Ian Murdock: Debian "Missing a Big Opportunity"

Natester writes "While Debian struggles to get its next release (Etch) out the door, the project's founder, Ian Murdock, has spoken out about politics, the lack of firm leadership, and Ubuntu's meteoric rise in prominence. Murdock believes that Debian is "process run amok" — nobody feels empowered to make decisions, leading to the sluggish rate of progress."

Comments

This is why you need to vote SAM HOCEVAR for DPL

[timecop]

For more info see here
http://sam2007.zoy.org/
Believe it!

WTF !

[Anonymous Coward]

First post from spain? xD

Firm Leadership

[Seumas]

Sometimes you need firm leadership to make decisions rather than stagnate by trying to please everyone all the time and doing nothing.

Re:Firm Leadership

[athloi]

I thought Open Source was about each of us having it our way instead. Compilation without representation is tyranny!

Re:Firm Leadership

[drinkypoo]

I thought Open Source was about each of us having it our way instead. Compilation without representation is tyranny!

It is, and as soon as you roll your own distribution, you can have it your way, too. You can't please everyone. Trying to do so is a sure road to failure. Which is why Debian, under its current charter, has no chance to survive.

Re:Firm Leadership

[diegocgteleline.es]

Open source is about choice, but Debian is about providing a distro that does what most of their users are supposed to want. It's still a tyranny - the tyrany of democracy.

Re:Firm Leadership

[i_should_be_working]

I'm skeptical as to whether a firm leader would be able to keep all those developers together working on Debian. It may work for Ubuntu, but Ubuntu has much fewer developers. And they get paid.

If I were a coder I would be much more likely to volunteer my time to Debian than Ubuntu. I'd rather donate to a fully democratic system than a benevolent dictatorship. And if I'm already coding for a project and they decide that they're going to "empower" someone to ultimately say what goes and what doesn't, I'd be more likely to quit contributing code.

Re:Firm Leadership

[networkBoy]

Dam I wanted to mod in this thread but I can't mod you fairly: "fair point but I really disagree" (underrated I suppose?)

Anyway, I feel that a benevolent dictatorship is actually the prize winner in the dev cycle. Once you get into the "please everyone, get a majority vote" mode of operation you run into endless debate as one side tries to convince the other side of the merits of their idea(s). Now I want a unanimous decision on a jury, but for a distro I want a clear path and direction. The dictatorship forces that path to exist. While I may want the path a different color, so long as it's going the same general direction I am then I'm OK with it.

The direction I'm interested in is a mainstream linux that I can deploy on joe sixpack's computer. I want a linux that is as friendly as OSX, and as compatible with hardware as Windows. I want a distro for the masses, and thus while you are entitled to fork it and tweak it, I think the main tree should be ruled by an authoritarian, rather than a committee.

I also think that the "open market" will decide this for us. Suppliers (donors of code and money) will "sell" to their ideals and buyers will install to their needs.
-nB

Re:Firm Leadership

[iabervon]

If we all wanted it our own way, we wouldn't need Open Source. We'd just write all of our software ourselves. Really, everybody wants to tweak a couple of things slightly, and leave the vast majority of everything entirely unchanged. The point of Open Source is that we can make just a couple of slight modifications, and we don't need to start from scratch. But this, then, relies on there being software that is close to solving our problems.

It's the bikeshed problem: everybody agrees that we want a bikeshed, and that it needs to be painted to keep from rotting, and nobody has a particular color it has to be, but nobody feels empowered to go out and buy paint, in case somebody turns out to be deeply offended by the color choice. Someone needs to take the initiative and pick something, and if anyone turns out to care, they can repaint it later.

Re:Firm Leadership

[Chandon Seldon]

The direction I'm interested in is a mainstream linux that I can deploy on joe sixpack's computer.

That niche is well supplied by Ubuntu. If you think the space needs competition to keep things fresh, it has it: Linspire and Mandriva.

Debian *doesn't* need to target that niche at all. The existing policy of slow, steady progress and periodic rock-solid server releases produces a distro that's an excellent basis for projects ranging from Ubuntu to Embedded Debian to build from. There are occasionally cases where Debian is a bit slower than it should be (multiarch for example), but that doesn't mean that what Debian is should be thrown away to make an Ubuntu replica.

Re:Firm Leadership

[caluml]

A benevolent dictator, if you will?

Re:Firm Leadership

[bigredradio]

the tyrany of democracy

Humm..... I don't quite follow

tyranny

1. arbitrary or unrestrained exercise of power; despotic abuse of authority.
2. the government or rule of a tyrant or absolute ruler.
3. a state ruled by a tyrant or absolute ruler.
4. oppressive or unjustly severe government on the part of any ruler.
5. undue severity or harshness.
6. a tyrannical act or proceeding.

A democracy seems to be the least tyrannical. What's your solution?

Re:Firm Leadership

[a.d.trick]

It still has a place as a meta-distribution. Gentoo has been fairly successful on that model.

Re:Firm Leadership

[Anonymous Coward]

"A democracy seems to be the least tyrannical. What's your solution?"

You are absolutely correct. "Tyranny of democracy", sometimes known as "tyranny by the majority", is a scam invented by minority interests to further their agendas. One way to see this clearly is by saying, "ok, tyranny by the majority is bad enough, but tyranny by the MINORITY is even worse!"

Re:Firm Leadership

[hey!]

I think we have to be careful about drawing analogies and using terms national politics when we talk about group dynamics. We shouldn't let our justifiable aversion to political dictatorship poison our attitude towards the idea of strong leadership, which is a completely different thing.

What we call "benevolent dictatorship" in a group like this means decisive leadership with power make its decisions stick within the confines of the project. This is a very different thing than a political dictatorship (benevolent or otherwise), because in national politics there are no practical limits to which the power of a dictator is confined.

Philosophically, strong leadership within a voluntary project is consistent with the status of an individual contributor as a rational being. The contributor has the practical option of "voting with his feet", by jumping to a different project. A wise leader who relies upon voluntary contributors keeps the best of them happier contributing than leaving. A true dictatorship is inconsistent with the status of an individual citizen as a rational being, because a citizen cannot vote with his feet. The dictator can choose to make any trivial dissent a matter of life and death, and choose in a completely arbitrary way.

I once heard Prince Bandar claim that absolute monarchy wasn't really different than democracy, only in a monarchy people "vote out" the government by taking to the streets. While this might be wise for abolute monarchs to bear in mind, it conveniently ignores the fact that the subject of a true monarchy must be willing to risk everthing, his life, the life of his friends and family, in order to act in accordance with his reason or conscience. It sidesteps the question of whether it is necessary or beneficial to make the exercise of individual reason a life or death decision.

In the Debian case, anybody unsatisfied with Debian can join a different Linux distro project. Not only that, they can walk away still in posession of their entire body of contribution, as well as the entire contribution of everybody else. The only things the can't take with them is the community (they'd have to build their own or convince others to move with them) and the name.

The irony here is that the apparent anarchy of the free software paradigm makes it possible to exercise extremely decisive leadership with little or no ethical risk. There is nothing a free software leader can do to a contributor, other than refuse to take his contributions.

The utter inability of a project leader to inflict meaningful harm on a contributor makes elaborate safeguards for the dignity of the individual redundant. That respect is built into the software development paradigm, not the organization.

It's very important not to confuse strong leadership with dictatorship. Leadership is securing the voluntary cooperation of individuals, sometimes to a course of action that the individual does not favor. While leadership might be useful in a dictatorship, the key job skill for a dictator is the infliction of fear.

Re:Firm Leadership

[Anonymous Coward]

It appears you haven't studied political science.

Re:Firm Leadership

[marafa]

gasp! you mean you want a dictator?

Re:Firm Leadership

[i_should_be_working]

Yeah, I see what you are saying, and I guess I even agree. A strong leader is good for defining a clear path of a distro. Which is what many end-users may want.

But if I'm a developer, I want some input. And if I have to make a choice between coding for a distro that gives me that input, and one that defines it's path without me, I'm going to take the former. If many Debian developers feel the same way as I do (not that I would know) then my point is this: Debian's total democracy is what gets it all these developers, which is in turn what got Debian to where it is today. A distro is nothing without it's developers, and I suspect that a distro with a benevolent dictator would never get as many volunteer developers coding for it as one with Debian's current system.

Re:Firm Leadership

[Anonymous Coward]

You need to start at the beginning of political theory and work from there if you've never heard of this concept.

Re:Firm Leadership

[networkBoy]

I am glad we understand each others views so well :-)

All too often flames ensue, though as another poster wrote the analogies to politics are somewhat flawed.
We're both likely right ironically. Your primary contributions are as a coder, whereas I know enough coding to know that I should keep the hell away from the CVS :-) I'll donate money and clear bug reports instead. I guess the real thing is deb is a dev distro whereas ubuntu is a user distro?

Cheers,
-nB

Re:Firm Leadership

[Anonymous Coward]

"every Debian developer is a Ubuntu developer" -- Mark Shuttleworth

Re:Firm Leadership

[NDPTAL85]

That is a paraphrase of the original phrase "tyranny of the majority" which points out that even in a democracy that people can be oppressed, mainly the minority or outsiders.

So in this case Ubuntu would be not exactly oppressing but neglecting those Gentoo/ Linux From Scratch type geeks who want to do everything the hard way for no real reason.

Re:Firm Leadership

[NDPTAL85]

This argument is kind of moot if you are developing GPL code because any distro can take your code whether its a democratically run distro or an authortarian run distro.

As for Debian's developer count, 1. Its an old distro and I think thats the reason it has as many developers as it has and 2. Its a very slow moving distro. So the great numbers of developers doesn't really help them release as frequently as well ANY of the other distros.

If I were a developer I'd first and foremost would want my code to be USED. It just seems that there's a higher chance of that happening with Ubuntu, or SuSE or Red Hat or Mandriva than there is with Debian. Just because Debian is used on a lot of servers.....well thats just not that impressive to me. To me the desktop is just as important. Plus over time I think you're going to see all of the aforementioned distros surpass Debian in user base.

Re:Firm Leadership

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry that was a silly statement to make. Can we all just step back for a moment
and make some observations about Debian:

1) There are now ~ 100 derivative distributions based on Debian.
Why do you think that might be?

2) No Debian, no Ubuntu.

3) You can talk all you want about strong leadership vs. Democracy
until you're blue in the face, but the fact of the matter is that
there wouldn't be an Ubuntu without Debian. So let's stop
being amazed by the pretty flowers on the tree and instead be
grateful for the mighty roots that make those "pretty" flowers
possible.

Re:Firm Leadership

[init100]

Which is why Debian, under its current charter, has no chance to survive.

What, more specifically, do you mean with survive? Are you suggesting it will be dismantled or just never be one of the popular desktop distros? The first alternative could have implications for Ubuntu, as Ubuntu is based on Debian.

Re:Firm Leadership

[Drooling Iguana]

And then when someone finally does go ahead and pick a colour it's the ugliest brown you've ever seen. Yeesh, what were they thinking?

Re:Firm Leadership

[Nwallins]

It's the bikeshed problem: everybody agrees that we want a bikeshed, and that it needs to be painted to keep from rotting, and nobody has a particular color it has to be, but nobody feels empowered to go out and buy paint, in case somebody turns out to be deeply offended by the color choice. That's not the bikeshed problem at all. The bikeshed problem is when you've proposed a major new construction with the latest high-tech infrastructure, and while the construction company was at it, you had them build a bike shed out back for the forward-thinking commuters; when you put the proposal in front of the board, they nod approvingly at the high-tech infrastructure yet devolve into antagonstic squabbles regarding the color of said shed.

e.g. http://www.bikeshed.com/

Re:Firm Leadership

[zobier]

the key job skill for a dictator is the infliction of fear The leaders of some of the world's democracies seem to be pretty good at that one too.

Re:Firm Leadership

[Murdoc]

Wow, that sounds a lot like how a Technocracy works; specifically the part about "within the confines of the project". In a Technocracy, there is the goal: "To provide citizens with the highest standard of living possible for the longest period possible", and all decisions must conform to that goal. This is oversimplifying obviously, but it's nice to see a real-world example that one can use to describe how this is different from traditional political government. Really it's Technocracy's differences like this that make it so hard to understand for so many people.

Re:Firm Leadership

[emilper]

... has no chance to survive

With Debian you can roll your own distribution in about 30 minutes. That's why Debian will survive: because it is the commons upon which Ubuntu and the others build.

Ian Murdock to join Sun

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi all,

It's being announced today that I'm joining Sun as chief operating
platforms officer, which basically means I'll be in charge of Sun's
operating system strategy, spanning Solaris and Linux. I just posted the
announcement on my blog (http://ianmurdock.com/2007/03/19/joining-sun/),
and it'll likely be making the rounds soon. Just wanted to
make sure you heard the news directly from me and to introduce myself.

First things first: I'm a long time Linux user, developer, and advocate.
I founded Debian in 1993, co-founded a Linux distribution company called
Progeny in 1999, and most recently served as CTO of the new Linux
Foundation, where I was (and still am) chair of the LSB, the Linux
platform interoperability standard. I'm also a long time Sun fan.

As for what I'll be doing: While I'm coming in with some fairly formed
opinions about what Sun/Solaris/OpenSolaris ought to do (peruse my
blog a bit to learn more), I'm also a big believer in listening
before talking, and I have a lot of listening to do in the weeks
to come. So, please, feel free to drop me a line if you have
anything to tell me. And, please, be gentle while I get settled. :-)

Gotta get on a call in a few minutes. In the meantime, I just wanted
to say hello, and to make sure you heard the news directly from me.

Later,

-ian
--
Ian Murdock
http://ianmurdock.com/

Re:Ian Murdock to join Sun

[level_headed_midwest]

Good luck and we all hope you'll do well over there at Sun.

Re:Ian Murdock to join Sun

[Anonymous Coward]

congratulations on joining a team that had developed a real OS and not some kids plaything.

it looks as if you finally hit the mark and are running with the big dogs. i'm sure you won't miss the little whiners in the linux community.

Re:Ian Murdock to join Sun

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a Sun engineer and I don't get this. Sun has their own "linux". And prior to that, they were a "Red Hat" shop. At least, when they were bothering to pay Linux more than just trendy buzz-word lip-service.

Re:Ian Murdock to join Sun

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi
Ian,

learn
to
use
web
forms
properly
before
posting
because
now
you
look
like
a
dumb
intarweb
n00b.

thanks,
anonymous
coward.

Re:Ian Murdock to join Sun

[WindBourne]

Sun is trying hard to rebuild from the wreck that McNeally created. There is a good reason why Sun is not selling like they once did. Perhaps with some good judgment being applied to the good engineering that you have, it is possible to resurrect your company.

Re:Ian Murdock to join Sun

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone even outside people thinks Solaris is a great stable server and a scientific processing platform.

What is wrong with Solaris which is now open-source? Make it end user, teen geek friendly? It will never happen and it will lose existing professional userbase too.

Adding my AC warning :)

Re:Ian Murdock to join Sun

[Anonymous Coward]

You're calling Solaris a real OS?

You're joking, right? Solaris is probably the worst "real" Unix out there. Compared to HPUX/AIX (or even Tru64) it's pretty lame.

Re:Ian Murdock to join Sun

[Anonymous Coward]

I loved you in A-Team

Re:Ian Murdock to join Sun

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm glad to see the truth rated "troll" by slashdot users. Nice to see the "you shall not insult high-profile people unless they work for microsoft" doctrine at work.

Re:Ian Murdock to join Sun

[Anonymous Coward]

now you look like a dumb intarweb n00b.

No, that would be you. Looks to me like he composed the message in a text editor set to wrap lines at 76 chars for an 80 char wide display.

Re:Ian Murdock to join Sun

[Ilgaz]

You're calling Solaris a real OS?

You're joking, right? Solaris is probably the worst "real" Unix out there. Compared to HPUX/AIX (or even Tru64) it's pretty lame. If Solaris tries to race with Ubuntu like end user oriented distros, say bye to Solaris. Remember this for future.

I don't think HP/UX or AIX comes with graphical installer which tries to mimic Windows or OS X, true? I also don't think they come with any unstable, untested in real world/load binaries.

Re:Ian Murdock to join Sun

[fangorious]

Judging by this thread, you seem to be good at arguing with yourself over the merits of various platforms. I think that kind of ability will be a strong asset in you new position, and good for Sun.

Re:Ian Murdock to join Sun

[Anonymous Coward]

Cuz its 1982 and we all have 80 column amber text displays

Re:Ian Murdock to join Sun

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell? How does this guy get off calling himself Ian! I'm the real Ian Murdock. And I can prove it too!

Ubuntu are a bunch of shitheads, and that Mark fellow deserves to be shot. Imagine coming and stealing Debian and throwing lots of money at it. That is all Mark did. Anyway, fuck that fool, and fuck this fake Ian too.
Later,

-ian
--
Ian Murdock
http://ianmurdock.com/ [ianmurdock.com]

Re:Ian Murdock to join Sun

[LarryWake]

If you're really a Sun engineer, you should take a look around, and quick. Sun still sells Red Hat -- and SUSE -- and Windows -- and Solaris. Check with Sun's customers; they get it.

If by "when they were bothering to pay Linux more than just trendy buzz-word lip-service," you mean when Sun was going to build its own Linux distro, take another look around and see which of the other big system vendors still do that. And check with customers again: in the overwhelming majority, they didn't want a new Linux distro from Sun. If they wanted something different, there was Solaris. If they wanted Linux, they wanted Red Hat, or SUSE, or...the list tailed off pretty quickly from there in terms of actual potential sales.

Sun and IBM and HP have essentially the same Linux sales strategy -- they sell the distros their customers want. The differentiator for Sun is Solaris, and Sun figured out that they could sell both Linux and Solaris. This appears to confuse some, but it's really not all that complicated, and selling both doesn't mean Sun is just giving "lip-service" to one or the other.

Re:Ian Murdock to join Sun

[niko9]

Don't forget the interview:

LXF: We would like some answers.

Murdock: You want answers?

LXF: I think I'm entitled to them.

Murdock: You want answers?

LXF: I want the truth!

Murdock: You can't handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has Linux opertaing systems. And those operating systems have to be guarded by men with compilers. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lt. McBride? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for BSD and you curse Red Hat. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that BSD's death, while tragic, probably saved desktops. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves desktops. You don't want the truth. Because deep down, in places you don't talk about at LAN parties, you want me on that kernel list. You need me on that weekly Debian update.
We use words like l33t, code, haxor...we use these words as the backbone to a life spent defending something. You use 'em as a Slashdot punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very apt-get I provide, then questions the manner in which I provide it! I'd rather you just said thank you and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a orphaned package and stand a console. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you're entitled to!

LPBN: Did you order the Debian swirl red?

Murdock: (quietly) I did the GNU OS you sent me to do.

LPBN: Did you order that Debian swirley thing to be red?

Murdock: You're goddamn right I did!!

Re:Ian Murdock to join Sun

[Anonymous Coward]

So what, I don't care and it doesn't matter. The web doesn't work this way and it always pisses me off when I see stupid formatting like that. Those are unwanted and forced line breaks, that's not how paragraphs work on the web.

The fact that this guy can't even understand something as basic as that doesn't inspire me to trust him to direct anything, not even be in charge of posting his own comments on the web, especially not a geek-oriented website like slashdot.

