Slashdot Mirror
Debian Leaders: We Need to Release More Often
daria42 writes "The lack of a new stable release of Debian GNU/Linux since July 2002 is fuelling the campaigns of many candidates for the project's Debian Project Leader role, with many pushing for a shorter and more stable release cycle to stop Linux users heading for greener and more updated pastures."
I can see the need for keeping ahead of security bugs, but to change for change's sake is just silly.
debain testing allow you to update your system as packages become abalable with out having to wait for a full release
Last stable release in 2002 - how can they possibly compete with Microsoft whose last desktop operating system release was in 2001 :)
Ultimately, the people who like Debian will continue to use it; likewise Debian's goal should be keeping its customers satisfied rather than trying to sway people away from other distros.
I don't really care that it's not updated because apt is flexible enough to work around that. And if a package is _insanely outdated, usually a newer one is in Testing or Unstable. And as a last resource, it's not like Debian precludes you from compiling it myself.
While more frequent releases would be nice, I like it just the way it is. I feel as if I'm guaranteed that the packages will work together without problems (something I haven't encountered in certain other package management systems). And for the select few programs where the version is unacceptably old (like gaim), I just compile from source code.
If you say "here goes my karma" I will bite you!!!
Well pretty much the whole point of Debian is to have a distribution that others can take, modify, and re-distribute.
So using Debian derived distributions like Ubuntu or Knoppix is still good for Debian, or at least compatible with its goals.
The fact that it's a pretty good distribution in its own right is more or less just a bonus....
Advanced users are users too!
...just looking at it, to be more of a "base platform" from which people build their own customised distros. This in fact might be an actual model for a future LinuxOS,(OSes in general I mean really) if no standard GNU/LinuxOS ever evolves, just make it incredibly easy to select what sort of computing experience you want, mash a few buttons, answer a few questions about hardware, whatever and etc, and your custom distro gets created, you then download it burn it and install it. People don't really "run" an OS, they want to "run" some applications. They want to just go do stuff with their computer, not really futz with it constantly. Well, I mean the 99% of the other people on the planet. You know, "them" guys.
Anyway, if you look at it that way, it's neither way behind the times or bleeding edge, it's just a big ole pile of apps and kernels that you have access to. Maybe they should just skip the different versions, let Apt sort it out when people go to build their own, make it a remasters dream system instead of trying to be a stock classic distro "OS". Do something different than what MS and Apple and Sun are doing. Make the personalised "your computer" be the primary focus, along with the "easy" part.
Strangely enough, there are actually people who appreciate long release cycles! I have servers running woody which absolutely need nothing newer and I'm happy about the fact that I don't have to change everything every 18 months.
If the release cycle were to be shortened to said 18 months, it would be nice if Debian were to maintain older releases and not only the previous release, like it it now.
I recommend Debian to my customers as a server platform, exactly because it has the finest package management and the longest release cycles. When stability is the goal, Debian is the right choice!
Indeed. The whole Debian stable rationalization is actually pretty easy to explain.
I believe the meaning of the word 'stable' is doesn't change often.
Or was it "So placed as to resist forces tending to cause motion."
stable as in stability, right? Isn't stability supposed to be a good thing?
That in mind, I do agree releases a year or so more often would help Debian. But for some people only having to update every few years is a great thing, they don't want upheavals on their servers every 6 months. This is the kind of people Debian stable serves. All of the rest use testing or unstable. They should make the website be more clear that stable is not for desktop users who want recent stuff.
There really isn't anyone working on Debian full time, and it's release pace reflects this. Debian is, well, different.
Debian was the one distro that I never really thought of having official releases. It has versions that are fluid with their packages:
Stable
Testing
Unstable
Each have their own rewards and risks, but the key to me, was that with the netinstall disks, they never went out of date. You never had a CD set full of six month old packages, you had your favorite debian versions latest, usually day old release, a download away.
The new installer is excellent, and with the lack of X based GUI, will still work with a minimal download.
Nothing compares to apt-get, and that is the biggest shame of all.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
People aren't leaving Debian for greener pastures. They're leaving Debian for Debian derivatives. If the last three months on Distrowatch are any indication of how much each distrbution is being used, then Debian is the most important distro out there. Ubuntu is #1, Mepis is #3, and Debian itself is #6. The Debian project has obviously doing something right if some of the most popular distros choose to base themselves on it.
On the other hand, the fact that derivatives are necessary is a sign of Debian's shortcomings. I haven't used Mepis in over a year, but the last time I used it, it was basically Debian installable off of a live CD with easy to use configuration tools. That says that Debian proper is hard to install and lacks user friendly configuration tools. The former problem has been fixed, but I'm not sure the latter has been. Ubuntu is Debian with a shorter release cycle and paid developers to add polish. This shows that users obviously take issue with Debian's long release cycles, and once again, the administration tools. Anyone who is running the development version of Ubuntu right now knows how easy it is to keep things up to date. The newer software also takes advantage of advances on the Linux desktop, such as Project Utopia. I can plug in USB devices, and they just work. It's nice, and Debian proper misses out on things like that because of the age of its packages.
