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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."
debian rocks. i can't think of any other linux distro that has been around so long and consistently delivered a great base install and the ability to easily update the entire system. i know a lot of people like to complain about how behind the times debian always is, but this is only done to ensure that each release is as stable and bug-free as possible. the debian developers should be commended for all of their hard work that they've put in over the years, especially in the face of adversity such as the recent security breach.
One thing that sticks out: watch your passwords! I think I read that the debian hacks were due to compromised passwords and the kernel hack was due to a compormised password. I guess it's both a good thing (software's secure so you have to social engineer) and a bad thing (social engineering will always work).
I hadn't realized how incredibly limiting some distros were until I decided to install Fedora on a friend's box. Comfortable with Debian, and knowing about Fedora's apt wannabe yum, I figured installing packages would be sinch. wrong.
Let me clearify installing a package in Fedora via yum is identical to apt-get, but the range of packages is very different. Quickly I realized everyone using the large commercial Linux's are stuck with a very small repository of software.
I really took for granted how great apt-get(ing) all my software really is. Before a few days ago I never would have imagined that to install something has common as Mozilla-Firebird I'd have to go and find some website that offered an rpm, which made me incredibly nervous (one thing about rpm's I did remember was mixing them can cause a lot of dependency issues).
Say what you must about Debian, but you can't ignore that it has one of the slickist methods of installing software and updating the system, furthermore, as all the software comes from a trusted repository I know it's most likely going to work perfectly with all my other packages.
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I also think when you weigh in ease of use and well designed management and setup tools Debian comes up severly lacking.
How long have you been using Linux? And how many times have you had to reinstall in order to upgrade from one release to another?
It's a reasonable tradeoff. Debian may require a bit more knowledge in the basic computing department than most other dists, and the standard configuration interface may have been a bit unattractive, but I know of know other dist that has allowed users to issue two simple comands in order to upgrade from one major release to another.
I had an install that started as Bo in 1997, that survived upgrades through Hamm, Slink, and Potato on it's way to die as a Woody install. That install outlived processors, power supplies, motherboards, and hard drives (That ping-ping-ping noise tells you when it's time to migrate).
The point is, that you shouldn't have to reinstall in order to upgrade your release. THAT is the basic "ease of use issue" that no other distributions seem to address. Everything else is easy, once the install is complete.
By the time Sarge comes out we will all be on kernel 2.6
And Sarge user who wishes to have kernel 2.6 installed will only need to "apt-get install kernel-image-2.6.x-[386|586|686|k6|k7](-smp)" in order to get the 2.6 kernel, pre-compiled for thier particular processor.
Debian may be good to have around, but other distros have passed it in the areas that matter to most people...
Most people want a box that is stable and reliable that enables them to cruise the web, write emails, do IM, chat, etc, and create documents that can be read on Microsoft platforms. Anything else is not "most people", but chances are that it's available in Debian (Woody consists of 8.900 packages, not counting contrib and non-free).
Debian provides a stable distribution that offers the most choices to the user for any task. For users who desire more recent versions of software than is available in "stable", there is the "testing", which includes all of the recent releases that have proven to not break anything and have demonstrated themselves to be reasonably "bug free" for a period of time before they are included. I'm not sure what it is that these mythical "most users" are asking for that Debian doesn't provide. The only feature I can think of that Debian is missing is an EULA, and I doubt that anyone really wants that.
Read, L