Custom Debian Distributions

Andreas Tille writes "When the first Custom Debian Distribution - Debian Junior - started in the beginning of 2000 we did not expect that this would perhaps lead to a new way Debian could support its end users in general. The next step forward was done in DebConf3 in Oslo when several developers who care about Custom Debian Distributions met in person and decided to work together more closely. Finally at OSWC conference in Malaga took place a workshop aiming at exactly this issue. The result of the conference was to write a paper about Custom Debian Distributions to explain to the public what we had done and what we want to do. This is an implicit call for participation for all those people inside and outside Debian who work on the same goal: Enhance the role of Debian as the missing link between upstream software developers and end users."

Comments

Debian

[MrRuslan]

The raw Debian in it's current state seems more like a "platform" and less like a distro...it would be great to see debian make a bratnce base on raw debian like mozilla did with firefox...is this what they are trying to do with Jr then its a very good step..or am i missing something.

Re:Debian

[Anonymous Coward]

No, Debian Jr. is designed to be a Linux distribution for children.

Re:Debian

[OECD]

The raw Debian in it's current state seems more like a "platform" and less like a distro...

I'd like to see Custom Knoppix Distributions. D/L an ISO and go.

Re:Re:Debian

[MrRuslan]

They do have some Custom Knoppix's like http://overclockix.octeams.com/ And Gnoppix... and there are some guides how to customize it yourself...I love knoppix it's a Universal tool and a good for rescuing system (Especially windows) I Dont's go anyware with out a CD.

Re:Debian

[pyros]

Have a look at Morphix. It is exaclty Knoppix which breaks out the ISO images into categories (gamer, full GUI, light GUI, etc) and supports GNOME. I'm not sure if it supports a per-package granularity though.

Re:Debian

[EvilAlien]

I don't understand all the hype about Knoppix lately.

I view Knoppix as a threat to adoption of Linux, risking marginalizing it as a toy or OS suitable for casual flirtation but undeserving of space on a harddrive. The ease it provides for a very shallow glimpse into Linux means that those trying it out never have to commit, and therefore never have to put effort into migration.

The natural human resistence to chance suggests that this will hinder the adoption of Linux on the desktop rather than spur it forward.

Re:Debian

[0racle]

Well if thats how you want to look at it. However here Knoppix is a great thing, a godsend at times. It has been able to rescue systems and information I don't know often from systems that otherwise would have been simply dead or would have taken much longer to fix.

If you want to think of it as simply a toy thats all it will be to you, but don't discount it as a real tool just because it can run entirely from a cd.

Re:Debian

[MrRuslan]

Knoppix is not just a something you evaluate linux with....it has many uses like trobleshooting and fixing and system recovery I storngly disagree with your opinion and im sure im not the only one.

Re:Debian

[rolling_bits]

Knoppix style distro is great to learn Linux. You can reinstall the system in minutes. Once you learn enough you can author some scripts that download and configure the system as you like it, after a fresh install. Once you learn a little bit more you can remaster it including the tools you use and removing those that you don't use. So, Thanks to Knoppix and alike distros, Linux and Debian are getting widespread attention. I can live with choice. More than that, I love choices, as I would hate to use something that others like and I don't. --- A great pretender doesn't pretend at all.

Re:Debian

[EvilAlien]

Well, I do understand the value in system recovery, forensics, and security-related applications of Knoppix, Knoppix-STD, and other similar livecd products like INSERT and PHLAK. I don't *want* to think of Knoppix as a toy, nevertheless I see it presenting a bit of a threat.

I also don't *want* to think of it simply as a toy, and don't, so please don't misunderstand my comments. I like the fact that you can get a pretty functional Linux box going running live off a cd, and this speaks to the power of Linux. However I still perceive a threat to wider adoption of Linux due to the ease of casual use.

I very rarely, if ever, recommend that people interested in Linux go get Knoppix and play with it. I usually recommend that they check out Mandrake, SuSE, and/or Fedora and actually install it and try to use it, in other words commit to using Linux as a desktop solution at least as far as a dual-boot allows.

Re:Debian

[EvilAlien]

Its a great tool for that, don't get me wrong. I have a feeling that many people will get me wrong, and disagree instinctively after missing the point... oh well.

Re:Debian

[LinuxHam]

Don't worry, Evil, some of us are on the front lines driving Linux adoption in corporations, where actions by a single person can affect far greater numbers of systems at a time. If an executive ever asked me for the quickest and easiest way to see Linux for himself, on his own time, I'd look for a Knoppix burn that shows off a nice, clean corporate-quality desktop (without all the Star Trek KDE crap on the original) and be sure to say, "Here, you can keep this or copy it for others. Remember, you can do that with Linux."

Re:Debian

[RealAlaskan]

I view Knoppix as a threat to adoption of Linux, risking marginalizing it as a toy or OS suitable for casual flirtation but undeserving of space on a harddrive.

I've been handing Knoppix disks out to computer illiterate folks I know. They can use it as a toy, and get used to the idea that Linux is something they can use. Knoppix has some little games, a nice web browser, they can write stuff, they can get pictures from their digital cameras (I do have to show them how to do the last two things, since there aren't icons on the desktop for ``write a paper'' and ``digital camera''.).

For these guys, Knoppix means exposure to Linux, and just a little bit of familiarity and de-mistification. The lack of commitment is vital here: these guys are deathly afraid of screwing up their machines. This is definitely casual flirtation, but that's a huge step forward with this crowd.

I've been giving Knoppix disks to computer literate friends, too. For them, it's a chance to find out that Linux really does work on their hardware, that they really can do their work on it (they suspect that's true, so they're interested), and that they really can install it and keep it up to date.

For this bunch, there is usually some Linux application that they want to run, but the new set of system administration tasks and the installation difficulty scares them off. With Knoppix, they can see how easy it is to install, and they can seriously evaluate it. This is FAR from casual flirtation! Not all of this crowd winds up using Linux daily, but most of them wind up with it on their hard drives, and their minds are opened a bit.

Over all, I'd say that Knoppix is doing a lot of good. It's letting people progress a lot farther towards using Linux than they would ever go without this sort of distribution.

Re:Debian

[AlXtreme]

Well, not _exactly_ Knoppix, but we try to keep everything in sync with Knoppix, that's for sure...

We've gotten to the point where apt-get installing works from the livecd, and where debian packages on a directory on the livecd are installed at boot time, but we're a long way from per-package granularity. I'm not even sure we should go that far, as things get pretty messy with libraries et al. Being able to autobuild and autoinstall knoppix-like livecds is much more fun :-)

Re:Debian

[Arakonfap]

Some may say that having dual boot available causes the same thing. Most people are afraid of loosing there data and destroying there system. Repartitioning to do a dual boot can be dangerous. Knoppix, with it's home directories (If only it supported NTFS ones!) allows someone to "play" and "use" a Linux without the nervousness of destroying there system. It shows them that as far as USE goes, it's as easy as Windows is.

I've showed a lot of people Knoppix, and they like it. It shows them Linux isn't scarey. They also like the idea of having a portable home directory on a USB thumbdrive, so you can take the system anywhere.

On a side note, it also shows the power and versitality of Linux more then anything - at work we even put two computers with the exact specs in a race: The Knoppix CD booted to a full KDE environment even before an XP CD was ready to start a setup. It shows MS isn't king, since they have nothing like it, and I think it helps opens ppl's eyes.

Re:Debian

[NateTech]

RTFA.

Re:Debian

[marcello_dl]

There are Morphix tools to customize the iso, and a very handy /deb subdirectory: just master an iso with some .debs inside it and they will be automatically --force installed when morphix boots.

Debian has surpassed many goals..

[Indes]

Debian has grown as far as users, software and continues to grow with the Linux community. Its abilities to be able to drop in a vanilla Linux kernel and go while being able to be quite flexable as far as setup goes for the user makes it one of the best distributions out there. Apt and dpkg are some of the finest software management tools I've seen in the unix community next to BSD's ports system.

Debian will continue to grow, as will the debian community hopefully for the better of the GNU/Linux world.

Re:Debian has surpassed many goals..

[MrRuslan]

Debian has very good tools but I would they are no where near as flexible as BSD's ports or Gentoo's portage...IMHO

Re:Debian has surpassed many goals..

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm using Redhat, FreeBSD, Debian and Slackware.

When I use Debian...what comes to mind is: "quirky"

It works. I liked APT when it was a small little addon tool for Redhat. Now in Debian...it's the tip of the iceberg called Debianism. I'm apt pinning, I'm switching from straight apt to aptitude because straight apt won't uninstall/remember dependencies. I'm learning all the work arounds because when you load up the official distro, you won't have hardware support for shit.

If you want a binary distribution...then perhaps Debian is your cup of tea. It has more binaries available...16,000+ and it has an equally large/complex package manager.

Want to be learning about samba 3.0, iptables, postfix and other stuff?

too bad...cause your gonna spend a lot of time dealing with Debianisms.

And if you want to replace key packages with yor own custom compiled ones...enjoy. Watch those dependencies stop apt dead in it's tracks.

yes... there are debianisms to handle all these issues.

but i prefer a more unix like experience, with unmodified sources for all my packages.

there is no "slackism" it's just a straight forward, very unixish linux. your skills will cross over to freebsd and even redhat.

want to spend a lot of time getting indoctrinated into ONE CAMPS way of doing things.

then enjoy debian.

Re:Debian has surpassed many goals..

[misleb]

Yeah, too bad Gentoo has a horrible package upgrade system. I've completely hosed my system configuration simply by running etc-update. It even nuked my network settings. The first time this happened I thought I did something wrong. Then on the forums I was told "DON'T RUN etc-update!" WTF? Debian is very good about upgrading packages and not stomping on settings. Not only does it not stomp on old settings, but it is often intelligent enough to pull settings from and older version of a package to a newer. How does BSD ports handle package upgrades/updates?

-matthew

Re:Debian has surpassed many goals..

[dalutong]

I agree. Debian and apt are not meant to be magic tools. (a note: aptitude uses apt and dpkg. it is not a variation of apt.)

If you want bleeding edge, don't use debian. I happen to live bleeding edge enough. I run debian testing and have some packages from unstable. I have gnome 2.6 from experimental. i have my apt settings so i will get testing packages by default, though. I've had very little trouble.

I used to run pure debian unstable. I would run into some problems, but it was pretty easy to use. I only stopped because I got a new system and wanted to test out the new debian installer (beta 3.) It was beautiful, so I decided I'd try testing for a week or two and see if I can bare having a (small) version or two from the bleeding edge. I'm quite happy.

Apt allows me to live in a stable system with whatever bleeding edge I want on the side.

If you want to do bleeding edge all the time you're going to have to use fedora or a source distribution. That or learn how to make debs... which isn't easy enough in my opinion (I know why...)

But that's the reality of being a fringe distribution that doesn't focus on bleeding edge. You can't knock LFS for being too complicated for newbies. It isn't supposed to be. Or knock linux-embedded for not running on blue gene. I isn't supposed to.

Just as in cultures, you have to measure another considering its values. Debian values what it values. You should respect that. You can disagree, but you should still respect it. Just as debian users should respect other development philosophies.

Re:Debian has surpassed many goals..

[MrRuslan]

I see how that could happen but you have to really know portage in order to not nuke your system...i did it myself when i first started off with etc-update after and upgrade but the key is before you upgrade any of the configs u yhave to look at them read them and understand whats going on then carefull replace or update or ignore as needed...once i understood how portage works all the way i never had a problem thats all...perhaps for someone not used to it it's annoying but once u are used to it and understand it you never look back because i and i know many people who will agree

Re:Debian has surpassed many goals..

[misleb]

Actually, it is the other way around for me. When I first started using Gentoo, compiling all my packages with -march=pentium4, -O6, etc was really novel and fun (what geek doesn't like knowing that every binary is optimized for his/her specific CPU?), but now it is just a waste of time. When I decided I wanted to run netatalk to share files with my wife, I didn't want to wait 10 minutes for it to download and compile. And emerging, OpenOffice? Holy shit! I couldn't free up disk space fast enough to satisfy the needs of that ebuild. Turns out I don't even like OpenOffice.

The control I had over the system was great, but now going through every single etc update manually is just annoying. A package system should be more intelligent than that. At the very least, it shouldn't clobber something as basic as network settings... by default! The default should be to prompt you regarding changes and you can force it to clobber your network settings if that is what you really want. Debian is smart enough to say, "Hey, you seem to have editted this config file. Do you want me to replace it or leave it alone?" Hell, debian doesn't just ask you about config files. It knows when you have modified init.d startup scripts too.

