Is Ubuntu a Compatibility Nightmare for Debian?

An anonymous reader submits "Following Friday's release of Ubuntu Linux 5.04, Ian Murdock, founder of the Debian project, told internetnews.com: 'Ubuntu's popularity is a net negative for Debian.' He explained: 'It's diverged so far from Sarge that packages built for Ubuntu often don't work on Sarge. And given the momentum behind Ubuntu, more and more packages are being built like this. The result is a potential compatibility nightmare.' Ian suggests a method for averting crisis on his blog."

Comments

Re:Crisis, what crisis?

[Aeiri]

I'd call it evolution. I'm sure Neanderthals viewed the last evolutionary change in humans as a crisis though.

And I'm sure the people at Mandrake called it evolution as well. (In regards to RPM)

Funny thing, perspective.

[FreeLinux]

And given the momentum behind Ubuntu, more and more packages are being built like this. The result is a potential compatibility nightmare.

Funny how two people can look at the same thing and see something different. My perspective was that; the result is a potential deprecation of Sarge and perhaps Debian itself.

Re:Here's a way to avert a crisis:

[DarkTempes]

i thought Red Hat did fedora...
i thought they just made their 'red hat' distro enterprise-only

Similar problem when Mandrake forked

[NotFamous]

This reminds me of when Mandrake forked from Redhat. Initially the RPM packages were fairly interchangeable. Eventually I learned to only use actual Mandrake RPMs on Mandrake. Somehow, the world kept turning...

Re:Similar problem when Mandrake forked

[natrius]

You say that Debian's problems come from having too many packages and too many architectures, but those are precisely the features that Debian's users like about it.

Unfortunately Ubuntu doesn't really tackle the packaging problem seriously: it improves on Debian by only stabilising a small base system

This is exactly what you said Debian should do, but now that Ubuntu does it, it's a problem?

(a) an out of date and small but stable repository (main) or (b) a large and up to date but often broken repository (universe).

(a) is precisely what most normal users want. Normal users use their computers as tools, and don't care if they have the latest whizbang version of Gaim, as long as they can IM their friends. On (b), universe isn't often broken, and only one package (gtk-gnutella, repeatedly) has broken for me, and is the only one I remember seeing mentioned on the mailing lists. Also, universe doesn't get updates either, it just includes the rest of the Debian repository that Ubuntu hasn't chosen to explicitly support.

Unfortunately the Ubuntu developers only go so far - they still believe it's possible for Ubuntu to package everything end users will ever need, even though at least in Warty, universe wasn't even enabled by default.

Universe isn't enabled by default because main is supposed to contain all the software that most users need to get their work done. Any new user that spends more than a day or two administering an Ubuntu system will be aware of universe. If there's a piece of software that you think should be included in main, there are places on the wiki to make suggestions.

I don't see any way for Ubuntu to stabilise universe without getting bogged down in the same mud that Debian did.

Time based releases. You do as much as you can within six months. If there's a package in universe that a user's workflow depends upon that's broken in a release, they can stick with the old release for up to another year while still receiving security updates.

The end result is Ubuntu - a fork.

Ubuntu is a fork. Forks aren't inherently bad. All the work on Ubuntu goes back into Debian. Sure, it shows that people weren't satisfied with Debian and wanted something else. Is this a bad thing for Debian? It depends on what their goals are. The work of Debian developers is being used by far more people that it work before Ubuntu, so I think that's a good thing.

Re:Similar problem when Mandrake forked

[IamTheRealMike]

Ah well. That's the crux of the issue isn't it. The differences between Ubuntu and Fedora are marginal. The desktops are similar. They are based on the same components (or will be, once FC4 is out). They are neck and neck on features: Ubuntu has nicer auto-update and package management tools, Fedora has nicer and more comprehensive config tools.

One reason that people like Ubuntu is Synaptic and Universe. Because, put bluntly, installing things on Ubuntu is marginally less of a pain in the ass on this distro than on others. I think this is a poor way to compete. It takes peoples eye off the ball: even if Ubuntu has more packages and apt-get is nicer than yum, they all suck compared to the user experience on MacOS X or Windows. For Ubuntu you have to manually enable extra repositories, and there are no guarantees it will work (that's kinda why Sid is called "unstable"). For Fedora, there is no GUI and even if there was, Extras is quite small.