Re:Ian Murdock to join Sun

[apathy maybe]

Haven't you read those usability studies that say that having to read a wide screen is shit awful.
Why do you think that newspaper columns are not as wide as the newspaper? (Apart from saving paper.)

Anyway, I didn't find that hard to read, in fact it was easy and pleasant to read. Do you like having text that is as wide as your monitor? 'Cause I don't.

Re:Ian Murdock to join Sun

[glittalogik]

Alright, which one of you is Spartacus?

There is another obvious angle here

[Fuckin ROBOTS!]

Shut your fucking piehole nerd.

Debian is dead

[realmolo]

Really, Ubuntu has made Debian obsolete in most ways. Why would anyone even bother installing "true" Debian at this point? Ubuntu is easier and better in almost every way. And, even though it's a "desktop distro", I find that it works great for servers. Just shut off the GUI.

Re:Debian is dead

[teh_chrizzle]

Why would anyone even bother installing "true" Debian at this point?

the debian that can be installed in 40 minutes is not the true debian.

i used to have a debian Tshirt that said "it's what your mom would use if it was 20 times eaiser."

i think that the debian group will always be needed to do the heavy lifting and the ubuntus of the world will add specifictiy and compatibility.

Re:Debian is dead

[drinkypoo]

I put Ubuntu on a server and got a bunch of crap I didn't need. Next time I'll probably just use Debian. My LAMP VM that I use for testing runs Debian. I can run it under Windows to test new PHP/MySQL crap. Debian has a zillion uses. It's my OS of choice for servers for sure.

Re:Debian is dead

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

As much as I like Debian, I must admit you're right: Ubuntu seems to be what Debian should have become. I currently run Debian, because I just can't be bothered to reinstall, but I must say it has a couple of quirks, not the least of which is, every now and then, apt-get upgrade does something stupid that hoses the entire package database and forces me to reinstall the whole darn thing.

I think my next install will be Ubuntu.

Re:Debian is dead

[Seumas]

Uh. What debian can't be installed in forty minutes? My last debian install was as a backup to my production server and I certainly spent less than an hour doing it. Most of that time was spent downloading (I was using a net-install). The actual time I physically spent at the machine installation was under a half hour.

Ubuntu is pretty sweet for the desktop, but there's too much desktop-y stuff involved in it. Without doing some research, I wouldn't even know how to do an Ubuntu install completely free from any window manager whatsoever. With Debian, however, there's nothing I don't want installed by default. I only have to deal with a GUI if I want to. And since I don't want to, installing my window manager is as simple as "apt-get install screen". Done. Hurrah!

Anyway, the whole idea that Debian is somehow this painfully difficult distro is just absurd and I don't know why people buy into that. It might be more difficult than normal to get a fully operational desktop and window manager with all the trimming going than something like Ubuntu where it's all pretty much built into the installer by default, but in every other aspect, you can't get much easier and straightforward than debian. I've been using it since about 1999 and I keep playing with other distros every couple of years to see if I can be swayed away (and other than Ubuntu for pure-desktop systems), I don't see any compelling reason to stray from Debian. And even then... only to a Debian-extension like Ubuntu...

Re:Debian is dead

[d^2b]

Well, sometimes the Ubuntu installer does not work. That is how I ended up reverting to plain debian on my wife's core2 duo machine after a few days of struggling with the Ubuntu installer. No doubt someone else has had the opposite experience.

Truth to tell, I don't really notice that much difference between running Debian testing and Ubuntu. At least no-one at my house is longing for the days when we ran Ubuntu.

So I am curious, what fabulous things am I missing? Or maybe the fact I am a fairly experienced Debian user negates most of it.

Re:Debian is dead

[g2devi]

Not really. Ubuntu piggy-backs off of Debian's SID packaging and would be nowhere without Debian. Of course, Ubuntu regularly gives back to Debian, so it's a two way street that benefits both.

What would be good, however, is if Ubuntu and Debian could co-ordinate their releases better. I see absolutely no reason why Ubuntu LTS (Long Term Support) shouldn't be based off or synced to Debian stable, other than the fact that Debian and Ubuntu don't co-ordinate their releases. If Debian could make regular releases and actually have slushy freezes, soft freezes, and hard freezes months before the expected release date, there's really no reason why Debian stable couldn't be both stable and released regularly. It just requires good project management. With this in place, syncing Debian stable and Ubuntu LTS would just be a matter of mutual agreement.

Re:Debian is dead

[Seumas]

Same here. I had an Ubuntu/XFCE disk handy and thought I'd just install my development server from that. Surely there has to be an option during installation that says "don't install any crap that I don't want installed... such as a window manager". And... maybe there is. But it wasn't apparent during the install.

So I burned a Debian etch net-inst disk and tossed that in, instead. Easy as pi.

Re:Debian is dead

[livingdeadline]

sooner or later, probably some time from now it might make sense for Debian to focus at releasing their testing branch as a continuous distro like Gentoo or Arch, and focusing at giving it community support and timely security patches insead of using it at something developing toards a stable release. It seems like Debian stable has far too many users many users for server stuff for this to sound realistic now, but maybe after the next Ubuntu LTS release, Debian's lack of scheduled releases (released when ready, patch support for oldstable for [how long was it again?]) could make it hard to compete with release cycles like the one of Ubuntu LTS, and its regular, 18 month supported releases has. But decreased interest in Debian stable is probably depending on improved quality of other distros. Does this theory make sense at all or will people keep using debian stable?

Re:Debian is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

What comments like yours miss is how unstable and untested Ubuntu really is. Have you ever used anything but the most common packages in Ubuntu? The other packages are full of bugs that would never be released in Debian stable. The Ubuntu motto seems to be if it's not in Main, it's not a release critical bug.

Hell, the PowerPC version of Edgy is so buggy, it's practically unusable. But that's just a symptom of the big problem with Ubuntu. Ubuntu only tests a tiny, tiny subset of their packages before release. For the rest of the packages, if the code compiles, it's good enough for Ubuntu. Unfortunately, that's not good enough for me.

I'll never use Ubuntu in a server situation. I'd rather use Debian, where stable means stable. In Ubuntu, stable means "I got it to compile! Who knows if it segfaults on startup, no one has ever run it!"

Re:Debian is dead

[hal2814]

"Why would anyone even bother installing "true" Debian at this point?"

Because Ubuntu's installer hung up my machine every time I tried to run it and Debian didn't (neither did FC4 but who wants that?). I really wanted a decent apt-get implementation and went straight to Ubuntu. After about 4 tries at install, I tossed the Ubuntu install CD in my stack of useless CDs (yes I did verify the CD was good) and downloaded the Debian net install CD. It installed quickly and cleanly and it has even passed the wife acceptance factor. As long as people are making their secondary boxes into Linux machines, Debian is far from dead.

Re:Debian is dead

[drinkypoo]

Surely there has to be an option during installation that says "don't install any crap that I don't want installed... such as a window manager". And... maybe there is. But it wasn't apparent during the install.

This is, I think, the most inexplicable issue with Ubuntu. There are two different install CDs. One is the LiveCD. The other is the alternate install CD. Their contents are largely identical, yet the LiveCD is the only full LiveCD environment, and the other CD is needed to do custom installs (you can customize a little bit on the LiveCD, but not much) or unattended installs.

I simply don't understand the logic here. It should all fit on one CD just fine, since there's so little difference between the two. And then you wouldn't have people downloading one ISO, finding out that they can't do what they need to do, and downloading the other ISO.

Re:Debian is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

Dunno, Debian (2.1) was my first Linux (after having only used Windows 98 for a year), was pretty easy to install (certainly much less than an hour; but more time to configure it), and unlike SuSE or RedHat back in the day, it actually worked. When I told it something in a config file, it did what I told it to.

SuSE and RedHat pretty much always sucked, and still do, while today I run Ubuntu just fine. No, don't tell me about Mac OS. Been there for a good while, back to Linux now.

Re:Debian is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

> Ubuntu piggy-backs off of Debian's SID packaging

It's Sid. Sid is the name of the mean kid who breaks toys.

Re:Debian is dead

[Ilgaz]

Why is Debian "racing" or has to race with Ubuntu like distros anyway? There are still many things to learn from Slackware. If Slackware tried to race with Ubuntu, it would be considered as joke and would lose the existing credibility.

There are people who missed your point, yes Slackware can be installed in 40 mins and can be used as end user friendly Linux too but it would be missing a lot. If I installed Slackware today, I would let it boot and start configuring my own kernel based on my own needs searching the web for -m flags for my CPU.

If you want a practically installed, end user friendly, easy Linux, your choice was Redhat and now it is Ubuntu. No need to "panic" :) There won't be digg.com "popular" entries concerning Debian or Slackware but they will keep working and serving to millions as they do for years.

Re:Debian is dead

[diegocgteleline.es]

the debian that can be installed in 40 minutes is not the true debian.

Debian was NEVER supposed to be "difficult to use". This is something that has happened with the time - other distros became desktop-oriented and debian kept being power user-oriented.

It just happened, but that doesn't means that you shouldn't be able to install debian in 20 minutes. From the Debian social contract

4. Our priorities are our users and free software: We will be guided by the needs of our users and the free software community. We will place their interests first in our priorities. We will support the needs of our users for operation in many different kinds of computing environments.

Debian users are asking for an easy to install/use, desktop oriented distro. The Debian project is just not providing such thing, so they go and choose other distros that actually listen to them, like ubuntu.

Re:Debian is dead

[Markspark]

this is however not true for Feisty Hurd 5, (i installed a few days ago), so we can only hope they keep the install only server menuoption at boot time in final..

Re:Debian is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as people are making their secondary boxes into Linux machines, Debian is far from dead. As long as people increasingly put Linux onto their primary boxes, then Windows continues to fade away.

Re:Debian is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

Give it a try but:
1. Don't assume dist-upgrades will "just work." They don't ... at least not as well as in Debian. Breezy to Dapper broke drive ordering. Still hasn't been fixed.
2. Feisty CD install doesn't work from a SCSI CDROM.

In general all of the layers that "make it easy," turn out to make it harder when they don't work.

Re:Debian is dead

[timrichardson]

Debian had better not be dead because it is the soul of Ubuntu. We have Ubuntu because of the people who spent so many years making Debian, and they did a lot of things right, and they did those things because they believed in the Debian philosophy. Churchill said that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others. Maybe we have to have a crazy Debian world full of people who really care about releasing versions when they are ready. Besides, it's not as if it's the only operating system with irregular releases that tend to miss deadlines.

Additionally, I wonder how much cash is being burnt to keep Ubuntu cracking along. Perhaps it is not sustainable? Debian is, I would say. It has proven itself.

Re:Debian is dead

[Ilgaz]

Debian users can start their desktop oriented, apt-get based, bells/whistles distro and leave Debian to people who actually enjoys truely free/truely configurable Linux distro.

What stops them? Apt-get became like standard on OS X thanks to Fink project for example.

What about the current Debian lovers who does love the true open source/free/stable OS? Give them up for digg.com friendly ubuntu wannabe distro? What happened to philosophy? What are the chances if there are Intel running Macs all over the place running a true easy BSD/NeXT based OS which you can fire gcc whenever you want?

Re:Debian is dead

[petabyte]

I found something similar on one of my older machines with Ubuntu (machine has since been retired). My solution was to get the "Alternate Install" CD. It pretty much only has the text installer of Debian Lore (which I've installed enough times to just click through in my sleep). Not as pretty, but it seems to work on more hardware.

And frankly, I don't really need the bootable CD to boot up and waste my time and memory. Just dump the packages to harddrive as fast as possible, let me reboot, upgrade and roll. :)

Re:Debian is dead

[Ilgaz]

If this is entirely about "new version" software, here is a paste from OS X 10.4.9 (current) which is considered to be World's number 1 Unix Desktop:

Ilgaz:~ ilgaz$ httpd -v
Server version: Apache/1.3.33 (Darwin)
Server built: Aug 21 2005 15:35:42
Ilgaz:~ ilgaz$ php -v
PHP 4.4.4 (cli) (built: Jan 19 2007 19:18:59)
Copyright (c) 1997-2006 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v1.3.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2004 Zend Technologies

Our OS is "dead" too, no new software.. Sigh!

Re:Debian is dead

[Spazmania]

Why would I want Debian over Ubuntu? Stability and quality control.

Ubuntu is to Debian what Fedora is to Red Hat. It moves fast with the best new versions. It has all the bugs in the best new versions and deprecates old interfaces and configurations with that same speed.

Here's what I want from a server: It should be rock solid with an absolute minimum of bugs. It should run with essentially no attention for several years. Routine security updates should should be prompt and complete but require little or no operator attention. In particular, no routine update should result in an old configuration file becoming incompatible. Barring exceptional circumstances, it should run itself without my attention.

And when it does finally come time to upgrade to the next major release there should be a minimum negative impact on the server's existing configuration. If a piece of software drops a feature I'm using then it shouldn't automatically upgrade to the next version. Instead, the old version should remain available with security updates for a good long while.

Debian delivers on this. Ubuntu, as fine a system as it is, does not.

Re:Debian is dead

[realmolo]

I understand what you're saying. Ubuntu installs a full suite of desktop stuff, which on a server is of little use.

BUT...by the same token, since it's a desktop distro, there's hardly ANY "server-y" apps installed. YOU get to pick what server stuff you want installed. And the GUI comes in handy for this. Just hit Synaptic, pick your packages, and you're done.

Re:Debian is dead

[diegocgteleline.es]

Debian users can start their desktop oriented, apt-get based, bells/whistles distro and leave Debian to people who actually enjoys truely free/truely configurable Linux distro.

Again, you or any debian contributor are not allowed to define what debian users should and how debian should be.

4. Our priorities are our users and free software: We will be guided by the needs of our users and the free software community. We will place their interests first in our priorities. We will support the needs of our users for operation in many different kinds of computing environments.

Re:Debian is dead

[drinkypoo]

I don't want to use the GUI. Aptitude is the only package manager smart enough to automatically remove unneeded packages when they are no longer needed. And if I'm connecting remotely, then I REALLY don't want to use the GUI, because even with NX it's going to be hellaciously slower than using a text interface. Plus, I never even enter aptitude's gui, I do all operations from the commandline. Synaptic has one feature that causes me to use it ever: you can create a download script. I have wget.exe on my flash drive, and I just save the download script as download.cmd. Then I stick the drive into a windows PC and double-click it. The first line (#!/bin/bash or sh or whatever) is a syntax error and then it downloads my debs as it should. Otherwise I have no use for the thing.

Re:Debian is dead

[rnws]

Agreed, as I've mentioned elsewhere in this discussion, Debian/Ubuntu would make an ideal server/desktop pairing.

Probably too many personalities involved to make it happen though.

Sigh...

Re:Debian is dead

[Ilgaz]

Let me out of this Fido style internal politic fight. If Apple moved to unstable/up-to-date Apache, I would go and find a AIX or Debian based host to trust my data.

Yes, I am not a Debian user, I am just an ex Slackware user who hated the "No 24 bit/1024x768 displaying windows wannabe installer" whining of weekly distro switcher people while I enjoyed my stable, real Linux OS. Thanks to Slackware I figured the logic of Unix and the purpose of /etc init system which really helps me on OS X.

After years giving up Linux for desktop, if I moved to Linux based hosting provider today, I would seek for Slackware or Debian based ones. Wonder why?

Re:Debian is dead

[Orange Crush]

Edgy had a third "server install" disc that contains the LAMP option for one thing. Maybe they'll do something similar again.

Re:Debian is dead

[xs650]

I had the opposite experience to yours. After several tries, Debian still wouldn't run on my machine, so I tried Ubuntu and it loaded flawlessly and everything worked. So far, I have installed dual boot 'Doze/Ubuntu on three computers and the only problem was couple of hours to configure the wifi card on one old laptop. Had the old laptop been my first installation instead of the second, I might have tried another distro, but by then I was hooked.

At the novice and novice+ Linux user level, I think that most users swear the installation that loaded the easiest is the best.

It's a bit of a crap shoot, although if I were a betting man and had to bet on which distro would run with the least problems on some random x86 machine, I would bet on Ubuntu.

The important thing is that people try some flavor of Linux and get it working so they can evaluate it. The combination of Ubuntu working well (and some other distros too) and Vista being what it is may get me to competely switch to Linux in the next couple of years.

Re:Debian is dead

[M. Baranczak]

I don't know where the option is either, since I haven't tried the regular installation in a while, but you can download the Ubuntu "server" install CD. It installs Apache, PHP and MySQL - and no GUI.

Maybe the Debian installer has improved in the few years since I last used it, but I remember it was extremely user-hostile. It was asking me about things like the names of my ethernet, audio and disk controller chipsets (you know, stuff that every computer user should know off the top of his head). On the other hand, Debian supports a lot of oddball hardware platforms; Ubuntu only has versions for i386, AMD64 and PPC.

Re:Debian is dead

[Short Circuit]

The college computer club I run has built what we call the "Video Jukebox" ... It's intended to be a MythTV/gameserver/network server box that will sit in a cafe on campus and entertain the masses. (Not to mention scoring geek cred and members for the club.)

Because of the relatively complicated nature in compiling a kernel for Ubuntu, as well as the large base install size, I'm going to use Debian as the base system. The whole thing needs to fit onto a 1GB flash drive, where the system files will lie. (The internal hard drive is being reserved and tuned for MythTV use.)

Re:Debian is dead

[ahg]

Debian != Difficult to install (inherently).
Debian = More Power = More Choice at install time
More Choices = More knowledge needed
Debian = More knowledge needed = Difficult or even incomprehensable to those without the knowledge

For Example: Most distros don't ask you during the installtion process what MTA you want to install. Most Desktop Users don't care, and may not even know what an MTA is. Debian will ask you if you want Exim, Sendmail, Postfix and a few others I can't recall. Does this make it more difficult than Ubuntu? The answers depends on whether Ubuntu's default install meets your neesd, or if you have to go back and change things after the inital install. However, Debian also provides a choice of standard install sets that should allow a carefree installation to proceed easily in less than 40 minutes. Power Users, Debian's main user base, find the extra time spent answering the questions an "advanced" Debian installation asks - can be well worth it.

Re:Debian is dead

[parszab]

I think even the idea of comparing the two this way lacks some kind of deeper understanding of both the FOSS philosophy and linux users as a heterogeneous, world wide group, including both amateurs and professionals. They are not in the same game, not for the same people. There are many of us, who need a stable, pure, low-level-configurable server distro and some of us even need the same kind of puritanism on our desktops. Many (probably more) need the out-of-the-box compatibility and GUI oriented eye-candy stuff. I think the best is to have them both: have a low level distro, upon which an other one can be built, that satisfies the needs of the latter group. And this let's us (former guys) go with the pure stuff. IMHO the appearance of Ubuntu, and the bipolar (usergroupwise) symbiosis of the two distributions is the greatest thing that happened in the Linux world in the last few years. And I really hope, that it helps the spreading of linux, while it's lets us live with our "old fashioned" ways. But please, don't blend the two!

