Slashdot Mirror
Debian 3.0r4 Released
SeaFox writes "The Debian group has released an update to the 'Woody' distribution of the popular Linux/GNU OS. From the site: 'This is the fourth 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.' But the question on everyone's mind is probably when the current Testing branch, featuring much more up-to-date packages, will be named the new stable release."
A Debian Server variant would indeed be good - with perhaps a pre-configured installer that sets up the most comonly used packages on a server.
;)
Of course, another open-source group could provide this alongside the Debian Project
Dave Bell
Well here's a semi-n00b who uses sarge/win98 (for gaming) dualboot on his home PC. Sure Debian was a bit hard to get running but now that I've gotten it up I must say it's the distro I've most enjoyed. Besides, I've learned a lot using it.
Even though sarge is "testing" It's been really stable and also my choice for desktop use.
Please don't...
Debian already has four levels of version: stable, testing, unstable, and the new expiremental. Adding any more levels or options to the process will only slow down the release of stable. I really don't think you want to wait for the next release of Debian Dorever 3D do you?
If you want a server version then stick to stable. If there's a package that you need that's newer then selectively import that from testing while keeping the rest of your system stable.
It's a cute sounding suggestion, are you the one who is actually going to have to live with it, or are you trying to sound intelligent? You forget you are dealing with a voluneer group. If you add a shitload of beaurocratic complexity to the process you will have to start paying them to put up with your stupid ideas.
I've worked will someone for over a year on using Linux and they have settled on SuSE. They don't like it, but they just don't want to learn anything more about it. They have to settle for a lot of things that they can't do or can't do right.
Adding more distribution levels to Debian will only make things more difficult to manage. Don't fuck with it unless you want to fix it yourself.
When are you going to realize that there will always be two types of users on computers? Sheep and Geeks. Sheep like to download virus and spyware and adware and if they can't have butterflies for their mouse pointer they shit themselves. And they don't care about anything else. Let the sheep use Windows and be stupid and pathetic and annoying and let the rest of us use Linux and have a clue and not have to deal with the sheep unless we need some money. Sheep pay a lot of money for stupid stuff. Don't fix it for them, or we might all be out of work.
Seriously, ever try installing Woody on a new machine with a new hardware RAID controller? You can't, you need a custom hacked install CD. I admin a bunch of servers and my boss likes Debian, however I'm sick of having to bend over backwards to just install Debian on our new rack boxes, much less try to use up-to-date packages. I'm going to try to sway him towards FreeBSD. Debian was a great thing back when compiling packages took hours and hours, but as fast as machines are these days waiting several years between stable releases is not viable. On top of that, with the time spent on debian-devel discussing (and flaming) trivial things like package ratings (someone posted an ITP for some R-rated thing), it's all just a waste of time.
What Debian IMHO needs to do is to split their distribution into different parts and release those independendly for each other (base, x11, gnome, kde, etc.).
Its simply a completly hopeless undertaking to try to get all multiple thousands packages in Debian stable stable at the same point in time, it simply won't work. And while this undertaking is already almost impossible at the release time of a new Debian stable, it gets rather pointless once the Debian stable distro got a year or more old. At that point in time upstream often has already moved much further leaving Debian stable with a outdated, sometimes incompatible and bug filled version compared to the latest upstream.
Debian really must move much closer to upstream, when upstream releases a new stable version and it doesn't come with major incompatibilites or problems it should move into the stable branch of the distri and not have to wait three years till Debian decides its a good time to release a new distri.
The concept of having a non-changing[1] and security-patched list of packages is nice and good, but it simply can't work if there are no regular new releases and often multiple years between releases. These days Debian stable is really more a 'Debian obsolete' than anything.
[1] non-changing is really the meaning of 'stable' for Debian, not to be confused with software that is stable, have been burned one time to much by buggy software that was already fixed upstream but never made it into stable.
I've been running Debian Unstable on my home machine for a few months and I have to say that it's every bit as stable as the Fedora install it replaced on the same hardware. It's my main desktop at home and gets quite a workout.
The Debian "unstable" branch is as stable (at least for me) as any Linux distribution that I have used. Fast, too.