If instead of getting into a pointless pissing match over who has the most packages, these organisations focussed purely on making a slick desktop a la the Mac, I do believe Linux would get better faster. I think this is the most sensible thing to do. But then ... what would distinguish Ubuntu from Fedora?

Good question. Great question, in fact. I think the answer is that there'd be little to no real differences. Maybe having two going at it at once keeps some flexibility in the system: if one group rejects a solution due to personality politics or whatever, the other can pick it up and carry on. But given Marks money, was creating Yet Another Distribution really the best way to spend it? There were other ways of advancing the cause of free software: sponsoring individual projects for instance.

Re:Here's a way to avert a crisis:

[2Bits]

Amen.

Seriously, I've been using Linux for almost ten years, starting from Slackware, then Redhat and Mandrake, then Debian, and finally, Ubuntu.

I don't know how they can call the plain Debian a distro, especially in 2005, it's like Linux in 1996. I tried to install it, for 2 weeks, on a server that has hardware listed as compatible everywhere, even on Debian site. But the friggin thing would not recognize (even configure manually) my network cards (5 year-old DLink) and my Maxtor HD.

I pop it any other distro (Ubuntu, Knoppix, even Mepis, RH, Mandrake), and everything is working like a champ. With Debian, even if I gave it specific chipset info, it wouldn't work.

Instead of complaining, why not move their behind and do something about. Move to the 21st century, for Linux sake!

Re:Problem?

[fozzmeister]

Debian Developers, they spend years trying to get thier software to work on arch's that no one ever uses any more and talking about politics.

I'm all for noble causes, and I do take all the arguments about making software to be multi platform improves the package. But most software is targetted at i386 alone, if your lucky PPC will get a shot and _very_ occasionally some wierd Sun hardware. Now Debian Developers, I'm sure are very good but they can't keep rewriting every package to support multiple archs, Its not a managable job with the current amount of developers.

Re:Problem?

[EnronHaliburton2004]

Now imagine if Ubuntu had instead been a group of developers who decided to combine their efforts with the Debian group to improve Debian?

The people-who-control-Debian isn't always friendly towards new users, novice developers, or people ask simple questions like 'Why is x.org NOT in Debian-unstable?'.

More often then not, if I ask a question in a Debian forum, IRC channel or here on Slashdot, somebody will basically tell me to shut up and live with it.

It's this additude which has kept many people from using Debian, and is the same reason why many people are now reviewing Ubuntu.

I agree with many here.

[deutschemonte]

(k)Ubuntu is the new Debian. Plain and simple. In another 5 years I am sure it will look very similar to what happened with what is now Mandriva and Fedora back in the day.

Sure compatability between the two OS's will go to the way-side. But (k)Ubuntu has an chance here to comply with the LSB and silence any claims of incompatability by saying they are just following the standards more closely than Debian proper.

If nothing else this is just more proof that maybe Debian does need to change their focus to only releasing stable versions for the big three architectures and leave the rest in unstable/testing limbo.

It has been discussed before and I know a lot of people flammed it because they love Debian for it's architecture support, but Linux fanboys need to start realizing this isn't just about us anymore, this is about the market we are trying to convert.

Whatever brings us closer to that end is good. Even supposedly "forking" Debian into (k)Ubuntu.

[/rant]

Disclosure: I run Kubuntu as my desktop as dual boot w/ WinXP.

Spot on! When will we ever learn

[syousef]

With the great resources at their disposal how many operating systems does Microsoft put out at any given time. Maybe 3 server and 3 desktop operating systems supported at any given time? How many versions of each? At most between 2 and 5, but basically all the same just with capabilities switched on or off, or bugfixes added.

Now how many operating systems do Linux developers come up with? A few hundred maybe, and tens of these are "mainstream" distros. Often the basic admin tools, desktops etc. look and act differently.

Is it any wonder non-technical (and even some technical) users are turned off using Linux on the desktop?

Come on guys. Divided we fall!!!!

Re:Spot on! When will we ever learn

[glockenspieler]

You know, I'm as likely to bash microsoft as the next person, but I have to say that all of this focus of the Linux community on Microsoft is long past over done.

Time was, all alot of us wanted was a computing environment that was good, stable, and allowed the kind of tinkering that isn't possible for closed system. I have that, and if other people find this more appealling than MS's offerings, great but that doesn't change my life much. (Yeah, I know, if MS owned everything, that would be bad, but that isn't what keeps me in the OSS community...)