Re:Debian is dead

[mbrod]

As much as I like Debian, I must admit you're right: Ubuntu seems to be what Debian should have become. It is best to keep Debian the way it is and then have Ubuntu the way it is. They will both evolve but I don't want to see Debian become Ubuntu. I only run Ubuntu now but having that stable Debian release for the servers that just need to be stable above all else is the rock in the foundation everything else great about both systems is built upon.

Re:Debian is dead

[nine-times]

i think that the debian group will always be needed to do the heavy lifting and the ubuntus of the world will add specifictiy and compatibility.

Also, it seems that Ubuntu's success it largely based on the fact that it has a narrower focus than Debian. Ubuntu is largely going after the desktop, and also general server stuff. Because of this focus, they can refine a smaller number of packages for each release, which might give it a small increase in cohesion and such. This is good and bad. It also means that the number of packages that are really supported is smaller, and it might not be as well-suited for other things. I know people use Debian for embedded systems and specialized servers and such.

So I think Ubuntu is great for what it's doing, while Debian is solid for damn near everything.

Re:Debian is dead

[ciggieposeur]

I'm a Debian user. I want a fully-configurable, easy to install/use, desktop AND server oriented distro. In fact, I have Debian installed on 8 servers in a Beowulf-style configuration, 2 workstations, and 1 laptop.

Do I not count?

Re:Debian is dead

[kinglink]

This is the exact reason why Debian is poorly made.

More Choices != More Knowledge needed.

More Choices should be accompanied by more relevant text. Inform the user what a MTA is and give them a default choice THAT WORKS. Having to do 10 minutes of research to answer a question is a joke when you're using a computer and the computer should be able to inform you what the choice is about.

Oh and shipping with broken and missing header files (happened a couple years ago ) is the first and last problem I had with Debian, just as shipping with a broken GCC executable was the first and last problem I had with Red hat.

There shouldn't be excuses like "we're only for powerusers" if you want to make Linux distros get some common sense.

Re:Debian is dead

[diegocgteleline.es]

Do I not count?

Not more than any other average Debian user.

Re:Debian is dead

[fangorious]

Aptitude is the only package manager smart enough to automatically remove unneeded packages when they are no longer needed.

apt-get, at least in edgy, has autoremove which is smart enough to remove packages which were installed as automatic dependencies but are not longer needed. Synaptic also has a Status categorization for these packages, but I forget what name is displayed. I didn't have to change any default settings to enabled this, either. If you have already tried these, is there anything in particular you find unsatisfactory about them?

Re:Debian is dead

[Hatta]

the debian that can be installed in 40 minutes is not the true debian.

I can install debian in 20 minutes. What's your problem? In fact I spend less time installing a basic debian system and adding the packages I need than I do installing a Ubuntu system and removing all the cruft. It's really NOT THAT HARD. A little ncurses menu and people get scared, jesus.

btw, nice Tao reference.

Re:Debian is dead

[drinkypoo]

http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/aptitude

I don't want another step. I want one step. I get it with aptitude.

Re:Debian is dead

[ahg]

This is the exact reason why Debian is poorly made.

More Choices != More Knowledge needed.

More Choices should be accompanied by more relevant text. Inform the user what a MTA is and give them a default choice THAT WORKS. Having to do 10 minutes of research to answer a question is a joke when you're using a computer and the computer should be able to inform you what the choice is about. But that descriptive text that you feel Debain should provide is imparting knowledge... because as I said more knowledge is needed. However, for many things, such as an MTA, you can not educate the user is a couple parapgraphs as to what choice of many MTAs is best for them. However, Debian does provide reasonable defaults, so if you just go with the default, you end up with a perfectly usable system.

Oh and shipping with broken and missing header files (happened a couple years ago ) is the first and last problem I had with Debian, just as shipping with a broken GCC executable was the first and last problem I had with Red hat. Yeah, there's no excuse for that kind of shit. However, as you've acknowledged, that kind of stuff happens in commerical distros too, not just in a community developed distro like Debian
 

There shouldn't be excuses like "we're only for powerusers" if you want to make Linux distros get some common sense. Debian fills a niche that most other distros don't. Why should power users have to adapt another distro's default install to their needs... Not every Linus distro has to be geared towards general usage. And... didn't I mention that if someone wanted an easier route to install Debian there are options to install a predetermined set of packages.

Re:Debian is dead

[fangorious]

The demonstration on that page is flawed, it mentions the autoremove command then demonstrates the remove command instead. It is only one step if you use autoremove instead of remove. Personally I would prefer autoremove be the default behavior, but I appreciate having the choice between the two (I don't know if aptitude offers choice in this respect).

Re:Debian is dead

[Nimey]

You want Ubuntu 6.06.1 server. Stable, gets only bugfixes, you can buy support, and will be supported for IIRC 5 years after release.

Your criticisms are more valid for desktop releases like 6.10.

Re:Debian is dead

[lpcustom]

Debian->Ubuntu
Chicken-$gt;Chicken
You can eat them both, but when you eat mountain oysters you don't say "damn this tastes like chicken". Point being....they're both good but you can't beat the original. Oh and we can argue about which came first the chicken or the egg.....it'll be about as productive as comparing Debian and Ubuntu.

Re:Debian is dead

[lpcustom]

Man slashdot needs an edit button. I hit submit instead of preview and didn't catch all my mistakes....Chicken->Egg....messed up a good post damnit

Re:Debian is dead

[pherthyl]

Additionally, I wonder how much cash is being burnt to keep Ubuntu cracking along. Perhaps it is not sustainable? Debian is, I would say. It has proven itself.

Good point. Shuttleworth is not doing Ubuntu so he can bleed money for all eternity, he wants to make money at some point. So far that hasn't happened (pretty sure), and if it continues not to happen for a few more years, I wouldn't be at all surprised if he moved on to another project. This isn't a criticism of Shuttleworth, I would probably move on a lot sooner if the business wasn't working. And then where is Ubuntu? Does it have enough volunteer developers to continue releasing new versions, let alone ones that are polished enough for people to really get excited about?

The great thing about Debian is that it is not dependant on the whims of some random company. That's one of the reasons why I run it on my desktop. The other reason is that Debian messes around with packages a whole lot less. What you get is basically what the upstream software looks like. No hacks to quickly fix something or change the defaults. Those hacks sometimes work, but when they break you're lost, cause the upstream project won't want to support your bastard version of their software.

Re:Debian is dead

[pionzypher]

Same experience here. I have been unable to run the ubuntu installer in every release since dapper. Pentium D 805 in an Asus mobo, with a pcie vid card... the combination just doesn't agree with ubuntu.

Might just have to give debian a try on this machine and see.

Re:Debian is dead

[teh_chrizzle]

Uh. What debian can't be installed in forty minutes?

uh, the true debian? :-)

seriously, ubuntu has brought many people into linux, and some of them have brought the ricer mentality that ubuntu is the last distro that the world needs since they can install it without too much help and it does what they want. i don't think you or the OP have that mentality, but you do see it somewhat in the community.

the whole idea that Debian is somehow this painfully difficult distro is just absurd and I don't know why people buy into that.

debian has sacrificed some in the "easy to use for random application X" department in order to remain true to it's free software ideals. it's important that they do that. it's also important that they continue doing what they do so that the debian based distros that we all love (and actually use) continue to improve.

debian is the basis for a number of very clever distros (knoppix, DSL, LRP, xandros) that solve the "random application" problem (i.e. i want a sexy desktop without much effort... or i want a super scaled down linux to build routers with). debian is focused on delivering a great "free as in freedom" distribution and they do a good job of it, even when it means giving the cold shoulder to the non-free software everyone (or some small group) wants to use. that's why debian is the basis for so many of those specialized distros... if you start with debian, you can be certain that you are using stuff that free to be used in other products. that's why the ubuntu folks are able to do what they do to please their users. for the ubuntu set (myself included) being able to use third party stuff like codecs easily is a big deal, even if it isn't exactly in line with the true debian "free software" ideal.

none of us should forget that ubuntu is so cool because it was built on a great foundation.

the only greater foundation, of course, would have been slackware. I KID!

Re:Debian is dead

[Seumas]

Well, as I stated, my latest debian install took about an hour and at least half of that time was spent downloading data since it was off a net-inst image. And, unlike in Ubuntu, I don't have to do anything special to just get a clean system installed.

When I say that I'd like a plain install, I don't mean "I just want LAMP". I mean, I want a plain install. I don't even want an ssh/sshd, telnet or screen installed. I'm just fine installing those on my own and as I like.

Really, I have come to love Ubuntu for a desktop installation that is based on all the debian goodness I've come to know for the better part of a decade without all the hassle . . . I just could not figure out why I would want Ubuntu (or any of the ubuntu "flavors") to deploy a server installation.

As for debian sacrificing some ease... I really don't see it. In fact, the reason I have stuck to Debian with such a die-hard attitude since about 1999 is that I found it far superior to the other options like RedHat when it came to a straightforward install with a powerful interface.

About the only complaint I've ever had with Debian are that there are occasionally package philosophy conflicts such as the whole "this is how we do it at Debian" versus "this is how we do it at Ruby" mindsets that make Ruby a little painful on Debian (though I don't deal with Ruby personally, so I don't care much). The other complaint is just the package ages, which is a small price to pay. Sometimes there are some rather vital packages that are a solid year out of date even in the testing branch. Ugh!

I just hope they keep things going. The infighting and confusion within the Debian bureaucracy seems to keep growing each year.

Re:Debian is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh. What debian can't be installed in forty minutes? My last debian install was as a backup to my production server and I certainly spent less than an hour doing it.

I'm happy for you. If everybody had your experience, there'd be no complaints.

Anyway, the whole idea that Debian is somehow this painfully difficult distro is just absurd and I don't know why people buy into that.

I've been using Debian since 1996 (wow -- over 10 years!), and I still think it's hard.

I recently bought a computer. It meets the hardware requirements in the Debian Installation Manual, and I know other people have installed Linux (but maybe not Debian) on it. I made a net-install CD, and booted it. First I tried the new GUI installer, because everybody says that's so slick. It started, showed a white screen with a mouse pointer, but as soon as I'd moved the mouse maybe an inch, it froze. I tried again a couple times, but always got the same result.

OK, no biggie. I'll try the "expert" installer. I got most of the way through that. It took forever to download all the things I'd accidentally selected (you need to hit space, not return, to select "tasks", apparently, and there's no way to cancel and back up once it's started). When it finally got done (lousy DSL: well over an hour), I chose GRUB as the boot loader (why does it offer the choice? why do I care?); it then said simply that GRUB install failed, and that was that. OK... I tried again, and chose LILO; this time it claimed to have succeeded, but when I tried to boot it, I got a simple "no bootable OS" message.

Setting up the disks was also a pain. You're presented with the option to use cool features like LVM and encryption, and are led through a complex set of screens to set them up, and then eventually it says something like "the features you selected are super-alpha and you shouldn't trust your data to them; do you really want to have made the choice you did way back there?". Suck!

I could go on for hours about how crappy the Debian installer still is (because it took hours of my time). The point is that simply because it worked great for you does not mean it is great. Stop looking for some magic subtle reason why people think that. The reason "people buy into that" is because it's true.

Next weekend I'll try installing Ubuntu. I've used Ubuntu before, and it's not bad (though it doesn't have all the newest versions of things I want which are in Debian/unstable). I prefer Debian, but I've only managed to install Debian twice in 10 years.

Re:Debian is dead

[teh_chrizzle]

Why is Debian "racing" or has to race with Ubuntu like distros anyway?

it shouldn't be, and if they are they're making a mistake.

linspire, xandros, knoppix, and ubuntu have ushered in a whole new generation of linux user... this new breed is neither a dev nor a system admin. they are something the linux community has been in short supply of: real users. not newbs, but real computer users that have decided to ditch windows (the formerly exclusive haven of the real user).

these people that use debian based distros still need debian. hopefully these child projects are helping the debian effort (logging bugs, submitting patches, donating time and/or money) so that debian can continue to improve, thereby improving the distros that actually see use by this new crop of real users.

Re:Debian is dead

[Spazmania]

No, I want Debian. I won't have to buy support because it'll work right the first time and it'll be supported for 4 to 5 years after the release because that's how long it takes them to get a new release out the door.

It's sad

[Bruce Perens]

Unfortunately, Debian has suffered from a concatenation of problems this year. Dunc-tank (a scheme to pay some developers) sapped a lot of good-will and motivation, and made some developers actually work to hold back the release in protest, and as a result it's another "who knows when it'll happen" Debian release. There has been a lot of bickering on other topics - Debian should never hold face-to-face meetings, something bad always happens - and unfortunately the current DPL hasn't been able to rally the troops or lead effectively in any way I can see. I hope they recover, I think they are still our best hope among Linux distributions.

Bruce

Re:It's sad

[cyclop]

Sorry for the naivete, but I don't plain understand the rationale behind the DuncTank failure.

I mean, even if I'm a non-paid developer, what's bad in having me collaborating with payed developers if it helps getting the work done? Isn't it a bit like the GSoC? People in GSoC-funded projects should whine and hold back releases because "hey, why is he paid and I am not?" I just don't understand it, but I don't know the exact story behind the Dunc Tank collapse, so I'd like some enlightenment.

Re:It's sad

[drinkypoo]

The only important part of the story is that some big-egos felt that they deserved monetary recognition more than people who were receiving it, so they got upset. These people are selfish and arrogant. If it was worth it to develop Debian for free before some people started getting paid, then it was still worth it after; nothing changed for these particular developers. You could google around to find more information on why people are upset about this, but no matter what it boils down to immaturity and petulance.

Re:It's sad

[k8to]

Sure, the response is dumb. But the response should not be _surprising_ when you realize that it was done in a back-room-deal fashion and brought to the greater community fait accompli. It's supposed to be a community project and doing things (sun java include, dunc tank) out of sight weakens that sensibility, which engenders ill will.

That people could have expressed their views and then moved on is given. That some people did not is no shock. Dunc tank, while not a bad idea, was poorly executed, and I'm really surprised at how it was done. Essentially I'm ticked off at the dunc tank group for refusing to recognize the problem. They wanted to avoid thrashing and whinging ahead of time, and short circuited it, only to get MORE thrashing and whinging after the fact.

Social engineering is important, and hard, and by that I mean the "making societies work" engineering, not stealing passwords. Can anyone especially clever in these matters point to research on how to make cooperative distributed projects work?

Re:It's sad

[Aladrin]

I'm afraid I'm 'immature' then.

If I was helping create a distro, and nobody was being paid... Then only a few people got money for doing exactly the same thing as before, exactly the same thing as I'm doing... I'd be upset, then disgusted, then I'd probably quit. (I wouldn't be so immature as to remain and hold back the project, though.) Then I'd either find something else to do with my life, find another distro to help, or make my own.

Yes, there's ego involved... Everyone on a 'team' wants to feel like their at least equal to everyone else. With some people being paid and others not, it draws a very clear 'you're not as valuable' line. This is exactly the reason that many businesses make it a fire-able offense to discuss wages with other employees. And I whole-heartedly agree with that policy.

Re:It's sad

[Toby_Tyke]

These people are selfish and arrogant. If it was worth it to develop Debian for free before some people started getting paid, then it was still worth it after; nothing changed

While what you say is true, the problems stemming from paying some developers should have been anticipated. If you and I are both working on a project for free, and the organization running that project decide to pay you but not me, what they are essentially saying is "tyke, you're contribution is not as important as drinkypoo's". That is a slap in the face, especially if I think my contribution is as important as yours. True, I haven't lost anything, but you can't overlook the de-motivational impact of rewarding some people but not others.

Re:It's sad

[bjourne]

The only important part of the story is that some big-egos felt that they deserved monetary recognition more than people who were receiving it, so they got upset.

Maybe they did? If some of my colleagues where I work got a big payraise and I did not, despite me performing just as well or maybe even better than them, of course I am going to be immature and petulant. Such are the traits of humanity and I am sure most other would feel the same way. Every manager at every company could tell you that. Money really is the root of all evil. And with an unequal distribution of it only compounds the problem.

Re:It's sad

[drinkypoo]

I'm afraid I'm 'immature' then.

Most of us are. It's how you handle your immaturity that defines you. When you can be held accountable for your thoughts, we're ALL going to the chair.

If I was helping create a distro, and nobody was being paid... Then only a few people got money for doing exactly the same thing as before, exactly the same thing as I'm doing... I'd be upset, then disgusted, then I'd probably quit.

As long as you admit that your reaction isn't about them, but about you, then at least you're not lying to yourself.

(I wouldn't be so immature as to remain and hold back the project, though.)

So then you're well ahead of several individuals involved with the Debian project.

Then I'd either find something else to do with my life, find another distro to help, or make my own.

But why? Just because you feel like you're more deserving of the money than someone else?

It's disingenuous to say that you feel that you're equally deserving, because there is only so much money to go around, and you can't all get paid.

Yes, there's ego involved... Everyone on a 'team' wants to feel like their at least equal to everyone else.

Yes, and we all want cake and ice cream on sundays, but we don't all get it, do we?

(Yes I realize that we don't all want cake and ice cream on sundays. But I'm making a point.)

We're quite simply not all equally important to a project. That's just the way it goes. Some people are critical, and losing them (or not having their work) would set the project (any project) back considerably. Some people you could lose and it would barely slow things down.

With some people being paid and others not, it draws a very clear 'you're not as valuable' line.

Yes, this is a drawback of complete transparency. People can get butt-hurt about things which are really none of their business.

This is exactly the reason that many businesses make it a fire-able offense to discuss wages with other employees. And I whole-heartedly agree with that policy.

Businesses do this for two reasons. One is that people are making money they have no business making. Sometimes it's because they are near and dear to someone who can decide if they can make money; this might be because they're friends, or because they suck a mean dick under their boss' desk, or what have you. But it could also be that the person making the additional money is crucial to the business. In the former case it is better for the company if it is discovered and dealt with. In the latter case, it harms the business. So it seems that transparency cuts both ways...

Re:It's sad

[drinkypoo]

While what you say is true, the problems stemming from paying some developers should have been anticipated.

I think it was anticipated. I don't think the full fury of their immature response was, however. I don't think they believed that people would put their effort into making a project succeed, then turn around and put it into making it fail by deliberately holding it back.

I think that while their contributions may be highly valuable and are in any case appreciated, the people who would do such things should be removed from the project. Their actions prove that they are interested more in their own reputation than in actually making the project succeed. If their efforts in some other place can assist the project, then so be it, but I think that keeping them around where they can enjoy further self-aggrandizement is only rewarding bad behavior, which encourages more bad behavior. When my little parrot squawks at me over and over again, fit to burst my eardrums (what bird experts typically refer to as "inappropriate vocalization") I don't yell at her; that just gives her attention. I cover her cage with a sheet, and wait for her to calm down. Perhaps the same response is appropriate in this situation.

I'd say that our continuous tendency to reward bad behavior is the biggest problem in the world today.

If you and I are both working on a project for free, and the organization running that project decide to pay you but not me, what they are essentially saying is "tyke, you're contribution is not as important as drinkypoo's". That is a slap in the face, especially if I think my contribution is as important as yours. True, I haven't lost anything, but you can't overlook the de-motivational impact of rewarding some people but not others.

It IS saying that. In so many words! And as a contributor to the Debian project, these people have to decide what is more important; their own ego, or the Debian project. If they feel the former is true, then rather than deliberately holding Debian back, they need to go somewhere where they will receive the appreciation they feel they so richly deserve. Because there should never be room for someone whose ego is larger than the project.

