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Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 (r0a) Quick Tour
linuxbeta writes "At OSDir there's a tour of the fixed Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 (r0a) release. After 3 years we finally get to have a look at the new Debian, including their new installer. Release notes. Only occasionally does this new release differ from Ubuntu."
After 3 years we finally get to have a look...
Mod me troll, but how many GUI's have I seen that look exactly like that?
There is truth in humor.
Only occasionally does this new release differ from Ubuntu.
As a casual linux user, I see that Ubuntu is much more 'non-geek' friendly than Debian. That is probably the biggest difference.
Also, take a look at the Unofficial starter guide.. http://ubuntuguide.org/. This is exactly why users like me are flocking to Ubuntu.
If there is a comparable guide to Debian, I am not aware of it... or havent found it yet.
Well, by the time Debian releases 3.2, kernel 3.2.xx will be out.
After 3 years they really should have bumped the number more than that.
GETPKG - Package Management for Slackware
Spoken like someone who hasn't installed Red Hat in 8 years. Red Hat's Anaconda installer looks a lot like that even today in text mode. Unlike Debian, Red Hat doesn't care if their distribution runs on anything other than x86 so they can target making an X11 install that looks pretty. Debian on the other hand has to get the most bang-for-the-buck on all their supported platforms so they felt a text installer would work best. After installing 5 systems with sarge on them from scratch I haven't had any issues. All my hardware was auto-detected and it grabbed an address via DHCP automatically. I installed Debian doing nothing but hitting the enter key on each screen to accept the defaults to show someone how easy it was. The only one I think I had to move the arrow key over was the partitioning part of it. All in all, the Debian text installer is as easy, if not easier, than installing Windows 2000/XP/2003 or Red Hat.
My only qualm with it is I would've liked to have the option of assigning the install a static address rather than having it grab one automatically from my DHCP server, but that was easily remedied after the install was finished. It's probably even a configurable option but Debian Sarge was so easy to install I didn't see much point in even looking at the release notes unless I had a problem.
1) Without Debian, no Ubutnu.
2) Want a reliable server? -Debian Stable 3) Want the latest and greatest? -Debian Unstable
Heh heh. You know, sometimes I wish we all could take a step back and see the humor in saying things like:
After 3 years we finally get to have a look at the new Debian.
And then link to a picture of an empty desktop that looks like everyone else's Gnome. No wonder lay people don't care about what we care about.
I hope feeding trolls is a little like feeding wild birds, they'll starve in the wild as soon as I stop doing it.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
That's not the point of Debian.
I tried Debian a few years ago and hated it. Now I love it. Why? I have 2 boxen that *have* to work or I start losing money. If you go for Stable, which is currently Sarge, then, yes, it is behind the times. Problaby none of the major programs in Sarge are the latest versions, but they are stable and have been tested more than almost any software declared stable on the planet. I know I can install Sarge on these systems and not have to worry. That's the point of Debian: to provide a rock-solid and stable distro that is done right -- in a style developers, admins and programers know is most likely to produce stable programs once they are installed.
If you want more "up-to-date" packages, run Testing (currently Etch) or Unstable (always Sid). The packages are still in the process of being tested and migrating to a stable state, but the latest bells and whistles can be found there for you to play with if a pretty GUI is all you need.
The point is not to look pretty. If you like that, Windows has some very nice wallpaper, and a much prettier installer. If all you're worried about is a GUI, then I suggest you try that OS.
As for gaining market share, if it weren't for the way Debian works, we would not see all the Debian based distros out there like Mepis, Knoppix, Kanotix, and Ubuntu. I know there's more, but they charge too much and don't have enough to make the price worth while.
So Debian guys are not behind everyone else. They are, in many ways ahead -- at least to those who know what they are doing and why they are doing it. If you don't like it, go back to Windows or spend a few bucks on Linspire. When you get to the point where you can appreciate more than a need to gain marketshare or pretty GUIs, then look at Debian.
What exactly does this new release of Debian offer besides retro-linux creds?
A coherent package repository which means an upgrade path that's more than "gee, you're really better off reinstalling the new version from scratch, distro upgrades can be sort of unreliable".
Malike Bamiyi wanted my assistance.
Gnome and KDE are installed by default. You can select either of them from gdm.
If you do any other installations, or for other people, there's a boot parameter you can pass in so that it will turn this off. Section 5.2.1 in the installation manual:
> I think what most people are suggesting is that Ubuntu is more capable of managing Debian than Debian is.
That's totally beside the point. You do not seem to understand the relation between the two. What Ubuntu is more capable of is managing are *quick, extremely stripped down releases of Debian*. Nothing more. All the grunt work is done by the Debian developers. The reason Ubuntu was able to create a system competitive with established big distributions like RedHat in such a short time, is not that their few employees are geniuses, but that they take all the enormously valuabe work from Debian and just need to add a few little twists to them. It really only shows that Debian isn't lacking nearly as much as it may seem at first look.
All my comments get moderated +-0, spotless.
good. Having used Sarge for about a year on both desktop and server, and having a few years prior experience on the desktop with other distros (mostly Suse, some earlier Mandrake, a bit of bonzai, Mepis, Knoppix) I still consider myself a newbie. Not a programmer, not a guru.
