Debian Aims For September Release Date

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Debian Aims For September Release Date

Posted by michael on Tuesday August 3, 2004 @05:49AM from the slow-and-steady-wins-the-race dept.

An anonymous submitter writes "Debian Planet has a good discussion of the most recent release update from the new Debian release managers. The most interesting point is the current hard freeze of base+standard and an optimistic but doable release date in September."

282 comments

is this the one... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 05:50 · Score: 5, Funny

...that features the new 2.0 kernel?
1. Re:is this the one... by Cro+Magnon · 2004-08-03 06:10 · Score: 0, Flamebait
  
  Don't exagerate! I'm sure Debian is up to the 2.2 kernel by now.
  
  --
  Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
2. Re:is this the one... by grub · 2004-08-03 06:27 · Score: 1
  
  Interesting sig for someone calling himself "Cro Magnon"...
  
  --
  Trolling is a art,
3. Re:is this the one... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 06:49 · Score: 0
  
  the last release (debian 3.0 'woody') featured the OPTION of installing 2.4, though 2.2 was still the default. and yes, woody's installer was texted based.
  it also featured the option of installing KDE 2 (KDE 3.1 was out at the time)
  
  debian "Old Reliable" (or was that reliably old, darn lysdexia)
4. Re:is this the one... by Bill+Hayden · 2004-08-03 07:27 · Score: 1
  
  Shared libraries, here we come!
  
  --
  Protect your browser with the Force Safe Search add-on
5. Re:is this the one... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 11:44 · Score: 0
  
  ...that features the new 2.0 kernel?
  Now that is really funny.
6. Re:is this the one... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 11:50 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  Well, many people use woody on servers just because its not a fast moving target like other distributions. And if you wish, you may use testing or unstable and have always the newest software (yes, newer then other distributions).
  
  Remember, the 'stable' means 'not moving'. The 'unstable' means 'moving target', not 'showing blue screens'. Not at all.
  
  (Yes, I know, -1 Redundant, but... those people don't even try Debian, they just 'know' it has old packages because 'everybody knows'. Well, then 'everybody' is wrong.)
Debian... by dhakbar · 2004-08-03 05:52 · Score: 5, Insightful

As always, those of you who whine about Debian being out of date have probably never looked at the packages available in unstable and testing. Debian is a very fine distro for even desktop use.
1. Re:Debian... by Television+Set · 2004-08-03 05:55 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Debian and Gentoo are similar in that they have a packaging/software installation system that is top notch (apt, portage), making it easiest to maintain, but a wickedly difficult installation method (dselect/tasksel) - however it is my understanding that the newer Debian will have a much easier installation setup. I look forward to trying it out.
  
  --
  EOF
2. Re:Debian... by andreyw · 2004-08-03 05:59 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Its about as easy and painless as Slackware now. Which means they've got a user in me.
3. Re:Debian... by ron_ivi · 2004-08-03 06:02 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  End just as importantly, Debian Stable has been the one distro I could count on to have all the security patches and _only_ the security patches so I didn't have to mess with any incompatable changes in any libraries affecting my stuff. IMHO, Debian Stable has been the lowest maintanence OS I've ever encountered.
4. Re:Debian... by Television+Set · 2004-08-03 06:03 · Score: 1
  
  That sounds reasonable. I may put Debian on the laptop when Sarge's released. I use Slack a bit at work and find the install relatively painless.
  
  --
  EOF
5. Re:Debian... by Cro+Magnon · 2004-08-03 06:05 · Score: 1
  
  Since when? Slackware is text-based and doesn't automate much, but it's straight-forward and relativly easy to install. Debian is a complicated mess to install, far harder than Slackware.
  
  --
  Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
6. Re:Debian... by dhakbar · 2004-08-03 06:06 · Score: 2
  
  Yeah, it's pretty delightful to only have to make sure your apt sources are good and include the security patches, then apt-get update;apt-get dist-upgrade every night.
  
  On a side note, is Debian's attempt at creating a source package distribution still chugging? I was looking forward to having the option to get anything as a source package, a la Gentoo.
7. Re:Debian... by andreyw · 2004-08-03 06:09 · Score: 1
  
  The latest ncurses installer isn't any more complicated than the Slack one. Give it a whirl.
8. Re:Debian... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 06:11 · Score: 1, Informative
  
  Debian and Gentoo are similar in that they have a packaging/software installation system that is top notch (apt, portage), making it easiest to maintain, but a wickedly difficult installation method (dselect/tasksel) - however it is my understanding that the newer Debian will have a much easier installation setup.
  
  Well, if you're willing to pay bucks, there's Libranet.. and if you're not, there's Mepis.
  Both are great distros based on Debian.
9. Re:Debian... by Short+Circuit · 2004-08-03 06:11 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  I've never installed Slack, but I can tell you a bit about the old Debian installer.
  
  It doesn't automate much more than keeping track of what stage of the install you're in.
  It figures out the most likely two or three things you'll want to do next, and puts them at the top of your list of options.
  Its questions are fairly straightforward (How do you want to partition your drives? What FS do you want? What partition should go with which mount point? What kernel modules do you want to install? DHCP? What IP address/netmask/gateway? etc.)
  
  Granted, a lot of people won't know what kernel modules they'll need the first time they install...
  
  --
  tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
10. Re:Debian... by robochan · 2004-08-03 06:12 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  As always, those of you who whine about Debian being out of date have probably never looked at the packages available in unstable and testing. Debian is a very fine distro for even desktop use.
  
  And to top off including 13,000+ packages, they've even beaten the release times between Microsoft's barebones desktop OSes Windows XP and Longhorn
  
  --
  ...Rob
  The American Dream isn't an SUV and a house in the suburbs; it's Don't Tread On Me.
11. Re:Debian... by Cro+Magnon · 2004-08-03 06:12 · Score: 1
  
  Is that the new Sarge installer?
  
  --
  Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
12. Re:Debian... by Gabey · 2004-08-03 06:16 · Score: 0, Troll
  
  it's pretty delightful to only have to make sure your apt sources are good and include the security patches
  
  Yeah, because it's so difficult to have security.debian.org in your sources list, and it's not like it gets put in there for you when you install...oh wait...it does that? Imagine that.
  
  There's no need to apt-get update/upgrade "every night" if you're on the security mailing list...which any competent Debian admin would be anyway
13. Re:Debian... by andreyw · 2004-08-03 06:16 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  No clue.
  
  http://www.debian.org/CD/netinst/
  
  labels such as "Woody" or "Sarge" have no real meaning to me since I tell apt to use "unstable" anyways.
  
  Stable = Stale, unless you seek stability... or somthing.
  Unstable - Latest packages. NOT unstable but high quality releases. They HAVE been tested.
  Testing - this is the latest really unstable stuff. Installing from here will screw up your system eventually.
14. Re:Debian... by mst76 · 2004-08-03 06:16 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  As always, those who defend Debian point to the availability of Unstable and Testing. Please get a clue, there is a reason that they are called Unstable and Testing and not Debian-New and Debian-Newer. They are not slightly-less stable versions of Stable. They do not always get security updates on time. They may leave major packages like KDE broken for weeks. When you install Unstable, it depends on your luck at the time what works and what doesn't. Near release time Unstable is often pretty OK, mid-release cycles major things may break. And you know why? Because Unstable and Testing are meant for DEVELOPERS, not end-users.
  
  I have great admiration of the Debian project and philosophy, but frankly I think it's a little too ambitious. They basically want to get a huge number of packages all stable across a huge number of platforms for release. The fact that so many users recommend Unstable or even Testing to end-users points out flaws in the development model IMO.
15. Re:Debian... by Erwos · 2004-08-03 06:21 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  "As always, those of you who whine about Debian being out of date have probably never looked at the packages available in unstable and testing."
  
  And for those of us who've used Debian before, we can tell you that, every so often, unstable just breaks. It's not like it's planned, but the fact is, with so many package maintainers, something's bound to go wrong - and it usually does every few months. At that point, you've got to go and uninstall and reinstall packages to make dpkg not complain about weird circular dependency problems - an irony for a distribution that so many claim is the answer to "dependency hell".
  
  You can't test to see how reliable Debian Unstable is, either. I mean, "Debian unstable works great for me" is kind of confusing as a statement. Did it work right a month ago? How about 36 days ago? 67 days ago? That is to say, it's impossible to actually be sure that it's working right any particular day because Debian unstable is constantly changing. Debian stable, SuSE, and RedHat simply don't have this problem, and it's why many people are not enamored of running Debian off the unstable packages repository.
  
  Thus, Debian unstable is simply _not_ what you want for reliable updating and pain-free maintenance. Debian is many great things, but realize that it has big faults once you move out of stable. It pisses me off to no end when people proclaim Debian to be the most stable (in reference to the stable branch) and most up-to-date (in reference to unstable). It's the most stable OR the most up-to-date, not both.
  
  Just thought I'd get that off my chest. I'm a big Debian proponent, but I'm not going to lie about what's going on with it.
  
  -Erwos
  
  --
  Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
16. Re:Debian... by snerfu · 2004-08-03 06:22 · Score: 0
  
  The debian installer is not out of date, infact its one of the easiest. The debian installer's kernel is however wildly out of date, and you have to jump through hoops to get a reasonably new network card up and running on the net install. A good direction for debian to move is to release an updated installer ISO every few months with the latest drivers or a new kernel.
17. Re:Debian... by mattrope · 2004-08-03 06:22 · Score: 1
  
  As always, those of you who whine about Debian being out of date have probably never looked at the packages available in unstable and testing.
  
  I think most of us that actually run Debian use testing or unstable, so we're not the ones complaining. I think most of the complaints come from people who try to switch to Debian, but then find that the kernels on the official CD images are too old to support their hardware (e.g., doesn't recognize their network card). Granted, there are other ways of installing Debian (knoppix, anaconda, sarge install images, etc.), but unfortunately people trying to install Debian for the first time often aren't aware of these. I think that's the real source of the "out of date" complaints we hear so often.
18. Re:Debian... by Dasaan · 2004-08-03 06:23 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Almost but not quite.
  Stable = Stale, unless you seek stability... or somthing. [correct]
  Unstable - Latest packages. NOT unstable but high quality releases. They HAVE been tested.[inncorrect - this is testing]
  Testing - this is the latest really unstable stuff. Installing from here will screw up your system eventually.[incorrect - this is unstable]
  
  To recap its stable then testing and finally unstable.
  
  --
  XP is basicly 98 with a lot more extra features to hunt down and disable. --Dram
19. Re:Debian... by Malc · 2004-08-03 06:24 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Dselect and tasksel? I bypass that step of the installer and just apt-get things as I find I need them. Obviously I realize that this doesn't work for everybody ;)
20. Re:Debian... by lubricated · 2004-08-03 06:24 · Score: 1
  
  actually if that's wrong. Testing has been tested and is slated as the next stable release, unstable will eventually break your system(one time it broke pam so bad you couldn't login or su). experimental will break often.
  
  --
  It has been statistically shown that helmets increase the risk of head injury.
21. Re:Debian... by JPDeckers · 2004-08-03 06:25 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Euhms, since when did testing and unstable switch ?!
  Stable = Stable = Woody
  Testing = Stuff not in stable yet, but in the queue = Sarge
  Unstable = Living on the edge = sid (and will always be sid)
  http://www.debian.org/releases/
22. Re:Debian... by andreyw · 2004-08-03 06:27 · Score: 1
  
  Ok, I am stupid. Granted. Unstable worked pretty well for me though. I did manage to screw up my system with "testing" once though...
23. Re:Debian... by Espectr0 · 2004-08-03 06:31 · Score: 1
  
  Still with the "use unstable" rant? I am sorry, debian is just not cut to work as a desktop distro. Too much patent issues, too much packages not available because not all platforms support them, too much old packages, even in unstable. They are still debating if XFree 4.2 should be default. Even if you are using unstable, packages keep changing way too much, and lots of packages need unstable glibc versions and such.
  
  Backports.org is the solution, too bad it's too small yet.
  I like debian, but it will never be a good desktop distro. I just would love a stable, i386 fork that keeps the base proven and stable and have packages for non critical, recent user apps.
  
  --
  Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
24. Re:Debian... by Cro+Magnon · 2004-08-03 06:34 · Score: 1
  
  Other ways of installing Debian don't always work right. I've installed Knoppix, but when I tried upgrading to "real" Debian, it borked KDE and probably other stuff too.
  
  --
  Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
25. Re:Debian... by dhakbar · 2004-08-03 06:37 · Score: 0
  
  I did not claim that Debian unstable and testing were stable.
  
  I did not claim that Debian unstable is what you want for "reliable updating and pain-free maintenance."
  
  I stated that Debian is not sorely out of date as that is the most common critique of the distribution. Why did you extrapolate so much meaning from such little text?
26. Re:Debian... by robochan · 2004-08-03 06:43 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  They are still debating if XFree 4.2 should be default.
  
  huh?
  
  $ cat /etc/issue
  Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 \n \l
  $ dpkg -l xserver-xfree86 |grep ii
  ii xserver-xfree8 4.3.0.dfsg.1-6 the XFree86 X server
  
  --
  ...Rob
  The American Dream isn't an SUV and a house in the suburbs; it's Don't Tread On Me.
27. Re:Debian... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 06:46 · Score: 0
  
  Unstable may break. Yeah. I'd NEVER EVER reccomend any use unstable for anything other than testing the latest and greatest, or doing development work in UNSTABLE. That's why it's called that.
  
  Over the last three or so years, I've only had the most minor hiccups in TESTING--things that are easily fixable, or are resolved quickly enough. Testing is just fine for desktop use, IMO. It's the right blend of new stuff, and stability--enough so to keep one from going insane one way or the next. Only a very few packages are not updated regularly.
28. Re:Debian... by ratamacue · 2004-08-03 06:48 · Score: 1
  
  I've been using Debian for years and have never touched dselect.
29. Re:Debian... by chunderfest · 2004-08-03 06:48 · Score: 1
  
  even more to the point, if you want the latest'n'greatest for your i386 Debian desktop before sarge releases, backports.org and its superset apt-get.org are your friends. (They do also cover other arches but not as well; I have put several sparc & ppc packages on apt-get.org myself).
  If what you want still isn't there in woody-compatible form, I have a radical suggestion: grab a source tarball and compile it yourself. You're probably just looking for a specific application or three, so it's no big deal; that's what /usr/local/ is for, and debian doesn't touch /usr/local/, so go nuts. Even better, if you're up for it grab the debianised source from unstable, try making your own woody debs, and put them up on apt-get.org for others to enjoy. It is called a community for a reason.
  For those who'd say "but [X|Gnome|KDE|Moz|OOo] is waaay too big for me to compile myself": recent versions of those things are all already available for woody, just not from debian.org proper, in i386 form at least. Look before you whine!
  