Because let's face it, I might HAVE a greater contribution to make than you do, and there is only so much money to be shared. So I might get that money, and you might not. My contribution might BE more valuable than yours is. Does that mean yours is not valuable? Of course not. Does it mean that YOU are not valuable? By the same logic, it cannot mean that. It can only mean that I am more critical to the project than you are, and thus it is worth it to pay me to be sure of retaining me. In this world we all have to accept that we are not at the pinnacle of every scale, not least because many are contradictory. Even if I were the most badass programmer to ever have lived (which I clearly am not, but bear with me) I would probably not be the best person on the planet. There's only so much of each of us to go around, if you are spread thin then you never reach much of a height in any category.

It sounds to me like some of these people are good programmers, but not very good people.

Re:It's sad

[NoWhereMan]

Debian should never hold face-to-face meetings, something bad always happens

The lack of social skills is a really sad aspect in our community. I suspect it is at the root of your comment. Some geeks take a long time to mature (and some never do ;-). You had your shot as DPL, and the recent voting for SPI director suggests there is still room for improvement. Claiming that we should never meet seems defeatist to me. Meeting together and working on our social skills looks like a better choice to me. If we start out by recognizing we need to practice our social skills, we can improve.

Times have changed. The old joke about no one on the internet knowing you are a dog still applies. But our respect is still based upon skills and knowledge. We just need to augment our view of what a person accomplishes to contain a social aspect too. The process may not be pain free. If we must deal with expulsion requests or a myriad of flamefests, then so be it. The Debian core values remain intact. We need to learn how to scale to larger numbers without diluting them.

Re:It's sad

[Raenex]

Debian's whole reason for coming into existence was to create a distribution by volunteers collaborating over the internet. Introducing paid employees into that equation was just a really bad idea.

Re:It's sad

[Goweropolis]

... made some developers actually work to hold back the release in protest...

Assuming that you're referring to http://dunc-bank.zoy.org/, your comment should be "made some developers actually work to discover more RC bugs thus holding back the release but producing a more stable resulting release " The way your original comment ius worded makes it sound like developers are delaying the release without any productive reason. I would say that regardless of motivation, discovering RC bugs prior to release is a good thing.

From the Dunc-Bank website:

The Dunc-Bank is an experiment to see how aggressive bug reporting can delay the release of Debian Etch.

We hope that by finding more and more RC bugs in Debian we can delay Etch. Dunc-Bank stands for "Delay until new critical Bugs are nastily killed". We think that overall quality is more important than keeping release promises others did for us. We also put "Bank" in the name because we love money. We actually wish we had some money to fund people who report RC bugs.

This activity didn't help the release date, but on the upside, the release will be more bug-free, secure and stable.

Re:It's sad

[Anonymous Coward]

The end result: Is the delay of "etch". Which hurts people waiting for that release; lost market share etc. I have stopped using Debian since then. Engaging in a slow down because your feelings are is only spreading and magnifying the pain to others. Sorry, to me this isn't rational in the slightest and pushes away users and business.

No offense; but this isn't the best strategy about gaining market share. Why am I mentioning market share? There has been enough complaints that distro's like Ubuntu are riding on the success of Debian. Loosing users and some developers caused a stir and some hard feelings. Now to aggravate it; the Debian developers decided to initiate a work slow down. As far as I am concerned; no one can complain about loosing users when you push users and corps away due to internal politics.

Regards (anon) x-Debian user.

Re:It's sad

[Anonymous Coward]

Because let's face it, I might HAVE a greater contribution to make than you do, and there is only so much money to be shared. So I might get that money, and you might not. My contribution might BE more valuable than yours is. Does that mean yours is not valuable? Of course not. Does it mean that YOU are not valuable? By the same logic, it cannot mean that. It can only mean that I am more critical to the project than you are, and thus it is worth it to pay me to be sure of retaining me.

Yeah, but the purpose of the "dunc tank" effort was for a certain group of people to gain the ability to use money to exert control over Debian. Once they start paying people to work on the project, they can start saying "do it how I say or I'll stop paying you", and that is an unwholesome influence.

The primary reason why people were pissed off at it is because the project is being run by a group of people who everybody in Debian knows would love to be able to do this. Nobody likes it when power-hungry people grab power.

Re:It's sad

[AndyCater]

Debian has suffered from problems EVERY year since 1.0 was released by Infomagic :) It's still here - I still rely on it and base much of my daily work on it. People like you and me have been bickering since before the deity naming wars :) I just hope Ian M. remembers that Debian is now just about the only Linux to support even some of the oldest Sun hardware. Perhaps he can persuade them that it's worth supporting Debian vice Red Hat/Novell or even Sun JDS. On the other hand, I think he'd be worth double if he could follow up on the packaging rants on his blog lately and just persuade Solaris to support dpkg / dselect and apt-get. Apt-get install sun-java works flawlessly for me on Debian: I just wish it were as easy to install gcc and GNU userland on older Solaris releases. Whatever happened to your UserLinux and Linux for hams projects - did they effectively get subsumed by time pressure?

Re:It's sad

[DrJimbo]

NoWhereMan said:

Claiming that we should never meet seems defeatist to me. Meeting together and working on our social skills looks like a better choice to me. If we start out by recognizing we need to practice our social skills, we can improve.

I very much disagree with the premise behind these statements. You seem to be ignoring the very existence of Asperger's Syndrome. From The Geek Syndrome:

Asperger's Syndrome is another term for high-functioning autism. Individuals with Aspergers (also known as "aspies") exhibit a different way of socialising. The main traits of Aspergers are obessive interests, extremely logical and literal thinking, visual/spatial thinking, difficulties with friendships and relationships.

Asperger's syndrome and autism are not a mental illness or disease. The brain is wired differently, and it is a neurological difference rather than an abnormality. Advantages can be the ability to focus strongly on interests, such as computing, being an individual and not following the herd. Having unique thinking patterns that are unusual and creative.

Since people are already comfortable working together via email, if you add an extra requirement for face-to-face meetings you are adding an extra hurdle that may trip some folks up, especially if your intent is to improve their social skills. It would be like adding a math or programming requirement to the job of a salesperson in order to improve his or her math skills. You would lose a lot of good salespeople that way. I am reminded of the Heinlein quote about teaching pigs to sing, it frustrates you and annoys the pig.

It is not sad that Asperger's is so prevalent in our community. But it is sad when its negative aspects are treated as if they were merely the result of lack of effort.

Re:It's sad

[NoWhereMan]

I very much disagree with the premise behind these statements. You seem to be ignoring the very existence of Asperger's Syndrome.

Although I have not officially been diagnosed as having Asperger's Syndrome, I can assure you I am well aware of it.

It is not sad that Asperger's is so prevalent in our community.

I never said it was sad that it is so prevalent. I said the lack of social skills is sad. You are free to disagree, but I doubt you understood my premise. Perhaps you assume Asperger's == lack of social skills. But I propose that symptom != cause. And you also fail to notice that I never said to "add an extra requirement for face-to-face meetings" for DDs. My intent is to improve social skills, but there are many ways to accomplish it. Different people may use different methods. I think recognizing the problem is a first step. As a project, we are looking for ways to deal with it.

Re:It's sad

[DrJimbo]

IMO the lack of social skills will not be improved by having more meetings. And even if you are able to improve social skills it will only be at the expense of technical skills since it appears that for those with Asperger's the brain space used for social skills is currently being used for technical skills. The premise I disagree with is that people with Asperger's can be taught social skills. It would be like teaching a tall person to be short, or as I alluded to earlier, teaching a pig to sing.

Instead of trying to change the workers to adapt to your preconceived (and IMO erroneous) conception of how they should interact with others, I think it would be better for everyone (you included) if the work situation were adapted to best suit the workers.

Re:It's sad

[Anonymous Coward]

This is exactly the reason that many businesses make it a fire-able offense to discuss wages with other employees. And I whole-heartedly agree with that policy.

Let's try a little reductio ad absurdum here. Assume you never discuss wages with other employees, in your business, or in other businesses. Assume everyone else did the same. This leaves individuals with no knowledge of market wages for their profession, and gives the business complete power in arbitrary salary decisions and discrimination. What if you really are worth more than the business is paying you? Wouldn't you like to know that, so you can negotiate or find another job?

This of course requires some level of professional maturity; employees must be able to objectively and impassively evaluate their business worth relative to others, and not get whiny upon discovering that someone else is earning more. Employees have to be able to take a hard look in the mirror and ask, "why does the business perceive my value as less than that other guy's value?"

But a don't ask, don't tell policy about wages is not the solution. It makes you a slave to your corporate masters, which is of course exactly where the corporations want you. The democratic solution is mature, professional discussion among peers.

Re:It's sad

[Kjella]

This is exactly the reason that many businesses make it a fire-able offense to discuss wages with other employees. And I whole-heartedly agree with that policy.

Guess I won't be working for many of those American businesses any time soon then. If you can't justify your salary through experience, responsibilities or skill then you don't deserve it. That policy is 90% there to keep employees clueless about the wage level and 10% tops for morale.

Re:It's sad

[Anonymous Coward]

I do not think you are that immature (anymore?).

You just still have to learn not to take offense where none is even implied. If someone gets paid you should not be envious. However, how the whole situation is handled is extremely important. If someone gets paid and you not "just because" (instead of e.g. lottery) there is most likely already insiders and outsider, you belonging to the latter.

I wouldn't mind some getting paid as long as it done in a respectful manner. This may be impossible (some will get offended anyway?) or the situation could be already inflammatory.

Re:It's sad

[Kjella]

It can only mean that I am more critical to the project than you are

Not really. The people getting paid were release managers - they might be on the critical path to getting Etch out the door, but whether they are the most critical to Debian as a whole is very much up for debate. A lot of people are working hard on infrastructure, logical structure, installer, bug tracking system etc. which is the everyday bread and butter of developing Debian. In the long run those are the people making sure there is a release to manage...

Re:It's sad

[Raenex]

You're missing out on the community aspect. The shared goal is one of volunteers coming together, to build something in an open, collaborative manner. When the project leaders introduce money into the equation, and single out a few to get paid, it is demoralizing to the rest. That's the reality, whether you think it is wrong or right. To go against the founding principles of the project was a mistake. The developer community let them know. The leaders should realize it, apologize, and move on.

Re:It's sad

[cyclop]

Then only a few people got money for doing exactly the same thing as before, exactly the same thing as I'm doing... I'd be upset, then disgusted, then I'd probably quit.

So you care more of your little ego than the project? What is changing if you aren't paid and someone else is? You were working for free before, you are working for free afterwards. The net advantage is positive: someone else has an advantage, you have not. Before, none of you had advantages. Where's the problem?

You can also consider that while you may be able to have enough free time to contribute (maybe you are a student), someone else couldn't have (maybe he's working), unless he can have the project as a part time job. Given equal importance of both contributions and limited resources, who would you pay? You, that have already been able to contribute, or the other fellow that cannot?

Will you stop to contribute drivers to the Linux kernel, let's say, because there are developers paid for writing drivers to the Linux kernel?

With some people being paid and others not, it draws a very clear 'you're not as valuable' line.

Not at all. You are valuable if your contributions and your code are valuable. And even if not, yes, there will always be someone more valuable than you and me. Accept that, it's life. But the fact someone is more valuable doesn't mean you are not valuable at all.

This is exactly the reason that many businesses make it a fire-able offense to discuss wages with other employees. And I whole-heartedly agree with that policy.

Woohoo, the terrible world of USA corporate policies (it's USA,isn't it? here we talk about wages among coworkers every day) strikes again. I'm every day more and more disgusted of USA corporate policies -I hope never to have to work there.

Re:It's sad

[ivan256]

I very much disagree with the premise behind these statements. You seem to be ignoring the very existence of Asperger's Syndrome. From The Geek Syndrome

Sure, some geeks have Asperger's. There is a much more common cause for a lack of social skills though. It's the mere lack of experience with the types of situations in which you would require, and thus learn social skills. If you don't work well with others in person, it is far more likely that you simply need some practice than it is for you to have Asperger's.

Re:It's sad

[dargaud]

This is exactly the reason that many businesses make it a fire-able offense to discuss wages with other employees.

Whoa, really ?!? I've always wondered why it's not the opposite: every employees' wage written in plain sight, from garbage cleaner to CEO. I mean, if your work is more important than others, it's fine to earn more. If not... the company has only to gain in reassessing the wages. Why isn't it customary to publicize wages ?

Re:It's sad

[Aladrin]

Because people fight about them. Others will claim corporate greed nepotism, etc, but it's merely because people are stupid.

My mother, bless her heart, is an example of this. When the useless piece of work she works with gets a raise that puts her salary above my mother's, my mother goes into a fit of depression. The other woman has worked there a LOT longer, but she's absolutely useless. My mother (possibly justifiably, I'm not arguing either way) believes that she is worth more to the company than the other woman.

If my mother did not know the other woman's wages, there would be -no- problem.

Debian's problem

[Rik Sweeney]

Personally I found that Debian's problem is that by the time they've gotten a new release out the door, it is already hideously out of date. I switched from Debian to Fedora and was quite happy with it for a while but I ended up moving to Ubuntu.

Maybe I'm just promiscuous, who knows...

Re:Debian's problem

[CastrTroy]

That's seen as an advantage to some. Fedora likes to ride the bleeding edge, but there's a lot more bugs because of this. Debian stable is called that for a reason. A lot less patches, and a lot less bugs. As a desktop user I can see the desire to run a more up-to-date OS, but if you're running servers I would probably opt for a more stable distro over having all the latest toys.

Re:Debian's problem

[Anonymous Coward]

you know, i hear this alot, and the same thing in reference to slackware. do people not *get* stability does not include chucking in what ever? that systems integration isn't just seeing if a package compiles and runs? ubuntu is nice; i like it. I run it on my personal machines, and love it on my laptop. would i deploy it in an enterprise situation? no. stability is more than the distro runs stable in it's default install. it has to be easily maintained inside other systems with existing standards and software. debian has been a work horse for years, and part of it's lasting charm is it's stability. well tested before release. i can say the same for slackware. watching your version numbers grow is neat, but has no direct correlation with it's place in a mature environment.

Re:Debian's problem

[Anonymous Coward]

That is the dilemma Linux finds itself in, partly as a result of its OSS strategy. Linux is more stable than practically any UNIX out there (I don't give it any edge over FreeBSD, but then I'm biased by my experiences with both :)), but the Linux fight is being directed by masses of slash-whiners who change distro every two weeks. A Linux desktop that is more stable than w2k and has more bling than XP or Vista is a reality. You just have to begin assaulting Microsoft's mindshare; that's the keystone. Also, begin telling the whiners to shutup. OSX? Well, you've got a ways to go there...

Re:Debian's problem

[lpcustom]

Yeah, that's one of the biggest draw to Debian for me. The release scheme is great. I can run stable on my server and it's exactly that....stable. It's older software but I'm not using it for a desktop, I'm running webservers, ftp, and the likes on it. All controlled via ssh. For this situation, stable is a great choice. On my desktop at home, unstable or testing is usually running the bleeding edge stuff and it does this with some good stability. I don't understand comments about the 'age' of Debian releases and comparing them to Fedora or some other bleeding edge distro. Some Distros are made for the desktop, others are better for a server....with Debian you have both and all it takes is to change the word "stable" to "unstable" in the sources.list file. I like that convenience.

The politics of the Debian development is sad to hear. It's always bad news. It's a shame because Debian is still a great distro. Even with all the internal conflicts, it's still my favorite distro.

Re:Debian's problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Try to picture http://wunderground.com/ clusters switching from Slackware to Ubuntu while serving sometimes hundreds of millions in time/mission critical purpose.

Or picture Yahoo.com switching to Ubuntu from FreeBSD.

Or IBM installing Apache 2 to all mainframes tomorrow morning without testing.

I am getting a bit tired of Ubuntu fans who never understand the major/main focus of Slackware/Debian/AIX/FreeBSD. OK, enjoy your eye candy desktop but don't try to change every distro.

Re:Debian's problem

[Vireo]

Personally I found that Debian's problem is that by the time they've gotten a new release out the door, it is already hideously out of date.

I never understood this argument. I don't consider myself an expert in the various Linux distributions, especially not Debian. However, I settled on Debian for the exact opposite reason. I wanted, for my home computer, a bleeding-edge system that I wouldn't have to re-install ever because a "newer version" was released.

So I switched to Debian unstable, got packages almost as fast as in Gentoo and other bleeding-edge distros, and since then, never bothered re-installing anything from scratch. I just let my system evolve. Sometime this leads to broken bits, but I don't mind much, fixes are generally released fast enough for my tastes.

So... if you want a rock-solid server OS, get Debian stable. If you want a bleeding-edge, configurable OS, get Debian unstable, and you have testing inbetween for a more mainstream-type distro. I'm not saying that everybody should use Debian only (I myself use other distros quite often) -- just that the "out of date" argument is really getting old.

Re:Debian's problem

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd say the lack of new features & device support is a bug. I can recall plenty of configurations that simply would not work with Debian stable but ran just fine with a more up-to-date distro.

Re:Debian's problem

[Kjella]

you have testing inbetween for a more mainstream-type distro

Except it's not really. Right now testing is being held back to become the new stable. Right after Etch is released, testing will have a huge inflow of serious bugs. Go to debian.org and look at the RC bug graph. You'll see that testing has huge cycles of bugs matching the stable release cycle.

Ian Murdock...

[FishWithAHammer]

Ian Murdock was the reason I first tried Debian, after disastrous experience with early RedHat builds. Read an interview, he seemed like a good guy and knew how to run a project.

Debian's meteoric rise in suckitude correlates very well with Murdock's departure and the further stepping away from the way he ran things.

Ubuntu is the new Debian--even despite its often-busted packages and all.

Re:Ian Murdock...

[mikand]

Agreed. I'm happily using Ubuntu instead of Debian for those very reasons. Busted packages? Haven't found any, yet. I don't want to sing too early or too loudly but Ubuntu looks like something Joe Sixpack could use. We'll see.

Re:This is why you need to vote SAM HOCEVAR for DP

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.debian.org/vote/2007/platforms/sho
(it seems his spiffy website was recently redirected to debian voting page)

There is no "winning" in their spocial contract...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ian Murdock from Debian fame feels the urge to win the war of distributions.

News at 11.

The problem with Debian

[wiredog]

is Deb and Ian. That's what an IBM guy told me at FOSE a few years back.

IDNRTA

[crhylove]

I did not read the article, but here's my two cents:

Ubuntu is trying to be a Windows killer. And it could be. Wine is "good enough" with the right settings for 90% of what most people want to do coming from a Windows world. Drivers exist. No, they're not FOSS, and I understand why people want FOSS ones, but....

Why doesn't Ubuntu seal the deal?

With beryl, good drivers, and built in FOSS apps that beat MS at every turn (Firefox > IE, Beryl > Aero, Thunderbird > Outlook, and VLC > WMP), it seems like the win would be fast and clear. Nobody wants Vista, especially when you have to pay. Ubuntu comes preconfigured in a way that is over all superior to every Windows that has ever existed. It's more solid and reliable, it has four desktops (though they moronically all have the same wallpaper by default, and it happens to be shit brown), it has a very nice user interface (though *i* and many others feel it could take some design cues from Windows 98 with regards to menu structure and some other minor details), and it's free. Oh yeah, and it's open source, so anybody who doesn't like part of it can fix it themselves.