Been waiting & waiting & waiting for Sarge to go stable, my poor excuse for not implementing Sarge more widespread. I think the biggest suprise after updating/upgrading nearly every day is that as soon as stable was announced and my installs turned into stable from Sarge all on their own, the biggest surprise is there is nothing to upgrade. What a relief! It's been a bit of a task to keep after each install to make sure they stay updated to ensure the latest security patches are installed. And taking a look at the portscans and hits on port 22 I'm seeing on the servers, it's been a little worrying to stay after everything. Now that stable is here, maybe I can relax just a bit and start thinking about trying to get a mail server up and running.
The problems? Had to have someone walk me through creating my own "devices" when they weren't created on their own, don't know why. Lost my mouse on several different machines at just about the same time. Now making coasters on CD-R's while CD-RW's appear to burn ok, both burning knoppix isos. Are the CD & CDRW SCSI with 2.6.x or are they ATAPI? If ATAPI, why am I getting error messages when attempting to enable dma? If SCSI, why does the docs and warning messages in k3b talk about ATAPI instead, with SCSI being broken in 2.6.x? Googled and looked around all I could, still can't figure out how to get my CD burner working correctly. Can't get smartmontools or whatever it is called to work, so don't know temp/fan speed. Can't get raidtools working with my raid card. So don't know if/when a drive dies on me, or when hot spare dies on me, until it is too late or until the next time I boot in a few months from now.
Other problems? Sarge installed a generic 386 kernel I think, instead of one for my AMD cpu. Now I have to figure out how to upgrade a kernel even though I planned to stick with the stable one Sarge gave me, 2.6.8-2-386.
Wishes? Yast on Debian. So I can more easily configure OpenLDAP. Tried without Yast, didn't work. I had someone point out that there is an effort to port Yast to Debian. Hope it happens soon. Would also help with controlling which services startup after a reboot. Right now trying to figure out how to get snmptrapd to start after a reboot instead of snpmd. Pgadmin3 backported to Sarge. Other backports made available asap. Postgres 8.x.x maybe? NX maybe?
Good things? Lots. Too many to mention. Not too many to thank, so thanks Debian developers and package maintainers. Thanks to your work to make the latest and greatest even better. A lot of credit should go to the work behind the installer. I tried my installations some 3 months and more past. It is far better than earlier versions. The only real issue is having to create devices. Which is really a non-trivial thing until you know how to do it. Definitely not for a newbie.
Keep up the good work Debian developers. And let's all hope the crew can stick to the 1 year deadline for Etch.
"Only occasionally does this new release differ from Ubuntu."
Duh. Wouldn't it rather be appropriate to put it the other way round?...
All my comments get moderated +-0, spotless.
I am a Debian junkie. Recently I had to switch over to Redhat due to the fact that Debian was not certified to run Oracle (which doesnt run on any system whether its certified or not). How do you Redhat people update your systems??? Up2date, rpm (lots of man pages later), tar balls If anyone knows a good Debian to Redhat doc then I would be a happier sysadm, until then give me apt-get dpkg and a 100% up2date working system.
To everyone his/her own distro!!! But Debian is still the best one around. Cheers to the Debian crew, all +1000 of them.
I wouldn't be surprised if all of this talk about Ubuntu replacing Debian as the "end user" distribution becomes true. However, if it does, it would only be due to a self-fulfilling prophesy. Debian itself is a very good distro for a new user or an experienced one. It was a first distro I ever installed (piece of cake), and it is still the one I prefer today. I personally feel that Debian has a future as much more than just a base for other distros.
Some of us simply don't require the constant barrage of new features a distribution like Ubuntu or Debian Unstable offers. Although any Linux distribution can be adapted to fit almost any market, not all of us require the latest wireless adapters or version of openoffice to fulfill our needs.
Funny, my Debian box has KDE.
Back under your bridge now, silly troll.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
The X strike force (the guys who do X for debian) made the decision to stick with xfree for sarge back when the license schism happened. Debian release planning is a long, well-planned process, and changing something as fundamental as the graphical subsystem wasn't something they were willing to do in the middle of a release cycle. The plan was to wait until after sarge to switch over.
X.org is going through major changes in the way it's packaged. Basically, it's one big chunk of program - just like xfree, more or less - and they're moving it over to a more modular system. Because of this, the debian maintainers had decided to wait until the modular tree was released before switching to X.org. It seems that this is taking longer than expected, so according to the FAQ on their site they will be moving over to it soon and modularizing along the way. That's a big relief to me, since I run unstable on my workstation and have been looking forward to X.org for quite some time.
So yeah, the next release should be X.org, but with the changes in supported architectures, hopefully it won't be three years before etch is released.
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.
Let me disagree slightly with Ubuntu being "non-geek friendly". Granted, its installer was easier, and there are little tweaks to make the system more usable (some aren't particularly effective as that, like the butchering of spatial nautilus in hoary hedgedhog). And of course, was more up to date. So I used to recommand it to people without broadband, that couldn't pull debian testing from the net.
However, in "non-geek friendlyness", there is still a lot of progress that needs to be made. Most of the configuration helpers are the default gnome ones, and they aren't too great. In particular category, Mandrake is bells and whistles above Ubuntu. Even if it cannot claim the polish that debian-based distros are characterized with.