  --
  Ah, bitter dregs.
30. Re:Debian... by ldspartan · 2004-08-03 06:49 · Score: 1
  
  umm, no.
  
  Their heirarchy as to the rate of change is thus (asending order):
  
  stable - changes every few years, security fixes are backported to packages.
  testing - packages get here when they compile on all supported platforms. This is what's frozen to create the next stable version.
  unstable - packages get here nearly immediately.
  experimental - things that aren't in unstable yet, for whatever reason.
  
  I don't fully understand how the unstable / experimental relationship works - but hey, I only run stable.
  
  --
  lds
31. Re:Debian... by jmoen · 2004-08-03 06:49 · Score: 1
  
  You are _not_ supposed to "upgrade" from Knoppix to "real" Debian since there's no such thing. If you do you're b0rked, that's like "upgrading" Mandrake to Red Hat. Knoppix is a standalone distro made out of a selected set of packages from Debian not a Debian distro.
32. Re:Debian... by jejones · 2004-08-03 06:50 · Score: 1
  
  I've never tried Debian, but if they come up with an installation setup easier than Gentoo's, they will definitely have something. I'd only installed the more hand-holding distros (RH/Fedora and Mandrake) before trying Gentoo, but using their installation guide and starting with a Stage Two install I waltzed right through it. I look forward to seeing the new Debian release.
33. Re:Debian... by cronot · 2004-08-03 06:53 · Score: 1
  
  I've been using Debian Unstable for about 2 years now, and never had any major breakage.
  
  There ARE problems with broken dependencies from time to time (usually happens during transitions/upgrades of essential packages), but people who use Debian Unstable are supposed to know that and also know how to handle these problems.
  
  For the average user, it's a safer bet to stick with Sarge.
34. Re:Debian... by Cro+Magnon · 2004-08-03 06:53 · Score: 1
  
  My understanding is that Unstable is more likely to break, but it gets fixed faster than Testing. Is that correct?
  
  --
  Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
35. Re:Debian... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 06:56 · Score: 1, Funny
  
  >> And to top off including 13,000+ packages,
  >>they've even beaten the release times between
  >> Microsoft's barebones desktop OSes Windows XP and
  >> Longhorn
  
  To be fair, you should mention that 1000 of those packages are Tetris clones or various marble games. :P
36. Re:Debian... by cmacb · 2004-08-03 07:00 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  I've managed to screw my system up with Stable too, but I don't think you can infer anything from that.
  
  Well, you can, but I ignore it.
37. Re:Debian... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 07:01 · Score: 0
  
  As a not-so-knowledgeable guy that used Unstable as his desktop for nearly a year (job funtion change - now I'm back to XP. Agh) I have to disagree.
  
  It is true that the packages in Testing/Unstable are useless to the Stable user, something that isn't always mentioned. But if you run Stable then Backports.org has tons of stuff for you. KDE themselves release the latest KDE in debs for Stable, etc.
  
  If you run Unstable you get security updates quite quickly and regularly as the upstream programs are fixed. Not as good as Stable, but as good as most other distros out there. In the year I ran it, I never saw a huge package, or any package for that matter, broken for weeks.
  
  Every once in a while and 'apt-get upgrade' would result in some kind of error while installing a program. When I'd go to some forum about it there would be 80 people there with the same question and always there was some very simple manual thing to be done. Usually this was the result of something I had done, not an error in Debian. Only happened 4-5 times.
  
  Testing should generally not be used. It has the worst security patch time and you still don't get new packages. The worst of both worlds and best of neither.
38. Re:Debian... by steveha · 2004-08-03 07:03 · Score: 1
  
  I do the same thing, except I "apt-get install aptitude" and then do the rest in aptitude. I like being able to search packages, arrow through the lists, see dependencies visually, etc.
  
  steveha
  
  --
  lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
39. Re:Debian... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 07:16 · Score: 0
  
  Frankly, on my home desktop, which is my primary e-mail link to the world, I run Debian stable. For a couple of packages I run backports to get something more recent. In particular, I'm running a backport of Mozilla 1.6. While it would be great to have the latest versions of a lot of other stuff, it isn't absolutely necessary. For those cases were it matters, I can pick and choose. Can you do that with other distros as easily?
40. Re:Debian... by steveha · 2004-08-03 07:17 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  there is a reason that they are called Unstable and Testing
  
  Yet "Unstable" continues to work well for me. Sometimes I get bitten, but I love getting new software when it is really new.
  
  When you install Unstable, it depends on your luck at the time what works and what doesn't.
  
  I've had few problems. The essential core stuff has never broken on me. One thing you can do to minimize the danger: have multiple computers, and run your update on a spare computer. If it's happy, you can roll that update out to your other computers.
  
  Unstable does sometimes live up to its name, but I'm willing to deal with it. There is no perfect solution; you can have more stability than Unstable if you accept less-frequent updates, and since I have the skills to sort out problems, and I enjoy frequent updates, Unstable is right for me.
  
  If you want to set up a very stable computer, either as a server or as a desktop for someone who can't cope well with problems, Debian Stable is great. And there are backports of the most important new packages (e.g. Firefox) so you can run them on a Stable system.
  
  I have great admiration of the Debian project and philosophy, but frankly I think it's a little too ambitious.
  
  Frankly I think you are on drugs. The Debian project is one of the oldest distros; what they are doing has been working for years and years. Not everybody wants to run Debian, but not everybody wants to run any other distro either.
  
  The fact that so many users recommend Unstable or even Testing to end-users points out flaws in the development model IMO.
  
  IMHO, this just points up the fact that there is a tradeoff between wanting the newest packages and wanting a more stable system. If you want a really stable system, and don't care about new packages: Debian Stable. If you want a really stable system, with some packages newer, Debian Stable plus some backport packages. If you are able to fix problems and want the newest packages, Debian Unstable. And if you want semi-new packages, pretty stable, and you don't care about the whole "community" aspect of Debian, then go with some other distro (such as Fedora).
  
  I say there is no perfect solution, so it is pointless to accuse Debian of not being perfect.
  
  steveha
  
  --
  lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
41. Re:Debian... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 07:17 · Score: 0
  
  Did I say it was difficult to change your sources list?
  No, but ye was telling you that you don't even need to do this.
  And why would I, an admin only in my own house, bother to subscribe to the security mailing list? It'd be spam to me.
  It's a very low traffic mailinglist, and you're probably the only person in the world who thinks an email pointing out a security hole in your machine is spam.
42. Re:Debian... by CoJoNEs · 2004-08-03 07:19 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  To be fair, you should also mention that Debian supports 10 architectures
  
  * Alpha
  * ARM
  * HP PA-RISC
  * Intel x86
  * Intel IA-64
  * Motorola 680x0
  * MIPS
  * MIPS (DEC)
  * PowerPC
  * IBM S/390
  * SPARC
43. Re:Debian... by Vilim · 2004-08-03 07:21 · Score: 1
  
  Agreed, far to many people critisize the outdatedness of stable. It is outdated because it is STABLE, that may seem obvious but most people just don't get it. I have NEVER had stable break itself with bad dependancies etc. When a security update comes out I know that I can apply it without worrying about it breaking my system because of the extensive testing that goes into stable.
  
  On my Sid systems I have to manually fix apt about once a month. It is always something stupidly easy to fix, but I don't want to have to do that on a production server
  
  --
  History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it - Sir Winston Churchill
44. Re:Debian... by inertialFrame · 2004-08-03 07:21 · Score: 0
  
  Really?
  
  I've been using Debian unstable continuously for years. I'm
  not a developer, but there's never been a circumstance that
  I couldn't work around. Unstable keeps me on my toes just
  enough so that I maintain knowledge of how my system works,
  even as it evolves almost continuously. And there's always
  the fun of seeing what new coolness arrives in the daily
  update.
  
  I grant that Debian unstable is not for everyone, but it is
  surely not just for the developer. It's for anyone who
  wants to know how his operating system works. It's for
  anyone who wants the best of both worlds: ease of
  maintenance and latest daily software.
  
  The developers have never suggested that I switch to stable,
  not even when on the rare occasion I ask for help on
  debian-devel.
45. Re:Debian... by MrHanky · 2004-08-03 07:23 · Score: 1
  
  Debian is a distribution of GNU. The GPL contains the following: "This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY". It's not meant for anything apart from what you might find it useful for. It's free software.
  
  End-users can use Testing (not recommended) or Unstable if they wish, but these aren't as well tested as the packages in Stable. Stable isn't meant for end-users, it's meant to be stable. If you find Stable useful, then use it. If you find Unstable more useful, use that instead. I haven't had many problems with it since I started using it, a couple of years ago. KDE has never broken for me (but I remember it did once back before Woody was released, because of libpng, I think, being broken), apt-get has broken once.
46. Re:Debian... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 07:24 · Score: 0
  
  "Yeah, it's pretty delightful to only have to make sure your apt sources are good and include the security patches,"
  Uh, that's the default.
  "then apt-get update;apt-get dist-upgrade every night. "
  Not unlike claiming someone with MSwindows hast to run windows-update every night. If you want to be informed when updates are available there is a mailinglist. If you want it to happen automatically, you can do that too.
  " I was looking forward to having the option to get anything as a source package, a la Gentoo."
  You can get source packages for much of the content. Some debian software (that with licensing hell, like pine) is only distributed through the source packages.
47. Re:Debian... by RickHunter · 2004-08-03 07:24 · Score: 1
  
  Actually, that works surprisingly well. Sure, sometimes you have to do some digging to find a package that does what you want, but I can't count the number of times I've thought "I really wish I had software to do X" and did some quick digging and had it installed within minutes. And unlike source-based systems, installing packages is fast - you can generally install one and give it a spin in under 5 minutes, which makes it much easier to test-drive software.
48. Re:Debian... by powerlinekid · 2004-08-03 07:30 · Score: 1
  
  You wrote:
  "As always, those of you who whine about Debian being out of date have probably never looked at the packages available in unstable and testing."
  
  There are a lot of distributions that are up-to-date (more so than Debian) AND stable. If you want Debian to have it's famed stability, then you can't proclaim that it is up to date. That is what the parent is saying.
  
  So your advice, well whine, that people should just use unstable if they feel debian not so up-to-date doesn't work for the people that use debian for it's stability. People have their reasons for liking debian, being up to date isn't one of them. However, just because someone says that debian isn't "fresh" enough for them doesn't make them wrong.
  
  --
  
  can't sleep slashdot will eat me
49. Re:Debian... by evilmrhenry · 2004-08-03 07:32 · Score: 1
  
  And for those of us who've used Debian before, we can tell you that, every so often, unstable just breaks.
  
  There's a reason it's called unstable. I use testing, and find it fine for normal desktop use. Most of the stablity of stable, and most of the currentness of unstable.
50. Re:Debian... by Hatta · 2004-08-03 07:33 · Score: 1
  
  It's important to note in this context that Testing does not recieve security updates.
  
  --
  Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
51. Re:Debian... by pherthyl · 2004-08-03 07:36 · Score: 1
  
  I have to disagree with that. Maybe I'm just lucky, but I've been running Debian unstable (even some packages from experimental at times) for the last 2 years and have never had an upgrade make my system unbootable, corrupt data, or even break XFree86 (1).
  
  The worst breakage that I've experienced from running unstable is broken Microsoft fonts and broken browser plugins from time to time.
  
  1) I'm not counting kernel upgrades. While even those have usually gone great, I've had some problems with my USB mouse with recent 2.6 kernels.
52. Re:Debian... by Homology · 2004-08-03 07:45 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Agreed, far to many people critisize the outdatedness of stable. It is outdated because it is STABLE, that may seem obvious but most people just don't get it. I have NEVER had stable break itself with bad dependancies etc.
  
  Just because some software is _stable_ does not imply it's _outdated_, and vica versa, of course. It might not be _bleeding_ egde, but it's still fairly current.
  A couple of years ago, I bought the offical Debian 3.0 DVD. On the cover they says there are 8710 packages included. With so many packages, it's no wonder there are real challenges to keep this working. Even FreeBSD brag about the number of ports (over 10 000 now adays) available, but the honour is dubious.
  OpenBSD has a smaller number of packages (about 2000 or so), and have two releases every year. So many important packages are fairly/very current at the time of release. At desktop I run -current, but I've got far less hassle than SuSE Linux Pro that I used to run before. With exception of running propetirary software, of course...
53. Re:Debian... by swillden · 2004-08-03 07:45 · Score: 1
  
  Testing is just fine for desktop use, IMO. It's the right blend of new stuff, and stability
  The downside to testing is that it doesn't get security updates. Whenever vulnerabilities are found, unstable gets them as soon as the package maintainer makes the fix, and stable gets them as soon as the security team does the backport. Typically, both stable and unstable get updated within a couple of days after a security bug is announced, and they're frequently updated within hours.
  Testing, on the other hand, doesn't get updated until the fix has sat in unstable for a while. I think the minimum time is 10 days, but it can be much, much worse. It's not that uncommon for a security fix to be applied to a package that depends on another package, which cannot go into testing because it has release-critical bugs reported against it. So the fix cannot propagate to testing until those bugs are closed and this can take many months.
  Personally, I use unstable and I find the breakages to be rare enough and minor enough that I can live with them. Then again, I can usually fix them without too much trouble, so YMMV. I think anyone who's willing to invest a little time in understanding the packaging system and tools can use unstable very productively. If that's not you, and you don't have anyone like that around, and care about security, and can't wait for the unstable problems to fix themselves when they happen every few months, use stable or pick another distribution.
  
  --
  Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
54. Re:Debian... by Dasaan · 2004-08-03 07:49 · Score: 1
  
  In my experience this is indeed true. But I also have to say that I've only really had things break during major package upgrades and even then only for a few days at most AND even then the majority of the stuff I use still works fine, it's just a few minor packages that have issues.
  
  Of course having said that I've probably just been luckier than most :)
  
  --
  XP is basicly 98 with a lot more extra features to hunt down and disable. --Dram
55. Re:Debian... by DoctorPepper · 2004-08-03 07:50 · Score: 1
  
  Actually, I'm running Debian testing (Sarge) on my workstation, and it's been running fine for quite a while now. I'm currently running Slackware 10 on my notebook, and it is also running fine.
  
  Debian and Slackware are two great Linux distros!
  
  --
  
  No matter where you go... there you are.
56. Re:Debian... by pebs · 2004-08-03 07:55 · Score: 1
  
  As always, those of you who whine about Debian being out of date have probably never looked at the packages available in unstable and testing. Debian is a very fine distro for even desktop use.
  
  Though I use unstable on my desktop, and its satisfactory for the most part (a few broken packages ruin my day every now and then, though), having a recent stable release would absolutely rock. I could throw it on my servers and forget about it (that is the great thing about the stable distro). Hell, I might even do the same with desktop machines.
  
