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Interview with Debian Project Leader
brunotorres writes "I've interviewed Martin Michlmayr, Debian project leader. In this interview we talked about the upcoming Debian release, Sarge. An excerpt: 'We heard for years that Debian is hard to install and the old installer wasn't very easy to maintain or advance, so we we decided to throw the installer away and start from scratch. The new installer is much more modular, which makes it easier to maintain and extend.'" Reader ron_ivi points out that new Debian/Hurd CDs are available. Newsforge and Slashdot are both part of OSTG.
The problem with all installers (Fedora included) is that dependency tracking is extremely difficult and complex, and packages don't always accurately describe their dependencies. They also don't have any good way of handling multiple flavours of (essentially) the same product. They also don't talk with each other, so don't expect apt or rpm to know about anything you installed from CPAN or CPANPLUS, even though there's absolutely no reason why you couldn't have a program to rationalize the contents of different installer databases.
However, that is not the fault of Debian, but rather the fault of the problem being solved. It is extremely complex, and no good solution currently exists.
As a distribution, I like Debian a lot. No, that's not just because they included my FOLK patches as an alternative kernel (though that is a factor, because it means Debian is far more capable of including interesting ideas than almost any other distribution). Debian is simply a damn good distribution. It's comprehensive, it's consistant in approach, and it's been able to maintain a very high level of quality, despite having a very large number of contributors. (Or maybe because they do.)
There have been a lot of distributions, over the ages. Some have failed because the maintainers gave up (SLS, for example). Some failed because they appealed to too specialized an audience, so there wasn't a userbase to keep things going (QLinux is an example of that). Some failed because of political reasons (Stampede Linux got busted over a "trademark infringement" that pushed credibility a little far). Some failed because the maintainers went commercial (Red Hat Linux, I'm talking to you!).
Given that kind of turbulent history, it's impressive that Debian has done as well as it has. Those involved in the project should feel proud of themselves. IIRC, Slackware is the only other distro that has lasted as long, or atracted such a following.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
One of the things I've noticed of late with Debian is that their vaulted upgrade procedure between versions is definitely not working for Woody and Sarge.
/etc directory is a little much.
Upgrading from a fresh Woody install -- of 3.0r0, to be precise -- directly to Sarge as it now stands destroys Gnome completely. It will boot, start X11, but then die horribly for reasons I have yet to sort out fully. (I did this three weeks ago, for an old beater that was a gift) And it would die consistently only in that operating any Gnome application in tandem with another would do it.
The only way I could get the install procedure to update correctly was by using a sarge netinstall CD with a beta from August.
I believe the kernel versions changing has a lot to do with this. Of course, blaming Debian for this is not fair, but expecting users to suddenly know everything about the kernel version, the module loading/management procedure and the deep changes to the
I don't care about a GUI installer. I do care about Debian's stability between versions. I used to think Debian's upgrade process flawed (speed of releases) but essentially fine for those people who didn't want to think about dependency hell when using an online upgrading service. But now I am wondering if they really have it under control; I think they've taken policy as far as they can go.
They should commit to a regular timeframe for stable/server/stale versions and stick to it. Once a year is plenty of time.
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Death will come, and will have your eyes
-- Pavese
As a side note, I'd really like to see someone try to do this with Windows. Upgrading from 95 to 98 to 2k to XP and replacing HDs, CPUs and MBs under that system, while not having to reinstall all your applications and redo all the settings.
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
He displayed a genuine interest in linux, and I encouraged him to try gentoo (myself already using a ports based "distro"). And later seeing his frustrations, I realized my mistake. I think one of the most important things if you want to get someone on the linux/unix train is documentation. Which is almost there in gentoo, but not quite. The other is: a clear system layout. Debian comes close to it (I might try sarge when it comes out, just to keep my linux skills honed - not long ago I couldn't make usb flash drive work in SuSE, and I felt really embarrassed), but I still didn't know what mplayer.conf does in /etc (or .operarc for that matter).
So my recent method of getting people trying out linux (or freebsd) is to give them a book. I would say: don't touch anything on your computer. Read this or that, and if you are still interested, and enjoyed your reading (because you'll have to do a lot of reading later as well), than you can go on following installation instruction. One important note: never give docs in electronic format. It is easier to grasp the basic concepts if in book form, and (strange as it may sound) without sitting in the front of a puter. And then I would recommend a kind of distro you mentioned: it might be gentoo or debian or slackware, it doesn't really matter (as long as it's not rh or mandrake)
Anyway, for nostalgia's sake, I dug up some of my friend's posts on gentooforums. Note the growing use-flag paranoia (and I refer back to the above post in a post below, just for recursivity's sake. :)
Actually, I'd almost classify the Debian installer as "Ignorant Housewife edition".
Sarge-something-something-x86 and Sarge-something-something-powerpc are the ones I've downloaded so far, and I've actually had a chance to mess with the x86 one. (The old beige powermac g3 is in the process of getting its heavy ass moved into another room.) The install went something like this:
1) download iso and burn to CD
2) boot spare x86 machine from CD
3) wait
4) let it configure DHCP
4a) wonder why it didn't work, play with it a bit
4b) plug the damned ethernet cable in, repeat 4)
5) give it some network settings (domain name, machine name, etc)
7) pick some package groups to install
8) wait
9) wait
10) wait
11) give a root password, create a user
12) log in and use the damned thing
So it's not a 3-step-with-no-step-3 iMac. Whoopee. I didn't expect it to be. Then again, this is the first time I've ever used a Linux system. Ever. And I was practically spoonfed a working installation. And within a few hours of use, I was able to install/uninstall packages, mess with basic environment settings, and play a few games. That's a far cry from "not ready for the desktop."
I declare it... 2004 (I did the installation on 12/30/04) is the year of the Linux desktop. Hey, it passed my test.
Now to toss MacOS X 10.2.8 (the last release "supported" on the beige g3) out on it's ass... maybe in a few days. I need sleep.