Also, it seems like Gentoo uses up an unusually large amount of disk space even after cleaning up the dist files. Like several gigs for a fairly basic desktop system (having installed from stage1),

The only thing I like about Gentoo is the ability to mix and match "stable" packages with "unstable" ackages arbitrarily. I can also usually pick between several different versions of an ebuild. Beyond that, I don't see what all the fuss is about. Is compiling every single package really worth the trouble?

-matthew

Re:Debian has surpassed many goals..

[misleb]

You didn't mention how BSD ports handles package updates/upgrades. Does it have some some sort or etc-update like process?

Re:Debian has surpassed many goals..

[MrRuslan]

I get what you are saying that after a little while it may get a little annoying but there are way around it...you could always use GRP binarys that are optimized by the gentoo developers for varius archs , on my maching (athlon xp 2500+ and NFORCE 2 with 1 gig of ram most packeges compile in under 5 minutes ...i know the big monsters take a while and etc-update is not as annoying as u make it seem...just got to know it...like if u update program A and it want to update a config file thats limited to that program u let it go...if it want to update something critical u give it a quick closer look and ur done...im soo used to it that i like to play with a verity of systems but gentoo is my primary distro ...its like a must i dont feel comforable with anything else anymore ..you know what im saying?

Re:Debian has surpassed many goals..

[cubic6]

etc-update does very little by itself. Unless you tell it to overwrite config files, it only merges trivial changes. If doing that broke your system, then you have an issue that should be brought up to the Gentoo devs. If you break your system by running etc-update and telling it to overwrite all your configs, then you deserve what you get. Unfortunately, there is no perfect way to manage configs when you update packages. Gentoo takes the safe route and *never* overwrites your old settings. I suspect Debian does the same.

Re:Debian has surpassed many goals..

[misleb]

I was told on the Gentoo forums that etc-update will clobber settings and that I shouldn't run it without commandline options. It happens to a lot of people. It even happened to another Gentoo user that replied to me here on slashdot. It doesn't merge stuff automatically. You have to do it manually. Debian does often merge not-so-trivial changes authomatically in main config files. Although for some files, it will simply notes that you have editted them and ask you if you want to overwrite. In any case, it makes a backup of the files it changes. Debian handles "etc-updates" MUCH more intelligently than Gentoo.

Copyediting?

[Xoder]

How does one help Debian copy-edit this piece? It really needs it. It was clearly written by a non-native English speaker, which is neither here nor there, but it does need some cleanup...

I Edit

Re:Copyediting?

[Anonymous Coward]

The document states that it was written by Andreas Tille tille@debian.org. I'd contact him.

Re:Copyediting?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a link to CVS
http://cvs.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/cd d/doc/common/?cvsroot=cdd

Patches sended to my address would be great, simple
corrections via mail also welcome.

Andreas.

It begins at home

[beforewisdom]

"This is an implicit call for participation for all those people inside and outside Debian who work on the same goal: Enhance the role of Debian as the missing link between upstream software developers and end users."

If Debian wants a link between upstream software developers and end users they should do a few more simple tasks first IMHO:

- get a real usenet group, not just a gated email list

- create a friendly user community that doesn't slam people for asking questions "improperly"

On the first point, debian-users is a huge, high traffic list that. Being able to pop into usenet is preferable for someone with only an occasional question. The gated list has failed.

On the second point, people can & do to get turned away from a product by rude encounters.

Yah, some people claim that is fine that they don't want "your kind of user", but the quote above belies the fact that the Debian project people want end users.

All of the excuses for slamming people are washed away by the simple fact that reading and posting on the internet is 100% voluntary.

If someone thinks a question is unworthy they should not waste their time by finishing reading it and they certainly shouldn't spend their time answering the question.

Doing and complaining,/i> about either given the voluntary nature of the internet makes them look like a mean loser.

It also drives the end users the Debian project people say they want away.

Steve Both of these points are about providing accessible help and support.

Re:It begins at home

[garcia]

get a real usenet group, not just a gated email list

As a pretty regular Linux user (Debian for several years) for 8 or so years, I wouldn't read Usenet ever... I don't see how that could help anything.

create a friendly user community that doesn't slam people for asking questions "improperly"

Let the third-party Debian distributions deal w/that. Debian users are a special breed. Just like RedHat and SuSE and various others. That's the great thing about Linux distributions. Don't like the community? Find something that is easier for you to use and has a more friendly envrionment.

Re:It begins at home

[xthor]

Don't like the community? Find something that is easier for you to use and has a more friendly envrionment.

I'm not sure I agree with this. Sure, fine, Distro X is too hard to use, try something else... but when a user posts a question to a community mailing list, the community shouldn't shun the user just because of the way (s)he posts the question. That's certainly not going to foster growth in the Linux movement.

Re:It begins at home

[garcia]

Nope, but does it matter in the long run? No. Not really. We, as Slashdotters, are not here to tell the Debian community how to run their shit.

Free market means that people will use what they feel comfortable with and that the better product should win over.

What they SHOULD do and what they WANT to do are two different things.

Re:It begins at home

[alptraum]

Let the third-party Debian distributions deal w/that. Debian users are a special breed.

I really get sick of this elitest crap, that somehow a specific group is somehow "special". Before going off to become an engineer, I used to be a hardcore Linux user of Slackware and Debian, wow big deal, it's a personal choice. I'm a grad level engineer and this is a big problem in engineering as well; all the engineers think their flavor of engineering is the most righteous and everybody else is stupid, rather than realizing they all compliment each other and work together.

When I have internships, it's even worse, It was really tiresome listening to the thin films guys talk crap about the lithography guys that talked crap about...it never ended and all it did was cause great amounts of inefficiency and backstabbing.

In the end, this whole "us" versus "them" mentality causes exactly the kinds of problems described above, users being chided for asking "stupid" questions, people refusing to cooperate, etc.

Microsoft doesn't have to fire a shot if the Linux community chops themselves to pieces.

Re:It begins at home

[Mephisto_kur]

Good Job! You have explained in just a few sentences why Linux has taken so long to start finally moving forward in the home desktop movement. YOU are why Open Source has failed for the past 4 decades. Thankfully, your breed won't be around much longer - at least that's the trend.

I'm a Debian User, and I avoid the Debian community as much as possible. The "Third party distributors" are the only thing keeping Linux alive. The last thing the OS world needs is a continuation of plumber's crack computer techs that act like users are beneath them. Get over yourself.

Re:It begins at home

[Heretik]

I'm a grad level engineer and this is a big problem in engineering as well; all the engineers think their flavor of engineering is the most righteous and everybody else is stupid

You're right, that is immature and stupid.

.... Computer Science is obviously the best, all engineering is stupid. :)

Re:It begins at home

[pyros]

Debian users are a special breed

The only 'special breed' in the Debian community is the dicks who think anyone who asks a question that should be obvious must have been conceived by a weak sperm. It has nothing to do with being a Debian guru and everything to do with some emotional insecurity. The kind of person who would maliciously tease a classmate who couldn't read. These sorts of people really do turn off newcomers from whatever group they're trying to get into.

I don't know what it is about debian, but I've never encountered people so resentful of simple question in any other distro, or application, community.

Re:It begins at home

[ChimaObialo]

Well, my school considers computer science a branch of engineering, so what you gotta say now, my fellow stupid?

Re:It begins at home

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been using Linux since '95 (Debian user since '96) and I don't agree.
I once subscribed to the debian-user mailing list (a couple years ago) and stayed on for a few months. Then I got tired of all the damn POP3 traffic taking up my disk I/O every time the cron job started. That mailing list is too damn big! Usenet servers can better accomodate huge traffic like that, not to mention it would save bandwidth (instead of everyone forced to receive every message... what a waste!)
Now when I have a problem and need help I post to generic Linux newsgroups instead!

Re:It begins at home

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a bad habit that needs to be broken. You'll need at least ten +5, Insightfuls to get the message across.

Re:It begins at home

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know what it is about debian, but I've never encountered people so resentful of simple question in any other distro, or application, community.

Two things...
Admittedly there are plenty of Debian assholes out there.. which is why I went to Libranet.
Secondly, people need to grow a thicker skin.

Re:It begins at home

[beforewisdom]

Let the third-party Debian distributions deal w/that. Debian users are a special breed

What makes them special?

My post made the point that they are simulataneously wanting a particular end and doing things to make that desired end not happen

There is a word for that and that word is not "smart" :).

Re:It begins at home

[gorre]

That your school is stupid of course. ;)

Re:It begins at home

[74nova]

clearly a flaw in your school, which makes my university superior.

Re:It begins at home

[110010001000]

"As a pretty regular Linux user (Debian for several years) for 8 or so years, I wouldn't read Usenet ever... I don't see how that could help anything."

Well, lets forget that idea then. After all if YOU wouldn't read Usenet it wouldn't work. How egocentric are you exactly?

Re:It begins at home

[mkro]

Of course, not everyone are at the same level of knowledge. There are small differences, and there are big differences.

There are people who might post a question regarding a firewire module failing to load after updating to kernel 2.6.x, posting dmesg output and whatnot, and you have those who post "Why will not Debian install on my computer, please e-mail me the answer!!". These postings can not co-exist in the same forum. There will simply be too much noise for the more skilled users to stay interested in participating. To put it on the edge, it is not like they get paid to sit there and answer questions five minutes of Google or a manual lookup can answer.

And moving it to Usenet? Yeah, that will make it easier. Finding threads worth reading will be as interesting as looking through your spambox for false positives.

Re:It begins at home

[Anonymous Coward]

Find something that is easier for you to use and has a more friendly envrionment.

See there you go with the debian attitude. If the user doesn't like debian it's not because there is something wrong with debian, it's becuase the user just isn't part of that elite breed of smart debian user. If a user dares ask a question obviuosly debian is just too hard for his feeble mind!

Why is it that people still think it's ok to blame a user for useability failure? You don't blame a user when their daemon crashes or there is an exploit in some software, that is the developers fault. Why is it that if only people with no life, job, friends, etc, actually have time to figure out the obscure shit required to use the thing properly it is somehow the users fault?

When you say "you just aren't special enough to use debian, go use a wimp distro" what you are really saying is "I have no life so spending 8 hours reading docs on saturday evening is no problem to me!".

Way to go winner, yes, you really are a "special breed" alright...

Re:It begins at home

[garcia]

Get over myself? What did I say that would make you think that I believe *I* am something special?

I suggest YOU get over YOURSELF and think about what I wrote.

I don't agree w/what they are doing but they are doing to themselves. I suggested that people move to the third-party developers. Isn't that what free markets supposedly do? People don't like one product because of whatever and it fails?

Re:It begins at home

[beforewisdom]

To put it on the edge, it is not like they get paid to sit there and answer questions five minutes of Google or a manual lookup can answer.

True, but nobody is forcing them to answer any questions.

If the find a question boring they can just ignore it.

The fact that they don't and that they are smart enough to know that the internet/irc/usenet is voluntary only leaves the reasons of immaturity/hostility/etc as a reason for slamming people.

Yah, Debian users are a "special breed" like the other poster mentioned.

Steve

Re:It begins at home

[dalutong]

I don't understand it. Maybe the script kiddies who have installed debian propagate that elitism, but most of us don't.

Debian is a distribution. It is a distribution that is community developed and based and one in which the contributers are proud. There is nothing wrong with that.

One of the general community values of using debian is the "militant" support of Free software. There is nothing wrong with beleiving in that.

When someone is a "special" breed, it does not mean that that person is "especially" good at something. It just means that we are a unique breed. Different. Different can be good or bad. It can also be indifferent.

I do not care what distribution people use. Or, rather, I do not hold grudges based on it. I do think that using Debian is good because it is both a good distribution and it supports values I hold dear.

It is no different than Americans wanting to live in America. Or racially tolerant people wanting to live in racially tollerant areas. Or book lovers liking to frequent libraries. Debian supports what I believe in, so I live there. If I had my way you would agree with me. That's part of what having a "value" does.

Some people don't care about these things. That's either a absense of a value concerning these issues or it is a value that opposes them.

That's okay too.

Just because the popular opinion is that people should only care about gratis and not about libre doesn't mean I have to agree with that. And just because you only care about gratis and not about libre doesn't mean you have to agree with me.

My point is that I don't think it is right to classify us as elitist. Some people come off a little too aggresively. I don't support that. I support dialogue so we can learn to respect one anothers values.

I respect this posters. I hope he can respect mine.

(And I hope he gives debian another go. It's a wonderful distribution that just thinks a little differently about releases and politics than some other distributions do. You don't have to agree. It's not a requirement. But please respect that.)

Re:It begins at home

[dasunt]

In the end, this whole "us" versus "them" mentality causes exactly the kinds of problems described above, users being chided for asking "stupid" questions, people refusing to cooperate, etc.

I don't see it as an us-vs-them fight. Its more of a difference of opinion.