  The current stable is a bit too outdated to use as a server, so I patiently await the next release. I kinda wish their release cycle was a bit faster, it has slowed down too much. Every year would be a little bit better, rather than a whole 2 years as in this case; maybe admins who have to do the upgrades disagree? But, in any case, I understand it takes a lot of work to put out a stable release, so I can't complain really.
  
  --
  #!/
57. Re:Debian... by swillden · 2004-08-03 07:58 · Score: 1
  
  There are a lot of distributions that are up-to-date (more so than Debian) AND stable.
  But there are none that are more up to date, and stable, and complete, than Debian unstable.
  What I like best about the distribution is that 99% of the time, any piece of software that I want has already been packaged up and is just an 'apt-get' away. I have a Gentoo system that is slightly more up to date (not much, mind you) but the software selection is much, much smaller, unless I want to configure;make;make install (and deal with the problems when that doesn't work).
  
  --
  Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
58. Re:Debian... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 08:09 · Score: 0
  
  And for those of us who've used Debian before, we can tell you that, every so often, unstable just breaks.
  Yes, it does. F*cking hellfire, the names says so, doesn't it? You can surly try to pull some unstable pkgs into an older system, but if anything is non-trivial (say beyond a simple api; think libc) things are bound to break. This is dependency hell, when talking about a something as complex as kde/gnome. You will encounter this problem with every distro (Gentoo and *Bsd maybe excluded). If you want to drive stable but use newer stuff, you have imo two options:
  * install *-dev pkgs and compile whatever you want (plus a dozen libs you never heard of before)
  * install a minimal unstable + whatever you want into another partition; something between chroot and user-mode-linux
  
  I'd phrase it like this: "Debian unstable quite often works great for me".
  
  Thus, Debian unstable is simply _not_ what you want for reliable updating and pain-free maintenance.
  I agree. Though I do not believe in this holy grail. Especially if you want your system up-to-date; look at Gentoo, a marvelous design (I like "ports" a lot;-), but do you really assume that every code existing in every cvs/foobar repository compiles and works at any given time?
  
  It's been said before, I say it again: 'stable' means the Debian community tries to assure there are no known bugs in those pkgs and no dependency problems arise. If you move on, both bets are off: newer (or even development) software
  just has more bugs and as you noticed pkg versions change all the time. The maintainers simply can't test every possible combination.
  
  Go Sid, go!
59. Re:Debian... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 08:11 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  I do the same thing, except I "apt-get install aptitude" and then do the rest in aptitude.
  
  Aptitude is the default apt frontend in Sarge - dselect is deprecated, although it's still available as an option in the new debian-installer for those who've got used to it.
  
  I can honestly say that if it wasn't for aptitude, I wouldn't be using Debian. I tried to try Debian a number of times in years gone by, and always failed to get through dselect without accidentally finalising on a set of broken packages - this despite years of Linux experience. But when the debian-installer betas came out, I tried again, and aptitude was usable enough to get me through. And I like it enough that my old SuSE skills are gathering dust.
  
  In short, Debian is no longer impossible to install. Let's hope more people who were previously put off by the bad old installation process feel inspired to try again come September.
60. Re:Debian... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 08:16 · Score: 1, Informative
  
  It's important to note in this context that Testing does not recieve security updates.
  
  Incorrect: more accurately, Testing does not recieve security updates reliably.
  
  Right now, Testing is very stable and regularly updated. That's because Testing is Sarge, which is intended to become Stable within a month or two.
  
  But as soon as Sarge is released, Testing will become very unstable indeed.
  
  That's the reason it's inadvisable to track Testing ever. Track Sarge if you want Sarge, that way you'll get the newer software right away, and continue to get regular security updates when it's released.
61. Re:Debian... by Vilim · 2004-08-03 08:22 · Score: 1
  
  I agree that the 10000 package claim is dubious. Also, they are source based packages which are far easier to maintain than binaries, but in the end can cause more headaches. Most of the work of the maintainer is done by the user (compiling it with X compiler on Y architecture).
  Just because some software is _stable_ does not imply it's _outdated_, and vica versa, of course. It might not be _bleeding_ egde, but it's still fairly current.
  If you look at it out of context then X package may be perfectly stable at the latest version. The problem is that in most cases you cannot look at something out of context, you need to look at it as part of a larger system. A good example is apache with various modules. The core apache with no optional modules may run fine, but if you add mod_php, mod_perl, mod_rewrite etc in as optional binaries, added at arbitrary times, it suddenly becomes far harder to keep apache stable
  
  Getting 8170 _binary_ packages to be stable in context (running as part of a larger, production system) on the 11 different archatectures included with woody (alpha,arm,hppa,i386,ia64,m68k,mips,mipsel,powerpc ,s390,sparc) is amazing. It may be a cince to get each of those 8170x11 (yes I know that there are many packages, like wine, that don't span across architectures, but this is approximate) running, but to get them running together is far harder, and the fact that Debian has this is a credit to the dev team.
  
  --
  History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it - Sir Winston Churchill
62. Re:Debian... by thinkninja · 2004-08-03 08:36 · Score: 1
  
  I agree that there are a lot of cluebies that run Testing or, god forbid, Unstable. It's oft suggested, albeit jokingly, that Sid should be password protected, but then this would result in the distribution of crackz and the emergence of "Sid kiddies".
  
  Fact is Unstable breaks. It breaks often and it sometimes breaks horribly. If you have no idea what to do when, for instance, pam breaks do not run Unstable. If you must use it install apt-listbugs.
  
  Testing is...less broken but still not recommended if you don't know what you're doing at all. Tracking 'Sarge' since the freeze should be pretty safe, though.
  
  The problem is, I think, that Woody does not support newer hardware. This is why you find many people tracking Testing/Unstable. Hopefully Sarge's release will fix this somewhat.
  
  Having said all that however, I must say that DD's are some of the most pragmatic people I know, and I am very happy tracking Debian on my boxes.
  
  I have great admiration of the Debian project and philosophy, but frankly I think it's a little too ambitious. They basically want to get a huge number of packages all stable across a huge number of platforms for release. The fact that so many users recommend Unstable or even Testing to end-users points out flaws in the development model IMO.
  
  And so what? These are end-users and Stable does not make a great desktop, for much the same reason that OpenBSD doesn't make a great desktop. You can have new and shiny or you can have old and stable. It's a trade-off that comes up often on Slashdot: Easy of use versus security.
  
  --
  "The number of Unix installations has grown to ten, with more expected." (Unix Programmer's Manual, 2nd ed.; june 1972)
63. Re:Debian... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 08:56 · Score: 0
  
  So in conclussion: If you want security uodates and if you don't want to live on the edge, you must live with old packages (for another month or two)
64. Re:Debian... by calc · 2004-08-03 08:58 · Score: 1
  
  I have used Debian Unstable for the past 6 years without any real problems. Every few years something breaks that takes a few minutes to fix, but usually nothing major.
65. Re:Debian... by amightywind · 2004-08-03 08:59 · Score: 0, Redundant
  
  but a wickedly difficult installation method (dselect/tasksel)
  
  I ask you, has anyone ever seen a worse user interface than dselect's? It seems to me that it *tries* to obfusticate software installation. Its authors work and making it hard to use. I think it is singlehandedly responsible for the meteoric rise of Gentoo as the GNU/Linux choice for purists.
  
  --
  an ill wind that blows no good
66. Re:Debian... by jbr439 · 2004-08-03 09:00 · Score: 1
  
  I do likewise except for using aptitude instead of apt-get. aptitude provides me (if no one else) with the most intuitive, yet powerful, means of doing package management.
67. Re:Debian... by killjoe · 2004-08-03 09:02 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  I agree. At a minimum they should break each architecture into it's own project. IMHO they should also pare down the package list to core and contrib. Keep the core down to a few thousand packages and then you can use the contrib like a ports collection. In other words you are guaranteed to be stable is you use only core and take your chances if you use contrib.
  
  --
  evil is as evil does
68. Re:Debian... by runderwo · 2004-08-03 09:11 · Score: 1
  
  It pisses me off to no end when people proclaim Debian to be the most stable (in reference to the stable branch) and most up-to-date (in reference to unstable). It's the most stable OR the most up-to-date, not both.
  This is a false dichotomy if you are aware of the existence of the 'testing' distribution.
  
  --
  LRC, the best-read libertarian site on the web
69. Re:Debian... by RWerp · 2004-08-03 09:16 · Score: 1
  
  There is also a nice package manager and retriever for rpm's called poldek.
  
  --
  "Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead." (John Maynard Keynes)
70. Re:Debian... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 09:24 · Score: 1, Informative
  
  Interesting that you would whine and complain about unstable being, well, unstable; testing is the best mix of up-to-date software and stability for a regular desktop machine.
  
  Testing rocks.
71. Re:Debian... by Malc · 2004-08-03 09:31 · Score: 1
  
  I do a basic install and bypass dselect (as I stated in my parent post). I then apt-get x and kde from the commandline. Then use kpackage. We all have our preferences - at least we're not forced to use dselect and its dreadful interface.
72. Re:Debian... by ttrafford · 2004-08-03 09:39 · Score: 1
  
  Remember that "Stable" doesn't mean that it's not crashing (though this is an effect), it means that the release is no longer a moving target and they are only applying bug fixes.
73. Re:Debian... by sirReal.83. · 2004-08-03 09:42 · Score: 1
  
  Don't forget SPARC64 and the unofficial amd64 port. 11 official, 1 unofficial.
74. Re:Debian... by Erwos · 2004-08-03 10:01 · Score: 1
  
  Correct. In the case of testing, it's neither.
  
  -Erwos
  
  --
  Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
75. Re:Debian... by krunk7 · 2004-08-03 10:41 · Score: 1
  
  Debian on pppc had too many broken debs for me. I got tired of editing them by hand (their layout is non-intuitive as well). To top it off, you have to wade through the vocal minority of assholes on the debian #chans to get a bit of assistance on sorting it all out (I've never put anyone on my ignore list until #debian). In the end, I switched to another distro with more flexibility in package management and better ppc support. That being said, apt-get, aptitude, dpkg et al was very impressive. . .though most distros incorporate these or equal/better utilities nowadays.
76. Re:Debian... by merdark · 2004-08-03 10:47 · Score: 1
  
  And as always, we will point out that we want a desktop *with security updates* which testing and unstable do not provide. Also, unstable really is unstable in terms of packages, definatly not something I would recommend even to seasoned power users. This is coming from my personal experience with it at two points in my life.
77. Re:Debian... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 11:49 · Score: 0
  
  Unstable and testing are not production-grade versions. Stable is. So if someone feels Debian is too old, it is GOOD to say so, instead of some whinning about developers' versions of it.
  
  If someone had some complaint about Mandrake, would you send him to Cooker or would you say any criticism about Red Hat AS is false if it doesn't apply to Fedora?
78. Re:Debian... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 12:00 · Score: 0
  
  Not to say you shouldn't be on security lists, but you don't need even THAT.
  
  You just install cron-apt an it will download new packages when there're any and kindly will e-mail you to tell the news (it would even install the packages, but noone on his mind would left that task to the machine).
79. Re:Debian... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 13:33 · Score: 0
  
  "And for those of us who've used Debian before, we can tell you that, every so often, unstable just breaks. It's not like it's planned, but the fact is, with so many package maintainers, something's bound to go wrong - and it usually does every few months"
  
  Of course. But that's why the real distributions cut releases a couple of times a year when nothing happens to be broken. Debian should try that - it works....
80. Re:Debian... by mrroach · 2004-08-03 14:49 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  every so often, unstable just breaks. It's not like it's planned, but the fact is, with so many package maintainers, something's bound to go wrong - and it usually does every few months. At that point, you've got to go and uninstall and reinstall packages to make dpkg not complain about weird circular dependency problems - an irony for a distribution that so many claim is the answer to "dependency hell".
  
  The "unstable" moniker refers to the state of the interdependencies between packages. There is no irony whatsoever in the version explicitly labelled "unstable" having unstable dependencies. IMO the fact that the problems happen so rarely, and that the reasons for them are generally well known (gcc 3, gnutls, libpng problems were all known about well in advance) is a testament to the quality of the work the debian developers do.
  
  To a certain extent, you can test the waters before installing by using apt-listbugs and knowing how to roll back versions of packages.
  
  That said, debian is not for everybody. I like it because it Works For Me, it has just about every package that I am interested in and is constantly being updated. It works for my wife because I admin her system for her (and I always apt-get upgrade my own system before touching hers). For a lot of people, stable plus backports would be a great fit if it were better documented (or blessed) how to do that.
  
  In the end though, this isn't Highlander, there can be more than one distro. I like a lot of the other distros, I just like debian more, I ain't mad at you if you run fedora or suse (now, lindows... maybe).
  
  -Mark
81. Re:Debian... by Bitsy+Boffin · 2004-08-03 15:00 · Score: 1
  
  Debian has never really been hard to install (with the exception of hardware and there being no autodetection thereof) if you only install a base system, or use tasksel to select one or more specific tasks.
  
  It's when you try and install a huge pile of packages (using dselect/aptitude) that things get dawnting; but it's just not sensible or necessary to do that. The reason is that you'll end up installing a pile of stuff that you'll never get around to using.
  
  What I do when I install a deb box is to install the minimum possible stuff, just enough to get a usable (desktop perhaps) machine, then once it's installed (quickly, because there's not much going in) I start using it. When I come to something where I need some software I don't have, a quick "apt-get install" and it's there. That way I don' t install a lot of stuff I have no real need of but which "sounded interesting" when I was installing the base distro.
  
  IMO, the deb installer team should make the installer like this..
  
  Welcome to Debian..
  Is this computer going to be a desktop machine?
  Yes - I'm a new computer user, or more familiar with a Mac (GNOME)
  Yes - I'm more familiar with Windows (KDE)
  No - Just command line thanks
  
  and that's it apart from localisation perhaps; on the default desktop there should be an icon - "Install a New Program" which opens a selector of top level stuff
  
  Office
  Word Processor
  Spreadsheet
  Email
  Web
  Tools
  Calculator
  etc.....
  
  And another icon on the desktop
  
  "Upgrade Installed Programs"
  
  which does an apt-get update, apt-get upgrade with perhaps a bit better problem resolution (often times I'll update + (dist)upgrade only to find that something is conflicting somewhere and I have to go fix it).
  
  Perhaps you'd even put some stub icons on the desktop for the most common things,
  
  "Word Processing"
  "Spreadsheet"
  "Email"
  
  which will bring up the installer at the correct location if you havn't already installed such software.
  
  apt-get is what the advanced & server users use.
  
