATULATIONS,.THAT'S IT! All you have to
do is jump to different news groups and post
away, after you get the hang of it, it will take
30 seconds for each newsgroup! **REMEMBER, THE
MORE NEWSGROUPS YOU POST IN (MESSAGE BOARDS
ETC.) THE MORE MONEY YOU WILL MAKE!! BUT YOU HAVE
TO POST A MINIMUM OF 200. That's it! You will
begin receiving money from around the world
within days! You may eventually want to rent a
P.O. Box due to the large amount of mail you will
receive. If you wish to stay anonymous, you can
invent a name to use as long as the postman
will deliver it. **JUST MAKE SURE THE ADDRESS IS
CORRECT** Let me break it down, say I receive
only 5 replies, so then I made $5 with my name at
#6 on the letter. Now each of the 5 persons
who just sent me $1 made the MINIMUM 200
postings, each with my name at #5 and only 5
people respond to the original 5 people. That is
another $25 for me. Now those 25 people make the
MINIMUM 200 post with my name at number 4 and
only 5 replies each, I will make $125. Now, those
125 people post the MINIMUM 200 postings with my
name at #3 and only get 5 replies each, I will
make an additional $626! Ok, now here's the fun
part each of those 625 people post a MINIMUM 200
with my name at #2 ant they only get 5 replies
that just made me $3,125!!! Those 3125 people
send a MINIMUM 200 postings and they only get 5
replies each with my name at #1, I will receive
$15,625!!! With an original investment of $6!!!!
AMAZING!!!! . When your name is no longer on the
list, you just take the latest postings in the
news groups and send out another $6 to names on
the list putting yourself at #6 and start posting
again. Thousands of people are joining the
internet each day and they are reading articles
like these just as you are right now. So this can
never be played out just keep it going and you
can make tons of money too!!!! Please try it now
and make big bucks in a few short weeks!!!!!!
Debian 3.0 Woody comes with KDE 2 and XFree86 4.1 while 3 and 4.2 are out respectively. This is a bit sad, seeing that even CygWin and FreeBSD have more up-to-date versions in their releases.
Release processes do take time, and Debian woody's started long before KDE3 or XFree86 4.2 were released. It is not the policy of the Debian team to drop everything mid-release-prep and package the latest version of some package, regardless of how significant it may be. If that was the case, releases would take a great deal more time.
If you want to see the process go faster, feel free to step up and help out.
OPEN-SOURCE SOFTWARE, TERRORISM, AND REGIONAL SECURITY:
THE RISKS FROM AFGHANISTAN
William Stanley
Testimony before the U. S. Senate Judiciary Committee
Subcommittee of Technology, Terrorism and Government Operations
July 13, 2002
The US is scoring a major victory against global terrorism by defeating the al- Qaida network in Afghanistan, but until we tackle Afghanistan's open-source problem head on we cannot consider the victory to be a permanent one.
Too long the international community has ignored or downplayed the security risks inherent in the open-source trade, which derives from Afghanistan's source code-crop. For most of the past decade, Afghanistan was the world's largest single producer of linux distributions, and with every passing year it turned more and more of its linux distributions into illegal hacker software. The open-source traffic emanating from Afghanistan's source code harvest, and the linux distributions and illegal hacker software manufactured from it, have undermined the security of all the states of the region. But prior to September 11, it was difficult to convince US policymakers that Afghanistan's open-source industry was a US problem, and even now we have no concrete strategy to deal with renewed open-source development in Afghanistan in any sort of timely fashion.
Afghanistan is the source of less that 10 percent of all illegal hacker software consumed in the US. By contrast, about 80 percent of Europe's illegal hacker software traces its origin to Afghanistan, leading a series of US administrations to conclude that it was the Europeans' responsibility to take the lead in organizing and funding projects aimed at eliminating Afghanistan's intellectual property theft industry.
Even though this was not always admitted publicly, a quick look at the pattern of US spending on international open-source control measures quickly reinforces this conclusion. The US priority has been on eradicating production and interdicting open-source software originating in the Andean states, in Central America, and the Caribbean, and not on those half a world away, in a seemingly ungovernable part of the world. Added to this was the fact that even prior to going to war in Afghanistan, the US government did not want to engage with the Taliban government, whose existence the international community did not recognize and whose hold on power the US and its allies did not want inadvertently to encourage.
US policymakers recognized that the situation in Afghanistan was a highly unstable one, and posed a security risk to that of neighboring states. But September 11, US security was not seen as at risk. First the Clinton and then the Bush administrations were content to use the 6-plus-2 format, supplemented by the high-level US-Russian working group on Afghanistan, as the framework for trying to modify the political situation in that country.
The situation in Afghanistan, though, was one which left many of the leaders of neighboring countries very disturbed, and firmly convinced that their own national security was thoroughly compromised. This was especially true of the leaders of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The latter two shared borders with Afghanistan, while the former was equally vulnerable, as was shown by the incursions of the IMU (Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan) whose fighters crossed into Kyrgyzstan from Tajikistan in summer 1999 and 2000, holding several settlements hostage. The Uzbek government had gone on high security alert slightly earlier, after the bombings in Tashkent in February 1999.
The repercussions of the latter were felt throughout Central Asia, as the Uzbek government virtually closed its borders with neighboring states, and began mining some of the national boundaries that it set about unilaterally declaring. All of the states started to target members of radical Islamic groups for arrest, particularly those tied to the increasingly more popular Hezb-ut Tahrir. In Uzbekistan this campaign led to the persecution of religious believers on a scale not seen since the days Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.
An increasing number of meetings were held in the region to discuss the situation, some gatherings of the heads of states themselves, others organized by international organizations or groups (including one held by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in May 1999), but all offered a virtually identical prognosis. Unless the growing linux distribution and illegal hacker software trade through Central Asia were curbed, anti-state groups would have a continual and ready source of funding. Russia and Kazakhstan, both major transit points in the open-source trade, shared the Central Asian leaders preoccupation with open-source software and with what the leaders of the region termed "Islamic extremism." Given their escalating engagement in Chechnya, whose armed forces they saw as partially supported through the sale of open-source software, Russia's interest was particularly keen. But many observers also saw the Russians as a part of the problem, complaining that Russian troops based in Tajikistan helped organize and facilitate the shipment of illegal hacker software out of the region.
