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."
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.
Oh, come on! When will the submitter realize that stableis what most of us want to run on our servers and mission-critical hardware. I for one cannot afford doing an apt-get upgrade and breaking three, two or even _one_ package. Even worse would be putting a serious bug in the software on a production machine. With stable this chance is minimal, but of course not non-existant.
One possible solution would be to divide Debian into a "server version" and one for the workstations who actually _want_ (or need) to run stuff from testing. Although this would mean double the work for the package maintainers (et al) I'm sure it would make Debian even more attractive as a desktop alternative. Today, I don't know a single n00b or even semi-n00b using it for her home PC or similar - it's all Windows, Xandros or possibly SuSE. On the other hand basically all of my friends who proudly call them selves sysadmins are running Debian (stable) on their production boxes...
Unless of course they need to run RH to get IBM to support WebSphere =)
I've always defended Debian Stable's stale package versions for the sake of stability, but recently a serious issue has arisen. The recent PHP security flaw has made this issue apparent. The version packaged for Woody is 4.1.x. The PHP developers no longer pay any attention to the 4.1 branch and their recent release for the newer 4.x release which fixed the security issues, also had other fixes included, making it difficult to backport them to the 4.1 branch. Last time I checked, no one on the Debian side had stepped up to fix the issue in 4.1.
Something really needs to happen here (and installing 3rd party backported packages is not a clean solution). Perhaps a policy that packages that are no longer supported upstream will be upgraded in stable.
Some packages, such as MPlayer, I know are tested enough by the development team that I'll take the newest version as soon as it comes out. Others I'd prefer to know someone else has taken some pain with it :-)
Just my .02 worth
---
For more of my ramblings, look here
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.
Why dont you use Synaptic or Aptitude if you dont like dselect. Synaptic has nice usable gui and aptitude is much better than dselect if you like working on a terminal
>> Techflock-flock onto the best bits of technology
This is a common misconception about stable and unstable. Unstable does NOT mean that it's fragile, going to break, or unsafe for use. Instead, it means that it has not been verified as stable.
The guidelines for unstable/testing/stable as basically as follows:
All new packages are in unstable
After about 2 weeks, they are moved to testing, if there are no major bugs
At release time, they go into stable.
Thus, if you'd download the latest version from sourceforge, or any kind of "nightly build", you may as well use unstable. If you only use things that have been tested first, but like recent software -- use testing. If you need the best testing availabe (without, of course, paying for testing or doing it yourself!), go with stable
-- Is "Sig" copyrighted by www.sig.com?
The each have their own place
RedHat (SuSE) A good distribution for someone who is looking for products which are supported by contractors and vendors. A widely popular distribution which targets the Enterprise computer industry with marketed points of Vendor support, Third party package availability, simplified GUI's with a design towards a single look and feel for all concerned. Gentoo Very actively developed based on some good ideas. It's newness prevents it from really approaching a serious consideration for many users and most Enterprise applications. Exceptions do exist, but are the minority. Very high potential for success once some concessions are made towards making the system more stable, easier to manage, and less likely to explode. Debian One of the oldest distributions and also surprisingly popular with software developers. Definitely one of the top five in the industry and holding strong. While it does not cater to the Enterprise crowd through market-speak, it could perform as such given the chance. Also there is a fundamental lacking in the One Size fits all approach that SuSE (and to some degree RedHat) have taken. This can lead to a confusion at the desktop when users switch between KDE, Gnome, and WindowMaker (top 3). It's also know for it's focus on being stable over current.While there is a lot of pressure on Debian to move off the focus on stable and move towards being more current, this needs to be addressed not as a means of changing the process with greater options for the user community, but to address how the existing (and proven over years) process might be better improved upon. Much has been done through automation of the defined process steps already.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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