  --
  NZ Electronics Enthusiasts: Check out my Trade Me Listings
82. Re:Debian... by shaka · 2004-08-03 19:30 · Score: 1
  
  Actually, I've been thinking about this (regarding your menu-idea) for a while and yesterday I filed a wishlist bug to Debian's Menu package. The bug doesn't seem to be in the system yet but here is the text:
  
  I have a pretty neat idea for an extension to Debian's menu system, which would allow for simple but powerful package management. The idea is to use the information about categories of Debian packages, and include a sub-menu for each menu category, called something like "available packages in...".
  
  Under this sub-menu, a selection of not installed packages would have one menu item each. When a menu item is clicked, the user is prompted for the root password (or her own, à la sudo, if appropriate), a simple, graphical apt-get-like program is invoked, and the package is installed along with it's dependancies.
  
  Say, for instance, the user is wanting to play a game. She checks under Debian Menu->Games->Board, but alas, all she sees is Gnome Mahjongg. She doesn't feel like playing Mahjongg, so she looks under "available...". There she sees (grayed out, or something like that) Gnome Iagno, with a nice mouse-over explanation of course. She clicks it, and a dialog pops up. Do you want to install Gnome Iagno? Yes. Root password? These packages are needed to install Iagno, do you wish to continue, etc.
  
  These enhancements may, perhaps, reside somewhere else than in the menu package, but I've been thinking about this for a while and this seems like the nicest way to add a simple, user friendly, but still powerful package management tool.
  
  --
  :wq!
83. Re:Debian... by mrogers · 2004-08-04 04:06 · Score: 1
  
  You don't have to use dselect or tasksel for installation. Just answer "no" to both and the installer drops you to a shell where you can use lovely, lithe, kissable apt.
  Oh dear, I just used sexual terms to describe a software management tool. I'm going to go and walk under a bus now.
84. Re:Debian... by ArsonSmith · 2004-08-04 04:54 · Score: 1
  
  Debian now has the 11 hen peck install. If expect US locale and keyboar and have dhcp for your network you can install debian in 11 presses of the enter key + one tab or arrow to select yes to format drive.
  
  --
  Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
85. Re:Debian... by Knuckles · 2004-08-04 06:18 · Score: 1
  
  When I'm installing testing, I always use pins and default-release as explained here. This way, if a security problem is fixed in sid, or you really really want the newest version of a particular thing now, you can always "apt-get install package/unstable" to pull the one package from unstable, and if this fails due to dependencies, "apt-get -t unstable install package" to pull the package and its dependencies from unstable for this one time.
  
  --
  "When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
WHAT? Sarge might be RELEASED? by JessLeah · 2004-08-03 05:54 · Score: 5, Funny

Isn't that one of the signs of the Apocalypse?

--
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
ode to 503 by grub · 2004-08-03 05:54 · Score: 5, Funny

five oh three
we've seen thee a lot two odd numbers sandwiching naught

seeing a good olde friend
such a grand time
a prime, a zero, another prime

we hope slashdot
doesn't fix their site
so we may enjoy you every night

grub

--
Trolling is a art,
1. Re:ode to 503 by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 06:04 · Score: 0, Funny
  
  At least this is Offtopic. That's better than 503 == No topic.
2. Re:ode to 503 by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 06:19 · Score: 0
  
  They really should replace the 503 message with this text...
3. Re:ode to 503 by red+floyd · 2004-08-03 07:24 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  Slashdot Haiku:
  
  Five Oh Three Error
  Service Unavailable
  Slashdot Slashdotted
  
  --
  The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
Debian Noobie by rokzy · 2004-08-03 05:55 · Score: 4, Interesting

I know of Debian's aim of a safe, stable distribution as opposed to cutting edge, but don't know how they go about it.

to achieve their aims do they bug fix other peoples' code? do they inform the original authors of a problem? if so, what effects on code ownership does this have - does the Debian team become co-author?

anyone got any interesting stories about the Debian process along these lines?
1. Re:Debian Noobie by Nasarius · 2004-08-03 06:00 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  to achieve their aims do they bug fix other peoples' code?
  Sometimes. Other times, they simply "backport" bug fixes to older versions.
  do they inform the original authors of a problem?
  Gentoo always sends its fixes upstream when appropriate. I would imagine Debian does the same.
  if so, what effects on code ownership does this have - does the Debian team become co-author?
  Depends on the author of the original code and the patch. Some will require you to assign copyright to them, others don't really care because it's all GPL'd anyway.
  
  --
  LOAD "SIG",8,1
2. Re:Debian Noobie by Sasha+Slutsker · 2004-08-03 06:04 · Score: 0
  
  You probably know this, but one of the things Debian does to stay as bug-free as possible is have an extensive bug database. It really helps them.
3. Re:Debian Noobie by narmer65 · 2004-08-03 06:06 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  To quote the Debian page:
  
  See the Debian FAQ for more information on what is "testing" and how it becomes "stable".
4. Re:Debian Noobie by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 06:10 · Score: 0
  
  Original (upstream) authors are usually informed of problems while any serious problems with stable packages are fixed by Debian maintainers patching the older versions with some code from newer versions of packages. Almost all packages have Debian-specific patches applied. (These are found in the .diff files in the source trees.) A similar process is used for most GNU/Linux distributions. Debian differs in release schedules; most stable releases (e.g. Potato, Woody, and Sarge) are more than a year apart.
  
  Check bug reports at
  bugs.debian.org
  for examples.
5. Re:Debian Noobie by lems1 · 2004-08-03 06:20 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  To really see the debian process at work one would need to be a member of one of the many mailing lists (depending on what your interests are) and/or participate in the IRC meetings or regular IRC chatrooms for many debian-based or debian-specific pieces of software.
  For instance, I usually hang out in the #debian-desktop channel, and i'm subscribe to the debian-gtk-gnome mailing lists. In there I get to help others fix their problems, help developers find bugs and re-do packages, etc.. etc... Usually all bugs reported to the bugs.debian.org bug repository or to the mailing list get sent upstream.
  After years of distro-hopping from various Linux distributions, I find Debian to be the one that gives me the most confidence in all senses: from a security point of view, from a non-vendor "lock-in" point of view, and even more importantly from a stability point of view.
  Surprisingly enough, I run debian "unstable" as my main workstation at work and at home, and I rarely see a piece of software that breaks (this is despite the fact that I have become an apt-get junkie! Which means that I usually update as soon as there is some new piece of code added to the "unstable" branch).
  
  The future version of Debian stable, code named "Sarge", is a very very solid distro as it is at this moment. I have started to exclusively install this distro on friend's and family's desktops as they move away from other OSes and welcome the Linux beauty into their lives. Out of 20 or so "upgrades" i have done, only one has gone back to the dark side after a month or so using it. Usually after they get to use a very well configured (and stable) desktop based on Debian, they never go back.
  
  My hope is that Sarge becomes a rock-solid, easy to install, modern OS a la Mandrake or Xandros, but totally royalty free. And so far I believe that very goal has been achieve, with a few things missing here and there that might be addressed in the near future. (Like the need for a GUI to the installer, and a way to manage drivers for hardware from a GUI).
  
  --
  This sig can be distributed under the LGPL license
6. Re:Debian Noobie by robochan · 2004-08-03 06:28 · Score: 1
  
  You might be interested in reading this article on Debian's policies as well as the Debian Policy Manual itslef. They will answer a lot of your questions.
  
  --
  ...Rob
  The American Dream isn't an SUV and a house in the suburbs; it's Don't Tread On Me.
7. Re:Debian Noobie by emeitner · 2004-08-03 06:38 · Score: 1
  
  It is a very common for bugs reported to the Debian bug tracking system to be referred to the developers(upstream) by the Debian package maintainer. When 'upstream' fixes the bug the package maintainer packages the new release and submits the package to the repository.
  
  Many Debian package maintainers are also developers on the same project. Other are just packagers.
  
  If a packager fixes a bug in the upstream source for a Debian package,they will send that off to the software developers. If anybody gets "credit" for the work, the packager will.
  
  I'm not sure there exsits an entity called "Debian Team"
  See:
  Debian Developer's Reference- Managing Packages
  
  --
  Guru Meditation #6d416769.21610a21
8. Re:Debian Noobie by xeoron · 2004-08-03 06:39 · Score: 1
  
  Debian is cutting edge if one runs unstable or testing. Believe it or not, unstable is often quite stable and if something is broken during a release, it is often fixed in less than a day.
9. Re:Debian Noobie by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 07:01 · Score: 1, Interesting
  
  I'm the author of an open source program that was added to Debian a few months ago.
  
  to achieve their aims do they bug fix other peoples' code? do they inform the original authors of a problem?
  
  The guy who maintains the debian package of my program informed me of bugs. When debian users reported bugs in my program he let me know and gave me the URL for the package in the debian bug tracking system. From there I worked directly with bug submitters if needed and fixed the bug in the next release.
  
  if so, what effects on code ownership does this have - does the Debian team become co-author?
  
  Well it would be up to the author... but no in my case. I didn't add anyone to the AUTHORS file just for reporting bugs. But I'm certainly not implying I don't appreciate the reports. Quite the contrary. Bug submitters were helpful and responsive and willing to test patches, which I much appreciate. I always thank such people in the ChangeLog and anywhere else appropriate.
Let's try to be orderly by Minwee · 2004-08-03 05:58 · Score: 5, Funny

Okay, this is a Debian thread, you all know the drill. Everybody who wants to make a crack about Debian packages being at least twenty years old by the time they are released form a line to the right.

Zealotous supporters of other Linux distributions over by the wall. If you have no clue how apt works but still want to say that rpm/emerge/tar is far superior, just raise your hand when we call on you.

If you think you're being pretty darn rebelious by railing against the use of "GNU/Linux", then stand over by the wading pool. We'll get to you once the grown-ups have had their say.

BSD supporters can congregate near the exit. We've heard some rumours about you and I want to make sure you have a clear path to the ambulance in case anything happens.

Everyone who thinks Yggdrasil is the one and only true distribution, there's a special thread for you over in the cafeteria.
1. Re:Let's try to be orderly by Tumbleweed · 2004-08-03 06:24 · Score: 1
  
  I won't even ask where us Mac OS X people are supposed to stand. :)
2. Re:Let's try to be orderly by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 06:28 · Score: 0
  
  You just did!
3. Re:Let's try to be orderly by larkost · 2004-08-03 06:35 · Score: 1
  
  We have the nice plush recliners in the living room...
4. Re:Let's try to be orderly by Minwee · 2004-08-03 06:50 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  You can both stand wherever you want.
5. Re:Let's try to be orderly by FireBook · 2004-08-03 07:21 · Score: 1
  
  yes, but it's odd that only 2 os X proponents actually cared enough about the debate to show up. guess the rest of us just decided that getting on with our lives is more worthwhile than debating the latest flavour of kiddieware amateur os ;oP
  
  p.s. Look up sarcasm at dictionary.com
  
  --
  My other OS is also FreeBSD
Netinstall!!! by Douglas+Simmons · 2004-08-03 05:58 · Score: 5, Informative

I *highly* recommend doing new installs with the 110meg iso net-installer that you can grab here: debian.org/devel/debian-installer
It's beta 4 of Sarge but I think it lets you throw on Woody as well. Netinstalls are good obviously because it's a small DL, you end up DLing only what you need, and what you do download is fresh regardless of when you burnt the CD.
Also, I'm batting a thousand with this installer as far as getting X video working without a hitch... I can't say that for the sound server, but as they say, if you're interested in sound, you shouldn't be running Debian. :)
1. Re:Netinstall!!! by andreyw · 2004-08-03 06:02 · Score: 1
  
  Ditto. The new installer kicks some major ass. I've tried both the x86 and PPC versions and they are both smooth. Frankly, unless you're some sort of big-wig deploying Debian in your company, you don't really care about "new releases" per se. As long as the package repository under 'unstable' gets populated hourly with updated packages, all is good.
2. Re:Netinstall!!! by Savafan1 · 2004-08-03 06:03 · Score: 1
  
  I used this net-installer on my laptop, and the sound worked without me having to do anything.
3. Re:Netinstall!!! by Short+Circuit · 2004-08-03 06:06 · Score: 1
  
  Last time I installed Debian (a month or so ago on VMWare), I did a net install with six floppy images. Is that still going to be possible?
  
  --
  tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
4. Re:Netinstall!!! by Dasaan · 2004-08-03 06:12 · Score: 1
  
  If you still have those floppies then yes. If not then probably.
  
  --
  XP is basicly 98 with a lot more extra features to hunt down and disable. --Dram
5. Re:Netinstall!!! by Kenja · 2004-08-03 06:23 · Score: 1
  
  installers
  Just scroll down to the i386 section and you'll find a floppy installer.
  
  --
  
  "Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
6. Re:Netinstall!!! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 06:30 · Score: 0
  
  if you're interested in sound, you shouldn't be running Debian
  
  Yeah. WTF is up with that? I had an easier time finding the Vogons plans to demolish the Earth than I did finding docs on how to get sound working in KDE on Sarge and then figuring out that
  aptitude install xmms
  shorts you a necessary library. It pains me to say it, but Windows has spoiled me WRT sound "just working" upon install.
7. Re:Netinstall!!! by Vilim · 2004-08-03 06:45 · Score: 1
  
  Sound has always worked perfectly for me with Debian (3 boxes, Audigy 2, Crappy integrade Ali POS (laptop), no-name POS integrated AC97 crap). One of your problems may be the use of the 2.4 kernel. I find that it is alot less likely to work (bigger chance of mistake) with the 2.4 kernel due to the lack of integrated ASLA. Give 2.6 a shot
  
  --
  History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it - Sir Winston Churchill
8. Re:Netinstall!!! by epexegesis · 2004-08-03 08:14 · Score: 1
  
  I was pretty amazed when a few months ago sarge netinstall worked from a USB CF card reader onto an old laptop with a broken CD drive. Boot from a single floppy, insert USB reader, press enter for a bit.
  Cool.
9. Re:Netinstall!!! by walterbyrd · 2004-08-03 08:15 · Score: 1
  
  That is what I used to install my present system.
  
  Unfortunately I'm batting zero with the video driver: trident_drv.o. xine won't work right with only driver that will install.
10. Re:Netinstall!!! by Mr.Ned · 2004-08-03 08:48 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  You'll need to boot with 'expert' or 'expert26' to load the select-the-mirror installer module which will let you do stable.
11. Re:Netinstall!!! by jazzmans · 2004-08-03 08:53 · Score: 1
  
  I have no problems getting sound to work with debian Sid. I use SB audigy 2 cards, and feed both a tos-link stream and an analog stream from both cards.
  
  aptitude install alsa
  alsa_init
  
  done.
  
  jaz
  
  --
  Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans. No-one sees motorcycles
12. Re:Netinstall!!! by Chiisu · 2004-08-03 11:25 · Score: 1
  
  try with a Radeon 9000 Pro /still ticked off
That's really good... by Pecisk · 2004-08-03 06:07 · Score: 4, Insightful

With all that flame war nonsense about communication (which sucks unfortunately in Debian) and AMD64 inclusion in Sarge, it's great that someone has cleared mind and moved forward. No offence to Debian AMD64 guys, thought. But they should at least understand that Sarge release already TOO late.