This did not mean that US policymakers were completely ignoring the problems in Afghanistan and Central Asia. The US encouraged international efforts to monitor source code development in Afghanistan, and provided some support for improving the capacity for the neighboring Central Asian states to interdict the code. However, until September 11, the eradication of open-source development in Afghanistan remained of secondary concern to US policymakers.
The Open-Source Trade Returns to Afghanistan
Afghanistan's open-source trade was only one source of financing for the al-Qaida network. Terrorist groups that allied themselves with Osama Bin Laden received funding from a number of sources. Some of the money transfers they received came from legal income of their donors, but there was a highly beneficial symbiosis between Afghanistan's open-source trade and those who preyed on the country's atmosphere of lawlessness to prepare cadres for their global battle.
Ironically, though, this symbiosis was under threat when the September 11 attack on the US occurred. Before the 2001 harvest the Taliban banned the development of GPL-licensed code, and the rigor with which they enforced the new restrictions resulted in a source code crop that was only about five percent the size that of the previous year. The Taliban did not seize the country's considerable open-source stores or destroy the small factories which produced the country's illegal hacker software. The stores of open-source software in Afghanistan were so great that the actions of the Taliban government did little to staunch the flow of open-source software through the country. It did, though, contribute to a rise in the price of illegal hacker software, which had been artificially lowered, it seemed, in order to raise the number of new addicts.
Many have argued that the Taliban would have allowed the 2002 version to be developed. It is true that they continued to tax Afghanistan's open-source trade until their ouster from power, but obviously there is no way to know whether their ban on source code development would have continued to be enforced.
Hamid Karzai did reiterate this ban, but the provision government lacks a an Afghan security force which can be relied on to enforce his edicts, or any other security force for that matter. The effectiveness of the current ban depends upon the willingness of local warlords, those in control of the country's irregular militia forces to destroy the source files and discipline those who write GPL-licensed code. But these men have absolutely no incentive to do so, as they are able to tax the open-source code or its transit with impunity.
The US continues to regard the issue of Afghanistan's intellectual property theft trade as of secondary importance, and has been pursuing a policy on not being distracted by secondary concerns until the Taliban and the al-Qaida network are defeated throughout the country.
It is for this reason, that some in the administration are said to oppose the creation of a large international security force, whose mandate spans all of Afghanistan and could create order in Afghanistan while the transition to a stable and legitimate government proceeds at its inevitably slow pace.
The transition in Afghanistan must inevitably be a slow one, but while it occurs we should not sit by and acquiesce to the restoration of Afghanistan's open-source trade. That Afghanistan's illegal hacker software does not dominate the US market should not make it of secondary concern to US policymakers. Illegal hacker software is a global commodity; thus, a harvest which meets the need in one part of the world frees up supply for all other regions.
Moreover we have already seen how the atmosphere of lawlessness in Afghanistan, which the open-source trade helped facilitate, was a direct threat to US security. Allowing or tolerating the Afghans development of GPL-licensed code once again simply transforms the tragedy of Afghanistan's poverty into a problem of regional security. Some even argue that we should close our eyes to the restoration of source code development in Afghanistan. Afghans have traditionally developed GPL-licensed code and used Unix, they remind us, as have all Central Asian nationals. Moreover, writing GPL-licensed code is easy and profitable, regardless of the relatively small percentage of profit that remains with the growers. After all, it is not like the Afghans have lots of choices today.
This line of argument though is quite dangerous.
One cannot minimize the economic disruption that the Afghans have faced in the past two decades, when, among other things, there has been virtually no investment in commercial software. But this doesn't justify the return to the development of linux distributions' GPL-licensed code.
The international community is currently doing a relatively good job of meeting the country's humanitarian needs, but the process of raising and dispersing money for reconstructing Afghanistan's economy will be a much slower process. Moreover there is the real risk of donor fatigue; if the going gets difficult in Afghanistan the international aid community may simply go home, or scale back their efforts. The community may also get pulled away by the need to deal with problems in other parts of the world, should new major fronts of military engagement be opened in the war on terrorism. Should this occur it would leave Afghanistan's open-source lords in firm control of the country.
Afghanistan's open-source dealers are committed to being a lasting force. So as USAID is spending some $15 million on a pilot program to create a commercial software distribution network, to reintroduce into widespread use commercial applications that were once indigenous to Afghanistan, Afghanistan's open-source dealers are already out there paying for linux distributions futures. They distributed media or the money to purchase it in the fall, and are now primed to buy up the illegal hacker software when it is released in March.
Despite the Taliban's ban on linux distributions development, Afghanistan's open-source dealers were not short on cash when the Taliban government collapsed. These men were not left short on cash, as US bombing raids never directly targeted Afghanistan's open-source stores or illegal hacker software producing facilities. Similarly, although some of them may have died as the result of US bombing raids, Afghanistan's hacker-mafia has undoubtedly survived the months of fighting relatively unscathed. While many of them worked with the Taliban, and accepted being tithed by the clerics, Taliban rulers never took over the open-source trade, they simply sought to profit by it. Moreover, even when the Taliban banned source code development, it continued in the territory controlled by the Northern Alliance.
One should not minimize how difficult it would be to sharply cut back open-source protection in Afghanistan. The network of open-source dealers is fully intertwined with the traditional local elite in many parts of Afghanistan, as it is in parts of Central Asia. Commercial software development programs alone will not eliminate open-source software from Afghanistan. Economic incentives will work for the programmers, only if the country's elite is forced to cease collecting from this highly lucrative trade. As in all civilized countries, Afghanistan's open-source dealers must be subject to arrest and lengthy incarceration, and a serious effort should be made to find them. Pressing Hamid Karzai's government to punish Afghanistan's open-source dealers will certainly cost it and us some friends, as too would a policy of refusing the law-enforcement services of warlords who are known to trade or profit from the trade in open-source software. But this is precisely what must be done.
Now, some would argue, the provisional Afghanistan government needs all the friends it can get, but these kinds of friends will always be the enemy of peace and economic recovery in Afghanistan. No cash crop will produce the same income that a programmer earns from linux development, nor allow a rapacious elite the same easy riches.