There's this idea that GNU/Linux has to become the Next Windows or Next OS X. There's the idea that GNU/Linux has to be User Friendly, that it has to Cater to Newbies, and every application needs to be Useable without Reading the Man Page.

There's nothing wrong with that idea, and Mandrake is moving nicely in that direction (as is Redhat, and a few other distributions).

However, that doesn't mean that all distributions need to go in the same direction. Let Debian be Debian.

Sometimes, the goals of a project are not to clone Microsoft Windows.

As for "people asking stupid questions", I have asked plenty of stupid questions in the Debian community without repercussions.

The only people I've ever seen chided are those that are unwilling or unable to think and do for themselves. People who are unwilling to read a man page, or a section of the FAQ, who want step-by-step instructions on how to do a well-documented task.

Re:It begins at home

[dalutong]

Oh yeah. My sig is a joke. Maybe it isn't extreme enough.

It's something like "i know most people think that debian users are elitist, so i'll explode that sterotype." It is like this, "don't lecture me, I'm American!" The sterotype is that Americans are arrogant and so I'm playing on that sterotype. But it's a sterotype and not always true.

I should change it to make it more clear, but I haven't come up with a really good line yet.

Re:It begins at home

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahh, now that's my kind of geek.

Just because you are a geek doesn't mean you have to be a panzy or some kind of elitist weeny.

I do all the geek stuff, unix, irc, usenet, japanese rpgs, etc. but just because you do that stuff doesn't mean you have to be a frail wanker who takes out his frustrations on newbs on irc. In addition to the nerd stuff I still find time to workout, I can actually win fights and, shit, I even get laid sometimes...

Just because you are a geek doesn't mean you have to be a sniveling panzy fuck.

Shout out to all non-panzy/elitist geeks!

I guess to make up for the panziness they have to get a sense of "leetness" from dissing 2 days of experience noobs. That's like beating up a little kid, you should be ashamed of yourself. Attacking newbies is really just being a bully. Take your frustrations out at the gym and not on newbs trying to get started with linux.

Re:It begins at home

[BlueStrat]

I originally chose Debian as my very first linux OS install about 2 years ago. I liked the idea of a comepletely open-source, free OS. Still do. I'm a retired (medical disability) electronics tech, self-taught, except for a high-school vocational electronics class. Worked on everything from guitar amps to avionics systems in private/corporate jets. If it runs on electricity, I've probably had a job either designing it, building it, or fixing it. I'm not a software expert, but I'll put my basic troubleshooting skills and intuitive "feel" for machinery and equipment of any kind up against anyone, so I'm not technically illiterate by any means. I RTFM'ed my butt off, and got through the install. However, after being treated like a retarded child and ridiculed for asking a question that may have been obvious to a long-time Debian user, but wasn't covered well in the docs or man pages, I decided that the Debian community was just too elitist for me. It's sad, because I still think that Debian is technically an excellent distro, but I just refuse to be a party to the attitudes I found in the Debian community, and feel that by using Debian, I would be supporting the continuation of such elitist attitudes. I now use Mandrake and Gentoo, and have started teaching myself to code (still just a babe here, yet) and plan to eventually contribute to the above distros. The difference in attitudes is night-and-day. Debian lost a user, and a potential contributor/developer. The Debian community and developers have the right to conduct themselves and run things any way they want to. I have the right to pass them by. There are simply too many other excellent distros out there, with friendly, helpful people that are happy to share their knowledge and experience with newcomers without any elitism.

Re:It begins at home

[RdsArts]

Not to be a ass, but how is a Usenet group less exclusive then a mailing list? Both have a rather high geek level, and really keep many people from joining(for different reasons, mailinglists because of the volume, Usenet because most ISPs don't include free access).

If anything, Debian should be like Gentoo and have a official forum. Most people, no matter how new to computers, seem to get along OK with webforums. Hell, Yahoo! has them on news stories.

It would also take away the problem of high-volume mailing lists, and could give a nice email when someone replies to your question.

Re:It begins at home

[Captain Rotundo]

have you tried www.debianhelp.org ?
they may be rude sometimes, but ussually you get an answer you need.

Re:It begins at home

[Ilan Volow]

Special breeds often suffer from inbreeding.

Re:It begins at home

[Anonymous Coward]

Go to google.com and click on 'groups'. THere you can access newsgroups not carried by your ISP. Or if your ISP carries that particular group you can access it directly.
That's really the best of both worlds. No central repository subject to failures (which is what web bulleting boards are), and an archive of past threads for searching, or for those whose ISP doesn't carry a particular newsgroup.

Re:It begins at home

[Anonymous Coward]

If I'm more than a casual Linux user and I don't read Usenet how do you expect it to help out those that are new to it?

I'm not egocentric. I've got a clue.

Re:It begins at home

[Anonymous Coward]

(I'm not sure if official)
http://www.debianhelp.org/

Re:It begins at home

[Ugot2BkidNme]

"Microsoft doesn't have to fire a shot if the Linux community chops themselves to pieces."

So no us vs them in the *NIX community but its okin the *nix vs Windows???

Interesting.

Do as you say not as you do??

Re:It begins at home

[110010001000]

Er, because there are other clueful users that DO read Usenet? I don't understand your point. Are you saying that no clueful users read Usenet, or are you saying that you are the only one that has a clue? Mailing lists are so 80s.

Re:It begins at home

[Theolojin]

Let the third-party Debian distributions deal w/that. Debian users are a special breed.

I really get sick of this elitest crap, that somehow a specific group is somehow "special". Before going off to become an engineer, I used to be a hardcore Linux user of Slackware and Debian

you must be a fedora user now...

Re:It begins at home

[Anonymous Coward]

all the engineers think their flavor of engineering is the most righteous and everybody else is stupid, rather than realizing they all compliment each other and work together.

He must study Civil Engineering :-)

Re:It begins at home

[beforewisdom]

You don't have to subscribe a usenet group.

Subscribing to high volume mailing lists in not that attractive.

You can also search usenet groups with google as well as post/read it from the web.

Steve

What about the Debian distribution for lawyers?

[spiritraveller]

I remember reading about a Debian distribution for doctors and another one for lawyers.

Are those projects still in active development?

I would like to get involved in a distribution for lawyers... since I intend to become a lawyer before the year is up (taking the bar at the end of July).

Re:What about the Debian distribution for lawyers?

[bfree]

Debian-Junior
Debian-Med
Debian-Edu
DeMuDi
Debian-Desktop
Debian-Lex
Debian-NP
Debian-Accessibility

Re:What about the Debian distribution for lawyers?

[Anonymous Coward]

We're sorry to hear you'll be leaving the human race at the end of the year :(

Re:What about the Debian distribution for lawyers?

[jibx]

Try this link debian-lex

Re:What about the Debian distribution for lawyers?

[Long-EZ]

No need for a special distro for lawyers. Just install your favorite Debian based distro (I like Xandros).

Then:

apt-get install weasel
apt-get install moneygrubbing
apt-get install ambulancechaser

Re:What about the Debian distribution for lawyers?

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember reading about a Debian distribution for doctors and another one for lawyers.

Somebody please enlighten me. How are these remotely useful? It seems to me the sole reason behind them is "because we can" and not because of any actual need.

So imagine I am a doctor. I sit down at one computer, which is plain Debian. I sit down at another, which is Doctor Debian.

What does the latter do for me that the former doesn't? Is it simply a case of having a picture of a stethoscope as the wallpaper? Or is there an actual benefit? If it's a case of different applications being installed, why isn't it just a case of apt-get install doctor-apps?

Re:What about the Debian distribution for lawyers?

[skiflyer]

Where's Debian-Laptop! Where's Linux-Laptop-Made-Really-Easy for that matter. I want it, I love it... I can't stand my poor battery life and constantly breaking XServer and no wireless.

I know I know, it's my fault for not being good enough with linux, but I'm learning, and the laptop angle is continually eating my far to few hours and the like.

Waiting for SUSE 9.1, hoping that will save me some effort as I can go straight to the 2.6 Kernel and not have to worry about upgrading alot of the things that keep setting me back.

Re:What about the Debian distribution for lawyers?

[Anonymous Coward]

"debian-lex"... you think it's telling that I first read that as "lesbian sex"?

Re:What about the Debian distribution for lawyers?

[ciroknight]

uhh... UserLinux

Differences between custom and based?

[gmuslera]

There are a lot of distributions that are in a way or another "based" on debian (knoppix, mepis, xandros?, etc), whats the difference between those custom and the based on debian ones? Just the project that holds them? Is a technical difference or more like a political one?

Re:Differences between custom and based?

[Agent Orange]

well, usually they'll take a certain number of packages from the debian main, contrib, and non-free sections and roll them into a CD distro that is not something enormous (12CDs IIRC for the latest debian stable).

For example, knoppix is a single bootable CD with all the expected packages. They have a fancy default GUI interface (gnome or something like that), nice pretty installer (x86 support only though, not the zillion other archs that debian supports) and roll it all up into a single coherent, but smaller and more friendly, ball.

They try to provide most of the things that most people are likely to want. Knoppix (in our example) makes a nice try-before-you-buy or rescue-cd type thing. Good for newbies who want to fell the warm fuzzy debian way, but aren't quite ready for diving in yet.

So that's what debian-based means - parts of debian all rolled up into one.

Re:Differences between custom and based?

[GrnyS]

From the developer's perspective, by making a Custom Debian Distribution, my project, Debian Jr., can afford to focus strictly on making Debian better for children, and not have to worry about providing a whole new infrastructure that is necessary for a Debian derivative.

From the user's perspective, they are going right to the source for support and bug reporting, rather than filtering everything through a third party. They don't need to worry about whether package foo from Debian main will work with their Debian derivative or not. And if package foo *does* break, someone is actually on the hook for fixing it, whereas with a derivative you're likely to encounter this:

User: Package 'foo' is broken when I use it with Debian derivative 'bar'. Help!

Derivative developer: Sorry, that's your problem. We don't maintain 'foo'.

Debian developer: Sorry, that's your problem, I don't run 'bar', so I can't debug it.

--
synrg at debian dot org

Re:Differences between custom and based?

[GrnyS]

You can't differentiate the two by what they aim to provide. Custom Debian Distributions aim to provide "parts of debian all rolled up into one" as well. Ultimately, you will see CDDs with Knoppix "live CD" capabilities, which several of us have already expressed an interest in making a reality.

The big difference is that CDDs are entirely self-contained within Debian, with all of the benefits to developers and users that entails. (See my other comments in this thread.)
--
synrg at debian dot org

Re:Differences between custom and based?

[gnalle]

It sounds like a good idea, but I never understood why they choose the expression "custom distribution".

If they had chosen the expression subproject (or perhaps metapackage) then they could have avoided many misunderstandings.

By the way I am looking forward to see xpilot-ng in Debian-junior :)

Re:Differences between custom and based?

[GrnyS]

There was never 100% agreement about the "custom distribution" term, but it seems to be here to stay now.

The term "subproject" is too broad. There are many Debian subprojects (QA, X Strike Force, etc.) that aren't CDDs.

On the other hand, the term "metapackage" is too narrow. A metapackage is merely a package with no actual content, consisting just of a description, dependencies and minimal doc (changelog, copyright, README).

A CDD is more than that, since it is a complete solution for some set of users who want to use Debian in a particular situation, not just a metapackage. Thus, in CDD projects we try to address menus, groups, permissions, default configuration for applications, what material should be on a CDD install CD. What extra CDs (if any) could be provided, and so forth. On top of that, we're in constant dialogue with other groups of developers within Debian to try to make our work mesh with theirs. Thus, Debian Jr. has an interest in what is happening with Debian Edu., Debian Desktop, etc.

So, while some misunderstandings are inevitable with this term, I don't like either of your suggested alternatives, and I have a hard time thinking of any better term that both accurately describes what it is, and is readily understood by the uninitiated.

As for xpilot-ng in Debian Jr., we'll see how that goes in the coming year. Debian Jr. is pretty much now how it will be in sarge, since major changes in package dependencies messes with what goes onto what CD, something I don't think is welcome this late in the game.
--
synrg at debian dot org

Upstream developers?

[SunPin]

Just want to point out a subtle hypocrisy...

If Microsoft referred to themselves as "upstream developers", they'd have hell to pay.

Re:Upstream developers?

[Anonymous Coward]

An upstream developer is a fairly commonly used term amongst developers. It simply means the owner/maintainer author of some piece of software. For example, GNOME bugs in Red Hat's bugzilla database will be marked "fixed by upstream" or "forwarded to upstream developer", meaning the request was handled by the GNOME.org folks and not Red Hat.

So, what the blurb says is, Debian is the middle link between upstream developers (the people who write the packages), and the distro end users.