--
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
1. Re:That's really good... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 09:46 · Score: 0
  
  The amd64 port has been ready for almost six months. The ftpmasters still haven't replied to their repeated requests for inclusion.
2. Re:That's really good... by ttrafford · 2004-08-03 10:15 · Score: 1
  
  It's my understanding that the developers knew they couldn't get into Sarge- they just want into Sid.
3. Re:That's really good... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-04 05:29 · Score: 0
  
  I can only thank the ftp-masters for this decission.
  Horray for the new release.
September? by Cro+Magnon · 2004-08-03 06:07 · Score: 5, Funny

Did they specify the year?

--
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
1. Re:September? by Scarblac · 2004-08-03 06:22 · Score: 1
  
  They probably meant the Usenet-september. You know, the one that started in 1993 and that will never end.
  
  --
  I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
Why this obession with release dates? by eddy · 2004-08-03 06:08 · Score: 3, Insightful

I've never understod this obsession with debian release dates. Since you can apt-get dist-upgrade every day to keep up to date, "release date" is simply the assigning of a particular date to a set of file versions.

Utterly unimportant in the grand scheme of things, if you ask me.

--
Belief is the currency of delusion.
1. Re:Why this obession with release dates? by MBAFK · 2004-08-03 06:21 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  We use Debian on our production kit. I would not like to 'chase' versions with apt daily, weekly or monthly. To us having a stable set of boxes is extremely important, an official release is a big deal to us and the long term plans for our servers are based on these releases.
  
  I used to do apt-get dist-upgrade all the time on my workstation but it is not acceptable for some computers.
2. Re:Why this obession with release dates? by chazwurth · 2004-08-03 06:33 · Score: 1
  
  Don't the stable releases also mean new installation CDs with the most recent installer? The last time I installed Debian on anything was just after the Woody release and I remember the installer being somewhat less than excellent. Thus I could see a release mattering, especially to new users who have never installed Debian before. Or do they release CDs with an updated installer more frequently than they do Official Stable New Version releases?
  
  Please forgive my ignorance, I'm not a regular Debian user and I don't know much about how their releases work.
  
  --
  The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'. --Dan Kaminsky
3. Re:Why this obession with release dates? by eddy · 2004-08-03 06:38 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  You apt-get upgrade the debian/stable boxes regularly to get the latest fixes, right?
  
  I don't see how the set of versions of a debian/stable upgraded continuously up till date X would differ from one installed with a release dated X. So the goal is the same.
  
  Now, since it's the stable branch, updates are safe -- at least compared to not upgrading and being stuck with security issues. So the path is safe.
  
  If you believe otherwise, if being "stable" is so important that you can't rely on [blindly] upgrading at any point between releases, then I don't see how you can [blindly] upgrade at release, in which case again, the actual date doesn't matter since if you're going to "vet" the release anyhow... well, you could do that to any point between releases.
  
  That's how I see it.
  
  --
  Belief is the currency of delusion.
4. Re:Why this obession with release dates? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 06:46 · Score: 0
  
  "release date" is simply the assigning of a particular date to a set of file versions.
  Seriously.
  They don't bother doing a massive feature freeze and bugfixing effort or anything, they just wait till Setember 25th and say "alright, lets call this a new version, it's been a while".
  Just go through some of the Debian mailing lists for 30 seconds and you might just notice that making a Debian release is a little more hard work than assigning a number to a set of file version. I think some of those developers might be a little pissed off if you told them it was "utterly unimportant" to their faces.
5. Re:Why this obession with release dates? by joey · 2004-08-03 06:49 · Score: 1
  
  Actually we cut new CDs with the newest installer on a daily basis.
  
  --
  see shy jo
6. Re:Why this obession with release dates? by eddy · 2004-08-03 06:52 · Score: 1
  
  That's a valid point, a small one -- installing is like 0.005% of running Debian -- but a valid one none the less.
  Except for the basic installation (partitioning, filesystem layout), installation is just a linear sequence of package installs based on apt, dpkg and debconf -- software which is constantly updated regardless of release dates. I've always found the basic install more than adequate. Don't get my wrong, I hate dselect, but you never actually have to use dselect to install Debian. If you had, then hell yes I'd be ecstatic about a new release if it meant doing away with dselect.
  
  The only thing more perplexing than the obsession around release dates (which I can at least understand at some level, if only historically) is the obsession around installers.
  
  --
  Belief is the currency of delusion.
7. Re:Why this obession with release dates? by chazwurth · 2004-08-03 06:58 · Score: 1
  
  I understand the point; I really am thinking mostly from the point of view of a new user. I didn't mean to knock the Debian installer -- it would have been more appropriate to say that the installer I used was confusing to someone who'd never installed Linux with anything other than a Red Hat hold-your-hand installer. Especially the moment when you hit dselect. I imagine it would have been even more confusing to someone who'd only installed Windows and never touched a command line. I wasn't trying to start an installer flame war or anything like that :)
  
  --
  The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'. --Dan Kaminsky
8. Re:Why this obession with release dates? by eddy · 2004-08-03 07:01 · Score: 1
  
  [...] is a little more hard work than assigning a number to a set of file version.
  
  I never said anything about how it was done or how much effort or pain or money it involved, I just said what the end result (as I see it) is. A release is a date and a set of software versions.
  
  For someone who is continuously updating his box, I don't see that a release date is of much consequence. It might be important for the process as a whole, it might be be important to the developers themselves (easier to work towards a goal), but as a user of debian/stable which is served stable software upgrades between releases? Not so much.
  
  --
  Belief is the currency of delusion.
9. Re:Why this obession with release dates? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 07:15 · Score: 0
  
  Because I for one, want to use some packages that are in Sarge. But I don't want to run testing in a production environment as it broke too often.
  Right now I'm running Woody (stable) with my own packages or from www.packports.org. Using packages from Sarge in Woody is out of the question because of version differences in compiler and libraries that are used..
10. Re:Why this obession with release dates? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 08:27 · Score: 1, Informative
  
  The 'obsession' is due to the availability (or not) of security updates. 'Stable' releases have security issues dealt with in a timely manner.
  
  According to the Debian security FAQ:
  
  Q: How is security handled for testing and unstable?
  
  A: The short answer is: it's not. Testing and unstable are rapidly moving targets and the security team does not have the resources needed to properly support those. If you want to have a secure (and stable) server you are strongly encouraged to stay with stable. However, the security secretaries will try to fix problems in testing and unstable after they are fixed in the stable release.
11. Re:Why this obession with release dates? by jbmadsen · 2004-08-03 09:14 · Score: 1
  
  The important part is that upgrades between releases have been tested and work has been done to ensure that your machines will continue to work after upgrading between releases.
  
  Another thing is that people have worked to make sure that what is released is a coherent set of packages. This means that you don't get a mix of say Gnome 2.0, 2.2, 2.4 and 2.6, you just get Gnome 2.6. During the release cycle there is bound to be a mix of these in the distribution while bugs are fixed.
  
  So while it is true that you can update at any time, it does make a difference to follow the releases.
12. Re:Why this obession with release dates? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-05 12:42 · Score: 0
  
  You do realise that apt-get dist-upgrade is far more likely to break you than upgrade, right?
  
  When some developer breaks unstable, upgrade will give you some sort of error, but dist-upgrade has the potential to remove vital (to you) packages in order to resolve the error without ever telling you it was there.
  
  'man apt-get' can tell you more, if you aren't doing this deliberately. Just pointing this out since many problems on mailing lists come from this.
13. Re:Why this obession with release dates? by Peer · 2004-08-09 20:41 · Score: 1
  
  I've never understod this obsession with debian release dates. Since you can apt-get dist-upgrade every day to keep up to date, "release date" is simply the assigning of a particular date to a set of file versions.
  
  Utterly unimportant in the grand scheme of things, if you ask me.
  
  This 'set of file versions' (aka Debian Stable) is the only release that gets official support from the Debian security team. That's not utterly unimportant.
eh? by theantix · 2004-08-03 06:08 · Score: 4, Insightful

I think Debian is a fine project, but to be fair you have to admit that the unstable and testing distributions break far too often to use on a production machine. Of course, I've heard that Lindows^H^H^H^Hare and Xandros do a fine job of producing a quality stable release from those packages, but that's not really the same as pure Debian. Using pure Debian is great if you like to tinker and don't mind when things stop working all of a sudden. But for a primary desktop machine it is too unstable and just doesn't cut it for me anymore since I fully ditched mswindows and rely on my linux installation for everyday work.

This isn't to say that Debian sucks -- it really doesn't suck at all and I love using stable for servers. It's just not a "fine desktop" for people who just want to get work or play done without applications suddenly failing on them.

--
501 Not Implemented
1. Re:eh? by andreyw · 2004-08-03 06:24 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Testing I agree. But unstable is pretty damn stable. Never broke any of my machines. Testing did though. The name scares people off. "Ooh its called unstable, thus it must be!"
2. Re:eh? by Peaker · 2004-08-03 06:30 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  Huh? Debian unstable doesn't break often at all. In fact it hasn't broken anything for me in more than 6 months, and I do it at least weekly. Lower frequency updates obviously break things even less frequently. I have other Operating Systems break far more often when tinkering with installed packages or upgrading stuff.
3. Re:eh? by robochan · 2004-08-03 06:38 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  It's just not a "fine desktop" for people who just want to get work or play done without applications suddenly failing on them.
  
  I have to ask - have you actually even used the current Unstable release?
  I'm not trying to insulting you, it's just that I've talked to many who've "heard that it's that way" without actually trying it. Can you provide some examples? I'm sure there are plenty, but as far as my own experience goes, I've used it for the last couple of years without hesitation. I'm not a developer, maintainer, nor a coder for that matter. I personally use Unstable on 3 machines for desktop systems, and install it for others, and have very rarely had anything break. I'm curious to hear some "real word" examples versus those who've "heard it's not for a dekstop".
  
  --
  ...Rob
  The American Dream isn't an SUV and a house in the suburbs; it's Don't Tread On Me.
4. Re:eh? by theantix · 2004-08-03 06:38 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  I used unstable for about a year, and in that time disabled X11, and another time it disabled Gnome. And one more than one occasion it broke FirePhoeFox. Those kind of problems can be worked around if you are willing to put in the time, but it's a hassle. I prefer the Fedora Core model of having a new stable platform every six months and doing a major upgrade at that time, so I can schedule and dedicate time to work out upgrading errors instead of having it happen when I need to get work done or just want to play a game or chat with my girlfriend or whatever.
  
  Again, everyone is different and I'm sure there are a lot of people that don't mind the occasional failure and enjoy tinkering to get it all working. I just don't think that describes the average user though.
  
  --
  501 Not Implemented
5. Re:eh? by theantix · 2004-08-03 06:47 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, I've used Sid up until about eight months ago. Since you probably won't read it I'll paste in what I replied to another guy:
  
  I used unstable for about a year, and in that time disabled X11, and another time it disabled Gnome. And one more than one occasion it broke FirePhoeFox. Those kind of problems can be worked around if you are willing to put in the time, but it's a hassle. I prefer the Fedora Core model of having a new stable platform every six months and doing a major upgrade at that time, so I can schedule and dedicate time to work out upgrading errors instead of having it happen when I need to get work done or just want to play a game or chat with my girlfriend or whatever.
  
  Again, everyone is different and I'm sure there are a lot of people that don't mind the occasional failure and enjoy tinkering to get it all working. I just don't think that describes the average user though.
  
  The last straw for me was when Gnome broke on me, KDE refused to install because of dependancy errors, and my laptop was in for repairs so I was stuck with nothing. I mean, I could have installed an alternate window manager, but it was just too much for me -- I just wanted to use my computer and not fight with it any longer. Now I have that and I'm a lot happier. If Debian would stabilize their platform every 6 months to a year I would probably switch back, since they have such a wonderful range of packages to choose from... but that's just not going to happen anytime soon I think.
  
  By the way, I'm not trying to convince you or anyone else to stop using Debian -- I'm just trying to explain why I don't anymore. If it works for you that's awesome.
  
  --
  501 Not Implemented
6. Re:eh? by Mwongozi · 2004-08-03 07:01 · Score: 1
  
  Unstable was broken just a few days ago, when an update deleted /usr/bin/crontab
  
  The next day's update fixed it - but still.
7. Re:eh? by RyLaN · 2004-08-03 07:08 · Score: 1
  
  I've used Debian Unstable since I started in on Linux two years ago. As I recall, the new KDE wasn't in stable, so I updated my sources and went to Sid. The *only* problem that it has ever caused me was a conflict between some dns libraries and my kernel, which kept me temporarily off the WWW. Other than that, I've never seen any problems in stable. Not to mention, apt-get rocks. :-)
  
  --
  At least the war on the environment is going well
8. Re:eh? by lspd · 2004-08-03 07:13 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  I personally use Unstable on 3 machines for desktop systems, and install it for others, and have very rarely had anything break.
  
  Odd.. I maintain 5 packages in Debian and another 4 outside of Debian, and I see things breaking every few weeks on Unstable. Normally such bugs just stop the install process, you wait until the package maintainer fixes the problem and try again, but I've seen many people get bent out of shape over trivial apt-get error messages. These are a fact of life with Unstable but completely absent from Stable.
  
  I use Debian Unstable on the three desktop systems in my office, but I've installed Debian Stable as a desktop system on my nephew's computer and the computers of anyone at the Houston LUG that wants to give Debian a try. Aside from the kernel, there are few real problems with the current version of Stable. KDE 2 and KDE 3 are virtually identical once you customize them. Mozilla has improved dramatically, and OpenOffice is absent from Stable, but you can pull these in through backports.
  
  Web servers are where Stable really rocks though. Once you have things set up, there is very little tweaking to do. Once the Sarge migration takes place you've still got a full year to update those Woody systems before Debian will drop support. Subscribe to debian-security-announce on lists.debian.org and you'll rarely need to mess with a working Debian Stable server, just watch for security alerts that affect software you're running. OTOH, if you want to do something with MySQL or Samba that demands the newest versions you'll have to turn to a backport again.
  