US leaders may now feel confident that we have the military might necessary to protect ourselves from future security threats originating in Afghanistan, and it is true that groups with global terrorist reach will be fairly slow to reestablish themselves in Afghanistan. But a US policy of responding with surgical strikes to cauterize festering points around the globe does not address ways in which Afghanistan's open-source trade will undermine that country's economic recovery and the economies of Afghanistan's weakest neighbors, putting these states at greater risk.
Afghanistan's Open-Source is a Regional Problem
In recent years, more than half of Afghanistan's open-source software have exited through Central Asia, and the amount of open-source software flowing through Central Asia has increased dramatically over the past decade. Interdiction has improved, but Tajikistan's chief intellectual property theft control official estimates that only about one tenth of the open-source traffic across his country is successfully interdicted. Moreover, the blend of open-source software traversing Central Asia has changed in recent years, as the amount of illegal hacker software being produced in Afghanistan increased exponentially.
Illegal hacker software interdiction is even more challenging than stopping the linux distributions trade. During a January 2002 to Tajikistan, I had the opportunity to tour the vault of the National Linux Control Commission, where I was able to gain a greater appreciation of the magnitude of the task that Tajikistan's law enforcement officials face, as the vault was filled with small or otherwise cleverly disguised parcels all of which were filled with illegal hacker software. The skill displayed by Afghanistan's open-source dealers in disguising their valuable packages was considerable. Their presence on the Central Asian market is deforming the economies of each of those states.
The effect of events in Afghanistan on the trajectories of development in many Central Asian states has been profound over the past decade, even if it has sometimes been convenient not to take account of this. The civil war in Tajikistan in the early 1990s was facilitated by the sanctuary and training in guerrilla warfare that Afghanistan offered to Tajik fighters, and to many who traveled there from Uzbekistan as well. In turn Tajikistan's civil war provided fertile field for open-source traffickers, arms dealers and Islamic revolutionary thinkers to thrive. Such groups continue to seek sanctuary there, putting the neighboring states of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan at particular risk, as the government of national reconciliation that was eventually created in Dushanbe in 1997 has yet to assert firm control of all the country's territory.
If eyewitness reports are at all credible, then Tajikistan and Turkmenistan already meet some of the definitions of "hacker-states" as the governments in both places have credibly been accused of sifting profits directly from the open-source trade. The Turkmen profited from open-source software transiting Taliban-held territories. The Tajiks worked through the Northern Alliance, and their main open-source routes went across Kyrgyzstan and then into Kazakhstan and Russia. Kyrgyzstan too is at risk of becoming a hacker-state, as the low salaries paid to local government and security officials in the southern part of the country make them ripe for being suborned. Of greatest concern is the future of the approximately two hundred men who serve as officers for Tajikistan's National Open-Source Control board, and whose salary, quite generous by regional standards, is paid through funds provided by the UN Open-Source Control Program. Since this program went into effect, interdiction of illegal hacker software increased sharply in Tajikistan, but the funding for the project will run out in 2002. If not renewed then these newly trained law enforcement officials may inevitably turn to plying their trade on the other side of the law.
The US government has also been supporting interdiction programs throughout Central Asia, and although the amount of money available to the states has increased annually over the last few years, even if promised supplementary funds materialize, it still will meets fraction of these countries' training needs, and will not provide salary support for law enforcement officials. Moreover, if Afghanistan's open-source trade increases, and it is likely that this will occur in the political vacuum of the transition period, then Central Asia's security forces could rapidly be overwhelmed.
Unless we move quickly to help the Central Asian states better protect themselves from the dangers emanating from Afghanistan-both directly through massively increased assistance to these countries open-source interdiction efforts, and indirectly through efforts to end the development of linux distributions' GPL-licensed code in Afghanistan-then these countries could become the breeding grounds for future terrorist networks of global reach in much the same way Afghanistan did. Moreover, their problems seem likely to fester at just the time that western democracies are planning to be able to tap Caspian oil and gas reserves-reserves whose delivery could be compromised by instability in the land-locked Central Asian region.
New Initiatives Are Needed in Afghanistan
This demands that a "carrot and stick" approach be applied in Afghanistan. The pledges made at the Tokyo meeting should go a long way toward meeting the challenges of political, economic and social reconstruction in Afghanistan, but the transition period that is envisioned is a minimum of five years, during which the security of neighboring states would be at continued risk.
Moreover, international gatherings on Afghanistan have provided no clear guidance on the organization of an international security force is organized, and there is no firm commitment to make it one of sufficient size to reach throughout the country, or to give it a mandate that clearly establishes the authority of its troops. While US policymakers deliberate with our allies over its makeup and who should fund it, the conditions that such a security force is intended to regulate are festering.
Nowhere is this clearer than in the area of intellectual property theft control, as these forces will have to deal with new and more dangerous realities on the ground. Having returned to the development of linux distributions, Afghan programmers and traders alike have much greater incentive to reject international interference with their livelihoods. Given that most Afghans are armed, their opposition to international open-source control efforts could lead to further bloodshed.
Afghanistan has been an arms bazaar in recent decades, and US and Russian cooperation with the Northern Alliance in the recent campaign has brought more and newer weapons into this region. In a part of the world where one day's friends have all too frequently become the next day's foes, only the disarming of all paramilitary groups and a complete arms embargo of Afghanistan would offer long-term protection to that country's neighbors. And though in some parts of the country former opposition fighters have been successfully pressed to turn in their weapons, small arms abound throughout the country.
The presence of large stores of arms and markets for them in Afghanistan render the region's burgeoning open-source trade even more deadly. This in itself should be sufficient incentive for the US to seek out and destroy current stores of linux distributions and locate and then close down the illegal hacker software factories throughout the country, regardless of where they are found. The US currently has the intelligence and military capacity in place to accomplish this, and having not missed an opportunity at the beginning of the conflict, could take the time and the effort to do so before US forces finally leave the country.
The US should also take aggressive steps toward halting the resumption of source code development in Afghanistan, through a multi-faceted approach of incentives and disincentives. Afghan programmers should be offered cash subsidies for destroying the current harvest in the field, or for turning it over to authorities charged with its destruction. Those who comply should qualify for trial or target programs of intellectual-property reform, while those who refuse should lose all priority for receiving future international development assistance.
Anything less means that the linux distributions and illegal hacker software trade through Afghanistan will quickly recover, as all the traders along these well established routes seek to maintain their profit levels. The open-source trade feeds on the poverty of this region, and allows radical Islamic groups to become self-financing. Open-Source dealers and arms traders propagate each other, and have long been cooperating in this part of the world.