But nobody has. It's like people take pride in allowing the world of uneducated masses sucking on the corporate tit of MS. I just don't understand it.

Feisty could win the OS wars decisively, but given the over all FOSS community attitude towards ordinary people....

Damn, gotta catch my plane.....

Sad?

rhY

Re:IDNRTA

[Chris Burke]

But nobody has. It's like people take pride in allowing the world of uneducated masses sucking on the corporate tit of MS. I just don't understand it.

Feisty could win the OS wars decisively, but given the over all FOSS community attitude towards ordinary people....

Um, if this attitude was such an obstacle, then Ubuntu wouldn't exist in the first place. If anything, Ubuntu is proof that there is a significant portion of the FOSS community that wants to bring FOSS to "ordinary people". Sure there are people who don't, and they're running Slackware.

So given that, I must have completely missed the part where you specified what it is that is preventing Ubuntu from winning the OS wars decisively. You say it's comes preconfigured in a way superior to Windows. Personally I think Ubuntu, and Linux in general, has a ways to go before it's really an "ordinary people" as in "Windows replacement for everyone" kind of OS. I think they're a long way from winning the OS wars decisively or otherwise. But it is getting there, by leaps and bounds. You seem to think it's even farther along this path than I do, poised and ready to claim victory, so I'm again left wondering what it is you think is holding Ubuntu back.

Re:IDNRTA

[nuzak]

> Why doesn't Ubuntu seal the deal?

It's called Linspire. It still doesn't run over half the printers or wireless NICs out there. You'd have to sell the box too, and people interested in that sort of thing will buy a Mac.

> Oh yeah, and it's open source, so anybody who doesn't like part of it can fix it themselves.

Way to know your market.

Re:IDNRTA

[Bright Apollo]

I'll explain it to you.

Thunderbird Outlook and in some cases, *nothing* = Outlook for calendaring, contact management, etc. When Linux has a drop-in replacement for Outlook that connects to Exchange Servers and can handle PSTs, they'll have the killer app needed to crush Office. Until then, it'll be no sale. Believe me, programmers would probably love to switch but they still need to get email at work from the Exchange Server.

And no, solutions that require interdiction with Exchange administration do not count. Drop-in replacement is exactly that, just your Windows domain username and password.

-BA

Re:IDNRTA

[repvik]

Why doesn't Ubuntu seal the deal?

With beryl, good drivers, and built in FOSS apps that beat MS at every turn (Firefox > IE, Beryl > Aero, Thunderbird > Outlook, and VLC > WMP), it seems like the win would be fast and clear. Nobody wants Vista, especially when you have to pay. Ubuntu comes preconfigured in a way that is over all superior to every Windows that has ever existed. It's more solid and reliable, it has four desktops (though they moronically all have the same wallpaper by default, and it happens to be shit brown), it has a very nice user interface (though *i* and many others feel it could take some design cues from Windows 98 with regards to menu structure and some other minor details), and it's free. Oh yeah, and it's open source, so anybody who doesn't like part of it can fix it themselves.

rant:
Thunderbird > Outlook? Seriously? Outlook is one of the very, very few apps that Microsoft got somewhat right. As opposed to Thunderbird, it can be used to share calendards, contacts and stuff easily. Thunderbird is just an E-Mail app. Outlook isn't.
VLC > WMP? For some values of VLC, that is correct. But the userinterface is better on WMP. How on earth do you get a slider in fullscreen mode on VLC?

And your statemend about open source is just plain wrong. I can't see my mom "fixing" the freaking lameness that is "cut and paste" in gnome. It's simply broken, it doesn't work. When it does work, you have to try pasting in three different ways! Open Source doesn't mean anybody can fix. It means that the knowledgeable *may* fix stuff that they find annoying. Even then, it might not go upstream so other users can benefit from it.

I'm an ubuntu-only user, so I think I am semi-qualified to know what I'm talking about. I dig linux. I've been digging linux since '93. I've had windows too periodically, but linux usage far outweighs windows usage.
Linux sucks, unless you're somewhat skilled. Take the Gnome copy-paste dysfunction for example. When copying in the terminal, *sometimes* it picks up what I've marked with my cursor, so that I can just press shift-insert. Sometimes it doesn't. WTF? WHY NOT?. Oh well, then I have to right-click to make it put the text on the clipboard. So... now I've got the text on the clipboard, everything should be fine and dandy, right? NO! I still can't use shift-insert in a sane way. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't and I have to rightclick *again* to paste! WTFISTHAT? I've switched to Kubuntu not long ago, and thank god... The copy and paste functionality appears to actually WORK AT ALL. It works pretty good. The even better part is that you can predict if it works or not. With gnome you just can't.

How do you suppose I fix that? It's open source isn't it? Then I should be able to fix that easily!

To all the proponents of Linux On The Desktop:

1. Please stop flounting linux as totally superior. Be realistic. It sucks in many ways, but it sucks in other ways than Windows
2. Make sure that you point out that learning linux isn't as easy as windows. Really. Do it. Please.
3. Make sure you've pointed out 2.
4. Accept that Linux is a Tool, just like Windows. Every tool has its good and bad sides. Windows has a (mostly) coherent user experience, linux has not. Windows has (inflexible) wizards, Linux has extreme flexibility (at the cost of complexity). You can't have it all. EVER. /rant

You can mod me down now. Just had to get that out. Should be incoherent enough to make it hard to read :-P

Re:IDNRTA

[Anonymous Coward]

"and they're running Slackware"

Yes, Slackware requires more tech savvy to configure, but it's not that difficult. If you want to compile from source, there's nothin better, in IMHO. Having said that, I am very much an "ordinary" user, and not a developer, sysadmin, or any other kind of IT pro, but I have used most of the popular distros out there at one time or another. Most of them "just work", except for things for which only proprietary drivers are available.
My point, finally, is that even though I sometimes use Slackware, I want other "ordinary people" to use Linux,too. Microsoft is evil (not necessarily its people), and gotten more obvious about it in recent months. I wish the entire company would find the success they so richly deserve. Linux-based OS's are more than ready to take over, needing only a small fraction of the manufacturer cooperation that MS has been getting for many years to succeed for _any_ computer user in the world. There is no meaningful way in which Windows is fundamentally better.

One last thing before I stop; what's holding Ubuntu back,(and several others, like Mepis, pretty much any Debian derivative, & Suse to name a few), is inertia, nothing more.

Re:IDNRTA

[danpsmith]

Feisty could win the OS wars decisively, but given the over all FOSS community attitude towards ordinary people....

Unfortunately, I believe the war is over, to risk a cliche. I think the best we can do now is just chip slowly away at MS's structure by recommending a linux switch to people who complain about MS or by putting linux on our own computers. Perhaps more people should start foundations where they give out computers for free by taking an older computer that someone wants to get rid of and putting linux on it and giving it to someone who has no computer. Either way, the war is largely decided despite most peoples' fervent hatred of the victor.

The good part is that linux exists, and with any luck it will continue to grow as a community. It's not really a war as much as it is like digging a tunnel through the shit pile of the proprietary software paradigm. Every day in every way we can we can help move things to OSS. The first thing you can do is replace the applications on existing installations of Windows. When someone suggests upgrading to office whatever, try to hit them with an openoffice suite instead. I already moved my neighbor who used to use pirated office to openoffice with a little resistance. More of this will make OSS applications feel like "home" and once they start all seeming like home, then maybe what OS they run on can be changed. The present is applications, it really doesn't matter what OS they run on. Let's start with applications, and gradually move to OSs. Just chip away at the monopoly anyway you can, from recommending firefox to installing Ubuntu on a person's old Win98 machine. Whatever you can do.

Re:IDNRTA

[abigor]

"How on earth do you get a slider in fullscreen mode on VLC?"

I use VLC under OS X, and I get the slider by simply moving the mouse. It sort of just appears, then fades away when you're done with it. It's probably the same under Linux, although I mostly just use Kaffeine.

The main thing you missed was this: software, software, software. There is no tax software under Linux, no accounting software, and on and on. People argue about the OS, updates, installs, and other irrelevant crap. But no one in the real world cares too much about that stuff. They just want their software to run.

Re:IDNRTA

[Zonk (troll)]

Thunderbird Outlook and in some cases, *nothing* I agree that Thunderbird+Lightning doesn't even come near Outlook. The people who keep claiming it have obviously never used Outlook.

Outlook for calendaring, contact management, etc. Evolution. Though, they really need to fix it's pathetic IMAP support (crashes fairly regularly while using IMAP, POP3 support is solid). It's been my client for over three years now. Mainly I connect to a few POP3 servers and the Scalix server at work.

When Linux has a drop-in replacement for Outlook that connects to Exchange Servers and can handle PSTs, they'll have the killer app needed to crush Office. Sure. That will happen the same day that OpenOffice supports MS Office formats 100%. That is, never. Exchange and the MS Office files are proprietary. The best you can hope for is for it to mostly work, and expect a "security" patch to break any new compatibility.

What everyone should do is dump Exchange. Scalix does an good job, has an excellent web client, is affordable, and integrates perfectly with Outlook and Evolution (with a plugin for both).

Re:IDNRTA

[starwed]

I think that the slider being accessible in fullscreen mode happened with the most recent version of VLC; older versions didn't have that.

Re:IDNRTA

[FrostDust]

How on earth do you get a slider in fullscreen mode on VLC? Under preferences, go to Interface and turn on "Show interface with mouse", and I forgot where else, but for a WMP-esque look, some where else turn on the option "embed video in player" or something like that.

Re:IDNRTA

[Hatta]

Thunderbird > Outlook? Seriously? Outlook is one of the very, very few apps that Microsoft got somewhat right. As opposed to Thunderbird, it can be used to share calendards, contacts and stuff easily. Thunderbird is just an E-Mail app. Outlook isn't.

You've got that exactly backwards. Thunderbird is better than Outlook precicely because Thunderbird is just an email app. Do one thing, do it well.

Re:IDNRTA

[westlake]

Nobody wants Vista, especially when you have to pay.

Repeat until the lesson is learned:

What passes for Gospel truth on the Geek forums is not always true in the larger world.

Walmart made a try at selling OEM Linux to the masses but has left the game:

Compaq Presario w/19 inch LCD Monitor Athlon 64 CPU. 1 GB RAM. 200 GB HDD. DVD Burner. Memory Card Reader. $700

Re:IDNRTA

[gujo-odori]

I agree with most of your points, but I have to call you out on point 2: Make you point out that learning Linux isn't as easy as windows [sic].

In my (considerable) experience, that's simply not true. You take someone who finds computers and mechanical things in general difficult and is confused by even the most basic computer tasks (my mother, for instance), and put her in front of a Windows machine and a Linux machine (I'll use Kubuntu in these examples, because it's my distro of choice). She doesn't find either of them easy, but doesn't find one to be harder than the other.

My wife primarily uses Windows because it's what she learned on and it's the only platform where Yahoo Messenger supports voice (that's the biggie for her) but on those occasions where she has to use Linux (our kids both have Linux machines, for example), she doesn't find it harder the Windows. They're both point/click.

My kids (not yet kindergarteners) both have Edubuntu on their computers and they don't think it's hard, even though they'd been using Windows on my wife's computer before that.

Now, if you'd made a comment on the learning curve/transitional difficulties for people who are used to Windows, I wouldn't complain. There's going to be a transitional period. I'm primarily a Linux user and recently got my first Mac. I still prefer Linux overall, but the Mac is wonderful in many ways. One of the big ones is one you touch on in point 4: coherent user experience. Things hang together on a Mac much better than on any other platform I've used. However, since I'm now talking about coherence, I don't think Windows has much (if any) advantage there compared to any one distro or desktop environment (the great diversity of those things is another matter, but since most people use only one distro everywhere, I don't think that's as important as some might think it). KDE, especially as implemented on Kubuntu, obviously borrows from the Mac approach, something which I hope only accelerates with KDE.

Overall, is Linux still a little harder than Windows? Yes, in some areas. In other areas, it's way ahead of Windows, and ahead of Mac in some areas too (installing software through things like Adept, Synaptic, or Linspire's Click-n-Run Warehouse is way ahead of either Win or Mac, for instance). Most administration tasks are now quite easy and pretty coherently handled in a GUI (speaking of Kubuntu and Edubuntu, at least). Installing Linux (depends on your distro, of course; but this is true of (K)ubuntu, at least) is a piece of cake. Easier than Windows, hands down. Installing XP and getting it up to date is really painful compared to installing Kubuntu.

Is Linux, then ready for the desktop? Depends which desktop. For the power user, it's been ready for years. Linux has been my primary (and exclusive, at home), desktop OS for nearly 10 years. For business desktops? Yes, in most cases. For Multimedia?, No, it's still behind there, but regular progress is being made. For a light-use home user who just needs web, email, and occasional light word processing? Yes, it's been ready for that for quite a while.

Oh, about Outlook: yes, Outlook is a decent PIM, except for the mail part. It's a heinous email client in most respects, worst I've ever used. Thunderbird is much better at mail, and at least IMO, Evolution is a better Outlook than Outlook.

Re:IDNRTA

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact, nobody expects you or your mom to fix anything. You're exactly the kind of user we don't want. Go away. You're a flaming asshole. Go use Windows. Having you in our camp will only earn us negative market share.

That's the only thing *I* see wrong with Linux; just like Ian's point about what's wrong with Debian... trying to please everybody, bending over backwards for the tiniest complaint. The battle cry is constantly "conquer the world". Yes, I'd like to see Linux displace Windows too, but it's not worth being a street slut for.

Linux fans: LEARN WHEN TO SAY NO! LEARN WHEN TO SAY "I WILL NOT STOOP THAT LOW, DESKTOP MARKET SHARE BE DAMNED!" Did Linux not get where it is without the kind of person who will flame six paragraphs about cutting and pasting? It will only continue to progress without them as well.

Re:IDNRTA

[apathy maybe]

How the fuck do you get off saying this?

>2. Make sure that you point out that learning linux isn't as easy as windows. Really. Do it. Please.

One, have you ever sat two people who have never used a computer before (or never since "good" old DOS days anyway) and tried to teach them whichever MS Windows and GNOME & KDE on GNU/Linux? No? Why do you make such stupid comments then?

Honestly, the inconsistencies in Windows means that it is harder to learn to use then GNOME. Sure, for people who have only ever had experience with Windows, GNOME (and MacOS come to think of it, speaking from personal experience of helping people here) isn't that easy to use. But it is, once you are used to it.

Oh, and talking of copy and paste, the only problem I have (and it isn't that big a deal) is that you have to keep the window open that you want to copy from. I don't think you have to do that in KDE, but other things make GNOME more preferable for me.

Re:IDNRTA

[westlake]

Compaq Presario

I forgot to add that this is priced with the Vista Premium install, not Basic. You want the CPU and graphics horsepower needed for the media PC or Windows PC gaming, Walmart will sell you that too.

Re:IDNRTA

[caseih]

I keep hearing that the clipboard is broken but I have yet to see evidence of that. First of all, Terminal is a special case, and always is. That's because the standard cut/copy/paste shortcuts cannot be used directly as they are control keys meant to be received by whatever program you are running in the terminal. So of course you have to right-click and select "copy." For heaven's sake Mac OS X does the same thing.

Apparently you are confused by the traditional copy/paste X11 method, which still exists. But it is largely independent of the Ctrl-X, Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V shortcuts. I use X11-style copy and paste all the time and it works great. The thing you're mistakenly suggesting is that X11-style copy should automatically fill the Ctrl-X,Ctrl-C, and Ctrl-V -style clipboard buffer. This is wrong. It would lead to mass confusion among people migrating from windows if it did this. So we either need to keep X11-style copy and paste separate from the other, standard copy and paste (separate clipboards and everything), or eliminate X11-style altogether.

Joe sixpack typically isn't going to mess with the X11-style copy and paste because he won't know it's there. Instead he'll use the standard Ctrl-X, Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V shortcuts and everything will work fairly well. And what is this "shift-insert" thing? Any windows user can tell you such a shortcut hasn't been used (officially) since Windows 95. Everyone long ago settled on the Apple-style keys.

Thanks to freedesktop standards, standard cut, copy, and paste now "just works." The only flaw remaining is that when an app closes, the contents of the clipboard it was using are lost. Clipboard managers solve that one though.

Re:IDNRTA

[repvik]

I keep hearing that the clipboard is broken but I have yet to see evidence of that. First of all, Terminal is a special case, and always is. That's because the standard cut/copy/paste shortcuts cannot be used directly as they are control keys meant to be received by whatever program you are running in the terminal. So of course you have to right-click and select "copy." For heaven's sake Mac OS X does the same thing.

Then why does it work perfectly well under KDE's terminal? I understand that ctrl-c doesn't work well on a terminal, but shift-insert usually works. It works in KDE's terminal, it works in putty on windows, it sometime works in the gnome terminal. Why the fuck does it just "sometimes" work when I'm pasting stuff to the bash prompt?

Apparently you are confused by the traditional copy/paste X11 method, which still exists. But it is largely independent of the Ctrl-X, Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V shortcuts. I use X11-style copy and paste all the time and it works great. The thing you're mistakenly suggesting is that X11-style copy should automatically fill the Ctrl-X,Ctrl-C, and Ctrl-V -style clipboard buffer. This is wrong. It would lead to mass confusion among people migrating from windows if it did this. So we either need to keep X11-style copy and paste separate from the other, standard copy and paste (separate clipboards and everything), or eliminate X11-style altogether.

No, I'm not confused. I use three ways to copy/paste stuff. When not in a terminal, I use ctrl-[cxv], when in the terminal, I use shift-insert. Sometimes I use the mouse. Ctrl-[xcv] works perfectly well on windows, (wtfthemackeynameis)-[xcv] works equally well on OS X, ctrl-xcv works perfectly well under KDE.

Joe sixpack typically isn't going to mess with the X11-style copy and paste because he won't know it's there. Instead he'll use the standard Ctrl-X, Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V shortcuts and everything will work fairly well. And what is this "shift-insert" thing? Any windows user can tell you such a shortcut hasn't been used (officially) since Windows 95. Everyone long ago settled on the Apple-style keys.

WTF do I care whether or not it's "officially used since windows '95"? ctrl-insert/shift-insert works as well as it always has under windows. I can't fucking use ctrl-c on the commandline. I'm using the "apple-style" keys too, but they don't always work because they mean other things in the terminal. Then the insert-keys work. And WTF is wrong with using "shift-insert" to ACTUALLY INSERT SHIT SOMEWHERE? I thought that "insert" meant "insert", not "don't do shit".

Thanks to freedesktop standards, standard cut, copy, and paste now "just works." The only flaw remaining is that when an app closes, the contents of the clipboard it was using are lost. Clipboard managers solve that one though.

Works? In KDE, sure. In gnome, nope.

Re:IDNRTA

[repvik]

One, have you ever sat two people who have never used a computer before (or never since "good" old DOS days anyway) and tried to teach them whichever MS Windows and GNOME & KDE on GNU/Linux? No? Why do you make such stupid comments then?