So, I have to say, I don't give a flying f*ck whether there are 2, 10, or 100 different desktops. If there's people to support it, great. If not, it goes away. The reason there are so many different version is because we all have different needs, wants, desires, and hobby horses.

Divided we fall my ass. It ain't a war to alot of us, its a pastime, a hobby, for some of the lucky, a job too. Ubuntu's doing well? Great. Debian not doing so well? So do something like... well... Ubuntu... This embodies so much of what I love about OSS.

Duh

[arodland]

Nothing even close to modern runs on Debian stable, and the compatiblity nightmare they call "testing" is just as bad. I've been defending (and using) Debian for a lot of years now, but they need to get their act together, stop complaining, build a decent project, and release it, or just shut up and die. Metaphorically, that is. Ubuntu is a net positive for the users. Whether it's a net positive for Debian is mostly up to Debian.

Should be interesting...

[Tuross]

Like most people I agree its a bit of a "duh" to have moved far away from sarge. It's difficult to remain compatible with something that is so far behind the times it will be obselete on release. Even sid has moved away in some regards; yet even it is obselete in many areas. There is no business sense whatsoever in being chained to the old sloth.

Part of the compatibility problem is on Debian's side: many maintainers are annoyed that Ubuntu exists and choose to not work with them out of pride/arrogance. This attitude is something I hope Branden breaks in his new tenure as DPL.

This is where I think it will be very interesting. Branden has always been a progressive and practical person, with extremely little time for the kind of political rubbish that has prevented sarge from being released. We know that the platforms Ubuntu has chosen are the ones that matter for their market, and the ones that matter for the near future in the desktop and server market (with Sun dropping UltraSPARC for amd64) in general. We know there's already been talk of refocussing Debian such that architectures like arm that usually hold everything up will no longer do so.

So the way I see it, there's a lot of hand-waving going on here that could be completely irrelevent in the future as Debian is architecturally focussed the same as Ubuntu which should foster greater cooperation. Of course Ubuntu is clearly on the desktop side and not the server, so I guess it will have more of the eye-candy and desktop apps while Debian has a far greater range of packages; though it doesn't necessarily need to be that way. It would be fantastic if Ubuntu is simply re-branding the Debian desktop packages in a co-maintenance fashion.

My greatest gripe with Debian over the past 6 years is how they seemed to have wasted time arguing over pathetic things like should this document licensed under the GFDL really be in Debian, and have hence fallen from their position as the #1 distribution on the ball technically, always up-to-date (at least in sid) with what's out there, to being so far behind its becoming very tempting to switch. Come on, the commercial distros used to be the last to get anything new, now they are becoming the first. Okay, so Novell *wrote* Beagle but the source has always been available, why is is still not in sid (even an old version?). Call me out for not packaging it myself, but neither have you so that's hardly an argument. That's just one minor example.
(and fwiw I did try packaging it myself, but the dependencies were also either not packaged or out of date and it became a much bigger and riskier task than I have time for)

I can understand Ian's frustration, he created Debian and then went on to found Progeny and I guess there's some angst/jealousy there over how popular Ubuntu has become in such a short time while Progeny hasn't quite seen that kind of success for however many years (most people forget it even exists unless prompted by some mention somewhere). Get over it. I've seen more cooperation from Ubuntu maintainers with "upstream" Debian than any other Debian fork as witnessed by changelogs of packages I use, I put their success down to this and their good business strategy/vision. Credit where credit is due. I hope this cooperation will increase in the future.

This BS...

[poofyhairguy82]

But Ian Murdoch, Debian's founding father, does not believe Ubuntu's popularity bodes well for Debian-based distros. "If anything, Ubuntu's popularity is a net negative for Debian," Murdoch told internetnews.com. "It's diverged so far from Sarge that packages built for Ubuntu often don't work on Sarge. And given the momentum behind Ubuntu, more and more packages are being built like this. The result is a potential compatibility nightmare."

How could it?-

A. Sarge isn't released

B. Ubuntu is based on Sid.

Murdoch argues that if Ubuntu were truly compatible with Debian, all of the energy going into it could be directed at Sarge and toward getting it released, which is what would really benefit the Debian developer ecosystem as a whole.