  For install-and-forget servers though, nothing beats Debian Stable.
9. Re:eh? by robochan · 2004-08-03 07:26 · Score: 1
  
  I appreciate the followup. The worst thing I've seen so far was X crashing when trying to use Xine on my laptop due to a bug in the package that was fixed within a couple of days(or immediately by using an alternate video player). Nothing too dreadful - god forbid I don't see some porn clips for a couple days ;o)
  
  --
  ...Rob
  The American Dream isn't an SUV and a house in the suburbs; it's Don't Tread On Me.
10. Re:eh? by CoolHnd30 · 2004-08-03 07:28 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Have you checked out apt-listbugs ? When using apt-listbugs, you know what issues you may have 99% of the time before actually installing the programs, and can say ,"no, I don't want to take a chance of that bug fsck'ing up my system." You can pin the old version, and go about your merry way until the bug is fixed, and you unpin it and proceed. Using apt-listbugs, I've really only had two issues in the past year when updating programs, and one of those was because I didn't pay attention to the bug notice. The other one was in a minor app I used often (krdc), but there were other alternatives (vncviewer), so it wasn't a showstopper by any means.
11. Re:eh? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 07:31 · Score: 0
  
  you're kidding, right? all the stuff in testing (including the stuff that allegedly broke your system) goes in unstable first and only gets to testing after it has undergone (duh) testing.
12. Re:eh? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 07:34 · Score: 0
  
  One kinda workaround is to use "stable", but "apt-get -t unstable" selected packages.
  I've had good luck with this aproach; though there are some packages I stay away from becasue they would upgrade a rather large number of dependant packages.
13. Re:eh? by theantix · 2004-08-03 07:44 · Score: 1
  
  That sounds pretty useful -- if I had known about that at the time I might not have ditched Debian. Right now though it's just not enough to convince me to switch back to it. Thanks though.
  
  --
  501 Not Implemented
14. Re:eh? by theantix · 2004-08-03 07:47 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, I've tried that too, and backports as well. It's just not the same, as a lot of modern packages have library requirements beyond what Woody can safely provide.
  
  --
  501 Not Implemented
15. Re:eh? by cafard · 2004-08-03 07:49 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  I prefer the Fedora Core model of having a new stable platform every six months and doing a major upgrade at that time, so I can schedule and dedicate time to work out upgrading errors Eh... Why don't you 'apt-get update; apt-get upgrade' every six months then, for example ? :)
  
  --
  This post is awesome.
16. Re:eh? by pebs · 2004-08-03 08:07 · Score: 1
  
  Huh? Debian unstable doesn't break often at all. In fact it hasn't broken anything for me in more than 6 months, and I do it at least weekly. Lower frequency updates obviously break things even less frequently. I have other Operating Systems break far more often when tinkering with installed packages or upgrading stuff.
  
  Debian unstable got so messed for me that I had to do a reinstall!!! This is after spending a huge amount of effort trying solve the problems, I just gave up and reinstalled. Granted I had a few unofficial packages that may have been a factor in this. I never had the whole thing quit working, just specific packages. Reinstalling was pretty painless, though.. Unlike a certain other operating system that gets reinstalled very often.
  
  But the most common problem is that important packages break pretty often. I've had Evolution and Gnome break on me pretty often. Other little problems. If you do dist-upgrade's you can sometimes really fuck yourself up (a broken dependency can hurt a ton of packages), normal upgrades still can hurt, the problems are just isolated to the affected packages. It's usually only a few days before things get fixed.
  
  --
  #!/
17. Re:eh? by pklinken · 2004-08-03 08:23 · Score: 1
  
  I remember a libc6 upgrade braking unstable .. 3 years ago or so hehe..
  A fix was on the mailinglists the same day though.
  
  I use testing these days and that never gave me trouble.
18. Re:eh? by dmaxwell · 2004-08-03 08:25 · Score: 1
  
  Unless you clean them out, /var/cache/apt/archives has all of the packages and their versions that you've been installing. I've had upgrades break things. No biggie, If foo_1.5-1.deb breaks things then I just dpkg -i /var/cache/apt/archives/foo_1.4-4.deb (or whatever) until a sane package is put out. With shell completion, it isn't as though I have to look very hard. Just install the next version back from whatever broke.
  
  If I go a long stretch without breakage, I'll do an apt-get clean to clear those archives out every now and again.
19. Re:eh? by theantix · 2004-08-03 08:28 · Score: 1
  
  That's a really good point. I must say the biggest reason why was that I just hadn't thought of trying that. I guess you could run into the problem where installing a new app would force the upgrade of libraries and so forth, but again you could schedule that for whatever time you want. As far as security updates go, again you can probably wait until you have time to do apply them if they break something.
  
  Honestly though I think it would be hard to restrain myself. Oooooo, a new Firefox is available, gimme gimme gimme! But in combination with the apt-listbugs that a couple other people have mentioned, that could also be mitigated. Someone really ought to write up an article about how to use debian -- not just how to install it, but how to avoid the sort of pitfalls I and other users have had. It seems from the responses to my comment that there are good ways to run debian successfully -- they just aren't quite obvious to a user inexperienced with the Debian way.
  
  --
  501 Not Implemented
20. Re:eh? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 08:36 · Score: 0
  
  you have to admit that the unstable and testing distributions break far too often
  The uptime command tells me that my desktop machine, which runs sarge (testing), has been up for 56 days. I think that it's about 56 days since I switched it off to install a video capture card. Once I got through the install process, which can certainly be troublesome (and was for me), my experience has been that sarge just doesn't break at all. I use it all day every day, doing development in C++ and Perl, image editing, OpenOffice stuff, CD and DVD ripping, lots more.
  Of course, 'unstable' breaks. It's supposed to. The name was chosen to give you a hint.
21. Re:eh? by Alan+Shutko · 2004-08-03 08:59 · Score: 1
  
  Can you provide some examples?
  Most recently when the Mozilla/Firefox maintainers suddenly removed Direct Postscript printing without warning. (Since reverted.)
22. Re:eh? by at_slashdot · 2004-08-03 09:59 · Score: 1
  
  I can confirm that Debian unstable is damn stable. In fact I've done all the upgrades and didn't encounter one problem.
  
  I only wish Windows or other OS be that stable when they are officially released.
  
  --
  "It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." -- Prof. Dumbledore
23. Re:eh? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 12:15 · Score: 0
  
  Bullshit. It *migth* work on ocassion, but it is not anything you can tell your friends, for in general it won't work. Take right now, for instance: Woody and Sarge use different libc versions. Almost anything you try to install will trigger the "depency hell" and you will end up with some few hundred megs of upgrades.
  
  There is a MUST for Debian to adopt a "moving stable target" over the current promotion scheme. It would mean sa guys would have their rock-solid Stable like now, everybody could have a decently recent stable desktop and freeze and release of new Stable versions could be best managed (since that stable moving target would stay always near real Stability).
  
  All that's needed (well, it is not such a little thing, of course) is the ability to integrate closed sets of related funtionality on a serialized manner (like, say KDE, Gnome or CUPS).
24. Re:eh? by EvilIdler · 2004-08-03 13:02 · Score: 1
  
  It broke Java and locales for me yesterday. Hoping it's fixed
  today, or that Doom 3 binaries are released for me to fiddle with
  while the Debian maintainers put some missing packages back in :)
25. Re:eh? by cafard · 2004-08-03 23:27 · Score: 1
  
  That might be a good thing indeed :)
  
  Like a lot of people, i also ran into some troubles during my first experience with an 'unstable' debian setup. Mainly because i was updating/upgrading first thing every morning at work. This is definitely *not* a wise thing to do, as when doing this every single day, you're sure to run into every serious package trouble as soon as they're delivered :). And even though nothing was ever really serious, it already happened to me to lose X11 and to go hunting for the fix using a text-mode IRC client...
  
  The two 'wise' behaviours would be to not upgrade every single day just because you can, and first checking on the web or on the IRC channel (better) if there are any critical packages broken. The IRC channel topic and the news functions of the local bot usually provide this kind of information.
  
  --
  This post is awesome.
One possible reason for slow releases by moberry · 2004-08-03 06:11 · Score: 5, Funny

There are ony SOO many toy story characters, after this there going to have to start naming them after the etch-a-sketch, piggy bank, etc. on the other hand.. there have been 2 sequals since woody was released.
1. Re:One possible reason for slow releases by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 07:34 · Score: 0
  
  Piggy bank? You mean hamm?
2. Re:One possible reason for slow releases by ndogg · 2004-08-03 09:14 · Score: 1
  
  Hah! So that must be the reason for the Toy Story movies, to get names for Debian distributions. I'm on to them now!!!
  
  --
  // file: mice.h
  #include "frickin_lasers.h"
3. Re:One possible reason for slow releases by Ben+Hutchings · 2004-08-04 02:43 · Score: 1
  
  The piggy bank is called Hamm, which was the code name for Debian 2.0.
4. Re:One possible reason for slow releases by smurfi · 2004-08-08 01:25 · Score: 1
  
  Surprise: The next Release (after Sarge) will be named "Etch".
Let's see... by wiredog · 2004-08-03 06:15 · Score: 5, Funny

Doom III released... Check

Sarge released... Check

Slashdot works better with Internet Explorer than with Firefox... Check

Walls bleeding...Check.

Yup, it's the End Times.

--

Best Slashdot Co
1. Re:Let's see... by gmhowell · 2004-08-03 06:26 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Yup, it's the End Times.
  
  *bzzt* Sorry, you're wrong, thanks for playing. You forgot the perennial favorite:
  
  Duke Nukem Forever... Who the hell knows.
  
  --
  Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
2. Re:Let's see... by garignak · 2004-08-03 06:27 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Close, but not yet. Duke Nukem Forever has not been released, yet. So, we're safe for now. ;)
  
  --
  "Sometimes a man's gotta do what a woman wouldn't consider." - Red Green
3. Re:Let's see... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 07:05 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Firefox keeps a name for half a year... Check.
4. Re:Let's see... by Val314 · 2004-08-03 08:06 · Score: 1
  
  >Slashdot works better with Internet Explorer than with Firefox... Check
  
  btw: i'Ve seen the messed up tables at work several times but not even once at home (same Firefox Version, same OS) so it may be a profile issue
5. Re:Let's see... by hal9000 · 2004-08-03 08:17 · Score: 1
  
  Don't forget:
  
  Real released something decent, light on the ads, and it's downloadable with a single click from real.com.
  
  Take me Jebus.
  
  --
  Look out honey, 'cause I'm using technology; Ain't got time to make no apology
Best news all day! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 06:17 · Score: 0

Yay! Sock it to the man!
Re:Doom 3 pirated--news that Slashdot won't report by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 06:24 · Score: 0

linux binaries...? No, copyright infringement in this case would be the preserve of Windows users, so why don't Microsoft or the BSA report the news instead! Howabout the BSA announces "Windows users are software pirates and software pirates support terrorism"? Yes Slashdot is the most bias newsource known to man - moron!
Re:Doom 3 pirated--news that Slashdot won't report by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 06:25 · Score: 0

Popular new video game pirated! News at 11!

In other news, popular movies and music files are often pirated on the Internet shortly before their public release.

Major online news site, Slashdot, has remained mum on the issue. When asked for comment, Rob 'CmdrTaco' Malda had this to say:

"Well, duh!"
You mods must be ovulating... by dhakbar · 2004-08-03 06:28 · Score: 0, Offtopic

Flamebait? Ridiculous.
1. Re:You mods must be ovulating... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 10:53 · Score: 0
  
  wow, by flaming the mods (in addition to flaming debian), you got them to mod you up! Wierd.
(eh?)^2 by gmhowell · 2004-08-03 06:29 · Score: 3, Informative

I think Debian is a fine project, but to be fair you have to admit that the unstable and testing distributions break far too often to use on a production machine

Maybe the grandparent does, but I don't have to admit any such thing on my testing system. Been running testing since... Geez, I can't even remember. Sometime around when RedHat 7.0 came out. No more or less stable than any other distro.

I'm sure that unstable is... wait for it... UNSTABLE. But testing? No problems.

(/me knocks wood)

--
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Only with Firefox by wiredog · 2004-08-03 06:32 · Score: 1

Haven't seen it yet with IE.

--

Best Slashdot Co
1. Re:Only with Firefox by selderrr · 2004-08-03 06:36 · Score: 1
  
  Safari is lobotomized too.... Someone suggested killing cookies, but that is against my religion
  
  --
  When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
2. Re:Only with Firefox by Unnngh! · 2004-08-03 06:37 · Score: 1
  
  Haven't seen it yet with IE.
  You must not be looking very hard...
3. Re:Only with Firefox by Al+Dimond · 2004-08-03 06:58 · Score: 1
  
  It will work with whatever browser you don't *usually* use to browse /. because the problem is with the login system and if you delete your /. cookies and login again it *should* work just fine.
Bah! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 06:36 · Score: 0

By September, Fedora Core 9 will be out, and will crush your puny Debian! ;^)
503 Errors & ^D HTML by oiarbovnb · 2004-08-03 06:39 · Score: 1

This is totally off-topic, sorry 'bout that. Didn't know where else to submit this question...

How come I get 503 errors? I've been experiencing this for about 2 weeks now. Didn't seem to be happening before. It'd be one thing if it was all the time, but it's not. Is it slashdot, or my choice of browser (firefox)?

2nd question is: how come sometimes there is text that renders as ^D^D^D^D^D^D sometimes. I think it's when someone tries to use a special character that my browser (again firefox) doesn't support, but I don't know how to fix this. Again, slashdot is the only place I experience this.

Thanks for the help,

Oiarbovnb
1. Re:503 Errors & ^D HTML by mE123 · 2004-08-03 07:14 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  How come I get 503 errors? I've been experiencing this for about 2 weeks now. Didn't seem to be happening before. It'd be one thing if it was all the time, but it's not. Is it slashdot, or my choice of browser (firefox)?
  
  long and the short of it.. someone at slashdot's end broke something... There isn't anything we can do but complain for now.
  
  2nd question is: how come sometimes there is text that renders as ^D^D^D^D^D^D sometimes. I think it's when someone tries to use a special character that my browser (again firefox) doesn't support, but I don't know how to fix this. Again, slashdot is the only place I experience this.
  
  '^D' is when people want to pretend to delete things... it's because on terms that doesn't support the backspace key that's what shows up (since that's the actual code that gets sent)
2. Re:503 Errors & ^D HTML by russint · 2004-08-03 07:17 · Score: 1
  
  w00t, am I the only one who's never seen a 503 on /.? (Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040707 Firefox/0.9.2)
  
  --
  ^^
3. Re:503 Errors & ^D HTML by oiarbovnb · 2004-08-03 07:27 · Score: 1
  
  thanks a bunch!
4. Re:503 Errors & ^D HTML by oiarbovnb · 2004-08-03 07:30 · Score: 1
  
  yes! lucky you!
5. Re:503 Errors & ^D HTML by Brando_Calrisean · 2004-08-03 07:30 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Methinks you're thinking of ^H ...
  