Anyone in the Debian group read this yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

LinuxWorld is saying:

This Gmail story promises to be one of the most widely discussed initiatives since the creation of the WWW itself. You can expect the Internet to be awash with it for a good time yet.Especially as there may be some copyrighting problems ahead for Google. Just look here:

Gmail is an experimental SQL-based vfolder email system, using MySQL as its back-end database, which allows for large volumes of mail, without risk of data loss. The vfolders (virtual folders) are implemented as SQL queries. A cache system keeps gmail fast.

Not from the Gmail site at all, but from the part of the Debian.org site devoted to a package known in full as gmail (0.7.5-2), GNOME mail client using SQL-based vfolders.

Debian just doesn't get it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Debian does *not* need to be creating distros for LAYWERS. What they do need:

1) ftp-able ISOs. No jigdo crap.

2) Recent updates. Something from the 21st century would be nice. Debian's "stable" is positively ancient.

3) If Debian wants more participants, then take a page from Linus -- lose the attitude. I want Linux, not a freakin' religion. We're peers, not apostles.

Randy

Re:Debian just doesn't get it.

[MrRuslan]

Recent update? Ever tried Sarge with some SID packeges...In some cases even more up to date Gentoo and not as easy to break...the "Stable" is just a title not a description...look at MS's Stables...

Re:Debian just doesn't get it.

[Anonymous Coward]

1) ftp-able ISOs. No jigdo crap.

I think BitTorrent would also be a good idea. To be more polite about it.

I want Linux, not a freakin' religion. We're peers, not apostles.

Oh, you already thought of BT. Good, then.

Re:Debian just doesn't get it.

[RedDirt]

Amen!

I've been trying to get Debian on a box for the last couple of days and have been having a heck of a time. Gee, I want to use XFS - so, I snag an XFS enabled installer. Oops, I also want to use LVM. Hmm, there are installers for that too, but none that support both. Well, I did find one but it doesn't support USB devices (like my keyboard). C'mon guys, use anaconda or yast or something. It's all open source.

Re:Debian just doesn't get it.

[samjam]

I think I'm a pretty good developer and very computer literate.

Jigdo isn't worth the time it takes to say it.

And why (0h why) do the debian installers insist on using stripped down kernels WITHOUT any compiled modules either? Whats the use of that?

For installation ISOs include nearly EVERY kernel module.

I had no end of trouble with debian and SID/Sarge installer BECAUSE the installation-time kernel had the right modules but the installed kernel didn't! I had to keep "recovering" from the installation CD to get a box with PCMCIA net drivers and spent ages trying to get a .deb (not udeb - what are udeb anyway) that had the right modules.

Yeah I could have downloaded the whole kernel source and compiled it on a P75 laptop with 80MB RAM but I didn't think it worthwhile.

Sam

Re:Debian just doesn't get it.

[danidude]

1) ftp-able ISOs. No jigdo crap.

Try this

2) Recent updates. Something from the 21st century would be nice. Debian's "stable" is positively ancient.

brainstorm:~# cat /etc/apt/sources.list deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian unstable main contrib non-free deb ftp://ftp.tux.org/pub/java/debian unstable main non-free brainstorm:~# dpkg -l kdebase ii kdebase 3.2.1-1 KDE Base .. brainstorm:~# Pretty recent, huh?

3) If Debian wants more participants, then take a page from Linus -- lose the attitude. I want Linux, not a freakin' religion. We're peers, not apostles.

Them just use it, man! U don't have to be an apostole to put the CD in the drive, intsall, boot and use it! It is a pretty damn good distro AND it worries about political/social questions, but if u don't care about that, fine, it stills a damn good distro!

Re:Debian just doesn't get it.

[Agent Orange]

actually, yast has only just become open source in the last few weeks (/. story here) - you expect something as mature and rock-solid stable as debian to drop in a completely new installer (that does NOT support the 10+ architectures that debian supports) in the space of two weeks? You're kidding right?

The installer problem is well known. But really, writing a pretty GUI interface to work on the wide variety of architectures that debian supports is no mean feat.

Would be nice to have a fancy GUI x86 option though. Might kill a lot of the whining. The installer is only meant ot ever be used once! That's the whole point of apt! want the latest version? apt-get dist-upgrade. No buying the latest *insert your favourite distro here* CDs and completely re-installing...

Re:Debian just doesn't get it.

[Agent Orange]

you mean ftp-able iso's like these?

Re:Debian just doesn't get it.

[MCZapf]

Having to maintain "Sarge with some SID packages" (which I do, btw) is not my idea of the optimal way to have a reasonably up-to-date system. It still requires too much intervention and monitoring from me. Maybe Debian needs a "semi-stable" version that includes point releases (and security updates), but avoids the major upgrades you can get using testing or unstable. That would be most useful for me personally.

Re:Debian just doesn't get it.

[HoldmyCauls]

I want Linux, not a freakin' religion.

Linux is what it is (Free), and will *remain* what it is, because of the "religion". Having religion doesn't mean you have to attack other people, but it does mean preserving yourself in your own beliefs, or finding ways to adapt them. GNU does not feel any need to adapt, and the results have been quite good: Linux, the GNU tools, Gaim, OO.o, GNOME, GIMP, Samba, Apache (which has a compatible license last I knew)...

I get a little bit tired of people criticizing this point. Without the religious fervor, without defending the GPL, none of these things would be able to maintain an Open-and-useful state. I would hope that most of the Americans among us would defend to the death the rights contained in the US, even if it were not popular to do so. I bet people thought our fore-persons were being anal then, too.

You wouldn't tell your local preacher to shut-up for being a {bible,torah,koran,*}-thumper, would you?

Re:Debian just doesn't get it.

[jshare]

As far as the "recent updates" goes, I suggest running your systems as a mix of stable (for ssh, or other internet-exposed services that you want security updates for) and unstable/testing.

Via the magic of apt-pinning you can install packages from later sources onto woody, with dependencies being met as needed to install them.

It really makes it easier to run a secure ssh box, but get the most recent aptitude (for example).

Re:Debian just doesn't get it.

[merdark]

This is just asking for problems. I tried this, and before long my box had incompatabilities up the wazzu. Finnaly, it really borked itself and I went to a pure testing install, which borks itself considerbly less, but also makes me wary of running internet servers on it. Even small ones.

Re:Debian just doesn't get it.

[merdark]

I get a little bit tired of people criticizing this point. Without the religious fervor, without defending the GPL, none of these things would be able to maintain an Open-and-useful state.

Then why are the BSDs in an open and useful state? You have the typical myopia associated with religion, or since people like to point out no god is invovled here, cult.

You wouldn't tell your local preacher to shut-up for being a {bible,torah,koran,*}-thumper, would you?

If they stay in their church on preach only to the brainwashed, no. But if they go door to door and send messages to governments trying to convice them to officially follow the religion, then hell yeah I'll tell them to shut up!

Re:Debian just doesn't get it.

[ogre57]

What they do need: 1) ftp-able ISOs. No jigdo crap.

You mean like this one, or would you prefer a different mirror.

2) Recent updates. Something from the 21st century would be nice.

Well, could be wrong, but looks like gnome 2.6.0 packages began appearing on 3/27 for x86, and yesterday for power pc. How much more recent do you want? (does any other distro have gnome 2.6 yet?)

Debian's "stable" is positively ancient.

True, and I'm not happy about it either. But as I understand it consensus last summer was to wait on the new installer. Holdup seems to be getting folks to test it on all the different platforms Debian supports. Meanwhile Debian's "testing" is more stable than most folks releases; hell, so's their "unstable" for that matter.

Last I read Debian hopes to release "Sarge" this summer. You can help that happen by testing the installer.

Re:Debian just doesn't get it.

[bjarvis354]

Funny. I installed Debian Stable on my Apple Powerbook in about an hour. Then I changed my apt sources to unstable and ran "apt-get dist-upgrade" and had a nice current Debian Sid install in a few hours. Then I configured, compiled and dropped in my 2.6.4 kernel...Got Mac OS X running in Mac-on-Linux...Not hard really. But with Redhat I bet it would have been a nightmare.

Re:Debian just doesn't get it.

[RedDirt]

Yeah, I know yast has only been available as open-source for the last week or so. I guess I really don't care if all the hand-holding of a GUI is present, I just want to be able to boot up a CD, partition and format my drive and then load the software. Even the do-it-yourself approach of Gentoo would work for me. Just make it possible for me to setup my disk(s) properly and then run the installer to fill up the space. That's really all I want. Right now, Debian doesn't seem to want me to do that. :/

Re:Debian just doesn't get it.

[misleb]

Huh? Lose the aptitude? No way!

Oh, wait, you said "attitude."

-matthew

Re:Debian just doesn't get it.

[GreyWolf3000]

Then why are the BSDs in an open and useful state? You have the typical myopia associated with religion, or since people like to point out no god is invovled here, cult.

I don't think the parent wasn't arguing that the FOSS movement wouldn't be possible without GPL defenders, just that if people now didn't defend the GPL, it would get trampled on.

About the myopia, that's not a statement of fact--it's just a feeling that you get when you think of "religion." Somehow, people of all sorts of faith are thought of as being less "logical" than those without faith, and then it becomes assumed that those who do not believe an anything unscientific are a bit more "open minded" and able to see the world with a bit more pragmatism and reason. If you give it more than a passing thought, you'll see how myopic that line of thinking truly is. If they stay in their church on preach only to the brainwashed, no.

By publicly calling the people inside the {church,mosque,synagogue,*} brainwashed, and therein implying that life outside is somehow free of this brainwashing, you've pushed your own views equally dogmatically, with even less to back yourself up than the {bible,torah,koran,*}-thumpers.

Our views on the matter are irrelevant here; I'm simply pointing out that you're using someone else's discussion as a springboard for a thoughtless "jab" of your own.

No one is telling governments to "follow" any religion, but since we all have equal say in the government, anyone citizen with his own idea of how the government should be run has the ability to make change as he and like-minded others see fit, insofar as said change is ruled as constitutional by the Supreme Court.

Instead of whining on Slashdot, I suggest that you get together a group of people and go "door to door" and show people your own point of view--it's equally as valid.

Re:Debian just doesn't get it.

[dalutong]

Debian's next stable release (due soon) has a nicer installer. I've used it on my laptop. Loved it. I don't do xfs so I don't know about that though. I also don't use lvm.

I can see the difficulty it would present. I would think that it would be a problem no matter where you were, though. XFS and LVM are not part of the standard kernel. I can't really suggest anything except doing an XFS setup first and then getting (maybe having to compile, but compiling in debian is nice. howtos abound.) an xfs and lvm kernel.

But try the debian-installer beta 3 (the lastest.)

I think I read that the default kernel used i the installer beta 3 has lvm and xfs included.

I wish you luck! Email me if you have any more questions. I am no expert, but I'm a debian user and very willing to help.

Re:Debian just doesn't get it.

[RedDirt]

I'm trying the beta3 installer at the moment. I first tried the nightly snapshot, but the kernel in that image wasn't configured to allow DHCP. ::boggle::

As far as XFS and LVM goes, LVM has been standard since at least the mid 2.4s and XFS since the late 2.4s (2.4.24 was when it was included as far as I remember, tho I'd need to go back through Marcello's release announcements to be certain).

I've no real complaint about XFS since I'm used to using an unofficial installer (SGI's for RedHat), but LVM ... that's pretty basic stuff there.

Re:Debian just doesn't get it.

[alexpage]

Mixing binary packages works, but is generally held to be asking for trouble sooner or later. However, it's normally a matter of two commands to "backport" a package from a more recent branch like testing or unstable, which will compile them against the stable libraries. There are also tools like apt-src to help with this.

Re:Debian just doesn't get it.

[RedDirt]

If my "needs" were a bit simpler, I'm sure it'd be a lot more smooth. It's just that I've gotten used to a few of the more esoteric things that RedHat (more accuratlely, RedHat + SGI) makes easily available. Volume management is something that I cannot live without anymore. It's also nice to have a filesystem that allows me to shrink/grow volumes (hence XFS). ::shrug:: I guess having Veritas' filesystem and volume management tools at work has spoiled me. :)

Re:Debian just doesn't get it.

[Ih8sG8s]

Wow, I think this thread, and more specifically the parent post, illustrates beautifully why in nearly twelve years of Linux use, I have never found Debian palatable.

Elitism unleashed. Everything but everything boils down to philosophical self affirming debate.

The ball is blue.

T'isn't.

Yes, it is. I'm looking right at it.

That, of course, would depend on your ability to perceive reality in your current state. It appears as though, perhaps, because of your lack of understanding of my point of view (which is correct), that you are not capable of perceiving the colour of the ball, because your beliefs regarding "colour" are incorrect. You believe that the ball is blue, but it is green. You cannot identify the colour correctly because you have never learned green from blue. This axiom has limited your ability to perceive colour as it should be perceived, according to the Debian philosophy.

