Please not: The Debian Testing birthday cake will have 10 candles, the Debian Unstable birthday cake will have 9, and the Debian Stable birthday cake will have 7 -- and will only be upgraded to 10 candles when the concept of 10 candle cakes has proved itself sufficiently robust.
Scheduled for sometime around Debian's 15 birthday.
However, the recipe for the cake will be freely available and modifiable for all, as will instructions for the manufacture of the candles, and the party hats.
-- Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Re:Debian Design
by
beezly
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Wrong! Debian unstable should have 10, then testing, then stable
Though it does work in a way. I simply figured you meant that unstable had more candles than testing, but only nine were currently working.
-- Everything will be taken away from you.
Happy Birthday!
by
cspenn
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Debian is one of my favorite distributions, it's earned a well-deserved accolade for 10 years of reasonably stable operation without all the hype of other operating systems. Stable, fast, easy to use once you're comfortable with its way of doing things... can't love it more than that!
Debian's greatest achievement?
by
Urkki
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Is that apt-get?
I mean, same kind of system is now all over the place, in about every distro. But did Debian "invent" it, or were they first to make the concept work in practice?
Then again, they are also responsible for dselect...
No. Debian's greatest achievement is creating a 100% free ( as in beer and free speech ), community supported GNU/Linux operating system.
Re:Debian's greatest achievement?
by
Joe+Tie.
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
No. Debian's greatest achievement is creating a 100% free ( as in beer and free speech ), community supported GNU/Linux operating system.
It's only after switching to debian, and then trying out some other distros, that I've really come to appreciate just how impressive that community support is. I like having the newest and shiniest versions of most programs, and I'd be willing to pay a small fee for an easy way to keep everything on my system current. But surprisingly, I havn't seen any commercial distros that update the packages I'm interested in as quickly and neatly as happens with Debian Unstable. Given that it's community supported that's darn impressive!
-- Everything will be taken away from you.
Re:Debian's greatest achievement?
by
larien
·
· Score: 2, Flamebait
You're obviously not interested in stuff like KDE & Gnome; there have been long periods where Debian lagged behind most other distros in its versions of those packages.
That said, Debian has worked very well for me on the two linux boxes I have at home and apt-get is a wonderful tool.
Re:Debian's greatest achievement?
by
Doom+Ihl'+Varia
·
· Score: 2, Informative
If you REALLY need bleeding edge, run Unstable. It isn't as unstable as it sounds heh. It is good for a box to play around with. Testing would be more suited for a reliable desktop. Stable is rock solid. Stable is what you run on the server. My dual-PII has been up almost two months now and two months ago was the last extended power outage.
Re:Debian's greatest achievement?
by
Malc
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
apt-get is great, but it's not really the best part. Other distros have similar systems these days. What makes Debian (and apt-get) great is the care and attention that goes in to it. apt-get works because the packages it retrieves work. That's down to the individuals who contribute to Debian.
Re:Debian's greatest achievement?
by
qtp
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Perhaps from an activist's point of view, you are correct.
From a user's point of view, Debian's greatest achievement is having an "unstable" branch that is as stable as some other dist's releases.
From a CS student's point of view, Debian's great achievement may be the package creation and management tools.
Re:Debian's greatest achievement?
by
shermozle
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Debian's greatest achievement is surely its policy and strict adherence to that policy. apt-get is only as usable as this due to the policy.
Docs somewhere other than/usr/share/doc? That's a bug.
Config files somewhere other than/etc/? That's a bug.
The bug tracking system hassles the author to fix the policy violation.
Re:Debian's greatest achievement?
by
rweir
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
No, it's not. The greatest thing about Debian is Policy. It demands that packages meet the highest standards of quality. It makes sure that packages work together. It brings us things like the Debian Menu system, where every X-based package register's with EVERY window manager's app menu. It means that packages will upgrade smoothly, and (via the DFSG) that EVERYTHING is freely modifiable and re-distributable. Linkage: about Policy, why it rocks, more Debian policies.
Re:Debian's greatest achievement?
by
saskwach
·
· Score: 2, Informative
There's nothing stopping you from using KDE/Gnome from CVS in Debian, but why would you want to? The reason unstable lags behind the bleeding edge by a teensie weensie bit is that the package maintainers are obsessively testing it. I run unstable on the desktop (with apache in the background) and can tell you, it's pretty damned stable (as compared to ANY windows, yes, even XP which I support at work). You can install anything you want in Debian (there's even rpm support for simple enough packages through alien) and nothing stops you from using alternative apt sources with more up-to-date/unstable software.