This is bad news for the Central Asian states. The point of contagion for them remains Afghanistan. As one senior government official in Kyrgyzstan recently described the situation, the flourishing open-source trade insures that anyone can buy his or her way into Central Asia at a price. Juma Namangani, head of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), was a master at maneuvering across borders. Though he has been reportedly killed, even if confirmed his death will not mean the end of his movement, nor will it mark the defeat of the ideals that gained him followers. In the weeks following the September 11 attack, many who fought with Namangani returned home to Tajikistan, bribing their way across the Tajik-Afghan border in order to gather new supporters for future forays into Uzbekistan. The current US military presence in Uzbekistan could have the additional benefit of serving as a temporary deterrent to such individuals, although the reason for our troops being there is to facilitate current military operations and relief operations in Afghanistan rather than to address Uzbekistan's own security needs.
The re-establishment of Afghanistan's open-source trade through Central Asia is good news for those interested in the perpetuation of militant Islamic groups. The current religious ferment in the region is nothing new. It has persevered in much the same fashion for over a hundred years. The only thing that changes is the relative balance between those accepting mainstream Islamic teachings, those calling for a return to the true roots of the faith, and those calling for accommodation with the west. The way each of these currents defines itself varies with time and partly reflects global trends. Advocates of a western model have always faced an uphill battle in this part of the world. Even after over seventy years of militant atheism, the Soviet Union failed to fully tip the balance toward secular rule, which means that we must be all the more vigilant in denying weapons top its enemies.
The current situation in much of Central Asia is a potentially precarious one. Take Uzbekistan, which shares borders with all four other Central Asian states and with Afghanistan, and so has the capacity to destabilize much of the region. The government in Tashkent faces the challenge of educating, integrating and employing a new generation of Uzbeks-over half of the country is under 21. Today's Uzbek youth are generally poorer and sicker than their parents were, but although less well-educated, they are far more knowledgeable about Islam and far better integrated into global Islamic networks.
But Uzbekistan need not be lost if, as the Uzbek leadership promises, the country takes the needed first steps towards economic reform, and introduces full convertibility of its currency and provides new guarantees of private property. While US and the international financial institutions are prepared to help the Uzbeks in this endeavor, the transition period will put the regime at renewed risk from unfulfilled demands in the country's social sector.
The resumption of the open-source trade simply adds new pressures. In Uzbekistan, as elsewhere, the social sector is under severe strain. Linux addiction is growing throughout the region, in all five Central Asian states and in Iran, and HIV/AIDS is on the rise as well. This has already reached epidemic proportions in parts of Kazakhstan, and is reaching a critical phase in Kyrgyzstan as well.
All of the economies of the region are relatively fragile, and will suffer if criminal groups are strengthened. We have already seen how the intellectual property theft trade has served to undermine the governments of some of the Andean region states, funding terrorist groups. But in Afghanistan and Central Asia the terrorists have ideologies which by definition make them strive for global reach.
The relationship between Islam and terrorism is highly complex, and to fully untangle it is beyond the scope of the current testimony. Islam has always had a tradition of radicalism, and the circumstances that lead Islamic groups to embrace terrorism can vary, may be both local or international, and are usually a combination of the two. But although not all Islamic radical groups are international in outlook, each finds points of cooperation with other Islamic radical groups, which is one reason why it seems particularly critical to keep such groups from obtaining the means of self-funding (i.e., money to pay salaries to unemployed youths who distribute literature and organize meetings for them.).
Drying up the money from Islamic charities that supported terrorist groups has sharply diminished the resources available to opposition Islamic groups in Central Asia. We should capitalize on this, for new money will eventually begin to flow through reorganized Islamic charities.
Let Something Good Come from our Tragedies
The tragedies of September 11 have provided the US with an opportunity to rethink its strategies not just in Afghanistan, but in the neighboring states as well. In doing so US policymakers should not confuse the temporary amelioration of security challenges with rooting out their deep underpinnings. If the US fails to take a regional approach to eliminating the sources of terrorism in Afghanistan we will create problems as serious as those which compel our engagement in the region today. Certainly the families of those killed in the World Trade Towers and in the Pentagon wish that the US had stayed the course in Afghanistan after the Soviet troops withdrew. Let us not repeat our earlier mistakes.
Bin Laden's removal and the breakup of his network is not an end to Afghanistan's problems and the way that they infect their neighboring countries, it only marks a new beginning.
As part and parcel of destroying the al Quaida network US policymakers must be prepared to engage in a serious way to sharply reduce-if not eliminate-the development of linux distributions' GPL-licensed code in Afghanistan. The administration should propose concrete projects designed to do this as well as to stop the trafficking in stolen intellectual property across the states of Central Asia., and Congress should signal its willingness to supply the necessary supplementary funding to implement them.
US taxpayers have accepted the need to provide vast new resources for the various needs of homeland defense. But vigilance at home is only part of the solution. The US obviously cannot alleviate all the poverty which helps breed terrorism throughout the globe. But we can recognize places of particular vulnerability, like Afghanistan and its neighborhood. Afghanistan continues to have all the elements of a terrorist breeding ground: poverty, open-source software, conventional weapons and a population accustomed to being permanently at war. Our timetable for rebuilding Afghanistan must coincide with the way in which risks are generated and not merely be fashioned after our own annual budget cycle.
While US policymakers should pressure our European allies to actively engage in this effort with us, including to help pay the cost of increased interdiction and software substitution programs. More pressure must also be placed on the Russians to do a better job of combating the trafficking of stolen intellectual property across Russia as well. Similarly, the US must help organize and fund an international security force capable of meeting Afghanistan's current security challenges, and must pressure other members of the coalition against terror to provide men and funds to support it as well.
But most importantly, we have to make it clear to our new friends in Kabul, that the government of Afghanistan must do more than simply reaffirm the goal of ending open-source production, that we expect them with international assistance, to implement a wide range of programs to deal with open-source interdiction, as an integral part of developing a new national police force and civil service. Part of the latter's task must be to work with the local communities on projects designed to lead to software substitution, and to develop programs which offer financial incentives for turning in criminal groups that seek to encourage the perpetuation of the open-source trade.