  --
  Don't call me a cowboy, and don't tell me to slow down!
6. Re:503 Errors & ^D HTML by anynameleft · 2004-08-03 08:01 · Score: 1
  
  Error 503
  This slashn^Ddot comment is temporarily unavailable.
7. Re:503 Errors & ^D HTML by InfiniteWisdom · 2004-08-03 10:54 · Score: 1
  
  That should be ^H not ^D
What is happening? by Barlo_Mung_42 · 2004-08-03 06:40 · Score: 1

I would be nice if an editor would post something to let us know what is going on. The site comes back up and goes on with no explanation.
And that is text book bad customer service.
Nope by pavon · 2004-08-03 06:42 · Score: 4, Informative

I have seen it with IE, Safari, and Firebird, using Windows 2k, OS X, and Slackware. 503 errors have nothing to do with the browser, just the server.
1. Re:Nope by zz99 · 2004-08-03 06:58 · Score: 1
  
  I have seen it with Lynx...
2. Re:Nope by ari_j · 2004-08-03 15:12 · Score: 1
  
  How uninformed could the Slashdot readership really be that this is considered Informative? No offense to the parent poster - just a comment on the apparent idiocy of the supposedly washed masses.
From the Debian Release Team by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 06:49 · Score: 0

FIRST POST!!!

w00t!!!
Multitude of point-and-drool apt frontends by hummassa · 2004-08-03 06:50 · Score: 1

Aptitude (curses)
Kapture (kde)
Synaptic (openstep? GTK? I dunno)
Kpackage (kde) ....

--
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
1. Re:Multitude of point-and-drool apt frontends by sp0rk173 · 2004-08-03 08:07 · Score: 1
  
  I've honestly never considered any GUI in *nix, "Point-and-drool".
  
  Point-and-hey-that-looks-kinda-neat maybe....Point-and-huh-that's-pretty-usable, probably. But never point-and-drool.
2. Re:Multitude of point-and-drool apt frontends by Television+Set · 2004-08-04 05:38 · Score: 1
  
  synaptic is GTK and its pretty nice. :)
  
  I still like my command line apt-get more though.
  
  --
  EOF
Not yet! It's too soon! by pjack76 · 2004-08-03 06:52 · Score: 1

Seriously, get GIMP 2.0 in there. With Mozilla 1.6 and OpenOffice 1.1, I'll have everything I want in a desktop, with security patches even...

--
Wow, a lucrative publishing contract! I don't have to be evil anymore. --Meteor
1. Re:Not yet! It's too soon! by jesser · 2004-08-03 07:07 · Score: 1
  
  Where are you going to get security patches to Mozilla 1.6? Mozilla 1.4 and Mozilla 1.7 are long-lived branches; Mozilla 1.6 isn't.
  
  --
  The shareholder is always right.
2. Re:Not yet! It's too soon! by stu42j · 2004-08-03 07:58 · Score: 1
  
  Gimp 2.0? Err... I thought it was in there. I think it was pulled out for dependancy issues. I don't know if it will make it in or not.
  
  Mozilla 1.6? Check
  
  OpenOffice 1.1? Check
  
  It would be nice to get Mozilla 1.7 into sarge, though; it is currently in unstable. None of these packages are in base or standard so I assume that there is still some time for them to get in.
Zealous by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 07:01 · Score: 0

Zeal
Zealous
Zealot
New Installer yet? by nurb432 · 2004-08-03 07:04 · Score: 2, Interesting

Will they be including the new installer, or even perhaps a graphical one finally? ( the debian port of anaconda works pretty well )

The installer is what keeps many away from using Debian.. that and the *perceived* slowness in releases and having to stick with 'old' versions of items...

Reason i say perceived, is that you dont have to stick with the released version forever, you can upgrade fairily easily to something a bit more current. ( or even bleeding edge if you are brave ) .. Its not as easy as with *BSD, but its still pretty painless..

--
---- Booth was a patriot ----
1. Re:New Installer yet? by JJahn · 2004-08-03 08:40 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Yes they will be including the new installer, but no graphical one yet. Anaconda works fine on x86, but it doesn't run on all of the 10 supported platforms for Debian releases. Makes it a lot harder to write an installer when it has to run on 10 different platforms ;-)
  
  With that said, the new debian-installer is pretty nice...if you're afraid of anything not GUIfied look elsewhere, but if you have intermediate-expert skill you'll love it.
Debian sarge by asackett · 2004-08-03 07:08 · Score: 2, Interesting

I've been using sarge for quite a while now, and on production machines, too. I keep a local workstation as the crash test dummy, upgrading it first just in case there's a problem that I don't want to add to the production machines -- I haven't encountered any show stoppers in almost a year now. I don't even have any woody boxes any more.

Yes, the security updates are a mite slower to get into testing, but usually only by a few hours or a day.

It works fine. I like it. I'm just sitting up here on my mountain being happy.

--
Warning: This signature may offend some viewers.
Ray Debian! Ray Fedora! Ray Gentoo! Ray Freedom! by Progman3K · 2004-08-03 07:10 · Score: 3, Insightful

I don't use Debian, I run Gentoo, but I respect the Debian team because they produce an exceptionally fine version of Linux. The aim of open source is freedom, and I think it's great that the Debian team, the Fedora team, and the Gentoo team each try to further the cause in their own way, each with their own focus, giving everyone so much choice. Look how at-home Linux is on EVERY computing platform; THAT is beauty. THAT is truth, THAT is freedom! I know I'll come off like a Microsoft (or ANY OTHER monopoly) - basher, but the days of closed-source-we-decide-what-is-best-for-you are OVER! Thank you very much, development teams, engineers, beta-testers and users! Ever onward! Excelsior!

--
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
Sarge Release by larry2k · 2004-08-03 07:13 · Score: 2, Funny

Debian Release will include a copy of Duke Nukem Forever, it is the true reason for the delay

--
The package said "Windows XP or better. Pentium Class Processor or better"... So I got a Mac with OS X
True, but just use testing by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 07:32 · Score: 0

What the parent says is true. But testing is pretty stable. I use it for production (non mission critical) file/app servers. On mission critical stuff, I use stable with backports (www.backports.org).

With Debian, I have options.
BULLSHIT MODERATION by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 07:37 · Score: 0

why the hell was this modded down to -1?
The name fix by Phillup · 2004-08-03 07:39 · Score: 5, Funny

To recap its stable then testing and finally unstable.

I think they could solve their name problems if they would rename everything like this:

Stable => Debian Server
Testing => Debian Desktop
Unstable => Debian Windows

Each name clearly denoting the level of stability for that branch.

(Let the flame wars begin ;-))

--

--Phillip

Can you say BIRTH TAX
1. Re:The name fix by Dasaan · 2004-08-03 07:52 · Score: 1
  
  Well I use unstable on all of my boxes, except for my server, and I've never had it break to the point that I have to format and reinstall so comparing it to windows is a little unfair :)
  
  --
  XP is basicly 98 with a lot more extra features to hunt down and disable. --Dram
2. Re:The name fix by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 11:55 · Score: 0
  
  It's more like:
  
  Stable: Debian Server
  Testing: Debian Desktop-with-important-updates-weeks-too-late
  Uns table: Debian Secure-and-Current Desktop
  
  Saying that Unstable is Debian Windows is really offending :|. Been running unstable for years without problems. Been running Windows for years and guess what...
A new release system is on the horizon... by Stalin · 2004-08-03 07:39 · Score: 5, Informative

The following excerpt is from an interview at http://www.pctechtalk.com/view.php?id=3230. It seems people are not going to be able to bitch about the outdated releases for too much longer.

technobeast: Why is the latest stable version of Debian outdated? And why is this idea with several releases? Any purpose to announce outdated versions as stable and currently usable as unstable/testing?

Martin Michlmayr: Debian has traditionally had very slow release cycles. One reason for this is that Debian has often been used for servers. As it is being used increasingly for desktops, our release cycle is not adequate anymore. We know about this and are working on implementing faster release cycles which will meet the needs of server and desktop users. Another reason why Debian is often slow with release is that our system is very large. We have more than 10,000 packages and support 11 architectures. However, we are working on solutions which will allow faster release cycles. In this process, we are moving away from a feature based to a time based release. This will ensure predictable releases.
1. Re:A new release system is on the horizon... by StonyUK · 2004-08-03 15:04 · Score: 1
  
  Um, this article is 13 months old :-)
2. Re:A new release system is on the horizon... by Stalin · 2004-08-03 23:30 · Score: 1
  
  And the current version 3.0 was release in mid 2002. This article, released during the development of the upcoming Sarge release, is talking about the changes coming after the next release. There is no way Debian was going to change their release cycle in the middle of development.
  
  So, it is still relevant.
apt-listbugs by trashme · 2004-08-03 07:53 · Score: 1

Try the apt-listbugs package. Before installing any packages it will list the critical bugs in the packages. If you see a bug titled "Breaks teh X!!1!", then abort the upgrade and try again in a day or two.
HOWTO use Debian Sid by hummassa · 2004-08-03 07:56 · Score: 4, Insightful

1. don't try to track sid every single day.
1(a). this means: apt-get upgrade if and only if there is a serious vulnerability; optionally, once a week, preferably once a month.
2. USE apt-listbugs.
2(a). this means: READ the fscking bugs. take a special look in those marked by apt-listbugs with , but DO read all of them. in any apt-get dist-upgrade, I get at most 30 bugs.
3. USE apt-listchanges.
3(a). yes, you know the drill. READ the changes. SEARCH for changed functionality, especially in packages you tinkered with the config.

1+2+3 == NEVER breaking the machine.

--
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
1. Re:HOWTO use Debian Sid by jazzmans · 2004-08-03 08:41 · Score: 1
  
  I've been using Sid for a couple of years now on multiple machines that run 24/7. Other then very occasional problems where I have to manually remove something that is old and b0rking aptitude upgrade, it's been flawless.
  
  I agree, aptitude is awesome.
  
  jaz
  
  --
  Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans. No-one sees motorcycles
I Prefer Unstable by trashme · 2004-08-03 07:56 · Score: 1

The problem with testing is if something breaks, it might be broken for a long time since it will take time for the fix to filter down from unstable.

For this reason, I prefer to run unstable. Sure, it might occasionally break. But with apt-listbugs alerting me of any major bug reports before I upgrade, I rarely get bitten by a major bug.
Debian project too ambitious? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 07:56 · Score: 0

Hey, that's a good one! Heh And I remember when most GNU/Linux users had some cajones and used only cutting edge programs: to test, debug and learn.

Actually, the testing packages aren't as bad as you may think. I'm running a custom install of Sarg, all testing except I had to use the stable version of 'apsfilter' [CUPS SUCKS] because the testing version didn't want to play, on an old Compaq - 350MHz PII with 130mbram + 2gighd.

I installed just the 'base' programs for speed, making sure my broadband connection was up, and then installed X, Icewm [gnome/kde just too big now for this hd] and a few selected programs (firefox, thunderbird, skype, boinc/seti ...) from shell using the new 'aptitude' installer and then configured sound, scsi emulation and usb as I needed them. Very nice, compact and speedy distro for this computer.
Yes and No....The Labels are Wrong by reallocate · 2004-08-03 08:11 · Score: 1

Yes and no.

I'm using Munjoy Linux, a very good unstable derivative, on my desktop.

But, here's the question: if "Unstable" is so stable, why is it called "unstable"? Why isn't it called "Desktop"? Why isn't "Stable" called "Mission Critical Server"?

The continuing use of the label "Unstable" obviously does not accord with a reality in which almost every other distribution uses the same software rather reliably.

--
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
1. Re:Yes and No....The Labels are Wrong by dmaxwell · 2004-08-03 08:34 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Unstable doesn't mean "will crash if you so much as look at it incorrectly". It means "software dependencies and APIs change on a daily basis". A binary package targeted at Debian Stable can be counted on to install and run properly over it's supported lifetime. Stable releases are about three years apart and are supported for a year after new Stable releases.
  
  A binary package targetted at Unstable could fail to install and run tomorrow because dependencies have incremented upward in version.
2. Re:Yes and No....The Labels are Wrong by reallocate · 2004-08-03 09:09 · Score: 1
  
  Great, but in the world I live in, unstable means "not stable". As a user, I don't care if API's and dependencies change, so long as the software that's on my machine works.
  
  --
  -- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
3. Re:Yes and No....The Labels are Wrong by Dopefish_1 · 2004-08-03 10:15 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  If it's just the word choice you have a problem with (which, admittedly, is quite confusing for those not familiar with Debian's release philosophy), you could always just call it "sid" instead.
  
  Just to throw in a personal anecdote, since everybody else in this thread seems to be doing so: I run sid on a couple of desktop machines, and woody+backports on several servers. I've never had a problem with the woody boxes, and the worst problem I've had with the sid boxes is apt getting really confused and refusing to install or upgrade certain packages for a while (usually fixed within a day or two). Which can be a pretty annoying problem, but it doesn't (at least in my experience) leave the system in a "not stable" condition. YMMV, but Debian works quite well for my needs.
  
  --
  
  #include <sig.h>
4. Re:Yes and No....The Labels are Wrong by reallocate · 2004-08-03 13:43 · Score: 1
  
  I take your point, but is it still true that only the stable release gets security updates? And is there still a note on the Debian site specifically warning people away from testing and unstable?
  
  --
  -- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
5. Re:Yes and No....The Labels are Wrong by dmaxwell · 2004-08-03 14:51 · Score: 1
  
  I take your point, but is it still true that only the stable release gets security updates?
  
  Yes and no. The stable release has a Security Team who are responsible for fixing security issues in Stable. The Security Team have their own apt repositories strictly for pushing fixes out. A few months after a Stable release, these fixes tend to be in the form of backports from the upstream project as the idea is to change the behaivor of the system as minimally as possible. The only changes that happen in Stable are security and stability fixes. This makes for nice deploy and forget servers but the price paid is forgoing the shiny new things when say Samba goes from 2.2.3 to 3.0...well there are ways around that but they all involve more admin attention if you use something like www.backports.org.
  
  Packages in Unstable tend to follow the upstream projects pretty closely. Security and stability fixes DO come to Unstable but they don't have the priority they do in Stable. The package maintainers here are seeking correct configurations, merging upstream patches, and (sometimes) Debian specific patches, and so on and so forth. What they aren't doing is leaving packages unchanged except for fixes; they have to manage features and think more about interactions with other packages. Unstable package maintainers don't have the luxury of a separate Security maintenance team. They have to perform all of the maintenance.
  
  Basically you have to pay a mind to security advisories and upgrade ASAP. The Unstable package maintainers diligence in such matters is comparable to a distro like Fedora or Gentoo. If a big security hole opens up in something important like Samba, then Unstable will get a fix. Sometimes it takes a few days.
  