So who uses Debian stable? From the things I hear, it's people who want a long release cycle. Woody users have been getting security updates for however long it's been since the release. People like that. Ubuntu is supported for 18 months after a release, which is likely to be too short for some people. I don't see how Debian loses out from desktop (and some server) users using the derivatives. Ubuntu is the main derivative, and all its work goes back into Debian proper. When etch is getting ready for release, the job is going to be much easier to do, since Ubuntu has already done much of the work ahead. Sarge has been in some sort of a freeze for most of the time Ubuntu has been around, so they haven't been able to reap the benefits of Ubuntu's presence. People getting paid to work on Debian is a good thing, not something to be angry about, which is the sense I get from some posts on Planet Debian.
So if Debian shortens its release cycle, where does that put it in the Linux ecosystem? I doubt they will be able to support security updates for multiple stable releases, which is what they would have to do with a short release cycle to maintain the current length of support. As much as Slashdotters like to poke fun at Debian, it plays a very important role. Does it really need to change?
Debian developers, thanks for making such a great distribution. There are lots of Ubuntu, Mepis, and Debian proper users that appreciate it.
http://www.donarmstrong.com
A notable problem with using "spinoff" distributions is package compatibility. Can I install any .deb package on Ubuntu without possibly causing binary version problems?
AFAIK, packages within Debian itself aren't even compatible with each other. If you're running unstable and you want to give a package to someone running testing, you're out of luck. Why is it a surprise that Ubuntu packages wouldn't be completely compatible? From my experience with Ubuntu, it seems like most Debian unstable packages are forward compatible to Ubuntu, but I doubt the reverse is true. This makes sense. Ubuntu has more up to date packages than even unstable at some points, since Ubuntu applies it's own patches, and the Debian maintainers may not apply them immediately. If they add the Ubuntu repository at a low priority and try installing your package, it'll probably work, but some of their libraries will be updated to Ubuntu versions. That's a bad thing, because it might break future updates within unstable for them. Maintaining package compatibility and achieving Ubuntu's goals at the same time would be impossible to do.
By the way, Ubuntu isn't a "spinoff" distribution. It stays with Debian unstable, then freezes the set of packages and stabilizes them. For the next release, they start over.
FreeBSD maintains the same kind of stability WITH a more current release schedule. 5-stable (unlike 5-release) will give you a very stable system. 5-release will give you a pretty rock solid system, though unbreakability is not guaranteed. Use 6-current and you better expect breakage, though it's not guaranteed. The last -stable FreeBSD milestone? Nov. 6 2004.
Before there's a shitload of replies about 5 sucking - yes it did suck when it was strictly a new technology release. Now bugs have been patched and more things have come out from under the giant lock. Speed has increased, as has stability, and it has earned the -stable tag. The point of this post is just to say stable != extremely out of date. stability is just well-tested, well-written code.
The Debian project should really change their terminology if they don't want to scare people away unnecessarily. Any marketroid would tell them that it would be better to go with something like "Enterprise Edition", "Personal Edition" and "Exxtreme! Edition".
Reduce the scope of the project
I disagree. One of the greatest things about Debian is the scope of the project. I can install almost anything and not have to hunt around the internet for a package. It's all in one place. I think the currently proposed approach on not releasing the lesser used architectures at the same time at the others is the correct approach. Abandoning them completely would be foolish, but having a whole release held back by problems with software that's not even heavily used is a problem.
Add development resources
This has been done. Ubuntu. People are paid to work full time, and their work goes straight into Debian. This also takes care of the issue Slashdotters have with the long release cycles, since people can download a new version of Ubuntu with the latest version of Gnome, KDE, etc. every six months. The problem it doesn't solve is that of people who want to run Debian stable, but can't use the ridiculously old packages for commonly used web programming languages. The release cycle needs to be shortened, but not by too much.
reduce some of their bureaucracy and excessive policies
You call the policies excessive, but it's thanks to their efforts that is possible to run a computer based on completely Free software (and Free documentation, which is probably the issue that prompted this point). Sure, their policies often err on the side of idealism rather than pragmatism, but I think it's beneficial for the entire community that they do this.
yum and up2date are crap. On FC3, they rotate through *all* mirrors, even mirrors that are in far off parts of the world. (You can hard code mirrors but you have find them). When a download of an rpm hangs up, you have to kill the process and restart. When you restart, they redownload all the rpms all over again. yum has no GUI. up2date has a GUI but it only lets you update rpms not install anything new. You have to use "Add/Remove Programs" in FC3 which will install the old version off your CD-ROM. Then you can update it. There are a couple attempts at GUIs around yum but they suck. The best is yum extender. The UI hangs when yum hangs. The yum output is in the last tab so if you don't switch to that tab before yum hangs, you won't be able to Ctrl-C yum to abort a download.