OK, never mind.

Will you be furnishing more examples?

Re:Debian just doesn't get it.

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

Heh, I learned the hard way about Debian kernels. Installed Woody and apt-getted a new kernel that didn't contain my (bog-standard) ethernet driver. Also, the default fonts sucked ass. So, I wiped the install and went with Mandrake 9.1 instead. Maybe I'll consider Debian next time I upgrade, but at the moment I'm looking at Gentoo instead.

Re:Debian just doesn't get it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Around 70% of the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) out there is GPLed. Most of the development energy in the FOSS community is focussed on GPLed software suites. The BSDs wouldn't be nearly as far along without, say, compilers. Like gcc, which is GPLed. Much of the development going into gcc would have been locked up by the developers if they'd had that option. Think of an embedded chip builder - they could ship a gcc "ported" to their chip, but not ship source. Many would, and any general enhancements (other than the actual port) would also be lost to the community.

Many individuals don't like wasting their time on non-GPL projects. Given a choice, they want their code to be free and not end up locked into someone else's proprietary codebase. The GPL is for these folks, and they make up the bulk of the community. You, as an end-user, don't get to choose how we, the developers, license our code. The BSDs have chosen one license for their kernel, the Linux developers another. Most of the actual distributions sitting on top of each are the same, made up of a thousand or more projects, and all licensed by different authors, but uniform across platforms (same license, GPL or otherwise on either *BSD or the various Linux distributions).

You can express your opinion though, and can even express your outrage at other people expressing their opinions (what you call religeon). Debian though is just acting in their own best self interest - the larger the Debian user community, the more of those users will in turn become developers (or hire developers), and Debian grows and improves as a result.

Exactly why you're criticizing Debian for following the law and relicensing code as permitted by the many upstream authors is a bit of a mystery. Criticizing the more strident Debian enthusiasts might be called for, but do you really think it's going to have any effect?

Re:Debian just doesn't get it.

[witts]

Here's my experience from a few weeks ago. I tried to do a hd-install with Knoppix, and it worked, but it clearly wasn't pretty & clean, and I had several errors trying to use apt-get under Knoppix. So, I got the Debian net-install CD and installed Debian over the Knoppix. Folks, that installer might work on 11 different platforms, but it sucks the hind-most teet. To be fair, I got through it on my first try, which is more than other people with sys admin skills have been able to do, based on postings on /. and usenet, so I'm ahead of the curve, I guess.
The Debian install did NOT configure my Soundblaster Live soundcard, pissing me off quite a bit. apt-get worked, sort of. I decided if the much heralded dist-upgrade command sequence worked to upgrade to unstable I would become a Debian zealot and forgive the soundcard hassle. It upgraded to KDE 3.2.something, but borked my computer. It was dead slow on top of everything.
So tried Mandrake's urpmi and upgraded 9.1 to 9.2 with no problems & much faster than apt-get. Then the upgrade from 9.2 to 10.0 community release...Didn't quite work at first. Lots of errors with files not downloading (ftp server was clogged). But the damn thing worked after a reboot, it wasn't borked like Debian. And after changing to a better urpmi mirror, I tried the upgrade to 10.0 and it worked. Folks, urpmi is the biggest secret in the Linux world. Some of you Debian zealots should give it a try sometime, it seems to be more reliable in my experience, but YMMV. So I don't really feel like converting to Debian and I'm learning & loving Mandrake's urpmi instead.

Re:Debian just doesn't get it.

[dalutong]

First -- I envy your user number.

Second -- When I saw the release notice for debian installer beta 3 (on debian planet) i could have sworn I saw it say that this kernel (2.4.25) has xfs and lvm built in. I know there is also a iso for xfs, so the article might have meant that. I don't know.

As for DHCP... i don't know what to tell you. I've installed using the mini (3mb) and 100+mb iso wirelessly using DHCP to find my address. I have to assume it was with the nightly.

I wish you luck.

Re:Debian just doesn't get it.

[GreyWolf3000]

Wow, I think this thread, and more specifically the parent post, illustrates beautifully why in nearly twelve years of Linux use, I have never found Debian palatable.

Whoa there--I didn't mean to say that Debian was right here, just that I really didn't agree with the parent to which I was responding. I don't even use Debian, and I'm trying hard not to come off as seeming "bigoted" here.

The point of my post was that criticisms of Debian often resort to an analogy between the strict doctrines of "free software" enforced and propogated by the developers of Debian and the many religions of the world. Often times Debian developers feel frustrated that the world just doesn't "get it" when it comes to software freedom and need to spread their values to everyone else in order to preserve it. I'll admit, there is some validity there.

The parent to which I was responding basically implied that since religions are stupid because followers dogmatically embrace nonsense, presumably to be controlled by the leaders of their particular following (that is what is meant by the term "brainwashing"), Debian must commit the same injustice, simply because it resembles a "religion."

Not only is this a logical fallacy, but it is purposefully grafting the parent's world view onto the situation in order to thrust his feelings into the limelight.

I agree, Debian developers get a bit anal about their "freedom" sometimes. I don't see the right to modify software as intrinsic by any stretch of the imagination, so it doesn't seem to follow that software has a moral responsibility to be free.

That being said, I like the benefits that FOSS offers, and I choose it over proprietary consistently, because I enjoy the OSS software world more.

Again, in debating Debian philosophy, we will invariably end up discussing our own--my big beef with the original parent is that he basically just called religion stupid, made a link between Debian developers and religious "quacks," and felt like his work was done.

I personally have never successfully installed Debian. dselect always got me, and I'm not a real "newb" to Linux. This weekend I might try rebuilding my system using dpkg and see what I come up with.

Will you be furnishing more examples?

For what?

Re:Debian just doesn't get it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Meanwhile Debian's "testing" is more stable than most folks releases; hell, so's their "unstable" for that matter.

After 3 years of using unstable I wish every OS/distro was as unstable as that. I've never had a single problem. Ever. Debian++

Re:Debian just doesn't get it.

[samjam]

I'm still going with debian for now, I just can't fathom some of the decisions.

Sam

Re:Debian just doesn't get it.

[Phleg]

I had no end of trouble with debian and SID/Sarge installer BECAUSE the installation-time kernel had the right modules but the installed kernel didn't!

The Debian installer installs the same kernel that it boots from...

Re:Debian just doesn't get it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but that's a very poor answer! The guy was talking about STABLE. You should know that Unstable is subject to breakage occasionally, and, most importantly is NOT supported by the Security Team.

As a result, it's not usable on real-world productivity machines. When your boss asks why the webserver was cracked, do you want to say "Oh, I'm running Debian unstable, but stable had the fix a few days ago..."

Re:Debian just doesn't get it.

[Anonymous Coward]

the packages in stable is always the first to get security updates, so you must be silly if you mix inn other stuff to get a secure ssh-server...

Re:Debian just doesn't get it.

[krmt]

The Debian install did NOT configure my Soundblaster Live soundcard, pissing me off quite a bit.

The new installer for sarge, currently in beta3, will detect and set up your sound card just fine. The installer has been rewritten from scrath and is much improved. Trust me, we've all been aware of how much the old installer sucked, which is why it's been rewritten.

I decided if the much heralded dist-upgrade command sequence worked to upgrade to unstable I would become a Debian zealot and forgive the soundcard hassle. It upgraded to KDE 3.2.something, but borked my computer.

That could be a for any number of reasons. One is that unstable is unstable, and development versions don't always work as expected on that particular day. You probably would have been better off with a backport. Also, for future reference, apt-get isn't really equipped to handle a major upgrade for a couple of reasons. Much of the propaganda surrounding it is far overrated. You're much better off with a more functional apt frontend like aptitude or synaptic.

Finally, apt isn't all it's cracked up to be. It's just a package management system. The real benefit of Debian is in the quality of the packages themselves. urpmi is no different in this regard. You went from one stable version of Mandrake to another stable version of Mandrake with no hassles. Apt can do the same thing, but you went from a stable version of Debian to a development version and caught unstable on what was probably a bad day. The real issue in this regard is slow releases, but backports are there to help with that. I'm glad you're happy with Mandrake though (it's a great distro) and hopefully you'll try Debian again one day.

Re:Debian just doesn't get it.

[merdark]

You, as an end-user, don't get to choose how we, the developers, license our code.

Ahh, but I, as a developer, DO get to choose the licensing for my own code. I don't waste my time making GPL libraries that only GPL users will use.

And I can flip your argument right around. Linux wouldn't be anywhere without BSD/MIT licensed software such as say XFree86, And I'd even be so bold as to say the internet would not be where it is today if the original TCP/IP stack was not released under the BSD license. This allowed all the corporations to easily pick up a standardized stack (originaly) so that the internet could take shape. It also provided a reference implementation to do regression testing of rewrites on.

Exactly why you're criticizing Debian for following the law and relicensing code as permitted by the many upstream authors is a bit of a mystery.

I'm not really, but I find the whole "holier than thou" attitude many debian supporters have highly distastfull.

Criticizing the more strident Debian enthusiasts might be called for, but do you really think it's going to have any effect?

Alas no, but at least others who are not GPL crazed will see that they are not alone.

Re:Debian just doesn't get it.

[merdark]

I don't think the parent wasn't arguing that the FOSS movement wouldn't be possible without GPL defenders, just that if people now didn't defend the GPL, it would get trampled on.

Well, the parent could have said exactly that then. But he/she didn't, and I didn't read it that way.

Somehow, people of all sorts of faith are thought of as being less "logical" than those without faith, and then it becomes assumed that those who do not believe an anything unscientific are a bit more "open minded" and able to see the world with a bit more pragmatism and reason. If you give it more than a passing thought, you'll see how myopic that line of thinking truly is.

Huh? Are you suggesting that abandoning reason will somehow make one *more* logical? Not having a faith cannot make one "less open minded". This is getting quite off topic at any rate.

By publicly calling the people inside the {church,mosque,synagogue,*} brainwashed, and therein implying that life outside is somehow free of this brainwashing, you've pushed your own views equally dogmatically, with even less to back yourself up than the {bible,torah,koran,*}-thumpers.

Well, the point of this thread is not to debate whether the major religions use brainwashing, so I didn't elaborate. But it's not from a lack of evidence I assure you.

Instead of whining on Slashdot, I suggest that you get together a group of people and go "door to door" and show people your own point of view--it's equally as valid.

HUH?!?! I'm not trying to push an agenda on people, I'm only complaining about others trying to push theirs on the world. This is the whole point! I don't want to be harassed about someone's pernsonal version of morality. I want a functional system. Hence debian would do far better without the attitude. Thanks for proving my point.

Re:Debian just doesn't get it.

[Anonymous Coward]

And I'll tell Microsoft and RedHat to shut up. If we have to have nutcases managing the OSes that governments run, I'd rather not have the Microsoft psychopaths being it (see Ballmers 'Developers' speech and his dancing on stage- pumping his fist up and down, looking like Stalin) or RedHat (well, mainly I don't like them cos of RPM and various delivery mechanisms being used instead of superior dpkg and apt tools).

Re:Debian just doesn't get it.

[samjam]

The Debian installer installs the same kernel that it boots from...

Well then it missed the loadable network modules that had been loaded during installation. This is something redhat gets right with the init ram disk stools.

Sam

Re:Debian just doesn't get it.

[GreyWolf3000]

I think we actually agree when it comes to Debian, and that's the only part that actually matters.

Well, the parent could have said exactly that then. But he/she didn't, and I didn't read it that way.

True.

Huh? Are you suggesting that abandoning reason will somehow make one *more* logical? Not having a faith cannot make one "less open minded". This is getting quite off topic at any rate.

Loaded question. Am I abandoning reason? Strictly speaking, belief in anything is only an abandonment of reason when the belief is in direct disagreement with accepable truths that we commonly perceive. Not all religions fall under that category (in fact, none of the particularly popular ones do. Mormonism and Scientology are good exceptions).

Well, the point of this thread is not to debate whether the major religions use brainwashing, so I didn't elaborate. But it's not from a lack of evidence I assure you.

I agree, that isn't the point of the thread. Even if you were to establish that all religions engage in brainwashing, brainwashing would not be relevant to Debian. However, I still maintain that since the link wasn't relevant, you were pushing your own ideology.

HUH?!?! I'm not trying to push an agenda on people, I'm only complaining about others trying to push theirs on the world. This is the whole point! I don't want to be harassed about someone's pernsonal version of morality. I want a functional system. Hence debian would do far better without the attitude. Thanks for proving my point.

You were trying to push an agenda on people. You claimed that major religions used brainwashing. Of course, that isn't relevant to Debian, but I just thought it odd that you were so up in arms about Debian pushing an agenda while you pushed your own.