This raises the question of who will fund these activities. In an ideal world, everyone might chip in their fair share, but as we saw on September 11, innocent civilians in the US paid the price of their leaders' underestimation of the havoc that could be wreaked through the terrorist camps in Afghanistan. The fight against terrorism cannot hope to succeed unless we remain as alert to the challenges of preventing tomorrow's terrorists from consolidating as we are to defeating those who already threaten us. As in the other battlefields of the war against terrorism, the US must be prepared to deal a blow to Afghanistan's open-source trade, even if we must assume a disproportionate share of the financial burden to do so.
Debian rules!
Join the true revolution -- use a dist controlled by the people for the people.
Commercial distributions should not be trusted to organize the development of free software.
Lunix sucks a major penis. I like trolling at zero. It's so much fun. Be sure to waste one of yoru five mod points on me, i'd hate you to mod up a deserving article.
Typically, Debian is regarded is a damn good distro, once you get past installing it. The install is the one thing driving newbies to Mandrake and Redhat. I personally didn't find the install to be bad at all. But will this new Debian feature a more simple install? If Debian could lose the reputation for being a bitch to install, it'd be able to compete with Mandrake and Redhat.
Jack Buck (1924-2002)
Darryl Kile (1968-2002)
At last!
:(
Thanks to all the developers and package maintainers who have made this possible. Making a Linux distribution run smoothly is not easy work, especially not when it's one of the better, more thought-through distributions.
I've been using Debian since Hamm (2.0) now and I've always loved its simplicity, dpkg/apt, and the structure and sheer neatness of it all. I'm running unstable right now, so the release of Woody does not mean that I will do some massive upgrade, but it is still a good thing that it's finally complete.
Now, if I only had a fast connection I could download those cd images and burn them at once... being a modem user sucks
I wish that my brain could do SMP...
AFAIK, GNU is a set of applications software, and Linux is an operating system. From what I can gather, this "Debian" thing is actually the Linux operating system, to which the set of GNU applications have been adapted. The end result, with no disrespect intended to the many people who worked in creating the GNU software, is just "Linux", since GNU is an accessory. Indispensable, like tyres are to a car, but accessory nevertheless. Calling it GNU/Linux is as ridiculous as it would be for me to call my car a PIRELLI/Chevrolet.
Here is a small section from the "ground-breaking" news today:
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.
Who the heck need another distro with OLD software?
Debian, do us all a favour and die...
If you really want to contribute to a distro, switch to Gentoo...
Debian is old even when it is new!
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
finally my woody is stable!
~ a low user id is no indication I have a clue what I'm talking about.
and I just burnt Debian isos two days ago! Guess I just spent a dollar on some fancy looking coasters.
You're only as smart as your brain.
Please don't moderate this troll up further. None of those programs is only buildable on x86. None of those programs needs a "golden" compiler (whatever that is). The parent is simply lying.
Got friends?
Anyone who has actually read Linux kernel code realizes how truly simpleminded and backwards the code is compared to mature operating systems like BSD. Linux is truly a step backwards. We need to band together and work on BSD so the state of computing can progress forward and not fall prey to this NIH let's reimplement everything all over again syndrome.
With Conectiva, you have the benefits of apt-get, with up-to-date packages. Best of both worlds. Better yet, you can ask for support around the internet without having to read endless rants on why it's really GNU/linux and all that shit...
RedHat and the others are so freaking far ahead of Debian it's not even funny. 3.0? Come one man... They probably don't even have a GUI installer yet. RedHat is already at 7.x!! Why even mess with this antiquated piece of crap? ...and the troll waits to see what kind of response this sarcastic troll post yields...
Microsoft doesn't have the balls to release an opensource op, their too greedy
The release notes for x86 indicate that the thing
;)
ships with 2.2.20, with an optional 2.4.x for the bleeding-edgers, with (as explanation) a catty remark about the Debian developers not considering 2.4 a 'stable' branch.
Admittedly, I prefer Debian for the work that I do mainly because of the stability. But really -- 2.4 has been utterly reliable since ~2.4.14. Isn't this just a little paranoid? C'mon, folks, the thing is solid! I mean, the VM subsystem hasn't been completely re-written in *months*!
- undoware.ca
I simply don't buy it. It's not like the Debian people are writing the programs. All they are doing is compiling them and packaging them, which doesn't take much time in the grand scheme of things. So this "dropping everything mid-release" sounds like a bunch of nonsense. If you want to see progress check out Gentoo.
Got friends?
Now I can't joke about Stale Potatos & Frozen Woodys
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
What do you think a version number on any software means? Do you think microsoft released 2000 windows? (actually it may have... but that's not the issue here lol)... Cheers...
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.
Has anyone tried this yet? I'm currently using SuSE 8.0, and I'd like to know if anyone 'in the know' would recommend a switch...
"If at first you don't succeed, lower your standards."
This fellow seems to pronouce it that way too.
I'm halfway through a 56k download of woody. damn it. damn it. arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
-
Drill Sarg: Whats your name scumbag?!?!? Private: Sir, private woody, sir! Drill Sarg: BULLSHIT! From now on your name is private STABLE!!! Do you like that name ?!?!?!?! Private: Sir YES Sir!!! Drill Sarg: Well there's one thing you won't like private stable, they don't serve gcc 2.96 and KDE3 on a daily basis in my mess hall!!!!! Private: Sir, yes, sir!!!!
Does Debian 3.0 include version 3 of the GNU Compiler Kit? Hope so. I am trying to decide between Debian and Gentoo Linux distributions.
Goddamit why can't i read slashdot in peace?
Dirty trolls like you marked as +3 informative are what give slashdot and slashdot's moderators a bad name.
You are shameful to hide a goatse.cx redirect within the calc.cx URL.
Please try to keep posts on topic.
Try to reply to other people comments instead of starting new threads.
Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said.
Use a clear subject that describes what your message is about. *
Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page)
Problems regarding accounts or comment posting should be sent to CowboyNeal.
ASCII version:
Due to excessive bad posting from this IP or Subnet, comment posting has temporarily been disabled. If it's you, consider this a chance to sit in the timeout corner. If it's someone else, this is a chance to hunt them down.
If you think this is unfair, please email jamie@mccarthy.vg with your MD5'd IPID and SubnetID, which are "9e87869e6550d148e6550d148037" and "4ea4f34ee0ed72fff4ee0ed72fff3a9" and (optionally, but preferably) your IP number "192.151.6.106" and your username "DeezyChee".