God is imaginary
First of all, I liked debian and run it for years, but. Yes but. Its become something like Qmail or djbdns. It became unmaintained, it became a nightmare. It has software what is over 30 months old and most software isn't even supported anymore by upstream. For example try to submit a PHP-bug or complain about Postfix or get support for Postgresql. It isn't there anymore. I don't mind running behind with my software when its still safe, but when upstreams say "UPGRADE before you complain!!!" its over for me. Currently I have machines with backports and lots of it, but I'm not going to wait for Sarge. I'm running tests with FreeBSD 5.2.1/5.3 for a while now and soon the first debian machines will be something of the past.
Quite a few people are commenting about using testing or Sid instead of stable, for a desktop. And other comments include using testing or backports if you don't like stable for a server.
/., perhaps in one of the posts, or elsewhere (distrowatch maybe), or on one of the mailing lists. But I haven't seen anything.
The problem is that even though sid is fairly stable compared to other popular Linux distros (though things do break occasionally), others in this same story, and rightly so, have said they would never use sid for a server. The whole purpose of stable is for running a server these days. I'm sure there are some users out there that may use stable for purposes other than a server (Bonzai was good enough for me for low resource hardware, when I installed it, it was based on stable, don't know now). But most users who are installing stable on a new server, with new hardware, have rightly pointed out that many pieces of the new hardware either don't work, or if it is possible to get working, have to be heavily hacked.
If stable were newer, it may be considered more for company installs, as long as the Oracle or Websphere, or whatever other certification doesn't require Red Hat or Suse. And I'm sure that even in companies that run Red Hat or Suse for some applications that need it, may also run Debian Stable for some purposes where they can just set it and forget it!.
I've tried stable in a newer computer. And besides the difficulty with some hardware, I found X with XFce difficult to use. Even though it is a server install, I still find it easier and more productive to install and use KDE gui apps for administration. Sure, I use the server for development also. It isn't my main development box. But for tweaking some html here and there, dragging and dropping files here and there quickly, and for some other purposes, I simply prefer a gui to do it with. I would've used Firefox (wasn't out yet) or Mozilla with another app for file browsing, but I like konqueror for web and file browsing (and fish/ssh) and a few other utilities it is good at. And though KDE is really bloated and I'd like to free up some space (every time I try uninstalling something KDE related, it wants to uninstall most or all of KDE or important libraries, like trying to uninstall XMMS, or other KDE utilities or apps), but KDE or synaptic won't allow it. Synaptic is another reason for my running X. And that I also wanted to try out Quanta Plus.
The release I'm using on the server is testing. As some other posters have suggested using. But the problem with testing is that it doesn't get the attention of the security team. I believe this changed a month or two ago because testing is close to going stable. But I'm not aware of a security repository for testing. I'm sure I would have seen an announcement about it here on
If the testing distro did receive the attention of the security team, and there were security repositories, then that would make testing far more palatable for many users as a server distro. With careful updates/upgrades, it would be a good solid release for a server, with much more up to date applications.
My testing distro was once Mepis. But once installed, I uninstalled some unnecessary apps, fixed my sources list, and slowly but surely, the install is becoming 100% testing. It currently has KDE 3.2.3, instead of the KDE 3.3.x version. I haven't taken a look at KDE 3.3 yet, nor do I plan to install it, as that would entail switching to unstable for a few repositories, and pinning, two things I don't want to do. But KDE 3.2.3 is working good for me, and as I stated, it is on a server install, so the latest and greatest isn't necessary.
I had planned on waiting (when Bonzai didn't work out for me) for testing to become stable. Good thing I didn't, because I never would have got anything done. Since I got tired of waiting though, I installed testing, and now hope KDE 3.3
I can't think of a good reason await sarge's release other than having all the latest eye candy apps. Woody is working finely for me and it has all the features i would need. Of course there might be one or two program whose latest version I need, but I can upgrade them separately, and it doesnt warrant for a full system upgrade.
If you happen to buy a new computer, Debian 'stable' is too old to support the chipset, many devices and perhaps even the cpu (such as Opteron or Apple's 64-bit PPC). Otherwise, Debian stable is fine for new servers -- but only if you buy them used on Ebay!
They should reorganize their release names from stable, testing, unstable and experimental to Grandpa, Greybeard, Production and Current.
"Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
--Tom Schulman