I agree about Debian whole-heartedly--software isn't a religion, and the stance on freedom of the end user is unimportant.

Re:Debian just doesn't get it.

[merdark]

You were trying to push an agenda on people. You claimed that major religions used brainwashing. Of course, that isn't relevant to Debian, but I just thought it odd that you were so up in arms about Debian pushing an agenda while you pushed your own.

You're right, that statement was asking for trouble. I happen to have met someone recently who was Mormon, which is probably the why that came to mind so quickly. It's definatly true that the more popular religions are not necessarily illogical.

Expressing one's self accuratly online can be quite challenging at times.

Re:Debian just doesn't get it.

[GreyWolf3000]

Expressing one's self accuratly online can be quite challenging at times.

I agree. It doesn't help when you have people like me running around trying to be "right" all the time and picking on subpoints when we ever agree with the person we're on the other hand arguing with. I'll accept half the blame here too.

Re:Debian just doesn't get it.

[Ben Urban]

Linux wouldn't be anywhere without BSD/MIT licensed software such as say XFree86,

The GNU project would have written its own windowing system if XFree86 had not been around or had not been free. And we wouldn't have all these issues with NVIDIA and ATI about their drivers had GNU written a windowing system (they would've used the GPL to prevent it).

Re:Debian just doesn't get it.

[djcapelis]

From Gentoo's Portage:

gnome-base/gnome
Latest version available: 2.6
Latest version installed: 2.6
Size of downloaded files: 0 kB
Homepage: http://www.gnome.org/
Description: Meta package for the GNOME desktop.
License: as-is

Think it's been there for a few weeks too... they usually have the ebuilds up before the sourcecode actually comes out, when the source is released, they unmask and everyone lets their machines roll and build.

Debian continues to improve!

[Bodhammer]

I started with Slackware in the mid-90's, moved to RedHat for 5-7.3 and started using Debian last year.

I've been very impressed with the stability and with apt. I do wish that Debian had a little quicker package release but at the price, I really can't complain too much.

Yesterday I had a another wonderful experience during an install. We have an old Dell PowerEdge 2000 PIII 450 w/ Perc/SC2 raid. I was having trouble getting it going under the Woody install. For grins, I decided to try the Sarge installer . EVERYTHING just worked! It saw the Intel EEPro100 and the RAID controller - both of these were problematic under Woody.

Of course I would like a faster release and better hardware detection during install. Kudzu with Knoppix does work well. Packages that I want to run right now are still not packaged in .deb (Zope 2.7, Plone 2.0)but it's not a show-stopper.

The bottom line, Debian has the true open-source community and distribution. It has excellect quality control. It has excellent responsiveness to security issues. Debian has the potential to be the "one true distribution" and Sarge is looking very good!

Re:Debian continues to improve!

[Simon Lyngshede]

I must say, I've been less than impressed by the installer in Sarge. Installing Debian is still a bitch, but when you have up and running it is perfect, thanks to apt-get. Im not say that Debian should get a shiny graphical installer, but they should focus on making something simpler, like the OpenBSD installer (yes, I think that is an amazingly simple and easy to use installer). Or they could snatch Slackwares installer.

As much as I like Debian, I would hate to see it as the "one true distribution", it is to big and to complex. In my opinion.

Re:Debian continues to improve!

[bogie]

"Debian has the potential to be the "one true distribution" "

Not as long as many Debian users continue to think like this. The elitist attitude is still there and the price of entry ie horrible newbie unfriendly installer present a high barrier of entry.

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1026 83&cid=8747288

In many ways I feel that Debian is the most important Linux distro. It is now and will forever be Open Source. There are a ton of volunteers and it is mostly Free from commerical influence. But ease of install and a sometimes elitist hacker community continue to hold it back. Look at the guy I quoted above. His attitude is that Debian users are "special" and that if you don't like them go away. That's the type of attitude that forces people to distros like Mandrake, Lindows, Xandros etc in droves.

Of course there are many helpful Debian users out there but being that Debian is a little hard to get used to begin with whenever someone makes a post like that it just turns people off to Debian in general.

Debian sat around too long while all the other distros became moron proof to install and easy to maintain with nice gui tools. I can only hope that the new installer combined with the Gnome System Tools finally lets Debian reach parity with some of the other distros out there. I'd hate to see in 2010 most Linux users running proprietary distros like Lindows because mainline Debian is still a pain to install and maintain for the average user.

Re:Debian continues to improve!

[Hooya]

try this

Re:Debian continues to improve!

[krmt]

Could you be more specific? How could the install be simpler? If you just use the installer in basic ways (like using pre-supplied partition schemes and tasksel) you can get a full Debian install pretty easily at present.

Re:Debian continues to improve!

[Bodhammer]

I don't this your post should be off topic but I do wnat to respond to your mischaracterzations of my points.

My comments about "one true linux" are not meant to be elitist. Linux in my mind should be primarly open source and primarily developed by volunteers. The path of linux should follow the needs of the people who are willing to develop, test, and volunteer on the project. RedHat, Mandrake, Suse, etc. are trying to drive Linux to commercial sucess - RedHat esp.

In some respects, I don't want Linux to get to idiot/moron proof. Linux/Unix/Computers are tools, you should learn about them before you use them for important things. Linux should be ubiquitous like cars but we will still have driving lessons.

As for Debian being hard to install, I strongly disagree. I have found it easier than Redhat. There are many good install guides. The most trouble people have is hardware. I don't think it is too much of a request to ask people to know what computer they have. Again, you don't go the auto parts store without knowing what year, brand, model you have when you buy an oil filter do you?

For install guides, I found these the most helpful for understanding the Debian Way for install and kernel. It didn't take that much effort to understand.

This is not meant as flamebait but if a user does not what to spend the time to understand what they are doing and a basic understanding of the computer and system they should stick with XP and Windows Update.

Re:Debian continues to improve!

[sava]

I do wish that Debian had a little quicker package release ...

That's why it is stable. :)

Re:Debian continues to improve!

[RisingSon]

Installing Debian is still a bitch

True if you haven't done it before. True if you don't know your hardware or are using very new hardware. Otherwise, installing Debian is extremely simple. 11 keystrokes simple.

Re:Debian continues to improve!

[TheCrazyFinn]

Do what I do. Use Bluewall as a Live CD.

It's not for the faint of heart, but it will get you up and online in 20 minutes or so. Then apt-get your way to what you want.

Of course, you do need to write your own fstab,mtab and lilo.conf. As well as manually untarring a couple of tarballs onto your HDD. But it beats using dselect anyday.

Compare with Gentoo

[spiritraveller]

... another l337 distro. But it has an extremely user-friendly and helpful web forum forums.gentoo.org.

The Gentoo forum attracts new users because it is an easy and user-friendly way to get help... it is also nicely designed. It doesn't require approval by a moderator to ask a question.

The Debian answer to every complaint is basically "this is free, we don't have to please you." Which is certainly true and understandable. But Gentoo is just as free.

So I recommend Gentoo to people who want to learn Linux... later, after they don't need help anymore, they can always switch to Debian.

Even though I use Debian now, I still go to the Gentoo forums to look for how-tos and other information that is not specific to that distro.

Come to think of it, Gentoo's documentation is a lot more easy to deal with too.

And what's with the Spartan Debian web site? Is it being plain for plain's sake?

Let the flames begin.

Re:Compare with Gentoo

[7-Vodka]

I use both debian and gentoo.
One of the MAJOR advantages of gentoo is that it's easy to sit down for 20 minutes, learn how to create your own ebuilds, make one in 5 minutes and have it accepted the same day.
Debian just sucks for this.

Re:Compare with Gentoo

[GreyWolf3000]

I've learned how to build packages for many different systems. RedHat is pretty tough, Crux and Arch are easy. I don't know about Gentoo, but I'd imagine it'd be a bit tougher than Crux (given that there is significantly more power there).

In Gentoo, you encounter things like USE flags when you simply use it enough, so you basically get most of the training for writing packages while using it.

Debian and Gentoo both have a history of really zealous users that like to tell the whole world how great their distribution is--I'm starting to mind this less and less. The package systems for both are really cool.

Perhaps it's time for a new .sig?

Re:Compare with Gentoo

[_Laban_]

Actually, a new package intended to help Gentoo users switch to Debian was announced on debian-devel yesterday:

Package name : apt-gentoo
Version : 0.0.1
* URL : http://www-jcsu.jesus.cam.ac.uk/~mma29/apt-gentoo/
* License : GPL version 2 or above
Description : enhanced package installation

apt-gentoo enhances the Debian package installation experience to make
it fully competitive with newly-popular source-based distributions.

As packages are installed, apt-gentoo automatically downloads their
build logs from the buildd network. The logs are then slowly scrolled
past on the user's terminal to simulate building the software on the
local machine.

apt-gentoo optionally, and by default, gives increased realism by
spinning the CPU in a tight loop between build log lines, and writing
large files to disk.

An additional utility apt-gentoo-benchmark is included to tune the
delay loops for your hardware by finding the length of time taken by
typical compiler and linker runs. (On slow or low-memory hardware we
recommend leaving these values at their defaults.)

A preliminary package of apt-gentoo is available at
http://www-jcsu.jesus.cam.ac.uk/~mma29/apt-gentoo/

Re:Compare with Gentoo

[Phleg]

It does?

Under Debian, I haven't ever had to create my own package--there are over ten thousand, and I have yet to find a package that I need which isn't in the Debian repository. And due to their policies, there are official and active maintainers for every package, which means that there's somebody to go to for bugfixes and policy violations, and it's being updated on a fairly regular basis.

If you do need to create a package, it's not at all hard to create a .deb file. The only thing required of you to become a Debian developer beyond what Gentoo requires is essentially a committment to work on the package and a signature on your GPG key from another Debian developer, ensuring to some extent that you are who you say you are. If you're not willing to take those steps, I doubt I'd feel secure in using your packages.

Re:Compare with Gentoo

[DA-MAN]

Debian and Gentoo both have a history of really zealous users that like to tell the whole world how great their distribution is--I'm starting to mind this less and less. The package systems for both are really cool.

What is really the difference between a .deb and a .rpm? I'm not knocking .deb, because I have very little experience with it other than a user standpoint, while I have built a great many rpm packages.

I just want to know. apt is available for both .deb and .rpm, I don't see what one package does that the other doesn't.

Re:Compare with Gentoo

[7-Vodka]

dude, I'm not a zealot for gentoo, in fact I would consider myself a debian proponent. I actually don't use gentoo anymore.

The point I was trying to make is that with gentoo, you can see a new small software package and throw together an ebuild and get it in the distribution right away. From this point forth, anyone else using gentoo can just emerge packagename and start using it. When the package has a minor update you can change the ebuild and resubmit it in 1 minute flat. Boom, the updated package is in the distro the same day it came out and anyone emerging it will get the new version. Creating packages and maintaining them is much less labour intensive.

This leads to gentoo having much more software packaged and ready to go, more versions of each package and more current software all the time.

That's not the only criterion one uses to judge a distro, hence my use of debian now. But it's an important one.

Re:Compare with Gentoo

[GreyWolf3000]

I didn't imply that you were.

I like Debian's idea of stable, testing, and unstable, but it seems like even unstable is too tough to push updates in. Debian perhaps needs to be more lax about what gets into unstable, and more rigid about stable and testing.

Implicit call?

[Anonymous Coward]

"This is an implicit call for participation for all those people inside and outside Debian who work on the same goal..."

What the heck is an "implicit call for participation"?

I assume he means "explicit call for participation".

(Yeah, I know, welcome to Slashdot, yada yada ya...)

Debian needs a subdistro with less archs

[ponds]

The main beef that people have with Debian is the dated packages.

While most of the trolls from Gentoo Zealots (No attack vs Gentoo here, I'm a Gentoo user myself) and the like are unfounded because they speak vs packages in Woody; there are still a ton of packages in sarge and sid that are less than current.

The problem with this is not the fault of the Debian Developers, it's the fact that Debian supports a vast number of architectures as well as a vast number of packages, causing QUITE alot to update, even with a minor version number change on one package.

NetBSD is the only platform other than debian to successfully nearly this many architectures. The way that NetBSD does it is source packaging; I do not think that this is the way for debian to go.

What needs to happen is a project to support Debian for a few platforms: the x86, the PPC, the sparc, and maybe two or three others. Classic Debian would run parallel to this, and obscure archs would still be supported.

Two new package trees, called something like desktop-sarge and desktop-sid, would be mirrors of the sid and sarge trees, but only support the major archs. This way, a DD doesn't have to compile vs 37 or whatever archs before he updates his package; the new version would come out for the major archs early, and the obscure archs could wait until however long it took.

Instead of everyone waiting for months.

