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Debian to Run on AMD64
dark-br writes to tell us TechWorld is reporting that the next Debian release will be able to run native on AMD64 processors for the first time. From the article: "The GNU/Linux 4.0 operating system, also known as "Etch," is planned for release in December, the group said. It will also have new security features, including encryption and digital signatures to ensure that downloaded packages are validated."
More to the point it will be using 2.6.17 as the boot kernel. In other words, transparent support for SATA chipsets and (therefore) the ability to create a bootable raid set straight from the iso.
It might not sound like a big deal, but it's the only reason I'm using etch right now.
Dave
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
It means that the person who wrote the story doesn't know what he's talking about. It's "Debian GNU/Linux 4.0" (or "Debian 4.0") -- 4.0 is the version of the Debian release, and not the Linux release.
To get something done, a committee should consist of no more than three persons, two of them absent.
No, you have that backwards. Ubuntu takes their stuff out of Debian unstable which *has* had a Pure 64bit verion out for quite a long time. If you would of RTFA first instead of jumping on your Debian trolling bandwaggon you'd see that this is an announcement of moving that into stable.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
You know they've *had* 64bit support for quite a long time, this is just an announcement of it going into the stable branch.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Sarge has amd64 since r1 -- it just didn't make it into r0, even though not-officially-blessed packages were provided since the day r0 was released, including official security support. The unofficial sarge-amd64 just didn't get official until a point release.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Granted, Sarge using a 2.4 kernel as default for the installer wasn't sharp. You *can* boot with a 2.6 kernel very easily by entering "linux26" at the boot screen instead of just hitting enter. That get's you up and running on the majority of "Modern" stuff.
You have to reinstall but that can be done quite easily (make a backup though): /etc you want to keep /home, parts of /var, etc) /etc, /home, /var and others
- save the output of dpkg --get-selections
- save the output of debconf-get-selections
- save the important parts of
- save other directories (e.g.
- do a minimal amd64 install
- restore the saved parts of
- debconf-set-selections saved.debconf-get-selections
- dpkg --set-selections saved.dpkg-get-selections
- apt-get dselect-upgrade
You might need to do some more minor tweaking and be sure to read the release notes though.
What Debian mean by "stable" and "unstable" has about as much to do with how likely the software is to fall over, as what RMS means by "Free software" has to do with how much it costs. Stable or Unstable refer to the distribution, not the packages within it.
Debian Stable {each release is codenamed after a character from the movie Toy Story} is a release that stays, well, stable. It contains software that has been proven ultra-reliable on a dozen different architectures; and, as far as possible, nothing will adversely affect the operation of anything else. Security patches get backported in, but the main requirement is that nothing should change too much as long as Debian Stable is current. Doing a simple apt-get update && apt-get upgrade will never break anything if you are running Stable. When a new Stable is released, it invariably includes automated migration tools to deal with new configuration file formats &c. These run transparently as part of the upgrade process, ensuring as smooth a transition as possible.
Debian Unstable {aka SID, for "Still In Development" and also named after the destructive neighbour} is a release that is constantly changing. It is the combination of packages that is unstable, not the software itself: Unstable contains software that is believed to be mostly reliable on at least some of a dozen different architectures. However, due to the fact that the packages in Unstable are updated one-by-one rather than all at a time, there is the possibility of incompatibilities creeping in: one piece of software can affect another. It's also possible that APIs and configuration file formats may change.
Somewhere between lies Debian Testing. Once a package has proved its worth in Unstable, it moves to Testing -- but not until. If necessary, packages may remain absent altogether from Testing while compatibility issues are resolved (in which case, you will have to get the Stable or Unstable source code and build that; one or the other usually works). Eventually, Testing will be used to create a new Stable.
Debian Unstable or Testing are the best releases to use for desktops. Stable is really only for servers in co-lo, where you cannot get physical access to the machine to reboot it if it goes Tango Uniform. Thanks to Debian's rigid enforcement of the Free Software Guidelines (which went on to become the Open Source Definition), it's also very easy to keep everything "i-tal" on a Debian system.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Many "64-bit" GNU/Linux distributions are actually partly-32-bit. There are directories /lib and /lib64 {with analogues in /usr and /usr/local} for 32- and 64-bit libraries. An application may be compiled as 32-bit and use the 32-bit libraries in /lib, or as 64-bit and use the 64-bit libraries in /lib64. You can tell whether a binary is 32- or 64-bit by doing ldd on it; if the hex numbers are 16 digits long, then it is 64-bit.
/lib64 is just a symbolic link to /lib. This is both Pure and Beautiful. If you want to run 32-bit software, the recommended method is to set up a chroot environment in which to do so. The thinking is simple: software which is "i-tal" can just be recompiled 64-bit native {except OpenOffice, which demonstrates some very dubious programming techniques based around the assumption that the word length and addressing space are exactly 32 bits. OpenOffice of course began life as StarOffice, a closed-source project, and shows just what sort of bad code people will write if they don't expect anyone else ever to see it. Apparently, removal of "embarrassing" code was what delayed OpenSolaris for so long, and look what they left in! How naïve would one have to be to believe that "choosing a suitable licence" is what's really holding up OpenJava?} and software which isn't "i-tal" can go and fuck itself.
Debian 64-bit is designed from the outset with all 64-bit libraries.
Ubuntu have just added 32-bit libraries, to enable 32-bit applications such as OpenOffice to run. I believe they are also using a 32-bit Firefox, to allow non-free plugins such as Flash to work. It's neither Pure nor Beautiful, but it gets half the job done. Personally, I'd like to see Ubuntu play a bit faster and a bit looser with some of the closed-source stuff: maybe actually reverse-engineer it for the benefit of the whole community, rather than just kowtow to obnoxious licence agreements.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!