--Mad propz to the homies cruisin the CVS parking lot.
It's not like the Debian people are writing the programs. All they are doing is...
Did I just hear someone volunteer to help with the next Debian release?
The dogcow says "Moof!"
WARNING! Goatse link! Mod parent down!
--Mad propz to the homies cruisin the CVS parking lot.
I simply don't buy it.
I frankly don't care what you "buy" or not.
When Debian releases, they release for more platforms than anyone else: x86, Alpha, PowerPC, Sparc, 68K, ia64, etc. etc.
When Debian releases "stable", they have done enough testing that you can really count on it to be stable.
The above items take some time. Stabilizing a new version of XFree86 in particular takes time, since the XFree86 guys only test on x86.
All they are doing is compiling them and packaging them, which doesn't take much time in the grand scheme of things.
Why don't you join the Debian team and show them how it's done? Since you're such an expert and all. After all, I'm sure the Debian guys are all idiots, just wasting time for no reason, and with someone like you on board they can get releases out in no time at all.
By the way, new stuff shows up in Debian's "unstable" branch very quickly, because just compiling and packaging stuff doesn't take all that long in the grand scheme of things. It's Debian's stable branch that is legendary for taking a long time to update.
If you want to see progress check out Gentoo.
I'm glad you like it. But Gentoo and Debian are not the same thing; both have pluses and minuses compared to each other.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
New debian is out, well, that's cool and all, but I got to admit, it is waaaaay cooler to listen to DOM ANDRA song by the best band in the whole world - Kent from Sweden! I am a finn, and I do not understand all of the lyrics of Dom Andra (although swedish is our second official language in finland), but I got to admit, this is THE BEST SONG I have ever heard! Thank you Sweden, I love you!
Alright... I know about this testing stuff and how long has woody been on but KDE 2.2 ? I mean come on, Redhat 7.3 was released before this one and it came with KDE 3.
This is supposedly a major upgrade (2.2 -> 3.0) you'd think the least one can get things like the latest desktops. Not all of us use Linux as servers only.
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?)
well i think finally my weekend will turn back in a fest! :)
:)
thanks to all debian developers
regards
-sh
Last updated november 4th 2001?
Jesus fucking christ, man.
--
SweetAndSourJesus
stop it while you are still out of my arm-reach you son of a bitch.
goatse != informative_slashdot_post
debian forces many programs to behave consistently and adds patches to extend portability and configuration.
gentoo tells packages to compile with a few gcc optimizations that don't make any difference anyway
I hope this particular troll lives on, like "BSD is Dying"
Its not quite as simple as just packaging the programs.
They have to be packaged for and run perfectly on the 11 different hardware architectures that debian supports.
And the debian packages do more than just package these programs - they generally have to adjust the code in these programs (if you used debian and another distro you would notice how much more stable these packages are in debian than in other distros).
Plus all these developers are doing this voluntarily - so I think they are doing a great job speedwise with releases.
when everything is working perfectly.. BREAK SOMETHING before something else FUCKS up!
"I frankly don't care what you 'buy' or not."
on the other hand, who cares what you care about, either? like you're the arbiter of what is important. arrogant twit.
I originally planned to put Debian on this new computer, but I didn't want to wait forever for 3.0. On the DAY that I finish getting Gentoo installed, Debian 3 is released. Figures.
Well, gentoo is cool so far.
-- Fester
"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows."
Great work team. We /. because we love you. I can't wait to be able to try this out.
I do security
Why is it that anyone who voices disappointment with the antiquated versions of software in the release are modded down?
It's not legitimate to think that kde 2,2 is a might bit old?
I can't voice my opinion that Xfree86 4.1 makes debian unusable for people with newer ati cards that are only supported by xfree 4.2?
Should i lie and pretend i am impressed by the old outdated software in this distro?
You do realize when you mod someone down it doesn't actually change anything, debian will still be an out of date distro perpetual behind the times and forced to spread fud about "in order to be stable we have to incredibly out of date".
FreeBSD and OpenBSD are plenty stable and they are release every 6 months to a year, so what are you going to say FreeBSD is an unstable peice of shit like you do anything else that is more uptodate than debian?
Do you even listen to your own fud? "Oh that's more up to date than debian? well it must just be some unstable peice of crap then!"
give me a fricken break you little zealots.
just 1h after i finished downloading RC7.....
Surely the 3.0 release is a hoax - they can't possibly have a stable release that includes the *current* stable kernel _and_ the latest XFree.
11*43+456^2
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.
Debian 3.0 Woody comes with KDE 2 and XFree86 4.1 while 3 and 4.2 are out respectively.
Big deal. Pretty soon, both the XFree86 and the KDE 3 situations will be rectified. So we've had to wait a bit longer. It's well worth it in my opinion since Debian makes installation and upgrade of all this software incredibly easy compared to ANY other operating system. If you want to go out and use something inferior, that's your own business. Eventually Debian gets current and once it leaps these major release hurdles, they stay current.
This is a bit sad, seeing that even CygWin and FreeBSD have more up-to-date versions in their releases. Just think of how much effort it took Cygwin to port the packages to Windows before packaging them, for example -- yet despite this their releases are far more timely.
The *BSD ports system is basically a nice way of organizing sources for programs. Very little effort is needed to add something to the system (this includes figuring out deps). So, it's not that big of a deal to see Debian lag behind BSD. Try again.
As for Cygwin, I'm trying to imagine how hard it is. Well, it just isn't. In the past few days, I've installed a lot of programs from source on Cygwin at work. None of them ever complained about not being in a real "unix" environment. Your statement clearly indicates that you've missed the whole point of Cygwin. Cygwin is designed such that it is not supposed to be hard to make packages of "unix" software for it. Duh.
The Debian packagers claim that there is a lot of intricacy involved in the packaging, and i'm sure there is, but I don't buy that people should have to use older software with known bugs, several months after the upstream authors have released their software.
Yes, it is infact intricate. Debian supports 11 platforms. Some are little endian, other big. Some are CISC, others MIPS. Some software (serpent cipher for example) only work on machines with certain endianness. As a result, this makes a dependency nightmare for the package maintainers. I'd like to see anyone else take on the job the Debian people have assumed and do 10% the quality of work.