Re:Debian needs a subdistro with less archs

[uhoreg]

DDs don't have to compile for all archs. Debian has autobuilders. All that the DD has to do is make sure that the package is compilable on all archs (which usually just means uploading the source package to the archive and waiting for the bug reports to roll in). Unfortunately, some of the autobuilders are slow and overloaded.

Re:Debian needs a subdistro with less archs

[GreyWolf3000]

What would be cool is to have apt optionally point to source repositories. I don't know much about Debian, but having had to figure out how to package for a number of different systems, it's all pretty much the same.

If you could point to source repositories, daring end users could download the source packages when they hit a new version, bump up the number, see if it works untweaked, fix it if not, and send the info back to the maintainer.

There are 3 types of users for a distro--developers and maintainers, power users, and end users. Debian makes a big mistake (IMO) by not letting power users handle part of the workload of package update. OSS is all about outsourcing labor, IMO :)

Re:Debian needs a subdistro with less archs

[alexpage]

If you could point to source repositories, daring end users could download the source packages when they hit a new version, bump up the number, see if it works untweaked, fix it if not, and send the info back to the maintainer.

A Debian source package normally contains the "pure" upstream source of the software, a bunch of Debian-specific patches, and a few control files to set consistent compile-time options, which are used by the dpkg-buildpackage tool.

Often if you need a shinier version than even Unstable has to offer, you can download the source package, strip out the old upstream source, chuck in the new, and create a working .deb out of it.

Debian makes a big mistake (IMO) by not letting power users handle part of the workload of package update.

Have you tried updating a package and sending it back to a maintainer? I'm sure that most of them would be very happy for you to do so. Hell, if it's a bit of software you care about enough, try to get yourself registered as a co-maintainer for the package...

Re:Debian needs a subdistro with less archs

[GreyWolf3000]

Thanks for informing me about Debain.

Still, why does this not happen more often, then? It seems like the users are just sitting around waiting for things to be done for them. Granted, updating packages isn't something you can expect end users to do, but I hear a lot of so-called "experts" complain about how software is old in Debian.

I'm about to try rebuilding Crux with a cvs glibc and binutils with NTPL instead of linuxthreads. I suppose I could do the same with debian, just install dpkg in my temporary build environment and figure out how to use dpkg-buildpackage.

Re:Debian needs a subdistro with less archs

[alexpage]

Still, why does this not happen more often, then?

Because it's always easier to bitch about things than to try and fix them. Frequently, people will do both, but you only see the bitching.

figure out how to use dpkg-buildpackage.

It might be worth reading the APT HOWTO, specifically the section on Working with source packages.

Furthermore, the Beyond Packaging section of the Debian Developer's Reference contains useful info on contacting package maintainers and reporting bugs.

Re:Debian needs a subdistro with less archs

[GreyWolf3000]

Because it's always easier to bitch about things than to try and fix them.

Then it seems that Debian has more of a problem with this than other distributions.

Re:Debian needs a subdistro with less archs

[gnalle]

You can use apt-src to download and compile a source package. I guess this enables a power user to reproduce and fix error that she has found in the binary packages.

Re:Debian needs a subdistro with less archs

[Anonymous Coward]

ponds wrote: What needs to happen is a project to support Debian for a few platforms: the x86, the PPC, the sparc, and maybe two or three others.

I think that's a very interesting idea, and I suggest that you attempt to set up a Custom Debian Distribution as described in linked article; perhaps mulitple ones (one for each target arch). The downside would be the potential for a fragmenting of the development resources, relegating "unpopular" architectures to a "ghetto". The upside would be a fast-track for popular architectures that could boost community participation.

I think that, in order for your idea to work, Debian would have to implement one of the "CDD-specific" release mechanisms described near the end of the paper.

Re:Debian needs a subdistro with less archs

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems like the users are just sitting around waiting for things to be done for them. Granted, updating packages isn't something you can expect end users to do, but I hear a lot of so-called "experts" complain about how software is old in Debian.

The reason no end users make packages is because there is a massive beaucracy that you have to go through. You can't just whip up a package and say "it works for me, now put it in the distro". I'm not saying the beauracracy is unnecassary even, to a certain extent it is necassary. Do you have all 11 architectures sitting around the packages has to be built on? Sorry, I've looked into making packages for debian. It's doable but it requires a long term commitment. It's not like you can just spend a weekend whipping up a package and the distro maintainers are going to take it. They will laugh at you.

Re:Debian needs a subdistro with less archs

[ciroknight]

Debian needs a subdistro with less archs

*COUGH* USERLINUX *COUGH*

Redian, or maybe Debhat

[pyros]

I've been trying a bunch of distributions lately as I don't necessarily want selinux for my home desktops (selinux is a major part of Fedora Core 2). What I've determined so far is that I really like Red Hat's system admin/config tools. You have one tool (sometimes two so you have a gui and command-line, but they're really they same thing in that case).

Mandrake and Suse have a single admin suite that does everything. Some people love them, and I'll admit that they do look polished. I just don't like having to have a bunch of extra backends installed for hardware and services I don't have just to have the admin tool installed. I haven't really tried Ark, Lycoris, Lindows, or Libranet (Ark wouldn't either wouldn't install or wouldn't run after install, I forget) but my assumption is that being KDE based, they have the same feel of one big tool.

I really like the package selection available on Debian. But getting things to run the way I want can sometimes be a chore. On a previous attempt at debian I had trouble with IDE drivers after install. I couldn't get my USB mouse to work and was ridiculed on #debian for loading the usbmouse module instead the obvious task of installing usbmanager. When I asked the #debian folks for the location of an testing/unstable net install CD it took ten minutes of people asking why I didn't want to use floppies to install stable and then dist-upgrade. I don't have a floppy.

The new instaler is a super awesome step. I like that the debian install actually installs a kernel package now, and that in expert mode I can choose which kernel to install. But fonts still suck ass and I can't seem to improve some of them (gdm, the gnome login splash screen, and the gnome logout dialog). I didn't have trouble getting my USB mouse to work this time, but I can't get my thinkpad 600X's touchpad to work (and yes I've tried the config from the sites on the webring found at www.linux-thinkpad.org). Red Hat and Mandrake support the PS/2 touchpad and hotplugging a USB mouse out of the box. Copying my RH config didn't work. Configuring it by hand per the docs doesn't work.

I've recently discovered (in the process of installing flashplugin-nonfree and msttcorefonts) the update-* commands. But they seem to be there mostly to effect changes you have written into the config files already. I've found nothing so far on Debian which helps me get the config files right.

So finally arriving at the point of my post, I would like to see Red Hat's system-config-* set of single-purpose config tools ported to debian. I do realise that the RH tools aren't the penultimate solution (they haven't worked for me getting a Riva TNT2 with nvidia driver and Voodoo2 with tdfx driver dual-head setup working so far), but I think they're better than anyone else's offerings so far.

Re:Redian, or maybe Debhat

[Anonymous Coward]

I couldn't get my USB mouse to work and was ridiculed on #debian for loading the usbmouse module instead the obvious task of installing usbmanager. When I asked the #debian folks for the location of an testing/unstable net install CD it took ten minutes of people asking why I didn't want to use floppies to install stable and then dist-upgrade. I don't have a floppy.

YA the way I see it the shitty community is what really ruins Debian. The old software and slothlike release schedule really reaks of crappy management but I can still live with that since it is fairly stable.

But the community is just terrible. They automatically assume anyone who asks a question is a newbie moron. I used unix for many many years and even debian for a few but when I go and ask a little advice they treat you like you are some fucking idiot. Basically the debian way is to blame the user first, then after it turns out you have found a bug then tell you "fix it yourself". I have been using unix long enough if I can't figure something out it may be because the software is broken. Of course they always blame me and after about say 30 minutes of fend off childish attacks and super obviously non-solutions from irc geniuses and other various know-it-alls they finally just say "hmm, ok well I guess it's a bug, so why are you complaining to us?! fix it yourself you lazy bum!". I was asking to see if there was a known work around! That is all, but after 30 minutes fighting off flaming crap and then all I get is a "Well fix it yourself"...well ya obviously but I'm not going to just fix something if there already is a fix somewhere! Gaahhh! After that I REALLY want to help squash bugs for these assholes...I have had better experience calling for commercial support on NT software before!

Debian starts off with a nice honeymoon, it seems cool and has some ok features until 2 things happen: 1) you find out the version of some app you use daily is about 18 months out of date (and this is on "unstable") and that in the new version from 6 months ago that annoying bug you can't stand has been fixed long ago... or 2) you actually try to interact with the community.

Both 1 and 2 are inevitable but the time until it happens varies. Generally that's when the honeymoon ends and you start eyeing other distros.

I guess if you have no demands for recent technology and/or you like being abused because you have some self-esteem issue or something then ya debian may be your distro but for most people it's not worth it.

Re:Redian, or maybe Debhat

[uhoreg]

But fonts still suck ass and I can't seem to improve some of them (gdm, the gnome login splash screen, and the gnome logout dialog).

Do you have the ttf-bitstream-vera package (or some other nice fonts) installed? Try running "dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig" and toggling the autohinter. Sometimes the autohinter makes things better, sometimes worse.

Re:Redian, or maybe Debhat

[alexpage]

I've found nothing so far on Debian which helps me get the config files right.

I take it you know about dpkg-reconfigure?

Re:Redian, or maybe Debhat

[pyros]

That runs the package's debconf scripts, right? So for gpm, for example, it will ask me four questions, with no auto-detection or suggestions, and it doesn't give me a setup that supports hotplugging my usb mouse unless I configure it for the usb mouse. In which case the PS/2 trackpoint won't work. That's what I'm saying is missing, on redhat, I run system-config-mouse and I can use both the trackpoint and hotplug the usb mouse (both work simultaneously when the usb mouse is plugged in). And the config applies to gpm for console and in X.

Re:Redian, or maybe Debhat

[Phleg]

When I asked the #debian folks for the location of an testing/unstable net install CD it took ten minutes of people asking why I didn't want to use floppies to install stable and then dist-upgrade. I don't have a floppy.

I'll admit that it's confusingly named, but the Debian removable media install is called "boot-floppies", irregardless of whether or not you use a floppy or CD to install it. For instance, you can find the netinst boot-floppies ISO images on the Debian website

Re:Redian, or maybe Debhat

[krmt]

Or the more user-friendly configure-debian?

The reason I run Debian...

[Short Circuit]

...is because a friend(Jeff Teunnissen) recommended it to me. He's also a Debian developer.

For the first few months, whenever I ran into a problem I couldn't figure out on my own, I called him (I lived in the same general neighborhood.) I also hung out in an IRC chat room where a bunch of kindly Linux users also hung out ... After a while, I learned to RTFM, especially after I started asking questions he couldn't answer.

Debian was the first distribution of Linux I ran (aside from Red Hat 5.2, which I ran for a day...), and most of what I know about Linux I learned on my Debian machines.

The moral of the story, I guess, is to have someone you know around to ask questions of. Among my friends just trying out Linux, I recommend Debian, and offer my advice.

Re:Run this on windoze

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell is this, man?

I tried debian before

[Anonymous Coward]

The software was really out of date even with the so called "unstable" version.

Then I went on irc to see the community and between the "rms is a blowhard" and "debian unstable is way more stabler than redcrap, teee ehehe" people there was their ringleader one guy some mwilson that would just make fun of anyone who asked a question calling them "morons, cluetards, braindead," etc. and since he was flaming about 10 people at once like some kind of burning octopus of negativity I know I am not the only person experiencing that. Maybe some people enjoy being abused on irc but I am not impressed by namecalling irc toughguys who can't actually provide any answers. The debian community apparently lets the trolls run it's irc channel.

So from my experience anyways it isn't really a distro to be taken seriously. If want to use old software and get flamed by some ultra-leet dudes on irc then go ahead use debian. If you want something else a tad more professional use basically anything else.

Custom distribution = meta package

[Anonymous Coward]

A "custom distribution" is just a set of Debian packages. As an example "debian-junior" is a set of Debian packages that are fun for kids. IMHO they ought to come up with a better name. I suggest "meta package".

To clarify a common misunderstanding: Custom Debian Distributions are no fork from Debian. They are completely included and if you obtain the complete Debian GNU/Linux distribution you have all available Custom Debian Distributions included.

the Linux fiasco

[Anonymous Coward]

You gotta hand it to the Linux community for this one but consider that even if it was made for Linux it might not run on Linux. As of now this is the single most confusing platform ever! In fact its not a platform, its a kernel which can be bundle with software to make distros and Debian is not a distro it is a kind of distro that other distro can be based on ...

just...
to...
confusing...

I don't know how you guys will manage to get this mainstream but sincerly, good luck, I'm on your side...

worst part about debian

[Anonymous Coward]

The worst part of using debian is putting up with what is known as "the debian switcharoo".