Honestly, the inconsistencies in Windows means that it is harder to learn to use then GNOME. Sure, for people who have only ever had experience with Windows, GNOME (and MacOS come to think of it, speaking from personal experience of helping people here) isn't that easy to use. But it is, once you are used to it.

Oh, and talking of copy and paste, the only problem I have (and it isn't that big a deal) is that you have to keep the window open that you want to copy from. I don't think you have to do that in KDE, but other things make GNOME more preferable for me.

No, I haven't set two "blank" users infront of linux. The mythological "blank" users are few and far between. Infact, I haven't met a single person (that I know of) that hasn't atleast *some* knowledge of how to use a computer. No matter how you see it, the windows desktop interface is more coherent that the gnome/kde ones. I'm sorry to say it, but there is no fucking consistency. I was an avid gnome user, until I tired of the fucking copy/paste game that gnome had me playing for hours a day. I switched to KDE, and it works much better. I still have to work around "issues". (I'm hoping that feisty fawn might actually make much of my grievances with linux go away).

I am a linux fan, and I won't stop being a linux fan. I run linux on two PC's and a large number of embedded devices. Linux is great for some purposes, and sucks for others. Being a good desktop is in the "others" category here.

Re:IDNRTA

[Qzukk]

The thing you're mistakenly suggesting is that X11-style copy should automatically fill the Ctrl-X,Ctrl-C, and Ctrl-V -style clipboard buffer. This is wrong. It would lead to mass confusion among people migrating from windows if it did this.

Not only that, but it would be horrible. I'd copy a URL and try to paste it into my browser but hilight the current URL instead, whoops! Or trying to edit a document, copy a block of text and highlight another block to replace it, whoops! The X selection buffer is highly useful for quick pasting (it removes a keystroke or multiple menu clicks), but it must be kept separate by default from the clipboard buffer. The use of middle click in firefox in Linux to load the URL from the selection buffer is brilliant.

What I want to see is an application that can "edit" the clipboard or selection buffer on the fly. Swap between them, maintain multiple clipboards, perhaps even apply edits to them as they're being cut and pasted. Imagine copying a 5 mile long Amazon URL from your browser and magically pasting the short version in IRC to show people the cool shit you're buying. Bonus points if it can speak X (both selection buffer and clipboard), Gnome, and KDE all at once.

Re:IDNRTA

[mahlerfan999]

To all the proponents of Linux On The Desktop: 1. Please stop flounting linux as totally superior. Be realistic. It sucks in many ways, but it sucks in other ways than Windows 2. Make sure that you point out that learning linux isn't as easy as windows. Really. Do it. Please. 3. Make sure you've pointed out 2. 4. Accept that Linux is a Tool, just like Windows. Every tool has its good and bad sides. Windows has a (mostly) coherent user experience, linux has not. Windows has (inflexible) wizards, Linux has extreme flexibility (at the cost of complexity). You can't have it all. EVER. /rant

I agree with you. Both OSs have their strong points, if you throw away either one you might be making life harder for you. Dual boot is the answer, and zealotry is not. I think that alot of linux advocates forgot how hard it was for them when they first started. Sure linux has improved alot, but if it's easy now, then why do people still flood the forums and IRC channels wanting help?

Advocates will have you believe that Linux is supposedly easier to install than Windows, but (a) Windows usually comes preinstalled on machines so it's a moot point, and (b) the Windows installer is about the same level of difficulty as any linux installer-- select a partition, answer some questions, and then kick back. People usually blather on about security updates being a pain in the ass, but you need security updates with linux as well, and just the general updates are just as time consuming to download and install as the windows security updates.

I don't think that people should switch to linux unless they have a compelling reason to. Microsoft=evil is not a good reason. Having software that you use on linux that you can't find on windows is a good reason. You should use an OS because you have a good reason to, not on the basis of some kind of moral imperative.

Re:IDNRTA

[repvik]

I agree with most of your points, but I have to call you out on point 2: Make you point out that learning Linux isn't as easy as windows [sic].

In my (considerable) experience, that's simply not true. You take someone who finds computers and mechanical things in general difficult and is confused by even the most basic computer tasks (my mother, for instance), and put her in front of a Windows machine and a Linux machine (I'll use Kubuntu in these examples, because it's my distro of choice). She doesn't find either of them easy, but doesn't find one to be harder than the other.

My wife primarily uses Windows because it's what she learned on and it's the only platform where Yahoo Messenger supports voice (that's the biggie for her) but on those occasions where she has to use Linux (our kids both have Linux machines, for example), she doesn't find it harder the Windows. They're both point/click.

My kids (not yet kindergarteners) both have Edubuntu on their computers and they don't think it's hard, even though they'd been using Windows on my wife's computer before that.

Now, if you'd made a comment on the learning curve/transitional difficulties for people who are used to Windows, I wouldn't complain. There's going to be a transitional period. I'm primarily a Linux user and recently got my first Mac. I still prefer Linux overall, but the Mac is wonderful in many ways. One of the big ones is one you touch on in point 4: coherent user experience. Things hang together on a Mac much better than on any other platform I've used. However, since I'm now talking about coherence, I don't think Windows has much (if any) advantage there compared to any one distro or desktop environment (the great diversity of those things is another matter, but since most people use only one distro everywhere, I don't think that's as important as some might think it). KDE, especially as implemented on Kubuntu, obviously borrows from the Mac approach, something which I hope only accelerates with KDE.

Overall, is Linux still a little harder than Windows? Yes, in some areas. In other areas, it's way ahead of Windows, and ahead of Mac in some areas too (installing software through things like Adept, Synaptic, or Linspire's Click-n-Run Warehouse is way ahead of either Win or Mac, for instance). Most administration tasks are now quite easy and pretty coherently handled in a GUI (speaking of Kubuntu and Edubuntu, at least). Installing Linux (depends on your distro, of course; but this is true of (K)ubuntu, at least) is a piece of cake. Easier than Windows, hands down. Installing XP and getting it up to date is really painful compared to installing Kubuntu.

I agree that it's way ahead of Windows in several areas. Installing packages is really, really nice. Administration is imho so-so. Take eg. now that I'm running Kubuntu, I can't access my other linux-boxes that runs samba. Granted, in windows, finding them takes forever but atleast it works. I still haven't figured out how to make Kubuntu find them.

There's one coherency issue that bugs me a LOT. In windows, almost *all* apps (There are a *very* few special cases), allows you to access a samba share using UNC paths. There's no way I can do that from eg. firefox without mounting the share in some convenient place first. Or thunderbird. Or xmms. Where's that coherency? Things like that "just work" on OSX and Windows.

Is Linux, then ready for the desktop? Depends which desktop. For the power user, it's been ready for years. Linux has been my primary (and exclusive, at home), desktop OS for nearly 10 years. For business desktops? Yes, in most cases. For Multimedia?, No, it's still behind there, but regular progress is being made. For a light-use home user who just needs web, email, and occasional light word processing? Yes, it's been ready for that for quite a while.

Oh, about Outlook: yes, Outlook is a decent PIM, except for the mail part. It's a heinous email client in most respects, worst I've ever used. Thunderbird is much better at m

Re:IDNRTA

[zaphod_es]

2. Make sure that you point out that learning linux isn't as easy as windows. Really. Do it. Please.



I really do not believe that. I may be splitting hairs but the distros like Ubuntu, Redhat, Suse and Mandriva etc are no more difficult to learn than Windows. Debian, Slackware, Gentoo and LFS etc are hard to learn but are not designed for beginners. Total beginners with computers need instruction, study and practice and I see little difference in the degree of difficulty between Linux and Windows.

For experienced Windows users there are a lot of problems switching to Linux. They are used to doing whatever they want quickly, they are used to the respect of their peers as computer gurus, they have always understand the principles of their computer. They do not take kindly to being unable to do the simplest task like locate the CD drive, format a disk, play some music etc. Often they become angry and frustrated and blame Linux as it is "hard to learn". They tend to dual boot and exit to Windows every time they need to do something new, they then find it easier to stay in Windows, then they stop booting into Linux in the first place.

Rather than admit that their failure is due to lack of commitment, interest or whatever it is much easier to blame it on a rubbish system which is far to hard to learn. It then becomes logical to bad mouth Linux and tell the world how impossible it is. Every person who successfully makes the transition is a reminder of his failure. If a long term Linux user who had never seen Windows tried to make the reverse journey he would have exactly the same problems.

It is good advice to warn people thinking of making the switch that it is a considerable commitment of time and effort. If they are not ready for that it is better to postpone the move than to fail half-heartedly.

Re:IDNRTA

[repvik]

They do not take kindly to being unable to do the simplest task like locate the CD drive, format a disk, play some music etc. Often they become angry and frustrated and blame Linux as it is "hard to learn".

Locating the CD-drive usually isn't the hardest of tasks, considering recent distros put it on the desktop. They also pop up a window when a CD is inserted. Formatting a disk isn't among the problems I think a switcher should be worrying too much about. Now, playing some music? *That* is a pain. Getting non-free codecs requires going online and googling. When that no longer requires strong google-fu (because you get a lot of irrelevant hits otherwise), I'll say it's good. Or getting access to your shiny NAS, that includes all your music, from your PC? Not easy. I can't access my samba NAS from Kubuntu, and I haven't figured out why. I know how to mount it from the commandline, and how to mount if on boot through fstab. But that is NOT something one should assume is "easy" for a new user. I've been using Linux since pre 2.0 kernels (Good old ygg, and thanks to Patrick for making slack).

Look. It's simple. Windows is inflexible and has a bunch of problems. But it is easier to use on many fields, and it's way more coherent in the way you access eg. shares. Ever tried saving stuff from firefox to a share? thunderbird? Or what about opening mp3's from a share you have opened in nautilus? right-click, open with xmms.... xmms opens, but it can't find the file... How do you expect users to understand that that doesn't work? Browsing to a share in windows, right-clicking, and you can basically open a file in *ANY* application.

Re:IDNRTA

[caseih]

Ctrl-Insert, Shift-Insert are anachronistic old key combinations that are deprecated. Stop using them. The fact that they still work is mostly luck on your part.

I use gnome (never liked KDE) and I simply do not see the issues you see. I can copy and paste to and from Gnome-Terminal just fine. I have to right-click to get access to the standard clipboard, but that's expected. X11 copy and paste just works also. I can cut and paste between KDE and Gnome apps, as well as firefox and openoffice

Yes, for almost all compliant apps (almost all gnome apps these days), it indeed just works from what I and others can see. But do open a bug report on your issues (without the expletives). They can be fixed if they are reproduce-able. Gnome is far from perfect (still a steaming pile; it just smells better to me than KDE).

Re:IDNRTA

[apathy maybe]

I recall seeing a study a while back, from Germany I believe. I can't link it to you I'm sorry.

But anyway, they found people who hadn't used a computer for ages (since DOS or earlier) or who hadn't used a desktop machine (ATMs don't count). They set them in front of a computer. One group had Windows, one GNOME.

GNOME was easier to pick up for those people.

Also, there are shit loads of people who have never used a computer, they are either young (and getting younger) or in a poor country. But they are out there.

Re:IDNRTA

[repvik]

Ctrl-Insert, Shift-Insert are anachronistic old key combinations that are deprecated. Stop using them. The fact that they still work is mostly luck on your part.

Why? When did they become deprecated, and why? I haven't seen a newscast that announced that they are now unusable. Now, how do you propose I cut and paste in the terminal? ctrl-[cv]? That won't work, idiot.

I use gnome (never liked KDE) and I simply do not see the issues you see. I can copy and paste to and from Gnome-Terminal just fine. I have to right-click to get access to the standard clipboard, but that's expected. X11 copy and paste just works also. I can cut and paste between KDE and Gnome apps, as well as firefox and openoffice

Why should I have to use the FUCKING MOUSE TO COPY AND PASTE? That is seriously counter-productive.

Yes, for almost all compliant apps (almost all gnome apps these days), it indeed just works from what I and others can see. But do open a bug report on your issues (without the expletives). They can be fixed if they are reproduce-able. Gnome is far from perfect (still a steaming pile; it just smells better to me than KDE).

They can be fixed, no doubt about that since they work in KDE, OSX and Windows.

Re:IDNRTA

[SiChemist]

That's funny, I could have sworn that Linspire was an OEM Linux distribution. It comes on this Wal-Mart desktop:

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_ id=3762912

Re:IDNRTA

[Trogre]

That's kind of like saying Lynx is better than Firefox because it *only* displays text from web pages, and does it well.

Re:IDNRTA

[Trogre]

Really? They figured out that they need to click on a picture of a deformed foot to get at their programs quicker than those presented with the word "Start" in the same place?

Re:IDNRTA

[kindbud]

And what is this "shift-insert" thing?

Shift-insert is paste, Ctrl-insert is copy and Shift-Delete is cut. This is standard Unix WM behavior for quite a long time, since Motif.

All those keys work just fine under KTerm. Perhaps the problem really is with Gnome.

Re:IDNRTA

[Anonymous Coward]

I do not believe you, not at all. I am absolutely 100% certain that "even" after drop-in replacement which outshines Outlook in every respect you would start whining about something else. Probably about Exchange, or photoshop, or LDAP, or ...

You have two choices: 1. whine'n'pay, 2. move-your-ass. Simple as that.

Re:IDNRTA

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because the standard cut/copy/paste shortcuts cannot be used directly as they are control keys meant to be received by whatever program you are running in the terminal. There is absolutely no reason not to map e.g. SIGINT to the Break key. Actually, this is the way it should be done, leaving ctrl-c to copy.

Re:IDNRTA

[Builder]

For heaven's sake Mac OS X does the same thing.

You sure about that ?

I don't know about what other options I have, but to copy and paste in EVERYTHING uncluding terminal, I use apple-C and apple-V. That works everywhere that copy and paste works.

Re:IDNRTA

[zsau]

It's not just brilliant, it's obvious. Netscape 4 on Linux supported it way back when I first started using Linux (well, new window, but same diff). Probably it's been supported as far back as the first X web browser.

Re:IDNRTA

[Bright Apollo]

The ODF argument can negate or blunt most of the proprietary lock-in with Excel and Word, the primary document formats of Office and the ones most critical to internal migration from Office. For highly-regulated industries it offers the ability to save information in a neutral format, thus sparing them at least one headache when regulators come by for a spot inspection (I work in pharma, so this is a Big Deal).

The Exchange argument will probably persist. Email has to be stored in the event of litigation now, and *that* is a tougher nut to crack. I would tend to agree that lock-in with Exchange makes a drop-in Outlook replacement almost impossible, but there may still be some hope for a clever indie solution.

However, moving away from the Exchange Server is even tougher than changing db platforms, and that's almost impossible for big companies who've negotiated enterprise licenses.

So, the challenge is still there.

-BA

Re:IDNRTA

[angrykeyboarder]

Ubuntu is trying to be a Windows killer. And it could be. Wine is "good enough" with the right settings for 90% of what most people want to do coming from a Windows world. Wine is a mess. It's way behind running much of anything in the way of recent Windows software. Wine is great incentive to find Linux alternatives to Windows sotware. Not only that, but it's just butt ugly.

With beryl, good drivers, and built in FOSS apps that beat MS at every turn (Firefox > IE, Beryl > Aero, Thunderbird > Outlook, and VLC > WMP) Beryl is overkill. Frankly all I want are a few niceties like drop shadows and translucent borders. I don't need my Windows to jiggle or catch on fire(and it's not even very "good" fire at that). I don't see anything multimedia-wise in Linux as a "Windows Killer". I'll take WMP11 and QuickTime any day over VLC, MPlayer, Totem or Xine.

it seems like the win would be fast and clear. Nobody wants Vista, especially when you have to pay. Nobody wants Vista? You really believe that?

Ubuntu comes preconfigured in a way that is over all superior to every Windows that has ever existed. It's more solid and reliable, it has four desktops (though they moronically all have the same wallpaper by default, and it happens to be shit brown) Personally they are about the same when it comes to "preconfiguaton". Ubuntu (and Fedora, SUSE, Mandriva....) comes with most of what the average joe needs to get up and running on a PC, but they still have the "multimedia problem". Windows Vista is up and running in 30 minutes (in my case). I then spent the next hour installing the sofware I wanted to satisfy my needs. The multimedia part was fine (with a quick install of QuickTime and RealPlayher).

it has a very nice user interface (though *i* and many others feel it could take some design cues from Windows 98 with regards to menu structure and some other minor details), You've got to be kidding? Windows 98? For awesome menu structure see Windows Vista.

and it's free. Oh yeah, and it's open source, so anybody who doesn't like part of it can fix it themselves. I love reading this kind of stuff. It's as if every FLOSS fanboy on the planet assumes that everyone else is a developer too. Guess what? Most of us Linux users (I use both Linux & Windows, for the record) will be stuck. We're not developers, we can't "fix it". We can submit bugs and be at the mercy of the people who can (provided they are interested).

Feisty could win the OS wars decisively, but given the over all FOSS community attitude towards ordinary people.... Even if the FOSS community started being "nice" the problem would remain. While Ubuntu (or SUSE, Fedora, Mandriva...) is VASTLY superior to anything from back in the Windows 98 days (you know that old OS with the "kick-ass" menus you so still find so contemporary) it's far from the level of polish of OS X or Vista. Couple that with the fact that only one company markets OS X and only on markets Vista and anyone can see why Linux on the desktop still has a long way to go. I love Ubuntu. It's awesome. But you know what? I feel the same way about Windows Vista. Dual booting rocks. :-)

Re:IDNRTA

[Hatta]

If all I needed was the text, then yes lynx would be better than firefox. And for pages that don't have any graphics, lynx is better than firefox. But text and graphics come together in html. Email and calendars are entirely different things and don't have any place being shoehorned into an app together. It doesn't make any more sense than putting an email client in photoshop or powerpoint would.

Re:IDNRTA

[apathy maybe]

Actually, GNOME by default, has "Applications" and "Actions" (and at least under Ubuntu "Places"). It is much more logical then clicking "Start" to shutdown the computer.

Why don't you try it sometime instead of just making random comments like that?

Netcraft

[jimmiejaz]

Netcraft confirms it, Debian is dying, the grave is dug, and it's bastard offspring, Ubuntu is lowering the casket.

The King is dead, long live FreeBSD

Re:Netcraft

[Ilgaz]

Netcraft confirms it, Debian is dying, the grave is dug, and it's bastard offspring, Ubuntu is lowering the casket.

The King is dead, long live FreeBSD Funny , this guys joke gets -1 point but the FA is actually speaking about same pointless Ubuntu desktop % racing giving up stable image Debian gained/earned for all these years.

Debian Stable not dead in my server room

[maynard]

I don't have time to worry about internal Debian politics. Perhaps it is a clusterfuck. Beats me. But Debian Stable (Woody) may run old software, may lack some desirable features, and may not have the latest Gnome interface... but so what. It is stable. I have a cluster of machines running Stable that serve AFS to hundreds of clients. With those machines, my problems are almost all hardware related.

That's all I care about. Is it stable? Yes. Is it secure? Yes. Does it perform a function I need? Yes. Then deploy.

Re:Debian Stable not dead in my server room

[dosius]

Last I checked, Sarge was the stable branch and Woody was obsolete even by Debian standards.

-uso.