I've given up on yum and up2date and switched to apt and synaptic on FC3. Works like a dream. Mirrors can be set up within a CLI for apt. The synaptic GUI is excellent. Fedora semi-officially maintains the apt database but the apt database is always the last to be updated when rpms are updated.
yum and up2date existence is very questionable. They're fundamentally designed around the idea that no new packages will ever get added to the distribution after release. But the Fedora team has a religious attachment to yum so things will continue to suck for new users.
There's one big problem with the Debian system: testing doesn't get security updates. Unstable doesn't either, but they'll get it as soon as the project releases its own updated version. But testing keeps the same packages for quite a while, and is in the right place in terms of modernity/stability for many desktop users. If it got fixes and security updates, it would be a very useable system.
I am trolling
Although if you look at windows 2000 server it's what 5 years old and still in production. I mean we won't see the next windows server till atleast 2007 which sorta makes debian look reasonably good with it's current release cycles.
I mean the windows world and the linux world are two totally different beast's and i will admit other distro's really have taken two steps forward in the stable branches compared to debian woody but the basis is still the same and IMO debian really does the same job better then a few other current distributions.
In the server world I really only rely on Debian for the mission critical stuff and you know what? So far so good....
Debian is a victim of its own success.
.deb package, it goes into Unstable. The rules are, if you run packages from Unstable, and they break, you don't bitch: you fix them, or you keep your trap shut, but you don't bitch. Once a package has been in Unstable for awhile, it can go to Testing. When the project leaders are satisfied that the current state of the Testing distribution satisfies all the criteria and is fit to call Stable, then a new Stable distribution is born.
:) It's not the packages themselves that are unstable; rather, the versions are unstable, simply because the maintainers keep putting in new versions as soon as the .debs are put together. I wouldn't run it on a server; but on my laptop, which is behind a firewall, it works very well, and I'm also using it on my work desktop {an AMD64}. All that being said, I am tempted to try Kubuntu -- it's just like Ubuntu but with a KDE desktop {sorry, but despite my best efforts, I really can't get to grips with GNOME}.
It's an absolutely massive project. There are about ten thousand packages, all including metadata for full automatic dependency checking and resolution. Each of these packages is available for each of a dozen architectures, and there is consistency across all platforms. Debian is Debian; whether it's running on an Intel, a PPC, a Sparc, an ARM or whatever. The user need not know what lies beneath the skin of the machine; the procedure for doing something should be absolutely the same whatever is inside.
For a project of that sheer size to work, it's pretty much got to be ruled over with an iron fist -- if not literally, then those involved have to act as though it were so.
Woody is out-of-date for desktops; I don't think there is any question of that. KDE 2.2? Hello? And it's not exactly up to the minute for servers, either: it's still pushing Apache 1.3, for crying out loud!
The real problem stems from the fact that before a package can be accepted into the Stable release, it has to be shown to be bug-free on each of twelve architectures. So if it segfaults on a steam-powered toaster, it can't be deemed fit to run on an 80386.
But that's just the ideal for the Stable distribution. There are two other Debian distributions, Testing and Unstable. Whenever someone creates a brand-new
Testing is actually the Debian distribution you probably really want to be running if you have an 80386-type machine. Yes, security updates get ported into Stable in good time; but Testing probably has newer versions of packages anyway which are likely to have the security patch in by default. It's safe to run on servers iff you read the news and you know how to apply a patch and compile a package from source. {And if you don't, then what the hell are you doing running a server?} But Unstable is actually quite reasonable. I've found it to be no worse than Fedora or Mandrake: any problems I've had with packages not installing or not co-operating turned out to be due to mis-specified dependencies, requiring cunning use of manual override and package searches. So no worse than any RPM distro there
It's also worth remembering that every Debian-derivative -- Ubuntu, Linspire and so forth -- started out as a copy of the Unstable tree.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Actually the first time I tried Debian, unstable was broken rather often. Only for a few hours in most cases but broken nevertheless. I switched back to Debian when Knoppix came out (point in case: forget Ubuntu; use Knoppix to get a Debian unstable configured and installed in less than an hour =) and I haven't seen a unusably broken package since (In two years? Not sure how long it's been. Did a system reinstall after a hard disk crash). Recently the autofs package's post-install didn't work but the program itself worked just fine.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Please! All the labels are arbitrary, as other commenters have pointed out. Stable, Unstable, and Testing? I've got a pretty good idea what 'Stable' is, but, without looking at debian's site, I can't tell you what the differences are between 'Unstable', and 'Testing'...
With that said, Waffle Iron's suggestions wouldn't work, either (however, I believe he was JOKING. Try turning up the sensitivity on your sarcasm detector. That might help you around here).
Perhaps something more sane like:
- Stable
- Current (formally known as testing)
- Development (formally known as unstable)
To me, those are less open to mis-interpretation, as well as scaring people off with nasty words like 'testing' and 'unstable'./. is a bunch of nerds at a million typewriters. It's not a political conspiracy determined to undermine your beliefs.