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Debian 3.0r2 Released
FrankoBoy writes "As announced on DistroWatch, Debian 3.0r2 has been released this weekend, with some security issues fixed... and Rock 'n Diamonds dropped because of license problems. Here's the official announcement. This release had been slowed by an attack on Debian boxes discussed Friday."
Good choice ;-)
The stable distri of debian has one problem: Many programs made a lot of progress in the last month and the distro doesn't reflect that so far. So you will need to add some more (unoffical) sources to your apt configuration. Check the manual for details.
One important page for finding the right source for a recent Mozilla, OpenOffice or X11 is:
http://www.apt-get.org/
Have fun! *eg*
http://www.wiggy.net/debian/
From the Debian 3.0r2 Changelog:
"Rocks-N-Diamonds contains sound, graphics and level data which
violate section 2.3 of the Debian policy manual. Some of the
game content originates with commercial sources that have not
provided explicit permission for their reuse."
BTW, aspell was also removed due to license reasons.
We should be able to take that one down as well.
Help fight continental drift.
Use Woody for a server. I haven't used it as a desktop, but it might be bit too old for you. If it isn't, it will be stable. Use the testing/unstable installation CD if you want an easier install, and then upgrade to the latest everything afterwards. If you use KDE, Google as the dependencies for kmultimedia are buggered at the moment. I use unstable on my desktop, and it's pretty good. The only complaints was X took more to setup than Mandrake (it doesn't like the fact that I have two video cards), KDE install took a while to figure out due to the broken deps, and there's a really annoying bug that puts some garbage in the default X window manager file instead of /usr/bin/kdm (or whatever it is). Generally though, it's good and up to date.
First of all, Debian has the most out of date software packages of any major mainstream distros. Even in the unstable version, is KDE 2.2 and Gnome 2.0, with Xfree86 4.1 (A version that really sucks).
/lib/modules, as you are going to need it.
.ko? modconf does all that nasty module stuff
$ konqueror --version
Qt: 3.1.1
KDE: 3.1.3
Konqueror: 3.1.3
$ xdpyinfo |grep "XFree86 version"
XFree86 version: 4.2.1.1
Secondly, its a pain in the goatse to set up, first of all, you are forced to use Kernel 2.2, which is horribly hacked with "backports" to get any use on any modern machine (Read, made after 1999). Good luck memorizing all the *.ko files in
WTF's a
$ uname -r
2.4.20
Configuring XFree86 is hell! If you don't have a Thick X11 orilley book, and a list of your horizontal sync values from your monitor's intruction manual (if you even have one), BOOM! There goes your monitor.
You must have a *really* old monitor if it can't cope with an out of range signal. I admit its been A few years, but xf86config or xf86setup or something was fine when I set up my X.
Even then, good luck getting anything over 640x480@16 colours.
screen #0:
dimensions: 1024x768 pixels (260x195 millimeters)
resolution: 100x100 dots per inch
depths (7): 16, 1, 4, 8, 15, 24, 32
Other distros give you comprehensive PRINTED MANUALS, PHONE SUPPPORT and/or freindly forums where repling RTFM gets you banned!
Yes, pay for the manuals and phone support if you want. For online stuff, I used to go to linuxnewbie.org
Debian has ZERO support for any decent hardware, including USB mice, scanners, Sound cards, heck even Serial devices struggle.
Well, my usb mouse (cordless, mouse # 2 so I can control xine from across the room, but not my main mouse) works fine, as does my USB mp3 player and sound card. My modem was fine too when I used one, but I don't have a scanner. Printer worked too, but I sold it when I emmigrated.
Apt-get has many flaws. First of all it uses a non standard package format (the rest of the world uses RPM, deprecate the DEB format!)
It's a superior format
Debian is falling to pieces, if it is to survive any market share
That's just it, Debian isn't a commercial distro, it'll go As long as people develop it. If it's not for you, fine. TBH If I had time I'd probably migrate my desktop away from Debian. My laptop's too slow to run a modern distro though. Use whatever floats your boat.
there are images of testing/unstable
http://www.debian.org/CD/http-ftp/
however you can always install a minimal stable system and immediately change your sources from stable to unstable and `apt-get dist-upgrade` and continue from there
Debian has never really limited you by its politics, there are plenty of non-free packages available (in the helpfully named "non-free" section).
If you read the article you would know that this was removed due to containing commercial material for which usage permission had not been granted. Ceasing to distribute the package is completely the right (and legally required) thing for them to do; it doesn't mean you aren't going to be able to use other non-free packages on your machine. In fact, with over 4,000 packages available, Debian is extremely well-supplied with software of all kinds.
"'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
- JRR Tolkien.
The other nice thing about Knoppix is that it is very easy to try out, and it also makes for a very painless Debian installer. I use it all the time to install Debian Unstable onto x86 desktop machines (see knoppix-installer in /usr/local/bin). I've been a Debian Developer for several years now, and I've pretty much switched over to using Knoppix for all my installation needs.