Yep. Thats what Userlinux tried to do. Look how that went. Debian is too uncentralized to ever be more than a server distro (where slow is good).

"I understand what the Ubuntu folks are trying to do, and they're doing lots of good work that will eventually find its way into Debian," Murdoch said. "But what we really need right now as a community is for Sarge to be released.

There. He admits that Ubuntu is now more about helping out Etch (the release after Sarge) then helping out Sarge. But Warty should have helped Sarge a bunch, and Sarge has problems even millionaire Mark can't fix quickly.

"In that respect, Ubuntu's popularity is more harmful than helpful."

How is it harmful that Etch is going to kick ass because of Ubuntu's work?

I'll tell you how- each Ubuntu release is an embaressment to the Debian people. Two Ubuntus have been released before a Sarge. And if they don't watch out, it will be three. Businesses don't like that many upgrades usually, so a slow Sarge is good many say. But from the words of of Debian's founder is obvious that Sarge not being released it is turning into a bit of a joke...not good for Debian's image.

Thats the only way Ubuntu hurts Debian.

Re:Here's a way to avert a crisis:

[synthespian]

Dude, I think you are confusing Debian with the BSD's.

The BSDs have far greater code compatibility in both kernel and userland than Linux distros. Code is shared widely amongst BSD distros. You just don't know much about BSDs. FreeBSD's port system caught on quickly, even on Gentoo (sort of), and NetBSDs pkgsrc even has binaries for Debian. You can even have Linux binary emulation in BSDs. Heck, you can have a FreeBSD emulation in an OpenBSD.
The BSDs used a clever, obvious, scheme for userland: makefiles. Makefiles solve dependencies, because they're a Directed Acyclic Graph. There's this joke that Make is the only Artificial Intelligence program that ever worked. :-)
The makefiles in ports fetch code of the Net and compile them. It fetches the tarball. That scheme is very smart. It uses Unix features, it didn't invent database package managers that have to be kept in sync and that need massive amount of human resources to keep them up-to-date. Like Debian, who proved this scheme doesn't work. This is the lesson from Debian, I believe: automate. Don't rely on engineering humans, like Debian did. Use software.

Re:Problem?

[jimhill]

During the brief time I had Debian on one of my machines, I experienced firsthand the arrogance of the Debian fanbase. When I asked in an IRC channel why an upgrade to mplayer felt that removing KDE entirely and most of X11 was a good thing to do, I was sneeringly told that if I had problems with that then Debian was Not For Me. And so I agreed, and so I returned to the RPM-based distros.

The point of the post is that I have a strong sense that if the Ubuntu folks had said "Hey, we've got some ideas and we'd like to make some changes to Debian" they'd've been told to go pound sand. The Debian developers and fanboys are so fixated on the One True Path that there's no stopping them.

Solution: Ubuntu - Debian co-maintainers

[jab]

There is a reasonably simple and very effective solution here. The Debian project supports, and in fact encourages co-maintainers for packages. This is a great way to get more manpower into the process and improve the quality of packages. The co-maintainer doesn't even have to be an official member of Debian if the maintainer sponsors the combined work.

I am a Debian developer, and one of the packages that I maintain has been patched by Ubuntu. I only found out about it by looking over the Ubuntu patch site. What I would like to see is the Ubuntu developer contact me, ask to be a co-maintainer, and get those changes directly into the Debian package. This is good for Debian - we get additional help in doing a good job. This is good for Ubuntu since they don't have to re-merge patches every six months. It helps the two groups act as a team, feel good about each other, and save on overall work. And, as the article points out, the increased compatibility between Debian, Ubuntu and all other Debian based distributions (including Knoppix) is a win for end users.

Now that Ubuntu is a rising star, and Debian has just finished Project Lead elections, I would like to see the leadership of the two organizations get together, discuss the idea, and hopefully agree that this is a good way to work together. The leadership can then promote co-maintainership as a 'best practice' within their own organizations, inform the userbase (i.e. get it mentioned on slashdot), PLUS appoint an interoperability liason. The liason's job is to hassle^H^H^H^H^H^H talk with individual developers to help make sure this actually happens. Branden, don't you think this would be a great first accomplishment as DPL?

Of course, there will still be some places where Debian and Ubuntu want to do something differently, so some packages will always be a little incompatible. But the bulk of the 'heavy lifting' across the thousands of packages is all about stuff developers generally agree on. Updating software, finding and fixing problems, improving quality. Ian Murdock is worried an impending 'nightmare'. I think if we can work together well, the upcoming Ubuntu/Debian relationship is going to be software distribution's finest hour.

Re:Solution: Ubuntu - Debian co-maintainers

[swillden]

Seriously, don't you think all that is up to Debian? I think Ubuntu may or may not agree, but I don't see them having a problem.

The further Ubuntu diverges from Debian, the less benefit they'll receive from the huge amount of work that goes into Debian development. Ubuntu's rapid growth has been entirely because they've had such an excellent base upon which to build, but if they diverge too far from Debian they will lose that advantage and will have to do all of the work themselves, at which point their progress will slow dramatically.

It's clearly in the interest of both projects to cooperate, and I fully expect it will happen. The "problems" currently being experienced are primarily a result of the youth and rapid growth of Ubuntu. When a new process is developing, problems occur, it's normal. Debian and Ubuntu developers will cooperate, and both will win. Debian excels at providing a vast, solid foundation that is great for those who need stability and great for experienced Linux users/developers, but has a hard time maintaining a good, usable desktop for less capable (or dedicated) users. Ubuntu does an excellent job of that, but requires a the Debian bedrock underneath.

Re:Solution: Ubuntu - Debian co-maintainers

[|>>?]

Jeff,

I think your idea has great merit, but I must confess that I think your idea will be buried in politics and name calling.

Allow me to elaborate a little. I'm a debian user, have been for a number of years. I'm also a software developer with 24 years of experience and I run my own company. I use my workstation to get my job done and I report bugs as diligently as I am able to as they arise from time-to-time. On occasion I attempt to use IRC to ask questions in #debian and in the past I've offered my services to the debian community.

In this context I've found that there are a few "loud" people within the debian community, those who are quick to dismiss those who are not a developer and "thus" have no visible track record. Members of the general community might perceive those "loud" people as representative of the debian developer community.

Perhaps the reason that the perception exists that the debian community is hard to communicate with is because it appears that to become a debian developer requires a lot of passion, persistence and patience. Once you are a debian developer, there may be a sense of achievement and some form of separation, in that there is differentiation between a developer and the rest of the community.

I'm not talking about the process of becoming a developer, I'm talking about how it makes you feel after you've done it.

I'm struggling a little to get my point across, because I don't want this to turn into a moan about debian because /. has already well and truly taken care of that part of the discussion.

What I'm talking about it that debian developers appear to me to require a strong personality, just to become a developer in the first place, that as a result, debian itself looses out.

So, after many words, getting back to what I started with, politics and name calling. I think that we as debian users need to find a way to allow more cohesion between the various members of the community and then ideas such as yours can and will be embraced and encouraged.

I've now re-read this numerous times and I'm still not sure that I've got my point across, but feel free to email me direct to discuss this further.

It hurts me to say this...

[One Childish N00b]

Now it hurts me to say this, but a lot of what many other posters are saying about Debian dying off are true. Don't get me wrong, I like (K)Ubuntu - it's going to be the next distro I hop over to - but I love Debian like a brother - After disasterous misadventures with restrictive RedHat and Mandrake installs, Debian gave me just the right level of ease where I wanted it and power where it was needed. To me, RedHat and Mandrake just felt like an equal to Windows, but with Debian I genuinely felt more productive. I learnt my Linux skills on Debian and it still faithfully hauls my two main machines like a loyal pack-horse, but one I know is slowly preparing to lay down and go to sleep for that final time. Kubuntu is the next choice for my main work machine and will be slipped on next time I get around to doing it (which will probably be around August), and the reasons are simple;

- I want up-to-date packages. I want KDE 3.4 out-of-the-box, I want X.org and the full support for my graphics card it brings - I want all the things Debian doesn't have but with Ubuntu are just an apt-get away.
- I want to feel my system is modern. I know, I know, if I want cutting-edge, use Gentoo, but I don't want cutting-edge, I just want modern - with Debian I feel I'm being left behind.
- Better (easier) installation. I'm trying to prise my mother off of Windows, and while Ubuntu's installer still isnt GUI, it's not quite the CLI terror that is the Debian installer - how am I supposed to convert her to Linux when even the installer scares the shit out of her?
- More frequent updates. OK sure, they might have stupid names (Hoary Hedgehog?), but Ubuntu updates are frequent and on-time, and they keep things up to date - Debian updates seem very few and far between, and serve only to make sure the disto stays a good three or four years behind the competiton in the name of stability.

On the final point, granted, Debian is absolutely rock-solid, and for that reason if that reason alone I will be keeping it on my server box (sitting blinking in the corner as I type this), but as for my work box, it's getting Kubuntu as soon as I get round to it.

As I said, I love Debian like a brother, but I'm growing to love Kubuntu like the hot girl down the street (and no, not through a telephoto lens) - you love them both for different reasons, and while all your family loyalty might tell you to sit in with your brother, reality has to step in and tell you to go off with the sleeker, sexier option.

Uhm, no thank you

[AvantLegion]

The reason I won't touch Fedora is the fact that I have to play hide-and-seek with 14 different 3rd party repositories just to get the damn software I get by typing the words "universe" and "multiverse" in a couple of spots, or that I get from ground 0 in portage in Gentoo.

Re:Problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

As an aside, here's what the official Debian IRC channel's bot has to say about some of the other distributions out there (and also offers some insight into how arrogant and insulting Debian users are):

00:44 well, gentoo is a ports-based Linux distro for x86, PowerPC,
Sparc, Sparc64. Maybe akin to BSD. Something you don't want to
administer more than 2 of. Nice file browser. Its users are
gentoobies. See Also http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2003/44/
http://www.devcave.net/termos/funny/gentoo.htm
http://www.funroll-loops.org/, or ask me about 'greenhouse'.
bash.org/?464385

00:46 mandrake is an extended version of Redhat that supports Kde. It
is very nice and easy to use for new users and power users alike.
It also pays many developers to work on Kde. Linux-Mandrake is
found at mandrake.com. One of Enlightenment's main developers is
also known as mandrake. easily and advisedly upgradeable to Debian ;), or "oh no... the duck distribution", or like a peugeot, but on
your desk, or a piece of shit

00:49 i guess freebsd is NOT better than debian, or a robust UNIX-like
operating system, especially good in handling network services.
See http://www.freebsd.org/ Admittedly one might be more
interested in using FreeBSD as a server OS rather than as a
desktop workstation, because let's face it, Linux is what drives
modern UNIX GUI.

Funny

[ta bu shi da yu]

I had the same issue! I once went to #debian on freenode, foolishly thinking that Debian people might want to help me double-check my CUPS article on Wikipedia. Instead, I got a lot of abuse, and after watching the channel members abuse some other guy (for who knows what), I decided this wasn't the channel for me and to leave.

intrinsic flaw with binaries on unix

[Anonymous Coward]

If you compile from source, then you dont get these problems. You also dont need to split your packages up into "dev" and "non-dev", and get into that whole can of worms. Im not even going into the multitude of versioning problems that exist with binary packages.

Unix is designed with source in mind. Win32 is designed with binaries in mind. Going against the fundamental nature of either system leads to problems.

Debian unstable

[matman]

There are two (or more) really different kinds of users that Debian serves - desktop/SOHO and production/enterprise users. Desktop users run unstable (or testing if they're conservative) and users needing stability and security over features go for stable. Everyone loves being able to apt-get update; apt-get upgrade. Everyone loves having a huge package archive that's accessible without hunting the web. However, the only people happy with the release cycles and maintenance processes are the users who want to run stable. That's why ubuntu has gotten popular - it's filling the desktop niche a bit more. I think though that ubuntu is too specialized for me to like. Eg, their website says that it's GNOME based, but what if I want to run KDE instead? I also don't like installing much out of the box - I want to pick and choose only what I want; Debian lets me do this. I'd love to see:

- The Ubuntu and Debian folks get together to build an awesome base system framework to build around (eg. kernel-package, hotplug, installer, etc)
- Try to make it easier/more popular for developers to package their own stuff and put it in contrib. Make it more like freshmeat but with storage. :)
- Debian people can maintain stable and follow their current release concepts, but maybe scale back on the number of packages offered. Do stable users really need games and P2P packages, for example?
- Ubuntu project can be to build from and extend Debian Unstable.

I would use Ubuntu if it were Debian with more and more up to date packages. I think it makes sense for Ubuntu to be that, although maybe with a prettier installer (please don't take away my ability to start from clean slate). It makes sense that the Ubuntu project would want to derrive Debian packages as they do now, especially if Debian were to scale a bit back. Debian has, in Unstable, main, contrib, and non-free (repositories" (right word?)). There should be an Ubuntu "repository" as well. Eg, say ubuntu patches xmms to add https mp3 streaming. They would put that new package in the ubuntu repository in Debian unstable. The package would have a higher version number than the package in main and would be tagged as having a derrivation (some unique id number or name - eg "ubuntu-https-stream" [perhaps a convention is needed as for version numbers]). The package versioning mechanism would need to be extended so that once you have installed a package with a derrivation, "apt-get upgrade" will not upgrade to a newer version of the package unless the package includes the derrivation. If you wanted to upgrade any way, there could be a command line switch on apt-get to specify that.

Ubuntu would become a new "repository" in Debian, plus media with a tweaked install process. Upgrading a debian unstable box to ubuntu should be as easy as adding an apt sources line and running apt-get update; apt-get upgrade.

This way ubuntu packages can do what they want, will be compatible with Debian unstable, and Debian people will have an incentive to include changes. Debian can focus on their core and the ubuntu project can pick up the juicy desktop parts of the system. I also really liked the collaborative maintainer idea - that would promote the migration of derrivations from the ubuntu repository into unstable.

Just some ideas... I'm quite happy with Debian and I've never found an out of the box Linux that satisfies me in the flexability domain. Too much or wrong stuff installed by default, too little support for weird configs, etc. I mean, my desktop machine doesn't even have a hard drive in it (boots off of a file server in the basement), and setting that up with Debian was a breeze.

Re:Problem?

[Penis_Envy]

Debian "just works" for servers. For desktops, it's a bit of a nightmare to set up and get right. Especially for Laptops, where hardware needs newer kernels and more cutting-edge drivers. Ubuntu definitely has that dead-on. It's the FIRST distribution I have not had to recompile the kernel on in order to get everything to work right.

I would almost picture "Ubuntu" as the proposed "Debian Desktop" that was discussed a while back. Ubuntu has up-to-date software on a time-based schedule, whereas Debian proper is more... liesurely and secure.

Re:Problem?

[EnronHaliburton2004]

And you shouldn't be forced to use Ubuntu if you don't want to.

However, I think that the two distros might focus on different pieces of the Linux realm. There is a natural split between the Server and Desktop realms... and this just might be indicitive of that split. My robust Debian webserver doesn't necessarily need a well-designed GUI widgets, and my workstation doesn't necessarily need to compile programs designed for an 8-processor box.

Re:That's what happens

[benjamindees]

being stolen by a better company
Debian isn't a company. I don't think Ubuntu is either, but I'm not sure.

Ha! This is the greatest Freudian slip in the whole thread. Ubuntu absofuckinglutely is a company.

Who do you think pays all those Debian developers to work on Ubuntu instead of Sarge? Mark's money will run out sooner or later, but I'm sure he's invested enough in Canonical that when it does run out, they'll be sitting pretty with exclusive control over Ubuntu support.

Meanwhile, Bruce Perens and Ian Murdock have to rethink their businesses based on Debian support. Instead of working with and within the Debian project like Progeny and UserLinux, Canonical has purchased the Debian project and is letting it rot to draw users and developers to Ubuntu. This doesn't bode well either for Debian or for the people who work within the project to make their living, if that living isn't tied to Canonical.

In the end, I'd expect Ubuntu to turn into something like Fedora, with the free distro really only being useful for people who like to upgrade every six months and one company (Canonical) monopolizing support for anyone who needs a longer life, security updates, stability, or even third party software support. That seems to have been their inspiration all along. Everyone but beta testers will get to pay and, if they do it right, Debian will no longer be a viable option. Two birds, one stone.

So far, unfortunately, it seems they are doing it right. Only half of the eligible Debian developers voted for the new DPL. Sarge is way late with no end in sight (it still hasn't even been frozen). And it seems like the process of adding new developers to the project (who might upset the balance of power or actually work to release a stable version) has come to a grinding halt.

Re:Problem?

[vadim_t]

Because it's not stable, it's fossilized.

It's hard to set up a reasonable modern server with Debian. For example, a mail server. With Debian stable you get:

ancient exim
ancient spamassassin
no clamav
etc.

The problem with that is that you go online and see lots of nice setups explained you simply can't do with the provided version, because it relies on packages a year old, and what's provided by Debian is much older.

Sure, there are solutions. Mixed stable/testing, backports, building your own. But all of those suck.

Mixed systems and ones with unofficial sources are error prone. Once in a while something screws up, and you suddenly find that the mail server that was supposed to be just upgraded for a security fix wasn't fully installed, and dpkg won't remove the package... and you're stuck with no mail server until you find a way of fixing it. Sure, at work you should have a test server, but this happened to me at home and it's annoying as heck.

backports have the additional problem of that you have to trust the site, and that's rather difficult.

Building your own seems like the best one in comparison, but can also be awfully problematic due to outdated development packages. Ideally you need more than one computer with Debian so that you avoid installing gcc on the server. And if I'm going to build from source I'd rather use Gentoo on the server, where things compile from source wonderfully well.

I agree with most of the replies

[Anonymous Coward]

I heartily agree with most of the replies here. Debian is an excellent, stable server O/S but on the desktop I'm afraid it's utterly stale. It's so out of date it may as well be touted as a historical edition (Debian "Prehistorux" ?)

Ubunutu on the other hand is the best thing that's EVER happened to desktop Linux. It's the most user friendly, best specified distro yet and actually looks like it was put together by someone who uses it for their day to day desktop. e.g. Instead of installing 500 apps for each purpose there's just one best of breed for each.

And after using the wonderful little "hoary after install helper" script to get your mp3, DVD and w32codec needs sorted (see http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=22860 for details) it's simply a pleasure to use. A sheer pleasure.

In fact if it wasn't for a couple Windows apps that I can't do without (and that don't run under Wine) I would switch full time to Ubuntu. No question of it. It now makes me sad to boot to Windows when I could be in Ubuntu.

Re:Problem?

[traffi]

Evolutionary selection depends on the "less fit" dying.

This is not entirely true. Evolutionary selection depends mainly on

• mutation
• combination of good solutions (mating) in new generations

A less fit species does not have to die, although it will exist in much lower quantities than those that are more fit.

Because the less fit don't necessarily die out, some qualities they have can be kept in the population for quite a while until a change in external circumstances renders them fit again. Also, although being overall less fit, they still might have some good genes that the more fit do not and mating with them will provide the more fit with good qualities.

Finishing the evolutionary analogy: Debian and Ubuntu will probably coexist for the time being, their popularity fluctuating according to various external factors. They might even eventually depend upon mating with each other in order not to become inbred and thereby more vulnerable to unknown diseases!

Re:Problem?

[vadim_t]

Sarge is kind of fine, except it doesn't get security updates fast enough. But yeah, I suppose it could work. But that's not what I was talking about anyway.

As far as I can see, the usefulness of the stable distribution dropped drastically. Right now I only consider it for one thing - firewalls, which include things like DNS servers and such. Its usefulness as a server with some big service such as http, smtp, imap, etc is very limited.

I already explained that yes, I can get backports, or use packages from newer releases, or compile from source. But all those are very unattractive solutions for reasons I already explained. They're unreliable, unsafe or unpractical.

Take getting packages from testing, for instance. Why the heck does that have to require me to install a testing version of libc? Is that really because exim uses features added to libc during the last month, or because it's the version testing includes? This often results in pulling 30 packages from testing that include most of the base, and which sometimes create problems during upgrades.

The rest of your post isn't even relevant to what I was saying. Yeah, I can administrate a Debian system. No, I don't want to do more work than strictly necessary.

Re:Funny - Happened to me too...

[bad_outlook]

Funny, I got abused on #debian 2 years back, and it was one of the reasons I didn't stick with Deb for too long. I had some noob questions, I didn't understand why I couldn't dnld a sarge iso, and yes, I read the site and tried to understand why before I asked. I got some a*hole responses, finally figured it out myself, but I was very cautious when asking questions. Once I had mixed stable/test/unstable packages and borked my desktop, I drifted towards Gentoo, and the friendly support via forums and IRC was awesome. Thus began my work on the Gentoo project. I would have done the same for Debian, but I don't want to be all high and mighty and not answer any questions from noobs; we were all there at one time.

bo