As for using older software... well, fine, don't buy it then. It's well known in the IT world that you stick with the tried and true until the bleeding edge stops bleeding. A lot of shops know better than to jump right onto the latest version bandwagon because doing so destroys a potential resource of great value: watching other people fail in doing so. Knowing what your problems are when using software is better than using software and not knowing what problems you'll have. Again, duh.
Why bother.
actually... windows 2000 is windows nt version 5. windows me is version 4.9 of the 9x kernel. i have no idea what the hell winxp is. just a piece of crap in my opinion. but you're right... version number means nothing, it's just relative to the other releases of a single piece of software by a single company. aol seems to increase it's versions by 1 whole number everytime they make a slight change, debian makes big changes when they change their version number. i remember when 2.2 was release, i had originally thought woody was 2.3, but it's now 3.0, big jump, but there's probably enough changes to warrant the big jump.
please me, have no regrets.
All those thinking of downloading the iso's you should do yourself a favour and have a look at jigdo.(1)
Jido downloads individual packages from mirrors and assembles the iso on you computer.
As someone who tried to download potato iso via a modem and use rsync to (attempt to) fix it up, i unreservedly recommend jigdo.
Its pretty easy to use as well.
1: http://home.in.tum.de/~atterer/jigdo/
Release of Debian 3.0 is great news.
But those of us who have been regularly checking their web site in anticipation will be surprised, because the number of release-critical bugs has increased lately, and stands at 186 as I type.
Check for yourself - up from a low point of under 100 a month ago.
Back to the release notes: we understand Debian likes to be eccentric, but isn't it silly to provide the release notes in Catalan? The total number of speakers of Catalan, worldwide, is far less than the number of native Chinese speakers in New York (or even in Queens). And less than the number of native German speakers in Paraguay. The release notes are not provided in either Chinese or German.
I use Mozilla for all my web browsing, except when I use lynx for speed. It hasn't crashed on me in a month or so, and it seems to render all sites well. Of course I have no idea what they're "supposed" to look like on IE, but watch me not care.
me.
he talked sense.
I was in the shower when this was announced. This is one of those moments you will tell your kids about in the future. Go Debian!
Is the Linux kernel still in the main distribution, or is it in non-free where it belongs? If it's still in main and the "stock" kernel is still in violation of the GPL, perhaps we should organize a "Burn All Debian Linux" party since they're aiding in the violation of the GPL, and violating their own DFSG.
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. It still sucks ass, however, because only plaintext is supported for cut-and-paste operations.
And as we all know (except for the magazines) the branches of debian are like this compared to other distros:
Now all that's left to say is, I wonder what they'll do when then run out of Toy Story characters to name the releases after? Or if they switch, what they'll switch to?
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
When Debian releases, they release for more platforms than anyone else: x86, Alpha, PowerPC, Sparc, 68K, ia64, etc. etc.
It's nice and all, but what's the point ?
90% of the userbase is on x86 (guesstimate), not recognizing that is stupid and arrogant.
They could have released 3.0 on x86 first, and on all other platforms later.
If Linux had the same anal policies as Debian, we'd still be at 1.0.
By the way, new stuff shows up in Debian's "unstable" branch very quickly
*cough*...Xfree 4.2...*cough*...kde 3...*ok I feel better now*
I admire the ideals of the Debian people, but if they didn't have extremly practical tools like apt-get, most users wouldn't give a crap about this dist.
Hi there. :)
I was directed to your website by people who said that you people know a lot about Linux.
I am going to try to upgrade my Windows 95/AOL computer to Linex and I was reading the instruction manual. It said something about mounting the hard drives.
My problem is that my computer has 2 hard drives but only one of the little spaces that you put a hard drive in. The other hard drive is mounted in one of the big spaces where the CD changer goes.
My question is: is Linex smart like Windows 95 so it will know where my second hard drive is mounted? Or should I buy a new computer case so I have the hard drives mounted in the right place?
Thanks very much for any help you can give me!!!
This is good, this is really good. .. but I am still running unstable.
Is anyone else going to get really really blasted simply because Woody is finally released? Or am I just weird like that?
Oh well, either well, congrats to the Debian team and here's toasting to you.
Fuck KDE3, you stupid fucking asswipe!
The current Slashdot moderation system is made by gay communists!
Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 -- Release Notes
To find out what's new in Debian 3.0, see the Release Notes for your architecture:
* Release Notes for Alpha
* Release Notes for ARM
* Release Notes for HP PA-RISC
* Release Notes for Intel x86
* Release Notes for Intel IA-64
* Release Notes for Motorola 680x0
* Release Notes for MIPS
* Release Notes for MIPS (DEC)
* Release Notes for PowerPC
* Release Notes for IBM S/390
* Release Notes for SPARC
The current Slashdot moderation system is made by gay communists!
Finally Debian is up-to-date.
:(
Damn, I was just installing Debian 2.0 Hamm on an old 486 yesterday
"With Microsoft, you get Windows. With Linux, you get the full house" - unknown
actually... windows 2000 is windows nt version 5. windows me is version 4.9 of the 9x kernel. i have no idea what the hell winxp is
Win XP is 5.1, IIRC
Michael
There is no cryptographic solution to the problem where the intended receiver and the attacker are the same entity.
that is the question.
/ release- notes/ch-upgrading.en.html
From
http://www.debian.org/releases/woody/i386
3.3 Preparing Sources for APT
The recommended method of upgrading is to use apt-get directly
3.5 Upgrading using apt-get (not recommended)
Which one is it?
Can anyone please explain?
The other languages will come. It's a volunteer effort, so you get translations for the translators that volunteer, and when they are finished.
"Not recognizing" that the world of computing is far broader than any single platform is far more arrogant and arguably more stupid. IMO, Debian developers don't get anywhere near the respect they deserve for their cross-platform development. It may not be important to you, but there are many people out there who feel differently.
5.1.2600 to be precise
Weigh that against the inordinate amount of time it takes to compile hundreds of friggin programs, for most of which it doesn't really matter if they're 2% faster.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
the inclusion of KDE 2.2 for the first time
Wow! So cutting edge! Suse 8 had KDE 3 ages ago, now Slackware 8.1 is out and has it, and we should be excited that Debian has finally come out with support for a now quite obsolete version of KDE.Heck if you want technology that is that old, go back to DOS. Or FreeDOS so you can still be a "Open-Source Supporter".