People complaining that Debian is out of date always bug me just because all they have to do is change a bunch of instances of the word "stable" to "unstable" and then run apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade. *boom* bestest upgrade process EVAR.
Okay, larien, I realize you weren't really the target of this...but people saying Debian is a dinosaur always irk me...it's mork like a shark.
Re:Debian's greatest achievement?
by
ArmorFiend
·
· Score: 2, Informative
People complaining that Debian is out of date always bug me just because all they have to do is change a bunch of instances of the word "stable" to "unstable" and then run apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade. *boom* bestest upgrade process EVAR.
Important note to naive passers by: its not this easy. Take me for example. I had been running testing on a desktop for a few months. I did my usual update;dist-upgrade to get all the latest stuff. Some bozo had committed an incompatible version of libstdc++, and apt got hopelessly confused. All C++ programs stopped working, including most of the package management tools that could have fixed the problem. Things got exponentially more complex as I tried to pin versions and downgrade to correct the problem. After a few weeks of trying, the tar-baby was so bad I had to re install the machine from scratch.
According to IRC, the moral of the story is: don't use dist-upgrade, use plain ol upgrade.
People saying debian is a shark really irk me...its more like a dinosaur.:)
Re:Debian's greatest achievement?
by
CrazyWingman
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Did you mean to link to apt-get.org? Apt-get.com seems like a completely useless site (all links point to index.html, which it says doesn't exist).
Shouldn't that be debian reaches 1.0? It sure feels like it sometimes...;)
On a serious note, 10 years and only up to version 3. This is what makes debian so great. The software is tested and retested to death, so that you know the software in stable is truely stable. I love it. I've used heaps of different distros, but I always come back to debian. I left winddoze back in 1999 due to stability and debian delivers it!
-- Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves. -- AE
Re:dselect
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I must admit I don't have the first clue how 'dselect' works
This presupposes that 'dselect' works. It doesn't. It is an entirely unusable monstrous piece of shit. I like Debian too, but only came to like it when someone told me to use 'apt' exclusively for package management.
Personally I've never had major problems with dselect, although it could be better in places. You could try aptitude. It will require a little time to master, but it's very configurable, which is something lacking in dselect.
Or even better, if you're running a desktop, synaptic.
Re:New to Debian
by
Max+Romantschuk
·
· Score: 3, Informative
I don't understand why it takes Debian so long to release!
As I've understood it (and I'm probably misinformed) Debian needs all packages in a release to be stable before issuing a new stable release. With thousands of packages that's a lot of work.
Some people advocate splitting the distro into a more modular approach were groups of packages (like file server packages, wes server packages, desktop packages) could be deemed stable and released independently.
Re:New to Debian
by
Jellybob
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
The thing with Debian is that it doesn't *have* the pressing need to release, because of apt, which allows you to update any packages to new versions on a regular basis.
Debian superiority
by
mirko
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
What makes Debian greater than SuSe, RedHat and others is mostly the point it is *not* commercial. I mean : we're not even sure RedHat will still be there in a few years but we know that if in 10 years, we perform an:
apt-get update ; apt-get upgrade our system will be updated... This might however be the case with other systems but I doubt that satisfied Debian pioneers actually switched. I guess the Gentoo-ers are mostly former SuSe-ists or RedHat-ters
-- Trolling using another account since 2005.
Re:Debian superiority
by
10Ghz
·
· Score: 4, Informative
I guess the Gentoo-ers are mostly former SuSe-ists or RedHat-ters
Uh, not really. Sure, there are former SuSE, RH, Slackware, LFS etc. etc. users, but large part are ex-Debianists. Case in point: link. You can "meet" some nice arrogant Debianists in that discussion.
-- Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
Re:Debian superiority
by
10Ghz
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Didn't know this, but I actually never tried Gentoo, mostly because all my colleagues had to wait 48hours to get their distro compiled...
Well, you obviously haven't been using Gentoo. You can install it from different stages. Stage 1 means that EVERYTHING is compiled and optimized for you system. Glibc, GCC etc. Stage 3 means that the base system is not compiled/optimized but the apps are. Stage 2 is between those two. And with 1.4 you get GRP (Gentoo Reference Platform) where you can install precompiled binaries of large apps (Xfree, KDE, Gnome etc.).