Not gonna happen.
Too many of the developers have been failing to address bugs in Sarge (testing) and instead have been waiting for or [packaging new upstream versions. This happens during every release cycle, and many developers just assume that this is common practice.
Eventually, Sid (unstable) will be frozen as well, so the maintainers are unable to upload new versions until the RC bugs in Sarge are fixed.
If the release manager would just accept that this is necessary in order to get a release out the door instead of assuming that reason will rule the day, the time between releases would likely be much more reasonable.
The problem seems to originate in the fact of most maintainers having only one machine at home with Sid installed. It is difficult to replicate (and thus fix) bugs in testing if you are keeping your machine up to date with unstable. Freezing Sid and testing at the same time seems to resolve this problem for most of the maintainers.
IANADPM, but I have been using Debian for 6+ years and observing this series of events occur semi annually Every year, policy and process changes are adjusted to mitigate the various difficulties involved in preparing for release, but the dist is growing at such a rate (I believe that Sarge will fill 10 CDs with packages) that new complications must be addressed every year.
I'm just amazed that they are able to achieve what they do, and that the quality of the release is so much higher than that of thier comercial competitors.
Read, L
Help test apt-secure.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
XFree86 is certainly not the most recent. However, X Strike Force is working on 4.3.0 and you can get it out of experimental. Add
to your sources.list and you can select the newer version manually inside aptitude (which I highly recommend for package management anyway, if you're not using it.)
www.backports.org is also a good resource for finding cutting-edge packages backported to the stable release.
LRC, the best-read libertarian site on the web
The way it works is a named distro such as sid, woody or sarge progresses through different stages of stability: from unstable->testing->stable. So right now sid is considered "unstable", sarge is in the "testing" stage before it becoms stable, and woody is considered "stable." Once sarge is considered stable, woody will be obsolete and sid will be bumped to testing and a new version will become unstable. The Debian maintainers have a _very_ high standard for stability. When you have a Debian stable release you can count on being able to install any package from the stable release without hitting a stability problem. All packages in stable are very thoroughly tested to be sure that there are no problems with them. That being said they tend to be somewhat out of date. I've been using Debian since 1998 and I've used unstable almost exclusively since then on my desktop, but have used stable on any servers/gateways I've built. I would say that "unstable" Debian tends to be more stable than RedHat releases, and more up to date (RedHat 9 did make vast improvements over RedHat 8 in the stability/non-brokeness area though). I suggest if you're installing it on a desktop machine that you should go with unstable(sid). From time to time some packages will have dependency fights with each other but those can be solved by putting those packages on "hold" for a few days and waiting for the dependency issues to work themeselves out, then upgrading as normal. Once you go Debian, you'll never go back to a distro without apt builtin.
As of now:
Unstable->sid (this is probably what you want for a desktop)
testing->sarge (use this if you need something slight more reliable than unstable)
stable->woody (use this on mission critcal systems and servers)
-Mr. Lizard
^I'm with stupid.^
Yes, in a way, Debian really does need to you know what you're doing, how a Linux system works, and what certain packages do. But if you're technically adept, I can tell you that a Debian system is nicer to maintain than Redhat or Mandrake. It's not just apt, it's the way the whole system is designed from a technical perspective. And of course, apt makes installing and maintaining great, and you know that apt is on every Debian system you may encounter. It's not an optional package.
By the way, if you want to make things easier, you just have to know the right package. discover will automatically probe and insert modules every time you boot up. webmin handles easy configurations for many system programs and settings.
Really, the main problem with debian is you have to _know_ that these packages exist, and then install them. Debian will not install these packages by default, because its basic install is just that
Nothing beats the time I visited a client to fix something that they had wrong with their unix server. I discovered it was a Debian machine, but one that didn't have the telnet command installed. A simple apt-get install telnet, and 20 seconds later (it was a modem internet connection
One correction: unstable is always called sid. When sarge is released, a new name will be chosen for testing.
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Unless you like to do fresh installs to clear out the clutter you've created from time to time,
This isn't an issue with Debian. Want to clear out the clutter? Just use your favorite apt-get interface to remove all but a basic set of packages. Use cruft to find and remove anything else, then use apt-get to install the stuff you want again. This way you clear out the clutter, but don't lose your configuration.
In practice, I don't really even do the above unless my drive is getting full. Unlike other operating systems (cough Windows cough), Linux doesn't really 'degrade' over time. It may get cluttered, but it continues to work just fine.
to try new things and such
If you run unstable, you will always be trying new things. Just upgrade frequently (I upgrade daily, in general) and you'll always be running new stuff. Also, every time I update I get a new list of packages in my "New Packages" section, and I find it very interesting to take five minutes and scan through them, looking for anything intruiguing.
need a system you can setup on a new set of hardware in under an hour pretty much consistantly
Try Knoppix. It's Instant Debian unstable. Getting it running on a clean box takes nothing more than the time to boot. Getting it installed takes just a few minutes more.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.