Re:Debian Stable not dead in my server room

[maynard]

You're right. Sarge is what's deployed. Woody is deprecated, but I believe they're still providing security updates for it. My error.

Re:Debian Stable not dead in my server room

[Ilgaz]

What version of Apache Debian comes with? Apple still ships 1.33 Apache with Xserve and nobody calls it "dead" or "outdated". If you really need Apache 2.x, you compile and run your own.

Isn't it the same deal with Debian stable?

Re:Debian Stable not dead in my server room

[rnws]

Damn right. As usual there seems to be hordes of PFY's on /. that believes the world begins and ends at their gee-whizz, eye-candy laden desktop installed on some garish box all lit up like a titty bar.

As a server OS Debian is where you want to be, in fact if they just sorted out their goddamn bickering they could own the server space. Slow, sure STABLE and SECURE development is what sysadmins want, not freakin Aero or Beryl or anything else that doesn't warrant being in a production server farm. In fatc this is one of the reasons RH split off their desktop development and slowed down their rate of release for the server variant. Enterprise customers want PREDICTABILITY not eye-candy. (You whack the eye-candy on the management's desktop's to get them to sign the cheques.) Admittedly Debian is predicatably late, but hey, its release cycle is still light-years ahead of Duke Nukem. :D

Debian and Ubuntu work excellently together as a server/desktop OS pairing. Ubuntu is the dogs bollocks for the Linux desktop (IMHO). It was the first ever distro where everything worked "out of the box" on my laptop (YMMV) and that impressed me. It is a polished desktop OS that deserves its place in the sun. Debian is the sure workhorse on the server.

Debian needs to get it's act together poltically speaking but technically it's a damn fine OS and Ubuntu, Knoppix, Mepis and a pile of tohers would be nothing without it.

Re:Debian Stable not dead in my server room

[cortana]

apache: 1.3.33-6sarge3
apache2: 2.0.54-5sarge1

Re:Debian Stable not dead in my server room

[Ilgaz]

apache: 1.3.33-6sarge3
apache2: 2.0.54-5sarge1 So you got Apache 2 option at least. Apple.com runs/serves perfect with Apache 1.3.33 anyway :)

Re:Debian Stable not dead in my server room

[dosius]

It's good that they still provide the updates, as some people hate to upgrade their OS (especially on a server you don't want to update it!) ...myself included

-uso.

Re:Debian Stable not dead in my server room

[Anonymous Coward]

But they don't! Woody security support ended in June 2006 as planned (1 year after the new distribution is released).

This is why you need to mod parent down

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would I listen to someone with gnaa as their homepage?

If anything, you only hurt his cause with your endorsement - that's like RuPaul endorsing Pat Buchanan for President.

The no RC bug ideal...

[Kjella]

...is sorta like the "no deaths in traffic" ideal, nice ideal but if you live it to the letter everything wlll stop. What gets Debian every time is the long tail of RC bugs, some long-lived bugs in e.g. the kernel linger on while less critical software go through many cycles. They go into a sort of meta-support stage where they're busy backporting fixes to etch, before it's even released. Sure every distro has those but for Debian it seems to go on for months and months.

Re:The no RC bug ideal...

[diegocgteleline.es]

The no RC bug ideal is sorta like the "no deaths in traffic" ideal

The problem with Debian RCs is that it has more than 15.000 packages and except for the "base system", all of them are equally important. So a RC bug in a crappy package that has 3 users is just as important as a RC in firefox/iceweasel, which lots of people use. It's stupid, but it's the way debian works.

Politics suck

[Anonymous Coward]

In principle the value of F/OSS is that if you don't like the leadership you find another group of knights who say 'nee' and fork the project. In practice that may not be enough because of momentum and apathy. eg: How many political parties can you vote for and how did the system triumph in removing Hitler or Stalin once they established a power base? Is it really practical to maintain a Mozilla fork?

Re:Politics suck

[Raenex]

Politics suck Yeah, it would be so much simpler if everybody just followed the MCP.

Yeah, 'When It's Ready'

[boogahboogah]

If you're looking for the latest drivers/kernel tweaks, it seems like Debian is perpetually behind. Every so often I try installing it (and Ubuntu/Kubuntu also), but with any new hardware it breaks and I end up re-installing SuSE again. Not that SuSE is perfect but at least it works with my hardware better than Debian/Ubuntu/Kubuntu.

Re:Yeah, 'When It's Ready'

[Clazzy]

I've had no problems installing Etch and every version of Ubuntu from 5.04 onwards and every piece of hardware I've thrown at it (admittedly not a great deal being on a laptop) has been perfect. Perhaps I've just had the good side of it all but I've considered Debian and its derivatives to be good when it comes to driver support

Re:Yeah, 'When It's Ready'

[kobaz]

If you're looking for the latest drivers/kernel tweaks, it seems like Debian is perpetually behind. Every so often I try installing it (and Ubuntu/Kubuntu also), but with any new hardware it breaks and I end up re-installing SuSE again. Not that SuSE is perfect but at least it works with my hardware better than Debian/Ubuntu/Kubuntu.

I run debian exclusively on my home desktop, on my work desktop, on my laptop, on 3 servers at home, and on a few at work. I have never had a system just "break" without being touched. I have absolutely no problem keeping up with new drivers and all that stuff. Want to play with the latest and greatest on your development box? Change your release to unstable, lftpget ftp..kernel.org/, untar, make menuconfig, make bzImage.. etc etc. Not once have I reinstalled a linux distro "to get hardware to work". Why not? because it's not needed, and only someone who is unfamiliar with linux would take that route

Believe it or not many of the packages in unstable are actually stable to use. Unstable just means stuff is changing constantly. If you use an unstable package on your test box and it performs flawlessly under rigorous testing, feel free to move it into a production system.

I don't need any magical installer to find what hardware I have, lspci does the trick, and if the kernel supports it, no problem (if not, you bought the wrong hardware). Yeah, it would be great if out of the box everything worked with linux, but it doesn't, and people need to accept that and work to improve it. All this talk about "well linux doesn't do X" doesn't help too much. Get out gdb and start fixing stuff (sorry non-coders, but there's not much you can do except make suggestions as to what the coders should be doing).

Look back at first generation linux systems, go check out kernel 1.0.x (or pre 1.0 if you're brave) and beta versions of xfree while you're at it. Look how far we have come, and (mostly) everything is open source and free to boot!

Linux isn't going to be just plug and chug like windows for a long time (hell even windows isn't so friendly many times). All we can do is work to improve the system, and one of the best ways of doing that is to use the thing you are having trouble with, find it's problems and report them (or fix them).

Win98 menu

[DrYak]

it could take some design cues from Windows 98 with regards to menu structure

You mean, having a "Start" menu that spans over 3 columns, filled with sub-folders that have only 1 single application and are cryptically named after some taiwaneese constructor ?

Sorry, but I prefere much more the "Office / Games / Internet / Graphics / ..." menu structure of my linux disto. And in fact use the same structure in Windows too.

Debian's new niche

[Anonymous Coward]

All the hard stuff in Ubuntu is lifted wholesale from Debian. That's cool - it's the point of Free Software. The problem is the idea that Debian has to compete with Ubuntu. Debian is (and in my opinion always should be) rock solid, 100% free and stable over time. Debian is still the OS of choice for servers, of that I have no doubt - the window-dressing and shiny newness of Ubuntu bears no value in a server environment, but the minor niggles and instabilities of Ubuntu do. In my opinion, Debian should give up trying to be a distro that normal people use - Ubuntu have them roundly beat. They should concentrate on developing the infrastructure, the dull but essential foundations of an OS. For that, a plodding, myopic precision is absolutely the right attitude.

Oh its that simple huh?

[NDPTAL85]

"Why doesn't Ubuntu seal the deal?

With beryl, good drivers, and built in FOSS apps that beat MS at every turn (Firefox > IE, Beryl > Aero, Thunderbird > Outlook, and VLC > WMP), it seems like the win would be fast and clear. Nobody wants Vista, especially when you have to pay. Ubuntu comes preconfigured in a way that is over all superior to every Windows that has ever existed. It's more solid and reliable, it has four desktops (though they moronically all have the same wallpaper by default, and it happens to be shit brown), it has a very nice user interface (though *i* and many others feel it could take some design cues from Windows 98 with regards to menu structure and some other minor details), and it's free. Oh yeah, and it's open source, so anybody who doesn't like part of it can fix it themselves."

Oh really? So I can just fix whatever part of it I don't like myself? I didn't know I knew how to program! Good thing you told me or I would have never known! And I personally use 3 OS's, OS X, XP and Kubuntu and I did not know that Kubuntu with Beryl was better than Windows. Silly me! Don't get me wrong, Kubuntu is pretty awesome but its still not on par with Windows JUST YET. Did you know I had to do something EXTRA after installing Kubuntu 6.10 to get my video codecs to work? Crazy thing. I didn't have to do that with Windows. I've never had to do that with Mac OS X. Then there was the wifi card in my laptop, which I also had to install after installing the OS. Did you know XP and OS X have built in wifi drivers? If you are using Windows on centrino its no issue at all. With Kubuntu I had to install KNetworkManager to get WPA functionality.

But maybe I'm just imagining these things.

Re:Oh its that simple huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

You claim that you didn't have to install codecs to get video working on Windows and OS X.

I don't think that's true. Out-of-the-box, WMP doesn't play everything. Same problem with OS X's Quicktime Player: it doesn't play everything. (And it won't go to full-screen mode out of the box, either.)

On Windows and Mac I always have to install VLC to get a media player that "just works." On Ubuntu good media players are already there, and, yes, I have to install the codecs.

So what's the difference? I love the myth of the OS that "just works." Every OS requires tweaking to get it working the way you want.

Re:Oh its that simple huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Did you know I had to do something EXTRA after installing Kubuntu 6.10 to get my video codecs to work? Crazy thing. I didn't have to do that with Windows. I've never had to do that with Mac OS X. Then there was the wifi card in my laptop, which I also had to install after installing the OS. Did you know XP and OS X have built in wifi drivers? If you are using Windows on centrino its no issue at all. With Kubuntu I had to install KNetworkManager to get WPA functionality."

I have been clean for over a year now, though i maintain a windows machine at home, so correct me if i'm wrong:

1. You still need to install divX,Xvid,quicktime and whatever other codec seperately after the windows installation. MP3 and WMA/WMV play out of the box though
2. I needed to install a wifi driver after the installation of XP SP2 the last time I tried... guess what? Ubuntu didn't need that, but then again I didn't try Vista(yes it's a centrino)

But hey, that is STILL nothing a properly PRE-configured computer can't do, heck, I think I'll start selling this kind of machine over here: "Your kids spending too much time on video games? Viruses and ad/spy-ware are forcing your machine to it's knees? We can help, just bring the machine over and we will configure a proper Linux distro on it. Additionally you can purchase support where it doesn't take 1 hour to get an answer out of the tech support since they'll access your PC remotely and do your bidding. Tech support is void if you start messing with root"

Okay if I needed a PC for word processing/some simple games/internet/research/development I would be sold for an ad like this... especially if i feel intimidated by following the tech support instructions. Need an app? send an email, someone will remotely access and apt-get it for you, got some configuration you don't like? ssh in remotely and VIM it.

Stable? Check
Secure? Check
Easy to install/maintain? Only if you buy the right hardware(In this case you chose the hardware for the customer)
Easy enough for my grandma to use? Check(we're talking about using not administrating)

Seriously, why has no one thought about this one? Are there obstacles I cannot see?

Choose the server option.

[khasim]

Ubuntu is pretty sweet for the desktop, but there's too much desktop-y stuff involved in it. Without doing some research, I wouldn't even know how to do an Ubuntu install completely free from any window manager whatsoever.

Boot the install CD and choose "Install a LAMP server" at the menu.

Other than that it's almost identical to Debian. And it doesn't get any easier than Debian.

Re:Choose the server option.

[AVee]

Boot the install CD and choose "Install a LAMP server" at the menu.

And that's exactly why Debian is better than Ubuntu in most scenarios (although Ubuntu may still be better for most users). Someone is asking how to install Ubuntu without GUI and the answer is to install it with a full webserver stack. Some people have more specific needs than 'Desktop' or 'LAMP server' and in all of these cases Ubuntu has no added value, worse yet, it looses out on lower stability and having to deinstall stuff as a first step right after the installation.

Apart from that, it's way more fun to actually decide for yourself which packages to use. If i wanted the software to take as much as possible decicions for me I'd be using Microsoft stuff, they are way better at deciding what's good for their customers.

Re:Choose the server option.

[-noefordeg-]

Have you seen the install menu of Ubuntu server?
You do realize that "LAMP server" is just -one- option?

"Someone is asking how to install Ubuntu without GUI and the answer is to install it with a full webserver stack."
No.
The answer is to boot the install CD and choose between a few easy to understand options, where one option will give you a ready to use Ubuntu LAMP server.
I've got a prette decen test server here, running VMWare, with CentOS, Fedora, Trustix Secure Linux and Ubuntu Server, and right now, Ubuntu Server is the one which I find easiest to install and make ready for our production servers. Ubuntu Server comes with all necessary tools installed, if you choose the "LAMP Server"-option mind you, (openssh, apache, php, mysql, python, perl) and no unnecessary tools installed. So far it's been very stable too. As stable as it can possibly get...

Re:Choose the server option.

[Anonymous Coward]

Boot the install CD and type "server" at the boot prompt. Fixed that for you. Worked for me since 5.04!

Brought to you by the captcha: graded.

Re:Choose the server option.

[Anonymous Coward]

you can also just download and install the server edition of ubuntu which takes about 300MB fully installed and basicly is a base system with ssh.

Re:Choose the server option.

[AVee]

Sure, or I could just get Debian, instead of Debian with some stuff added and then stripped off again.

Slowness

[Alioth]

The slowness of Debian updates is a feature, not a bug. When you have a server 4,000 miles away from home (where a major OS upgrade can quite easily leave the machine an unbootable lump of metal), having a long time between major releases, and the updates to the current release being rock solid - it's a BIG feature. It's why I run Debian on those servers - because it's a lot less stressful than running a faster moving distribution.

On a point of pedantry, also you cannot have a meteoric rise. Meteors fall!

Re:Slowness

[Aladrin]

"On a point of pedantry, also you cannot have a meteoric rise. Meteors fall!"

I believe that's a reference to a 'rising star', not a real meteor. It's supposed to be clever. I always liked these from school:

http://www.personal.psu.edu/wxk116/vocab.html

Re:Slowness

[apathy maybe]

On a point of pedantry, I believe the phrase refers to the speed at which things goes. Though I could be wrong.

Re:Slowness

[(void*)cheerio]

Here here!

I like the "slowness" of Debian's releases too.
I use Debian on my laptop (testing) and my servers (stable).

For my servers, it doesn't matter how fresh Firefox is, how fresh Gnome/KDE or anything-within-a-mile-of-X is.
All I care about is that the box stays afloat.

So I would like to thank all the Debian developers who exercise patient and take the quality of their releases so seriously. Thanks bunches!

As for the political problems, every organization has them. But I sure hope they work it out nicely amongst themselves. Cause Debian r0x!

Re:Slowness

[cyberphotographer]

On a point of pedantry, also you cannot have a meteoric rise. Meteors fall! Not in Australia

Debian has it's place

[jshriverWVU]

I used debian for years on my servers and desktop and really enjoyed it. Then one day I went to install a hauppauge video capture card and a couple other devices that aren't very standard. After weeks of recompiling the kernel, out-of-branch kernel sources, and various other things it became very tedious. A friend gave me an Ubuntu CD to try it out and everything just worked out of the box. Every piece of hardware was configured and working nicely out of the install, and the universe/multiverse feature was nice for getting things Debian normally doesn't carry. So for now I prefer Ubuntu for the desktop, and Debian or Ubuntu for servers. Just my oppinion, but I've had a couple friends switch over too because they wanted more bleeding edge software or wanting things to just work.

Not a brand

[Anonymous Coward]

I think of Debian as a packaging system, not a brand. So nowadays when I want to install a debian box, I start with a Ubuntu CD.
At a previous employer, I even implemented a dpkg-based packaging system for Solaris, and from time to time, referred to it informally
as "debian". It never occurred to me until this morning that the debian folks wanted to be protective of their position.

When Did NetCraft Confirm This?

[mpapet]

Let's get a few things straight.

1. Another post mentions a concatenation of problems. I agree with this post.

2. Ubuntu is not a good server distro!
Stable and well-tested older packages are a strength of Debian. Yes there is a large class of sysadmins that like keeping odd hours running buggier systems. They generally burnout or learn how valuable stable is. To address the rather immature "needs newer packages" complaints, may I refer you to http://www.backports.org/dokuwiki/doku.php

3. Depth of Knowledge
There are still, many excellent Debian sysadmins out there that share and certainly have brought my skills up to a higher level. I don't see the same depth in Ubuntu forums.

4. Ubuntu Money
Mark's bringing money to the table, he gets to call the shots. That's well and good because the honeymoon is on right now. What happens when the honeymoon is over? Debian doesn't look organized compared to a guy calling the shots with his bankroll. It's an apples-and-oranges comparison.

5. Etch
I'm running etch right now on my desktop and in testing. It was ubuntu-release quality months ago.

Re:When Did NetCraft Confirm This?

[Markspark]

a few notes on your comments.. they're overall quite correct, except this one.. 4. a nice long 2.5 year honeymoon.. if you dont like the setup, why get involved from the beginning? 5. debian testing = ubuntu stable, this is quite true, and before ubuntu, i used to run debian testing at home.. at work, debian stable.. for all the lovely reasons noted above.. :)

Re:When Did NetCraft Confirm This?

[myowntrueself]

To address the rather immature "needs newer packages" complaints, may I refer you to http://www.backports.org/dokuwiki/doku.php

If only that were true.

If they had a decent backport of a *recent* php4 and if they kept it recent then debian stable + backports might be an option. But they don't and it isn't. Not when you have to support 3rd party php applications and keep them up to date.

Re:When Did NetCraft Confirm This?

[Nurgled]

I had this problem for a long time... though with PHP5, not PHP4. Things have worked out quite well since I started using the unofficial packages from Dotdeb, which has PHP4, PHP5, MySQL 5 and other useful packages you need for webservers running the latest webapps.

I was wary at first due to it being an unofficial repository, but I've found that they are generally very responsive to new releases of PHP including security updates, and their packages seem to be well-tested and have worked just fine so far.

Re:When Did NetCraft Confirm This?

[Anonymous Coward]

2. Ubuntu is not a good server distro!

Well technically the Ubuntu LTS releases are pretty close to Debian stable. They have support for 5 years (which is about how long it takes Debian to release another stable version anyway).

Re:When Did NetCraft Confirm This?

[myowntrueself]

Interesting. My only concern would be the release upgrade path; how well does it work with apt-get dist-upgrade from Sarge to Etch?

The semi-unofficial backports are pretty well guaranteed to upgrade to the next release with no problems...

Am I the only one...

[XdevXnull]

..who looked at the title and for just half a second though, "Who gives a rat's ass what the owner of NewsCorp(TM) thinks about Debian??"

Debian will never die.

[harry666t]

Just take a brief look at this list.

http://www.debian.org/users/

Fuck Debian

[jaxon6]

You know what?

