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Updates From Debian
A couple of people noted that
"Linuxlookup.com is reporting the third update of Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 (codename `woody') which mainly adds security updates to the stable release, along with a few corrections to serious problems. Those who frequently update from security.debian.org won't have to update many packages and most updates from security.debian.org are included in this update." Another reader writes "Looks like the Debian project just released
their old stable distribution (woody) with a huge numbers of security
updates, some removals and some less critical bugfixes. It's been a long
time that we had to wait for it, the last update was in November last year,
together with the break-in." And finally: pkarlos_76 writes "What's holding up Debian Sarge from release to stable? It's those lazy maintainers..... no actually it's just a few issues with security and bugs being quashed, and maybe you can help speed things up, especially if you are a maintainer, as your package will be left out if release candidate bugs are not fixed. Sarge Release Status Update available on Debianhelp . Even if you aren't a maintainer, any help with bug quashing, picking up orphaned packages or what not is always a Good Thing.
Debian has a very good packaging system with very well definied dependencies. You could install a system and update it over and over again, without the need to reinstall.
On the other Hand, Debian integrates security fixes without using the new upstream version from the original package maintainer, giving software developers a solid plattform to base the applications upon.
There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want. --Calvin
Debian GNU/Linux is quite ideological. The best writeup on it I've seen is Why Linux? Why Debian?
I wouldn't call it conservative: Debian comes with over 8000 precompiled packages, many of which are fairly recent (see distrowatch or others for version info).
Debian is a user-supported (noncommercial) distro that appeals to people with some experience with Linux or which believe in the GNU philosophy. The package manager (apt) is quite good. It is a well thought out distro & (arguably) has had the most succesful branches: Knoppix, Ubuntu, etc.
We decided to go with Sarge (testing), as we where expecting a final release with security-fixes soon, and didn't wanted to have woody installed and becoming obsolete within a couple of weeks.
/etc/apt/sources.list file to pull packages from Woody rather than Stable. Let other folks debug the upgrade process on their experimental boxes before you upgrade your production boxes.
For anyone else considering the same route... If you want a Stable server OS, install Debian Stable. Regardless of when Sarge is finally released, Woody will be supported for an additional year or so. In fact, if you have a Debian stable box and don't want to get pulled into Sarge before you're ready, change your
Anyway, if you want a modern flashy desktop based on Debian, look no further than here.
Please alter my pants as fashion dictates.
It's also very stable and you can get by with a minimal of packages. The approach is to patch exisiting versions rather than force 'upgrades' to newer versions which may or may not change behavior (see PHP for examples of behavior changes even between point versions).
And it runs on quite a variety of hardware besides lame old x86. I've run classes for semesters off of old junker Macintoshes -- 100% availability, no downtime from course start until the hardware was retired for good the next year.
It's also very fast to install once you get used to it. (Don't use dselect) I've installed Debian for use as a web/cgi/database server on Pentium machines in under 15 minutes. Including some tweaking, however that needs a fast network connection.
It's easy to choose linux 2.2, 2.4, 2.6 or a custom variant Linux kernel. I've also read that you can drop in other kernels besides Linux, like BSD. Though I myself have not tried, but would like to read more about it.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
One item not yet mentioned is that it supports a LOT of differnt computing platforms:p s
alpha
arm
hppa
i386
i64
m68k
mi
mipsel
powerpc
s390
sparc
and soon AMD64
On top of just being really cool in in of itself, this allows you to have a unified computing platform across mutliple legacy, bigiron, and modern consumer x86 hardware installations.
The actual release stopper at the moment is getting the Security autobuild network ready to build packages for Sarge.
While it's true that packages such as Abuse have release critical bugs, the release of Sarge will not be held up by them. Sarge cannot release while RC bugs are present--if it's simpler to remove Abuse from Sarge than it is to fix the RC bug, then Abuse will be removed.
Exim 3 is being maintained by debian developers for up to date security. It wont get new features and support for setting up a new system if you need help as no one outside of debian list will be of much help with exim 3 now but it will still be secure.
As for horde I agree you either have to use a very old version of use a backport that will install updates that could make the system less stable also programs link clamav are stuck with really old version and make the program usless in stable that is why I do use the backport for it. Area like AV and spam filters are the bigest problem in my option and need a better way to handle in debian.