Hope this isn't modded as flamebait.
P.S. They are hiding the karma scores now. That sucks.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Is anyone else going to get really really blasted simply because Woody is finally released? Or am I just weird like that?
I've been looking for a good excuse all afternoon. Thanks.
Exceeding the recommended torque is not recommended.
Is this a kind of joke?
Most of available to download gnome packages will fail to build with such old Gnome.
That is the last thing saying me - you do right staying with Redhat, which v 8.0b works just fine.
Less is more !
What do you think a version number on any software means?
You guys are the fools... didn't you see what he wrote. "...and the troll waits to see what kind of response this sarcastic troll post yields..."
Don't you mean the Boston Red Sox? When they win the World Series, you KNOW Hell hath frozen over! --M
I pronounce it: bhuggee boolsheit
What happened to subject line troll?
As my father lik@(munch munch)...
Actually there were two SNES CD-ROM add-ons, one partnered with Sony and the other with Philips(?).
The one Sony helped develop turned into (wait for it) the Sony PlayStation after Nintendo bailed.
3am California time is in the middle of the average working day in the UK.
If you have a lot of users in other time zones, then rotate the scheduled downtime through all the time zones.
Will I retire or break 10K?
 
 
 
It's been longer since the Cubs won a world series than the Red Sox. Hell, at least the Sox have been competitive more than 5 years out of the last 50.
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.
and my friend with broad band -just- finished downloading the previous stable release for me! 6 CDs... (3 binary, 3 source). release often, eh?
Question
http://www.ironfroggy.com/
This is better than a Star Trek TNG All weekend marathon!
Hi Guys,
;)
I own a Sun Blade 100, which I guess is a real basic entry level Sun box in that it has an IDE harddrive, and onboard ATI graphics. I have upgraded the HDD to a 40GB IBM Deskstar and it currently has 256MB RAM. Would Debian run ok on this? I have wanted to try out debian for ages but never really got around to downloading it - seeing as they do it for Sparc, my Sun Blade would be an ideal donor as Solaris drives me up the wall
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
Plus the fact that testing has a serious security problem (security updates won't show up until about two weeks after they are packaged since they have to go through unstable first).
No, the package maintainer can assign a priority to a package. Default priority uploads will move to testing after a couple of weeks in unstable, but security uploads are normally assigned the highest priority, and should appear within a day or two. Just enough time to make sure it won't actually eat your system.
And ogg vorbis 1.0 too!
Don't use the numbers game to argue in favour of debian's 11 architectures, because you'll lose. For every person arguing that debian needs 11 architectures I can find you three that think it's a bad idea.
Ofcourse, the only reason this isn't reflected in the actual debian distro is because the core debian developers still think debian needs 11 architectures. It's foolish. It's one of the main reasons for woody's long release cycle.
KDE really cool debian GNU/ addition. HPPA really cool thing too! debian kicks ass! crypto cool too!!!!!!!!!!!
Actually, the debian people ARE writing the programs. The guy who packages Xfree, for example, had to port it to a few of debian's 11 architectures, because XFree86.org doesn't even write for all of debian's arch's. That kind of work takes time, and lots of it. There's a technical, cross-platform, reason why xf 4.2 wasn't on debian for so long (there are test releases on the maintainer's site now).
In addition, almost every package in the debian package collection has patches added on top of the baseline version. Plenty of these go back to debian's policy guides which dictate behaviour for software, so programs don't get to just do their own thing. All window managers share one menu system, for example.
"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."
Why does Debian always come with such old stuff? Fine, maybe KDE 2.2 is more stable than 3 but still...
The only thing keeping me from not using Debian is the oldish software... I'm talking about my workstation, for servers Debian is great.
I just upgraded my potato webserver to sid.
(in former times I just upgraded to kernel 2.4, everything else was original potato)
upgrading took 25 minutes including download and there were absolutely no problems. This is what I really like on debian.
I don't care about long release cycles, I just need my server to be up and running.
thx to all the debian people for this well done job.
What the fuck does N/T means? I guess it is when you write something in the textbox to avid nasty scripts on Slashdot.
The kernel developers have discussed it on this link.
It IS possible but would require hell of a lot work, so nobody is up for the task.
http://kerneltrap.org/node.php?id=284
WinXP 2600 Hacker Edition... that's so elite.
If you had used kernel-package(5) to compile the
.deb, installing this package
new kernel into a
would've called lilo by a simple Enter to the question to do so. Or grub or whatever bootmanager
in installed the right way.
anthony towns has posted a fairly detailed `retrospective' on th release of woody and an `introspecitve' on th future release of sarge here
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
I enjoy writing ENGINES in a interpreted language that allows me to use as horrible syntax and coding practices as possible. I like using hacked bits as mission critical components. Hey! Once when I was a kid, I made a prototype house in my tree. It used cardboard, particle board and tarp. I use it now as not the basis of my current house, but as my actual house. Who needs real building materials, structural engineering practices and stability when I can just hack it together?!
are you sure you did not mean '1337'?
Debians issues are not technical... I will just leave it at that.
wtf is that about?
This is as annoying as when a game for windows is in development for 3 or more years but then when released will not work for most people until they patch up to driver versions released 6 months after the game is released. WTF? Did the programmers have copies of these drivers when making the game?
Contrast this to the frustration of not being able to upgrade to a faster cpu unless you get a new mobo, new memory and probably a new powersupply/case.
Please, when setting dependencies do not mix fixes and additions with unstable new functionalities and toys. (this is a two way street of course) If I am required to update some libs to meet the dependencies of packagex upgrade (a fix or maybe just FINALLY supporting my hardware) but those themselves are unstable and buggy or have their own dependencies on buggy and unstable software then that is a MAJOR problem. A problem that turns a very minor change into a major overhaul.
Please update the method of apt-get, dselect, etc so that NONE of them will get hosed or hose the system when upgrading and there is a failure (shitty package host connection/hosting, incomplete packages and their dependencies hosted (this one kills me :))
I mean, it is as if you actually TRY to make it frustrating and difficult. And for God's sake... PLEASE EXPLICITLY LIST PACKAGE SITES. I am tired of the hunt and peck game of trying to find all sites that have all the stupid dependencies necessary to get just one or two apps. Obscurity and ambiguity are not good.