You say "hmmm, this software is pretty old my production server needs a newer version with feature x". They say "Oh no problem run unstable it has the newer version". You say "Hmm, this isn;t that stable, perl broke last week and I'm still waiting for that security update from 2 weeks ago". They say "Well duh thats what you get for using unstable if you want a production server use stable you idiot!". Then you say "hmmm, this software is pretty old my production server needs a newer version with feature x". The they say ".....

Infinite loop avoiding serious flaw of the distro.

Oh and someone might tell you to run testing. That's even more rich since it doesn't even have a security updates so you just have to wait the 2 weeks to months it may take for a fixed version to trickle on down.

I lived with the madding "debian switcharoo" for a few years until I finally got out of that abusive relationship and made a DISTRO SWITCHAROO. Now I use another distro that I find fantastic. Don't stay in the abusive debian relationship find a distro that doesn't use excuse and word games to cover up it's horrible problems. Also you know not all distro communities are filled with condecending assholes who like to belittle the users. Some distros actually appreciate their users instead of taking them for granted.

No.

[moyix]

"Upstream software developers" refers to the people who actually create the software. Debian takes their work and packages it for end users. Hence, they could accurately be called the link between upstream developers and end users. They are certainly not saying that they themselves are the upstream devels.

HOWTO Be Helped By The Debian Community

[krmt]

create a friendly user community that doesn't slam people for asking questions "improperly"

This is a difficult thing. I hang around in #debian quite a bit, and I see both the types of people who are happy to help and those who are only there to make themselves feel smarter and better than the rest. And I can honestly say that the former are more plentiful than the latter, but users tend to actually listen to the dicks. Why? I don't know... maybe they really would rather get in a pointless fight than get something fixed, but it's something I see all the time. The trick is to listen to those who are trying to help you, use /ignore when necessary, and simply grow a thicker skin.

On the other side, as someone who tries to help out with support, I see two general kinds of users. One is the type who just wants their hand held all the way through the process. They'll not bother to do a couple of google searches or search the Debian list archives. They won't bother with the manpage because "it takes too long to read" (as though logging in to IRC, asking your question, clarifying your question, and waiting for a response is any faster). Sometimes they'll even lie about what they actually did to their system. These people are amazing and get ridiculed. Those who troll and say "Debian sucks! I can't get this piece of crap to work, so I'm going to gentoo!" (as many people on slashdot recommend) tend to be astounded when the channel unanimously says "Ok, see ya later!" These people aren't treated very well, but that's because they're not treating anyone else very well in return.

On the other hand, users who ask smart questions and are willing to do some basic searches and reading are helped quite a bit. Many people in #debian genuinely try to help these people, because we can all see ourselves in this position. You're not guaranteed an answer, or even help (oftentimes no one can help with your question) but if you're willing to do a little bit of your own free tech support then you'll do just fine. Remember, when someone points you to a manpage or the Installation Manual (yes, there is one, and it's amazing how few people read it) it's not because they're being a dick, it's because the doc really does have the answer. An "RTFM" always comes with a pointer towards what to read in my experience, and if you're willing to listen you'll do fine.

If someone thinks a question is unworthy they should not waste their time by finishing reading it and they certainly shouldn't spend their time answering the question. Doing and complaining, about either given the voluntary nature of the internet makes them look like a mean loser.

Agreed. How do you expect to change that though? Debian is, by nature, a very open project, and as such places like debian-user and #debian are relatively unmoderated. Do you want to close off the lists somehow? Do you want to moderate them? Who do you propose to do the job? And by what guidelines? And by what mechanism? These are serious questions, and they don't have easy answers. "Fixing" a community isn't easy, and if you want to help I suggest hopping on debian-user or stopping by #debian and try and change things one user at a time.

Re:HOWTO Be Helped By The Debian Community

[beforewisdom]

Agreed. How do you expect to change that though? Debian is, by nature, a very open project, and as such places like debian-user and #debian are relatively unmoderated. Do you want to close off the lists somehow? Do you want to moderate them? Who do you propose to do the job? And by what guidelines? And by what mechanism? These are serious questions, and they don't have easy answers. "Fixing" a community isn't easy

We fix it the same way Debian is run, by open participation.

The people who will slam someone for asking an "unworthy question" when they have just ignored the question are also people who are very sensitive to and malleable by public censure.

When one of these losers slams someone for asking an "unworthy" question all that is necessary is that someone else say something like:

Hey, we are not about that here. If you aren't interested in that question just ignore it.

Thats it.

The person who stands up to the bully can stop right there, answer that users question, or add politiely:

There is a lot of good documentation out there. People in this forum prefer you try to find your answer there first before coming here. We don't like repeating what has already been written. Try ___, or _____ good luck.

All of which is far less typing then the usual flames you mentioned ( I've seen them too ).

There is no need to immature or to work against Debian project goals of attracting more end users.

Steve

Re:HOWTO Be Helped By The Debian Community

[beforewisdom]

Agreed. How do you expect to change that though? Debian is, by nature, a very open project, and as such places like debian-user and #debian are relatively unmoderated. Do you want to close off the lists somehow? Do you want to moderate them? Who do you propose to do the job? And by what guidelines? And by what mechanism? These are serious questions, and they don't have easy answers. "Fixing" a community isn't easy

Every group has leaders that everyone respects, event the cranks.

If these people visibly made the point that the Debian community is not about being rude to people the cranks would follow.

That is not to say that everyone would be perfect all of the time, but the problem would be reduced.

Steve

Re:Run this on windoze

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a BASE64 encoded *.com program that reboots the machine.

Debian in a nutshell.

[claes]

+ Good package management system
+ Good influence on the free software community

- Elitistic tendencies
- Lots of flamewars
- Moving too slowly

? Conservative
? Lots of packages
? Supports many architectures

For me personally, the last points are negative. I don't mind about 11 architectures, since most of them I will never use. In my summary, Debian actually ends up with negative score. But this is subjective of course. For some people, 11 architectures are more important than a release with current software.

Re:Debian in a nutshell.

[Anonymous Coward]

so what do you use instead? LFS?

IHBT

[krmt]

The software was really out of date even with the so called "unstable" version.

Uh... what software was this, exactly? XFree was the lone exception for unstable for a long time, but that's essentially up to date now (unless you count 4.4, which no one but slack iirc is shipping).

Then I went on irc to see the community and between the "rms is a blowhard" and "debian unstable is way more stabler than redcrap, teee ehehe" people

Well, in terms of the former, RMS has pissed off the Debian community quite a bit lately. Between the GFDL fiasco and his labeling Debian as not free enough because it has the non-free section of the archive, he's not been too kind to what is undoubtedly the distro most concerned with Free Software as such.

As for the latter, there's all sorts of distro bashing in any forum. That's the way it is. It's called friendly rivalry. If you actually look at what's going on above the IRC level, there's a lot of real cooperation going on between the distros, for all the petty rivalry. Lots of Debian Developers, for instance, are employed by Redhat.

there was their ringleader one guy some mwilson that would just make fun of anyone who asked a question calling them "morons, cluetards, braindead," etc. and since he was flaming about 10 people at once like some kind of burning octopus of negativity I know I am not the only person experiencing that.

Yes, mwilson is a complete and utter ass hole. Yes, he's known to be as such. But you're judging a whole channel based on one guy. You do have /ignore, as well as the power of your own brain, to ignore people like that. I recommend them both.

The debian community apparently lets the trolls run it's irc channel.

The Debian Developers have, as a whole, written off #debian. I think most developers would want to see it as totally separate from the project as a whole, which at this point it probably is. A major reason for that is that the users don't let the project know that they want a good IRC channel where they can get help. Most developers see it as useless. If you want the channel to be more tightly regulated by the project, I recommend sending a mail to debian-project and letting them know how you feel. If there's enough people who really want the channel to be policed differently and brought more in to the fold of the project itself, please speak up so you can actually influence things. Unless you'd rather just complain on slashdot more.

So from my experience anyways it isn't really a distro to be taken seriously. If want to use old software and get flamed by some ultra-leet dudes on irc then go ahead use debian. If you want something else a tad more professional use basically anything else.

Way to judge an entire distribution based on its IRC channel. Talk about professional!

Re:IHBT

[Anonymous Coward]

Way to judge an entire distribution based on its IRC channel. Talk about professional!

Well if the only people in a 500 person channel are leet linux doodz who just like to make fun of stoopid noobs and brag about their gnarly ut2k4 gaming exploits on their 4 box home lan then I don't want to use the distro. So, ya, I do look at who is using the thing.

I use BSD

[Anonymous Coward]

Haw. Haw.

I use BSD so I'm leeter than u debian doodz.

LOL.

Re:I use BSD

[Anonymous Coward]

u didn't say which bsd
if it's not openbsd, then ur not leet, ur a lamer
i bet ur a lamer. i bet my mom could r00t ur box. ;-)

Debian Troll

[LittleLebowskiUrbanA]

Don't let me down, man!

The ULTIMATE Custom Debian Dist

[LS]

is Lesbian

Dubious about Distros

[petrus4]

I'm giving premade distributions a wide berth these days. It's true that I was here singing the praises of Xandros 2.0 a few weeks back...but that was before I found out that gcc didn't work with it out of the box, and the entire system broke hard (I had to reinstall it 3 times before I finally got rid of it) when I tried to install it.
I'm currently working my way through the book Linux From Scratch, and as the host for that I used a massively stripped install of RH 7.3.

I figure if I want emphasis on user-friendliness over stability, security, and configurability, I might as well go back to Windows. I'm not going back to Windows though, because I want those things...a system customised to my machine and my way of doing things, and a system which doesn't break once I've put in the work setting it up. I can't get that from Windows...and I also can't get it from a commercialistic, predigested wants-to-be-Windows Linux distribution. The people out there who are determined to win Windows users over to Linux by making Linux into a clone of Windows should stop and think occasionally about what such a thing could potentially do to Linux.

Re: More Debian FUD

[Phleg]

1) ftp-able ISOs. No jigdo crap.

If you actually look at Debian's website, you'll notice that there are ISOs available via FTP. This includes netinstall images, which are what I use entirely.

2) Recent updates. Something from the 21st century would be nice. Debian's "stable" is positively ancient.

That's because "stable" is supposed to be rock-solid, and only concerned with bugfixes and security patches. If you're running a production environment, this kind of guarantee can be priceless. However, if you're in need of newer packages, for God's sake use "testing" or "unstable". That's what they're there for! I've been running unstable for nearly two years now without problems--it's certainly no "riskier" than running Gentoo.

I still cannot understand why people still criticize Debian for being "ancient", while they actively ignore the fact that the "testing" and "unstable" distributions are there exactly for the people who want newer packages.

I've heard people complain that they shouldn't be forced to use beta software just to get features released a year and a half ago, but this neglects the obvious point that "beta" is just an arbitrary classification. It doesn't mean the software is dangerous to use or contains broken functionality--just that it's not ready for release yet. And I think we all know what Debian's quality standards of "ready for release" are.

3) If Debian wants more participants, then take a page from Linus -- lose the attitude. I want Linux, not a freakin' religion. We're peers, not apostles.

Debian is a distribution. You're confusing the users with the distribution itself. Yes, there are many Debian evangelists and purists, but it doesn't mean you have to be one, too. There's no contract you have to sign that says you must blindly support it, or that you even have to pay attention to the users who aggravate you.

Re:Debian has surpassed many goals... fnord

[Anonymous Coward]

>Apt and dpkg are some of the finest software management tools I've seen in the unix community

Which is why a lot of people get turned off when they try linux for the first time. Seriously.

Apt, apt-get, and dpkg are a fucking nightmare. You want to install some innocuous little app, and the package manager says ok, I'll just uninstall these 3000 files (like all of Gnome, for instance) and install a different 3000 files (like KDE for instance, even though the app the user was trying to install has nothing to do with KDE).

Seriously, the package manager idea is a step in the right direction (remember the old days when uninstalling one Windoze app would remove DLLs ten other programs needed?), but the current implementations suck for mere mortals who actually want to run programs instead of eternally tweaking linux. Apt and dpkg are neolithic... if they are the 'finest software management tools' in the linux world, linux is fuct for greater adoption in the real world.

BitTorrent

[krmt]

I think BitTorrent would also be a good idea.

Please send an email to debian-release or debian-project about this. I think having torrents set up would be a great idea, but the developers need to hear it.

well said!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well said!

Best Debian Distro Ever

[MaverickUW]

I just saw this the other day for the first time. It has to be the best Debian distro ever... it's entitled Lesbian...

Lesbian Homepage

Yeah, I know the title I put on that link seems all wrong.

-1, Offtopic

[Ben Urban]

Does Morphix have a PPC version? I would certainly like to be able to try it on my iBook.