Whining about compiling is really pointless. If you dislike compiling, then obviously Gentoo is not for you. And no-one is forcing you to run it. But, IMO, the whining about the compile-times is really overblown. I have installed Gentoo from stage 1 on a 233Mhz laptop, and it went just fine. I just left it compiling for the night or while I went to work. I lost VERY LITTLE productive time waiting for the compiles to finish (of course, I could have used the computer while it compiles. you are not required to stay away from the computer when it compiles).
As to security... I see no problems with Gentoos security track-record.
-- Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
Re:New to Debian
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Really, I don't understand why people always complain about Debian not releasing often. Why is it so important to install a new cd for you?
Just move to testing or unstable, run dselect everyday and you will see new packages are added and updated every day.
I think people got used to upgrade distro to new releases often with Red Hat, Mandrake,... But why is it that important? With Debian, you can have a system very up to date (testing or unstable) without needing to install a new distro version every month. What's the problem with the Debian way of doing things?
Well done on Debian
by
rf0
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Debian is a well though out and stable distribution. People might complain that the packages are old and yes that might be true but they work. IF you want a machine to keep running then its great. Apt-get package and sit back. Also for security its great for admins. apt-get update && apt-get upgrade and thats it. No dependancy problems. Even the unstable is pretty stable
Re:New to Debian
by
ultrabot
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Some people advocate splitting the distro into a more modular approach were groups of packages (like file server packages, wes server packages, desktop packages) could be deemed stable and released independently.
Yep, and some advocate that there should only be a stable "core" debian, with the rest having the life of their own. I don't see why everyone else must wait for some my3117widget to stabilize. It should be possible to "lock down" the core, and ensure that most packages could be upgraded without disrupting the core. There is some sensibility in the windows approach, where the "OS" is the core, and the rest are seperate.
Obviously Linux is advancing much more rapidly than windows (I am running unstable myself, and like it more than I ever did stable (since slinky)), but at some point in time a sufficient level of maturity is achieved, and the core can be locked down. This is essential for corporate desktop environments at least.
Of course some see debian more as a platform on which to build a good desktop distro (Libranet, LindowsOS...)
And moderators: I'm not dissing debian, so ease up on that trigger. It's idiotic to mod someone down for giving suggestions, the civilized approach is to reply instead.
-- Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
Re:New to Debian
by
GammaTau
·
· Score: 4, Informative
As I've understood it (and I'm probably misinformed) Debian needs all packages in a release to be stable before issuing a new stable release. With thousands of packages that's a lot of work.
As far as I know, a package must also properly compile and work on all the supported architechtures. There are currently 11 supported architechtures in the latest stable release. I wouldn't be surprised if the support for so many platforms would cause its own share of delays.
Re:New to Debian
by
The+J+Kid
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Debian doesn't go for the "every half year" release..
However, it's just the last release (Woody) that took so long... That was for a number of reasons: - XFree had to be ported to 11 archs (up from 6), 3 or 4 of which X hadn't been ported to before. - 'Testing' was created, as to have a smoother transition beween 'unstable' and 'stable'. - KDE (2.2) was added to main, a first for a stable debian release. That produced some quirks of it's own.
However, with the upcoming release (sarge, now testing) there were 2 main hurdles: - The GCC 3.2 migration (ABI change) (KDE brakeage hell was spared by waiting with 3.x) - GTK(+) 2.x -> Gnome 2.x There is however 1 more hurdle: The new installer, which is coming along. Knoppix also made clear that 'automagic' was posible with debian.
Or is that just the length of time since the last stable release?
What a nice coincidence...
by
PiscoX
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Hey, wait, saturday the 16th... The very same day Blaster is expected to lead a DDoS attack against MS update servers. Sweet gift for Debian's birthday.
After "Woody" comes "Puberty". After that, I suggest "A shave and a real job".;-)
Just kidding. Though I have never used Debian myself (I went from Mandrake to Red Hat and now Gentoo), I can acknowledge and recognize the amount of work their community has done/is doing and the innovations which have spilled over into other distros. Good job!
Re:New to Debian
by
cbcbcb
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Because a) some people don't have broadband so they want a CD of the software they are actually going to run b) only stable releases have timely security updates c) installing security updates on unstable can require downloading 100s of MB due to pulling in other updated packages. d) stable won't even install on some newer hardware without guru knowledge e) unstable is sometimes buggy and can make a system unbootable, or make the user unable to log in. f) some people want to run reasonably recent software but without it changing every day. g) Unstable can be horribly broken during things like a gcc 3 transition
If you want to help out with the next release
by
rweir
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Even Debian is getting the marketing bug. Debian 10? Directly from 3? Shades of Red Hat, SuSE et al. Debian isn't suppo...
Cake? Candles? Ooops.
Nevermind.
Soko
(P.S. - Thanks Debian team for leading the way. And for supporting my Alpha when others won't.)
-- "Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
Debian is great
by
scarolan
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I still consider myself somewhat of a linux newbie, but I've learned as much as I need to manage a few small servers.
My day job is selling medical equipment on the internet but I'm also the "computer guy" for the company I work at. Which btw has the added benefit of some extra job security, because no one else knows how to fix the network when it breaks.
I started tinkering with RedHat and Mandrake about 3 years ago, and have recently installed Debian on a little backup server we have here at work. What a breath of fresh air! I am so glad to be out of RPM hell - those of you who have tried it know how frustrating it is to try and install an RPM, only to find out that you need files A, B, and C to make it work. Then you find out A, B, and C need X, Y, and Z, etc. etc. and that eventually you need an entirely new kernel. You can spend hours trying to fuss with those dependencies. Ugh.
Now with debian it's as simple as:
apt-get install whatever
and bam, you're done! It's awesome! I had a backup server with trouble ticket system up and running in my office here within a few hours (and probably would have been faster if I was more expert).
The Debian apt system is simply awesome, and I highly recommend it for anyone who wants a stable, easy to maintain linux box.
Slashdot Mirror
Should be "Debian Turning 1010"
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
And don't try bringing your Parents into it, my Dad is bigger than your Dad, because Debian could be your Dad anyway !
Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
Please not: The Debian Testing birthday cake will have 10 candles, the Debian Unstable birthday cake will have 9, and the Debian Stable birthday cake will have 7 -- and will only be upgraded to 10 candles when the concept of 10 candle cakes has proved itself sufficiently robust.
Scheduled for sometime around Debian's 15 birthday.
However, the recipe for the cake will be freely available and modifiable for all, as will instructions for the manufacture of the candles, and the party hats.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Debian is one of my favorite distributions, it's earned a well-deserved accolade for 10 years of reasonably stable operation without all the hype of other operating systems. Stable, fast, easy to use once you're comfortable with its way of doing things... can't love it more than that!
Chris
I pimp this product
Subscribe for free to my show!
Is that apt-get?
I mean, same kind of system is now all over the place, in about every distro.
But did Debian "invent" it, or were they first to make the concept work in practice?
Then again, they are also responsible for dselect...
Shouldn't that be debian reaches 1.0? It sure feels like it sometimes... ;)
On a serious note, 10 years and only up to version 3. This is what makes debian so great. The software is tested and retested to death, so that you know the software in stable is truely stable. I love it. I've used heaps of different distros, but I always come back to debian. I left winddoze back in 1999 due to stability and debian delivers it!
Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves. -- AE
Rich.
libguestfs - tools for accessing and modifying virtual machine disk images
I don't understand why it takes Debian so long to release!
As I've understood it (and I'm probably misinformed) Debian needs all packages in a release to be stable before issuing a new stable release. With thousands of packages that's a lot of work.
Some people advocate splitting the distro into a more modular approach were groups of packages (like file server packages, wes server packages, desktop packages) could be deemed stable and released independently.
Again, I could be misinformed.
.: Max Romantschuk
There are some compile problems with the MIPS arch for example, the perlmagick package is broken thanks to that.
See the Release-critical bugs for more reasons why.
The thing with Debian is that it doesn't *have* the pressing need to release, because of apt, which allows you to update any packages to new versions on a regular basis.
What makes Debian greater than SuSe, RedHat and others is mostly the point it is *not* commercial. :
I mean : we're not even sure RedHat will still be there in a few years but we know that if in 10 years, we perform an
apt-get update ; apt-get upgrade
our system will be updated...
This might however be the case with other systems but I doubt that satisfied Debian pioneers actually switched.
I guess the Gentoo-ers are mostly former SuSe-ists or RedHat-ters
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Really, I don't understand why people always complain about Debian not releasing often. Why is it so important to install a new cd for you?
... But why is it that important?
Just move to testing or unstable, run dselect everyday and you will see new packages are added and updated every day.
I think people got used to upgrade distro to new releases often with Red Hat, Mandrake,
With Debian, you can have a system very up to date (testing or unstable) without needing to install a new distro version every month.
What's the problem with the Debian way of doing things?
Debian is a well though out and stable distribution. People might complain that the packages are old and yes that might be true but they work. IF you want a machine to keep running then its great. Apt-get package and sit back. Also for security its great for admins. apt-get update && apt-get upgrade and thats it. No dependancy problems. Even the unstable is pretty stable
Hope it goes on for many more years
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
Some people advocate splitting the distro into a more modular approach were groups of packages (like file server packages, wes server packages, desktop packages) could be deemed stable and released independently.
Yep, and some advocate that there should only be a stable "core" debian, with the rest having the life of their own. I don't see why everyone else must wait for some my3117widget to stabilize. It should be possible to "lock down" the core, and ensure that most packages could be upgraded without disrupting the core. There is some sensibility in the windows approach, where the "OS" is the core, and the rest are seperate.
Obviously Linux is advancing much more rapidly than windows (I am running unstable myself, and like it more than I ever did stable (since slinky)), but at some point in time a sufficient level of maturity is achieved, and the core can be locked down. This is essential for corporate desktop environments at least.
Of course some see debian more as a platform on which to build a good desktop distro (Libranet, LindowsOS...)
And moderators: I'm not dissing debian, so ease up on that trigger. It's idiotic to mod someone down for giving suggestions, the civilized approach is to reply instead.
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
As far as I know, a package must also properly compile and work on all the supported architechtures. There are currently 11 supported architechtures in the latest stable release. I wouldn't be surprised if the support for so many platforms would cause its own share of delays.
Scaring the poop out of Linux users since 1993.
Debian doesn't go for the "every half year" release..
However, it's just the last release (Woody) that took so long...
That was for a number of reasons:
- XFree had to be ported to 11 archs (up from 6), 3 or 4 of which X hadn't been ported to before.
- 'Testing' was created, as to have a smoother transition beween 'unstable' and 'stable'.
- KDE (2.2) was added to main, a first for a stable debian release. That produced some quirks of it's own.
However, with the upcoming release (sarge, now testing) there were 2 main hurdles:
- The GCC 3.2 migration (ABI change) (KDE brakeage hell was spared by waiting with 3.x)
- GTK(+) 2.x -> Gnome 2.x
There is however 1 more hurdle:
The new installer, which is coming along. Knoppix also made clear that 'automagic' was posible with debian.
Moderation: +4. Modded 70% Funny and 30% Overrated. 100% Saturated.
#debian-party on irc.oftc.net. Come and break it down! Er, fix some RC bugs :-)
Or is that just the length of time since the last stable release?
Hey, wait, saturday the 16th... The very same day Blaster is expected to lead a DDoS attack against MS update servers. Sweet gift for Debian's birthday.
Just kidding. Though I have never used Debian myself (I went from Mandrake to Red Hat and now Gentoo), I can acknowledge and recognize the amount of work their community has done/is doing and the innovations which have spilled over into other distros. Good job!
Money for nothing, pix for free
Because
a) some people don't have broadband so they want a CD of the software they are actually going to run
b) only stable releases have timely security updates
c) installing security updates on unstable can require downloading 100s of MB due to pulling in other updated packages.
d) stable won't even install on some newer hardware without guru knowledge
e) unstable is sometimes buggy and can make a system unbootable, or make the user unable to log in.
f) some people want to run reasonably recent software but without it changing every day.
g) Unstable can be horribly broken during things like a gcc 3 transition
Go squash some bugs!
Even Debian is getting the marketing bug. Debian 10? Directly from 3? Shades of Red Hat, SuSE et al. Debian isn't suppo...
Cake? Candles? Ooops.
Nevermind.
Soko
(P.S. - Thanks Debian team for leading the way. And for supporting my Alpha when others won't.)
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
I still consider myself somewhat of a linux newbie, but I've learned as much as I need to manage a few small servers.
My day job is selling medical equipment on the internet but I'm also the "computer guy" for the company I work at. Which btw has the added benefit of some extra job security, because no one else knows how to fix the network when it breaks.
I started tinkering with RedHat and Mandrake about 3 years ago, and have recently installed Debian on a little backup server we have here at work. What a breath of fresh air! I am so glad to be out of RPM hell - those of you who have tried it know how frustrating it is to try and install an RPM, only to find out that you need files A, B, and C to make it work. Then you find out A, B, and C need X, Y, and Z, etc. etc. and that eventually you need an entirely new kernel. You can spend hours trying to fuss with those dependencies. Ugh.
Now with debian it's as simple as:
apt-get install whatever
and bam, you're done! It's awesome! I had a backup server with trouble ticket system up and running in my office here within a few hours (and probably would have been faster if I was more expert).
The Debian apt system is simply awesome, and I highly recommend it for anyone who wants a stable, easy to maintain linux box.
These parties will be used by SCO to round up potential IP infringers. Stay at home and save yourself!!!