  Debian package maintainers often originate security fixes and submit them upstream themselves. You can sanely run machines on Unstable; you just have to exercise some diligence of your own and be ready to upgrade packages frequently.
  
  The REALLY risky Debian flavor to run is Testing. Testing is a sort of perpetual release candidate that inherits packages from Unstable if they go more than a few weeks without major changes. Unless a release is imminent, a security hole in Testing can go unpatched for quite while. Testing has a higher degree of dependency and API stability than Unstable as it is deliberately held back from the bleeding edge. It is really intended for testing things like "What breaks if you upgrade from Stable?" It seems to be of more use to the Debian project itself than it is to Debian users. When a release is imminent, Testing is frozen and starts receiving the attention of the Security Team. When the "release critical" issues and bugs are sufficiently squashed, it becomes the new Stable and the whole process starts over.
Don't have kids. by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 08:16 · Score: 0

For the sake of the human race. Really.
Ask on IRC by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 08:20 · Score: 0

The best thing to do is to ask in #slashdot on irc.slashnet.org. They usually have some idea what's going on and are really nice guys. Especially drdink!
Whereas Redhat makes radical changes by Burz · 2004-08-03 08:20 · Score: 1

...and labels it 'general release' within a few months.

I have several major applications "made for Redhat" back in the 6.x and 7.x days. They all stopped working with Redhat 8; I am sad to say the same is true for every other distro I've tried that is based on Redhat. But these apps all STILL WORK on Debian Testing which is itself only one step away from bleeding-edge.

I'll take Debian Testing over a "finished" Redhat release any day.

Clue: Redhat isn't meant for end-users... at all.
Sheesh.. by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 08:23 · Score: 0

Someone is still living in the 90's.

Aptitude is the way of the future. Synaptic is great if you're a GNOME user.

And the latest SARGE install is a snap--simple, clean, no muss.

Dselect needs to be buried and forgotten.
1. Re:Sheesh.. by IckySplat · 2004-08-04 00:27 · Score: 1
  
  It's great for KDE users too :)
  Synaptic is probably the best package manager
  I've seen yet! Beats Windows & more traditional
  *nixen hands down.
  
  Debian users you know what to do....
  
  apt-get install synaptic :)
  
  --
  Help! help!, the termites are eating my DRAM!!!
September of what year of what decade? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 08:25 · Score: 1, Funny

You'd think people would not overlook specifics such as this, that are so important to Debian release dates.
Re:New Installer yet? (yes) by Burz · 2004-08-03 08:27 · Score: 1

I used it for the first time several months ago. Its nice and easy, but a little slow and not at all flashy.

It is about time.
How to avoid 503s by Phong · 2004-08-03 08:51 · Score: 1

If you get a 503 error, delete the slashdot cookies your browser has stored and reload the page. Apparently there is (was?) some kind of a database bug that could be triggered in a number of different ways, and one of them happened when slashdot was trying to load up the user prefs referenced in a login cookie. Some folks have had success re-logging in after getting to the main page in this manner. YMMV.
This also appears to be the reason that some folks report that they have success using IE (it's not logged in) but not in Firefox (it is logged it).

--
..wayne..
Help out! Fix an old bug! by Mustang+Matt · 2004-08-03 08:54 · Score: 1

Debian's development site recently added a daily generated list of bugs 2 years or older.

http://master.debian.org/~ajt/oldbugs.html

--
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
1. Re:Help out! Fix an old bug! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 09:36 · Score: 0
  
  daily generated for 2 years old bugs?.... seems like overkill to me. ;) //fatal - Debian fanatic.
2. Re:Help out! Fix an old bug! by cjwatson · 2004-08-05 01:29 · Score: 1
  
  It's useful, but it's not new; that page has been there for considerably longer than I've been a developer. I think it was created in 1999/2000 or so.
Re:September of THIS year? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 09:04 · Score: 0

Not really redundant, my first thought was that they were going to wait another year!
Re:Ray Debian! Ray Fedora! Ray Gentoo! Ray Freedom by lkcl · 2004-08-03 09:08 · Score: 1

ah ha, no, now it's much worse than those bad-old-days.

now it's the days-of-geeks-having-fun-doing-what-they-like that are IN.

i'm not entirely sure which is worse, but i will say this: ASF-like charters are INFINTELY more important [advocating mutual respect, and evicting people who offend]

witness the number of flame-warts that have caused good people to have to leave projects...
Installation not quite that difficult... by warriorpostman · 2004-08-03 09:24 · Score: 3, Informative

When I set up a Debian box about 6 months ago, the installation didn't seem any more difficult than installing RedHat (which was the only distribution I had used up till that point). You don't HAVE to use dselect or tasksel. The Debian installer (for woody at least) provided some images of standard packages that a user might want when setting up an initial install. I hosed that up, but that was my own fault. I ended up just using apt-get to install specific packages I needed. It's just a web server, so I didn't need much.

I've only used Redhat and Debian; Debian is WAY better with the package management then RedHat. I'm looking forward to converting my other RedHat box over to Debian as soon as I find the time.
Damn straight! by Oestergaard · 2004-08-03 09:28 · Score: 1

You said it.

Security updates are almost instant - not only in becoming available, but also when you look at the timeframe from when it becomes available till I actually have it running on critical production systems.

This is possible, because I know that I won't have to worry about some PostgreSQL feature changing, some weird Apache module configuration file format change, or what have you... I know that I can safely install security upgrades *immediately*, because I know that the package as such is not upgraded, the security fix is instead *backported* to the (outdated, but more than adequate) subsystem that had the security vulnerability.

Other admins I know will wait until the weekend before they apply updates, because experience has taught them that security fixes break things every now and then. Just not so on Woody.

And face it; how bad is Apache 1.3.X, how bad is PostgreSQL 7.2.X ? It's not all that bad. Sure, it's "outdated" compared to the bleeding edge, but they worked a few years ago, and with security updates backported, they still work very well. And I haven't had a single service "dropout" because of security updates (or anything else for that matter).

I think the most serious service dropout I encountered was a kernel update - due to errors on my side, I waited for a minute long than I had to after the machine came up before I started Apache (requires passphrase for SSL certificate). So, the most serious service dropout I've experienced thru my time with Debian was a two-minute web-server downtime. Because of a kernel update (requiring reboot) and my own stupidity in combination :) This is over a period of a few years now.

For things that absolutely need to stay up and running, I haven't seen anything approaching Debian/Stable.

Of course, my days with debian on the desktop are over (at least for now). Different requirements, different distributions (or even different operating systems).
1. Re:Damn straight! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 12:22 · Score: 0
  
  Curious what your prefered desktop is these days.
  I had the same great experiences with Debian/Stable on the server, and had decent luck with Unstable on the desktop.
  Recently I switched everything to SuSE (my new company's a .NET shop, and I can't bring myself to learn Windows, so I'm guessing Novell's Mono will run best on Novell's Linux); but it just doesn't have the same good feeling of being able to 'apt-get' anything when I want it. Yast2 drives me nuts, and 'rug' and the SuSE apt/rpm packages seem to be pretty incomplete compared to debian (where's ffmpeg, where's GDAL, proj4, postgis, mapserver, etc).
  I'd love to find a desktop distro I'm happier with than debian, but haven't found it yet.
Re:Ray Debian! Ray Fedora! Ray Gentoo! Ray Freedom by Progman3K · 2004-08-03 09:51 · Score: 1

I'm not sure I understand everything in your post, but I will comment on your last point; Disagreements will happen, surely, and they're the hallmarks of good projects, because as long as you consider the points of views of others in the project and try to get your point across without shoving down anyone's throat, we all win. Sure, sometimes good projects lose people and the project may have a much tougher time progressing afterwards, but come on, you can't have prima donnas throwing temper-tantrums and hijacking projects any more than you should expect EVERYONE to agree, right? So projects can literally fork-off (I know, it reads almost like F----off) if enough people, or even if ONE person feels deeply enough about a direction. Developers are still free.

--
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
Re:New Installer yet? (yes) by Lobo_Louie · 2004-08-03 10:29 · Score: 0, Informative

I used it as well. I believe I had a working system in about 10 clicks.
err.. by Milton+Waddams · 2004-08-03 10:40 · Score: 1

...is that September 2005 or September 2006?
1. Re:err.. by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 13:55 · Score: 0
  
  2004. - Read the damn post
Wrong by trashme · 2004-08-03 11:49 · Score: 2, Insightful

Too much patent issues, too much packages not available because not all platforms support them, too much old packages, even in unstable.
I have no idea where you get this idea of too many unavailable packages. One of Debian's strength's is the sheer number of available packages. A quick check on my system shows well over 10K available packages.
They are still debating if XFree 4.2 should be default.
As someone else mentioned, unstable is using XFree 4.3
Even if you are using unstable, packages keep changing way too much
Then don't update all the time. There is no reason you have to update every day. If your system is running fine, leave it as is.
Have they changed the political bug yet by ExCEPTION · 2004-08-03 13:52 · Score: 0

After heard so many good things on Debian, I was ready to try it, but I stopped at the installation. I was looking for Taiwan on the country/region selection screen. However, it turned out to be "Taiwan, a province of China". Uh... How many people really think Taiwan is part of China here? And as a Taiwanese, I definitely do not think so. Why bother? you might ask. China has been very oppressive toward Taiwan, and people here are just growing tired of it. Crap like this, "a province of China" pops up every where in every internal convention. After a few google searchs I found out it used to to just Taiwan but reported as a bug, because it did not match the ISO standard. I wonder who the hell did this, and the maintainer just insisted on not changing it back to just Taiwan. I am not making any political statement here. I think an open source software would be more political neutural. "province of china" is just purely offensive to me, it's like saying you have to agree on this stance before you use Debian. All I'll agree is GPL and their social contract, not some other agenda. I feel sorry that I do not have the time and energy to contribute to Debain, but this problem cannot be fixed just by contribution alone, since it was a bug fixed and they will just stick to the ISO standard (kissing China's ass).
FYI, I later tried Slackware and loved it. No political bullshit too.
1. Re:Have they changed the political bug yet by eloki · 2004-08-03 17:36 · Score: 1
  
  ...but reported as a bug, because it did not match the ISO standard. I wonder who the hell did this, and the maintainer just insisted on not changing it back to just Taiwan. I am not making any political statement here. I think an open source software would be more political neutural.
  
  That's contradictory. What you're saying is: Debian uses a name from the ISO standard, but that's offensive. You want it to be something different from the standard, and you think that's not taking a political stand?
  
  Think about it, suppose the name of 'Canada' was changed to 'Canada, 51st state of the USA', even though that's non-standard. Isn't changing it away from the ISO standard name like that a political statement? Then why isn't changing from the ISO standard 'Taiwan, province of China' a political statement?
  
  Whether or not the standard names are any good is a whole different question, of course. But the one thing that Debian is being here is politically neutral. I can understand why Taiwanese people may not like it, but the reality of world politics is that China has a lot more power, which is why few countries have separate diplomatic relations with Taiwan (China doesn't like them doing that, since you only have diplomatic relations with other countries).
  
  So yes Taiwan's place in the world is sucky. However, it's nothing to do with Debian, which is just using the ISO standard name for countries. That standard reflects the reality of the world today, which is that China is more powerful. All you have to do is change the standard.
2. Re:Have they changed the political bug yet by DHam · 2004-08-03 22:00 · Score: 1
  
  I just read the Debian-user thread on this and I think that Debian has screwed this one up. It is not politically neutral to use the name "Taiwan, Province of China" even if that's in the ISO standard recognised by the UN. Apart from anything else, Taiwan is a member of neither ISO nor the UN so it is a mistake to treat ISO and UN rulings as definitive in this matter.
  
  Of course there is also an issue in asking the Taiwanese authorities since that implies an answer to the political question so it turns out that there is no definitive standard in this matter and Debian therefore has to choose a name. Choosing the non-definitive UN/ISO standard is just as political as choosing the generally (outside of government) accepted name "Taiwan"
Cool ;) by Anonymous Coward · 2004-08-03 18:42 · Score: 0

I love Debian ;) It's just simple like that ;)

Michal
Debian Stable is Stable by Pan+T.+Hose · 2004-08-03 21:53 · Score: 1

Debian Aims For September Release Date

Is this the one that features the new 2.0 kernel?

Actually, the Release Update is much more futuristic that you might think:

"One GR, some flame wars, and a debian-installer test candidate later, it's time for an update on the status of the sarge release."

It surely sounds like science fiction, does it not?

As a more serious sidenote:

pth@pth12:32:/etc/X11/xkb/symbols$ uname -a Linux pth12 2.2.20 #1 Sat Apr 20 11:45:28 EST 2002 i586 unknown pth@pth12:32:/etc/X11/xkb/symbols$ echo `ps aux | wc -l` running processes 829 running processes pth@pth12:32:/etc/X11/xkb/symbols$ cat /proc/meminfo total: used: free: shared: buffers: cached: Mem: 263118848 257708032 5410816 69066122 8642560 44091236 Swap: 526409728 231829504 294580224 MemTotal: 256952 kB MemFree: 5284 kB MemShared: 67448 kB Buffers: 8440 kB Cached: 43064 kB SwapTotal: 514072 kB SwapFree: 287676 kB pth@pth12:32:/etc/X11/xkb/symbols$ uptime 11:44:40 up 439 days, 3:11, 79 users, load average: 0.24, 0.41, 0.29 pth@pth12:32:/etc/X11/xkb/symbols$ exit

Oh yeah, that's my Debian Stable desktop. Who laughs now?!

--
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
Low memory install? by glesga_kiss · 2004-08-04 00:07 · Score: 1

Will the new installers cater for low memory machines? I've just put sarge on an old box a week ago to act as a backup server.
The box only has 16 meg of memory and finding an install that works took a while. All the newer ones require 24+ meg of RAM. In order to get it installed, I had to use the Lord Sutch installer to get stable up and running, then to a dist upgrade to sarge. Messy.
Meh by lorcha · 2004-08-04 05:33 · Score: 1

And for those of us who've used Debian before, we can tell you that, every so often, unstable just breaks. It's not like it's planned, but the fact is, with so many package maintainers, something's bound to go wrong - and it usually does every few months. At that point, you've got to go and uninstall and reinstall packages to make dpkg not complain about weird circular dependency problems - an irony for a distribution that so many claim is the answer to "dependency hell".
I've had unstable break on me once. Synched up a few days later and all was well. If you can't handle this, don't fscking use unstable.
Use testing instead. That's what it's for. Testing is a whopping 10 days behind unstable. That's 10 days of ironing out the kinks. Use that if you don't want breakages.

--
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent