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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."
Survival of the fittest.
For a lot of people, Ubuntu offers a better distro than plain ol' Debian. Now Debian is upset that Ubuntu is going off on it's own. Maybe if Debian released a better product on a faster scale, they wouldn't have their users being stolen by a better company.
"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.
The operative word there is eventually.
Sayeth Murdoch; "But what we really need right now as a community is for Sarge to be released."
You needed that at least a year ago. Fix your model so that Debian can keep up with the rest of the Linux world and you won't have to gripe about forks that don't exist.
Debian should be the foundation of a plethora of tailored distributions dominating the Linux market. The one and only thing preventing this is the fact that Stable is perpetually very obsolete. This is not Ubuntu's fault.
Lurking at the bottom of the gravity well, getting old
Translation: Provide the same horribly outdated packages we do.
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.
Release a friggin distribution or just shut Debian down.
Seriously, they haven't had a stable release in nearly three years. Projects like Ubuntu were created due to the complete lack of leadership on Debian's part.
In the wake of Red Hat's withdrawl of a viable free linux distro, Debian should be thriving right now. Instead its fading away.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
Debian just needs to start advertising itself using images of naked people, too. Then popularity will go up for Debian, until they achieve parity with Ubuntu, and more people will release packages that work well with Sarge.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Perhaps an Endangered Distributions Act.
"Oops, there goes our last female".
Debian needs to get with the program and work with Ubuntu. Otherwise... well, we all know what happened to the dodos. It would take a lot of work to replace the Debian infrastructure, but it's not impossible to do.
Packages made for sid don't even work on sarge all the time without pulling in extra packages from sid. That's the same thing that happens with packages meant for Ubuntu. When you have different sets of software installed on various computers, one single package isn't going to work correctly on all of them unless you're willing to mix packages from different repositories.
I don't think it's really fair to say that Ubuntu is a net negative for Debian. It's definitely a net negative for sarge, since very little, if any, of the work put in to Ubuntu has trickled down to sarge. However, it's good for Debian as a whole because when the ball gets rolling for etch, most of the work will already be done. Ubuntu puts out stable releases for three of the four release arches for etch, so I doubt much extra work will be needed there, although I don't really know that much about what additional work would be necessary.
Sure, Ubuntu's existence has various downsides, such as the proliferation of deb packages provided by developers that only work on Ubuntu, but would those people have made Debian packages in the first place? The packages are merely a byproduct of Ubuntu's popularity, and more people using Debian and Debian derived distributions is definitely a net gain for Debian. I don't see why he would write off all the benefits that Ubuntu provides while focusing on a few issues that are negligible IMO.
The packaging issue is one that's never really going to go away. On his blog, Ian cites software developers and ISVs as reasons for unifying Debian and Ubuntu packages. All free software developers have to do to get their software packaged by Ubuntu is request it. The Ubuntu packagers work fairly close with the Debian developers to make sure that the work trickles down to Ubuntu proper as well. For commercial software it's a bit harder, but that's one of the things to deal with in the Linux ecosystem. Like I said before, packages made for sarge wouldn't even necessarily work on woody. You have to target specific sets of available software, or just distribute binaries that install the software based on various LSB assumptions.
Well, no, everybody doesn't win. Providing compatibility with generic Debian would be a pain for Ubuntu, and would take energy away from more worthwhile work that people want to do on Ubuntu. Adding this kind of bag-on-the-side would be a win for generic Debian, and a loss for Ubuntu.
A better option might be for generic Debian to stop trying to support desktop users. The way things are stacking up now, generic Debian-stable is a great server OS, but a lousy dekstop OS. People who want to run the latest bleeding-edge version of Gnome or whatever are switching to Ubuntu. So what's the point of having generic Debian keep trying to support the latest bleeding-edge GUI packages?
I can't help thinking that this sounds like sour grapes on the part of Ian Murdock. The tone of his blog is like, "No fair, I don't want you to play with my ball anymore."
I don't think his comparison with RPM is completely apropos. RPM was poorly designed from the start, and was probably designed from the start as a tool for vendor lock-in. Apt-get, AFAICT, is well designed. If there's a problem maintaining compatibility between Ubuntu and generic Debian, it's probably because some of the desktop GUI libs are changing very rapidly.
Find free books.
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...
Some settling may occur during posting.
http://www.ubuntulinux.org/ubuntu/relationship/doc ument_view
?
"Ubuntu makes a release every six months, and supports those releases for 18 months with daily security fixes and patches to critical bugs.
As Ubuntu prepares for release, we "freeze" a snapshot of debian's development archive ('sid'). We start from 'sid' in order to give ourselves the freedom to make our own decisions with regard to release management, independent of Debian's release-in-preparation. This is necessary because our release criteria are very different from Debian's.
As a simple example, a package might be excluded from Debian 'testing' due to a build failure on any of the 11 architectures supported by Debian 'sarge', but it is still suitable for Ubuntu if it builds and works on only three of them. A package will also be prevented from entering Debian 'testing' if it has release-critical bugs according to Debian criteria, but a bug which is release-critical for Debian may not be as important for Ubuntu.
As a community, we choose places to diverge from Debian in ways that minimize the difference between Debian and Ubuntu. For example, we usually choose to update to the very latest version of Gnome rather than the older version in Debian, and we might do the same for key other pieces of infrastructure such as X or GCC. Those decisions are listed as Feature Goals for that release, and we work as a community to make sure that they are in place before the release happens."
So, who cares that it isn't compatible with Sarge? Is Sarge really compatible with Sid? I think not (if you are sane). Shouldn't Ian be saying that Ubuntu isn't compatible with his "componentized Linux" (http://www.progeny.com/products/components.html)
Ubuntu is a natural response to Debian's slow development and release cycle. Add in a more friendlier face and multiple languages leveraging the Debian model of apt-get everything and you got a n always up to date linux distro that captures the interest of those who want to use linux as a desktop environment and those who want to be bleeding edge. Any Debian users up for some X.org action? (not that it's impossible, but I've seen work arounds that leverage ubuntu's repository for xorg).
---- The geek shall inherit the Earth.
who cares that it isn't compatible with Sarge? Is Sarge really compatible with Sid?
This is an important question. Ian is complaining that Ubuntu, a released distro, is incompatible with Debian Sarge, an unreleased unstable distro. This is like Bill Gates complaining that Firefox 1.0.2 is incompatible with Windows Longhorn Beta 2. As long as Firefox released first, it is the second-comer who is responsible for playing catch up.
Can Debian Sarge keep up with "standards" created by Ubuntu? I doubt it; Debian is not renowned for its agile development..
cpeterso
The problem is simply that binary compatibility is hard.
Easy enough; it's the implications that are subtle. Like that building a key system library with different options makes it a different package. That changing a key system library thus changes the entire configuration management scenario. That a package that has different subcomponents, each with their own dependencies, is a package that depends on all of them. That auto-built dependencies tend to be even pickier then the real ones. That packages are only as good as their (builder supplied) metadata. And so on and so forth.
There must be something about this that is either hard to comprehend, or hard to accept. It gives a lot of RPM users trouble, it gives Debian users a sense of superiority, it's what makes BSD ports work so well, and it's largely responsible for making Microsoft Windows the unholy mess that it is. Clearly, there's a disconnect here.
Take a look at some common misconceptions in the software world.
It appears a disproportionate number of Debian users carry a false sense of superiority about their package tools, when what really makes Debian win is the size of the distribution package pool. Specifically, that having such a large pool of configured, compiled, and tested packages readily available via "apt-get install foo" leads a lot of Debian people into think APT is somehow magic.
Likewise, RPM properly saying "I don't think you have the pieces you need for this to work" leads so many people into thinking that RPM *causes* "dependency hell". RPM simply reports it. YUM (and things like it) can help you with it. But the nature of binary software itself is what *causes* dependency hell.
And the fact that BSD ports downloads, configures, builds, and installs all specified components *from source* leads BSD bigots into thinking that the BSD ports packagers must be doing a much better job then Red Hat or Debian packagers. Rather, they just bypass the problem of binary compatability.
And, again, this is also largely responsible for why Windoze sucks so much. When everything is a binary which you have no source for, and no two packages share information on what is being installed, and you can only install one version of any given library at once time -- then, yah, it's a minor kind of miracle the thing ever works at all.
Binary compatability is hard.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
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.
Matt
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.
1. Debian is not a company.
2. Debian has changed its release architectures after Sarge so that Etch is not slowed down by unknown, exotic and/or obsolete architectures.
3. Sarge is not ready NOW because of the large number of architectures. ARM has only 2 auto-builders now and hasn't even compiled the release of glibc that has to go into Sarge. After it finishes compiling, the archive will be frozen.
Everyone can start their own little distributions here and there, usually leaching off of distributions like Debian. They find a limited niche market and people start talking about "Debian dying". Well, I think we had that discussion before Woody as well.
Debian has a very large number of packeges available for it. As of right now, Sid has over 16600 packages. Distributions like Ubuntu do not maintain these packages. They are just managing the core (base) and a few other packages.
Anyway, release cycles every 3 or 6 months are not necessarly good. People using Debian want stability. Why do people on slashdot bitch about MS dropping support for NT or 98, yet they complain that Debian stable is 3 years old! Huh?
Woody ships with a 2.4.18 kernel. This kernel does not support SATA. Woody does not support 2.6.x kernels with module support out of the box. But you can install kernel 2.6 on woody. You can run woody on a SATA only system (can't install it from CDs though). Can you install NT4 or Windows 98 or Windows 2000 or even XP out of the box on a SATA only system? My latest, greatest XP installation does NOT detect my SATA chipset. I mean, WTF?
Anyway, as soon as Sarge ships, people will start trolling that it does not support PCE-48X or their modem or something.
People wanting RHEL software stability without the pricetag and still want to have security support would be using Woody for the last 3 years. I am using Woody on a number of machines. I don't have to worry about upgrades with unexpected bugs. I don't have to worry about sudden ABI changes or compiler changes or kernel changes or GUI changes or coputeguration changes or
So, why again is Slashdot population (I guess you can it that) complaining about Woody being stable less than 3 years, yet when it comes to MS, well, they release NT when? I think it came with IE 2!! And now that they drop support, people complain left and right about the need to upgrade..
Why are people here so hypocritical? You can run Sid with latest, greatest if you want. You can get latest Sarge installer here: http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/ There are many people that will be running Woody months *after* Sarge gets released.
</rant>
How is this modded Insightful?
If Debian dies than it will either be remade in another Debian-influenced distrobution or the developers and users will migrate to other distrobutions... like Ubuntu. Don't be so arrogant, the world is not crashing. Free software doesn't die with its developer, remember.
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.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Here's a link that may help, straight into the Subversion repository where Debian's XFree86 packages are developed:
What are Debian's plans with respect to X.Org and XFree86?
The current text of that FAQ entry follows.
Address-collecting spam robots don't know how to crack ROT13. Do you?
Now here's my concern: I have no idea who Deadbeast is (There isn't a top level page -- which is wierd), how do I know it's not just wishful thinking?
Well, I'm Branden Robinson, and deadbeast.net is my vanity domain. If you're easily amused, you may want to look up deadbeast's WHOIS record. :)
I'm glad the pointer to the FAQ helped. I admit I didn't foresee that sarge would take this long to release when advocating that Debian stick with the tried-and-true XFree86 4.3 (even if hacked up and patched to support more hardware than stock 4.3 does), but the trouble is, the longer the sarge release drags on, the more disruptive it would be to try to cut over to X.Org. So I continue to believe that the best solution to this problem, as with many others, is to kick sarge out of the nest so we can focus our full attention on disrupting the hell out of unstable for a few months. :)
Address-collecting spam robots don't know how to crack ROT13. Do you?