Fuck Debian.

I am so sick of their elitism, their idealism, their purity-over-functionalism. I cut my teeth on Debian and I thought it was a great platform to learn on, but it has no place in the workplace. Can anybody honestly justify an email telling the userbase that 'Uh, so Firefox is being renamed to Iceweasel. No, seriously. It still works the same, but now it's different. Please adjust accordingly.'

I firmly believe that efforts such as Debian deserve their place and that we all benefit from them, but only in the sense that we also benefit from flag-waving hippies; their freedom is our freedom. But, I wouldn't want any of those hippies coming into my work, spouting liberal ideals while simultaneously interfering with actual productivity.

Keeping control of a large network is difficult enough without having the personalities of brilliant yet insignificant(to me) developers holding back shipping dates, preventing current software releases and in general preventing me from doing my job.

I think Debian needs a wakeup call. It should either be abandoned or made correct; no in-between. I remember those ideals I had a decade ago when installing Debian from floppy. Those ideals, while they have their place, should never be paramount in the decision-making process when managing a network of any size.

So, once again, filled with the frustration of knowing that a great platform has succumbed to its worst elements - Fuck Debian.

Re:Fuck Debian

[Lord Bitman]

"Due to licensing issues, we are no longer able to receive security updates to Firefox in an expedient manner. In the interests of maintaining security, we have begun using the fork "Iceweasel". Functionality remains the same, the only user-visible differences being in the name."

Re:Fuck Debian

[gclef]

Honestly, I'm more productive with Debian than I am with other Linuxes (at least with Deb as a server). I don't want to have to go through the testing cycle every couple months to upgrade. I've got stuff to do, and babysitting a constant upgrade cycle is not one of them. Debian's policy of not changing software versions inside stable means I know that APIs will remain stable and fixed until I do a full upgrade, which is a good thing for me.

I like that Debian is slow to update things. My job is not to babysit servers...it's to make s*&t work. If I don't have to mess with a server, and can count on it working reliably for long periods of time...yay.

Re:Fuck Debian

[MrCopilot]

I am so sick of their elitism, their idealism, their purity-over-functionalism. I cut my teeth on Debian and I thought it was a great platform to learn on, but it has no place in the workplace.

Um Debian does not hide their idealism, they are quite up front. http://www.us.debian.org/intro/free

If you are saying there is no place in the enterprise for these ideals, You haven't look around enough.

There are many of us who not only believe in these ideas but support them exclusively.

You are free to use what you like but saying I think Debian needs a wakeup call. It should either be abandoned or made correct; is the most idiotic statement I've heard since joining the movement. (And that is saying something.)

Debian Servers are rock solid and have been since way back. Many a workplace run debian servers without users/admins even noticing the purity/idealism you speak of.

(I spoke too soon, New idiotic statement)difficult enough without having the personalities of brilliant yet insignificant(to me) developers holding back shipping dates

Wow. Just Wow.

Ok guys, we cannot have these discussions any longer, Jaxon6 (You know the guy who pays nothing, contributes nothing and bad mouths us on the intarweb) needs us to deliver for him now. I know freedom, trademarks, stability, blah, blah, blah, Jaxon needs to use firefox but doesn't know how to install it. Fix it. Jaxon6 has spoken.

I remember those ideals I had a decade ago when installing Debian from floppy.
Good to see you Got over those Childish notions of freedom and equality bub. You are a Man now.

As a developer let me be the first to say Fuck You and have a good day.

Re:Fuck Debian

[mverwijs]

http://www.hp.com/go/debian

HP seems to get it. Why don't you?

Re:Fuck Debian

[Raenex]

It should either be abandoned or made correct; no in-between. There is no "correct". Well maybe you have some idea of what correct is, but so does everybody else. So you'll find some other distro to use, get fed up, and leave in another "Fuck XYZ" rant. Better yet, start your own "correct" distro.

Re:Fuck Debian

[Anonymous Coward]

Well said.

Almost every debian user I've ever come into contact with has been an elite sob who insists debian is the /only/ linux distro out there. If you tell a debian user you want to compile and install a package yourself, without their "permission" even though it's your machine.. heh.

I started out with slackware, tried debian, redhat, mandrake, lfs, suse .. went back to slackware because it simply works.

I don't even consider debian linux, it's more like a cult.

We don't need a single linux distribution, I'm sure glad we have lots of distributions to choose from.

Re:Fuck Debian

[NDPTAL85]

Thats the whole point of being an elitist though isn't it? Never gaining the maturity to grow beyond childish behavior into adulthood.

Adults compromise.
Children never will.

In this regard Debian is Forever Young.

Re:Fuck Debian

[MrCopilot]

Thats the whole point of being an elitist though isn't it? Never gaining the maturity to grow beyond childish behavior into adulthood.

I don't know the point of being an elitist. But I do know the point of having convictions and standing by them.

Standing firm on freedom is not an elitist attitude.

I sure as hell don't equate adulthood with losing ones values. Your values should be based on truth and unttil discovered to be untrue held firm. Adulthood would be better described as being better able to recognize when your values are no longer valuable.

In the context of this discussion I think Debian's values are every bit as valuable (if not more valuable) than they were when they were conceived.

One only has to look across at the distributions who have "comprimised" their values. Have you seen the latest Novel cosponsored FUD?

Adults compromise. Children never will.

Maybe you are right though and I haven't "grown up" enough to sell out my fellow users to the highest bidders, Maybe give me another 32 years, then I will understand. Never know, maybe senility will help.

Re:Fuck Debian

[deek]

Adults compromise.
Children never will.

Alas, life is not as simple as that.

If Adults always compromise, then the leaders we have would be ineffectual.
If Children never compromise, then they would run rampant over their compromising parents.
Becoming truly mature is learning Wisdom; knowing when to compromise, and when to stand firm.

Nice phrase though. Easily quotable, even if it does lack relevance to reality.

Re:Fuck Debian

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, more like fuck iceweasel and the fork it rode in on, why would you want to use that shit in the first place when there are better alternatives

Ubuntu no better than Debian

[Vlijmen Fileer]

I think one opportunity that Debian continuously fails to see is to make very clear that Testing is always uptodate and always usable.
Basically Ubuntu = Debian Testing with a few tweaks.
I've tried to use Ubuntu a few times. When it did not fail to install properly (it fails often and spuriously) I ended up with a system that hardly differed from Debian Testing. And where it did it was mostly in the colouring.
Functionally I never found a reason to use it instead of Debian Testing. A short while ago the same happened with Ubuntu 6.10. I already returned to Testing again.

Re:Ubuntu no better than Debian

[Vlijmen Fileer]

Adding to that, as I ponder my remark, I think it would be a very good political step to rename Testing to something like Uptodate or so.
And it would make the list of three distributions more understandable for first-time Debian tryers, e.g.:
- Stable, Uptodate, Testing
Sounds more logical to me than the current:
- Stable, Testing, Unstable
as the latter seems to imply to first-time users that there's two distributions you don't want, one because it's in the testing phase (which makes you expect it to be unstable), and one which is unstable (perhaps because it's in the testing phase?)
Then people try Stable and become disappointed. :-)

Re:Ubuntu no better than Debian

[Raenex]

I run Testing, and it is neither up-to-date nor stable. Newer packages are often stuck in Unstable for whatever reason. There have also been several times where my machine had critical bugs after updating. I'm not sure you can summarize the different distributions completely accurately with one word. It's best for users to read a little blurb about which one means, and let them choose what they feel is right for them.

By the way, even Unstable is often not up-to-date. It depends on when the package maintainer gets around to well, maintaining the package!

Re:Ubuntu no better than Debian

[metamatic]

I think one opportunity that Debian continuously fails to see is to make very clear that Testing is always uptodate and always usable.

It isn't, though.

PAM in Testing was broken for months, and X in testing was broken for a while after the changeover to X.org. That's what led me to give up on Debian: 'stable' was too out-of-date, 'testing' was too unstable. By cherry-picking from 'testing', Ubuntu seems to be able to find a happy medium.

Re:Ubuntu no better than Debian

[Anonymous Coward]

wrong, Ubuntu syncs every release with UNSTABLE/SID.

Re:Ubuntu no better than Debian

[deek]

PAM in Testing was broken for months, and X in testing was broken for a while after the changeover to X.org.

  Really? Geez, how did I miss that?! I run Debian Testing on my laptop, and update every few weeks. I changed over to X.org pretty soon after it got into testing. I've never had problems with either X.org or PAM. Actually, the only problem I've ever had was with an upgrade to evolution-exchange.

  You wouldn't have links to the Debian Bug page for these issues, would you? You've got me curious now.

Re:Ubuntu no better than Debian

[metamatic]

Here's the Debian bug for PAM

http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=3 35273

Basically, segfault if you used pam_tally, which was a security requirement where I work. Took a year to be fixed.

http://packages.debian.org/changelogs/pool/main/p/ pam/pam_0.79-4/changelog

Yes, we're talking about volunteers, but still--a bug in the core login system that can lock you out of your remote server permanently is pretty severe to be leaving lying around for a year. If you do a search on Google, there are plenty of other people who were bitten by it; e.g. http://archives.neohapsis.com/archives/pam-list/20 06-02/0006.html

I didn't report the X.org bug, but as I say, it was apparently specific to FireGL T2, which is probably why you didn't see it. A search for "X.org FireGL T2" picks up a bunch of other people who had the problem. (That one was also in Ubuntu, granted.)

Re:Ubuntu no better than Debian

[deek]

Thanks for those links. You're right, as far as PAM is concerned. It's disappointing that Debian took so long to solve the issue, especially for so critical a bug. It looks like the maintainer did fix the issue quickly, but then seemed to disappear off the face of the planet without uploading an updated package.

Just a few thoughts in favour of Debian though ...

• The problems only affected people with a very specific configuration. Thus it was perfectly stable for most people. That explains how it got past unstable into testing, I suppose.
  
• If you were feeling up to it, you could have downloaded the maintainer's patches, and compiled a new pam_tally module yourself.
  
• You probably could have chased up the pam issue, and some Debian developer could have created a non-maintainer update.
  
• I've never used pam_tally before, but I can think of a few workarounds. Create a script and use the pam_script module. If you're trying to restrict network login attempts, the iptables hashlimit module is very handy.
  

  Debian is hardly as hopeless as you made it out to be in your post. Debian Testing is definitely as stable as any other linux distribution out there. Which is another way of saying that it has a few faults, but so do all other distributions (or proprietary systems for that matter).

  Hey, but if you're happy using what you're using, that's all that matters. I'm not trying to convince you to move back to Debian. :)

Wait a minute..

[Anonymous Coward]

by Anonymous Coward

+

I'm a long time Linux user, developer, and advocate.

= WTF? Not every linux dev is a slashdot user?

Re:Debian's Easy 3D Desktop

[mpapet]

Follow these instructions: http://wiki.beryl-project.org/wiki/Install/Debian

Works beautifully on the graphics chips listed.

KDE has some minor issues, but the whole 3D desktop and animated windows works perfectly.

Like other posts, I don't see the huge technical advantage Ubuntu has. I see Mark Shuttleworth spending money giving ubuntu more visibility.

MAKE YOUR TIME

[Anonymous Coward]

DEBIAN, MAKE YOUR TIME!

What a big baby!

[guysmilee]

This guy is a big baby... he basically just seems to say ... "Booo hooo no body listens to me. At a big company I would be the boss and they'd have to listen. Boo hoo!".

I bet you 5 to 1 he's working for a big corporation within the week and the debian community will continue on without him.

This kind of crying makes me believe in the old saying: "How much effect will you have on this company when you leave? About as much effect as a fist leaving a bucket of water!"

All hail Debian! All hail the future!

Re:What a big baby!

[Anonymous Coward]

Those of us in the Solaris community are actually quite upset now that a Linux fan boy is being foisted on us.

Why would Sun hire someone from a failed Linux project is beyond us.

Re:What a big baby!

[und0]

I bet you 5 to 1 he's working for a big corporation within the week and the debian community will continue on without him.

I suspect you cheated reading his blog... (=

Re:What a big baby!

[Anonymous Coward]

failed? hell, i dont know why they'd want someone from even a successful linux project. that's like hiring someone to write c++ apps who's proficient in gw-basic.

linux is teh lame.

Thanks

[matt me]

For one scary moment, that could be "Rupert Murdock joining Sun"!

Re:Thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems quite reasonable to me, the guy publishes The Sun newspaper after all...

But what if things weren't as hypothetical as that

[nietsch]

You are just a jealous griefer. I am glad you are not part of the debian team, though unfortunately some people with the same attitude are, and if I were DPL, I'd make that past tense quick.
Hopefully next release it will be a completely separate company that sponsors the release team so there will be less jealousy like this.

Ditch Stable

[fozzmeister]

They should ditch stable, testing should be given more direct-oversight. Stable is always released way out of date, and all the news is just how out-of-date Debian is. Let organisations that can make decisions take testing and "stabalize" it.

Re:Ditch Stable

[Rob the Bold]

Or . . . don't ditch "Stable". Just call "Testing": "Stable", and rename "Stable": "drones on and on and on never letting anyone else get a word in edgeways". That way anyone who wants a desktop distribution will get "Testing" instead and be happier about its up-to-dateness. Everyone's happy.

Re:Ditch Stable

[Anonymous Coward]

I like it when stable is stable.

Re:Ditch Stable

[(void*)cheerio]

Or...

How about for people who like to call "testing" stable, they install "testing" and call it "stable"?
A rose by any other name... :D

Just keep Yoko out!

[Dareth]

As long as we don't let Yoko Ono into the Debian community, there is chance for reconciliation.

They have the most ears

[DescData]

The Debian society has my best wishes. I just wish they learned to listen to non-developers better.

"the wreck that McNeally created"

[Anonymous Coward]

The "wreck McNeally created" went from startup to $18 billion on his watch -- and yeah, back down to $13 billion. As soon as you get that $13 billion company of your own going, I think you're safe to criticize McNealy for his failings. Heck, check in at two billion and we'll give you a listen.

He also correctly identified Microsoft as Sun's up-and-coming competitor years before anyone else got it, and then correctly identified that the level of anti-MSFT rhetoric was causing major problems and cleaned that up, netting Sun a nice $2B in the process. Maybe slow to get on the x86 bandwagon, but he got there, bringing back one of the industry's best system designers in the process. He groomed two successors, one of whom now seems to be the real deal, but in many cases is getting credit for a lot of things McNealy had already set in motion. (And the other one is off perhaps tanking another company -- maybe this is where the "wreckage" came from?)

Sun *is* "selling like it once did." It's the 3rd largest server vendor in the industry. It's the 5th largest x86 server vendor in the industry -- again, something McNealy set in motion.

There's a lot of things he did wrong, but there's a lot more he did right. Sun went from an engineering workstation company to the third company regularly mentioned in the same breath as HP and IBM, two much older and more well-established companies.

This is coming off like a gush about McNealy and Sun, but really, consider it more a rant against calling something a "wreck" when you have no idea what you're talking about. Get picked for the board at GE, then you get to talk about someone else being a "wreck."

Re:"the wreck that McNeally created"

[ClosedSource]

"The "wreck McNeally created" went from startup to $18 billion on his watch -- and yeah, back down to $13 billion. As soon as you get that $13 billion company of your own going, I think you're safe to criticize McNealy for his failings. Heck, check in at two billion and we'll give you a listen."

So I guess the price tag for citicizing Gates should be an order of magnitude higher right?

"He also correctly identified Microsoft as Sun's up-and-coming competitor years before anyone else got it, and then correctly identified that the level of anti-MSFT rhetoric was causing major problems and cleaned that up, netting Sun a nice $2B in the process."

Nope. He incorrectly indentified Microsoft as Sun's competitor, and flushed millions (billions?) down the toilet trying to prove that he was better than Gates. He got lucky when MS took Java seriously rather than ignoring it, but missed the opportunity to make Java a force on the Windows desktop by suing MS over J++. The $2B is the consulation prize for failing to win on the desktop.

Re:"the wreck that McNeally created"

[WindBourne]

Actually, he did build it up, and then took it down. Basically, he got stale. Now, it is great that you are discussing what he did in the 70-90's building off of other ppls work, but I am talking about the last 7 years. In that time, he knock half of the value off. More importantly, about the only thing that he did to help bring Sun back SOMEWHAT, was to step aside. In fact, when he stepped aside, it was still heading downwards. And no, sun is still not selling like it did in the 90's. Not even close.

Re:"the wreck that McNeally created"

[Anonymous Coward]

"And no, sun is still not selling like it did in the 90's. Not even close."

Its sales last year were 13 billion, which is higher than in any other year other than the bubble years 2000 and 2001. That would seem to mean that the only reason you can say Sun is not selling like it did in the '90s is because it's selling more.

Re:"the wreck that McNeally created"

[Anonymous Coward]

it is called inflation as well as systems costing more. Fewer systems are being shipped. Sun is a wreck.

Re:"the wreck that McNeally created"

[init100]

He got lucky when MS took Java seriously rather than ignoring it, but missed the opportunity to make Java a force on the Windows desktop by suing MS over J++.

In what way would it be better to have J++ than the .NET stack? If they hadn't sued Microsoft over J++, sure, J++ could have been a force on the desktop, but how would that benefit Sun?

Re:"the wreck that McNeally created"

[Anonymous Coward]

"it is called inflation as well as systems costing more. Fewer systems are being shipped. Sun is a wreck."

Hello? Systems cost *more*?

Re:"the wreck that McNeally created"

[ClosedSource]

Other than licensing fees companies like Microsoft paid, how has Java benefited Sun either? The point is that if Sun hadn't sued MS, Java may have been a much greater force on the desktop. Sun could have incorporated some of the improvements to it's official Java implementation, just as they may eventually embrace IBM's SWT.

Re:"the wreck that McNeally created"

[Anonymous Coward]

Other than licensing fees companies like Microsoft paid, how has Java benefited Sun either? The point is that if Sun hadn't sued MS, Java may have been a much greater force on the desktop. Sun could have incorporated some of the improvements to it's official Java implementation, just as they may eventually embrace IBM's SWT. Every phone and high end wireless device on Earth runs a kind of Java. That is the ONLY technology entire GSM industry agreed on. There are millions downloaded blockbuster java apps for desktop there, enterprise totally relies on J2EE.

Look to SGI's state and Sun's state.

Re:"the wreck that McNeally created"

[ClosedSource]

"Every phone and high end wireless device on Earth runs a kind of Java."

There's Java running on analog cell phones. Amazing. And you say my wireless access point uses Java too? I wonder why that would be?

"There are millions downloaded blockbuster java apps for desktop there, enterprise totally relies on J2EE."

I'm not sure what you mean by "blockbuster" here. I know it doesn't mean popular or highly profitable. Are you talking about the video rental chain?

I think there are quite a few enterprises that are stuck with J2EE, but there are many others who have chosen other alternatives such as .NET or LAMP.

Re:"the wreck that McNeally created"

[WindBourne]

Look, you are obviously a Marketer from Sun. You post A.C. and mix the truth up. The simple fact is that Sun has blown HUGE number of opportunties because of McNealy. In addition, Sun is nowhere near the company that they were. Total revenue is way down(even though the systems are priced at more than double). Total system sales are massively down. You want to defend McNealy? Go for it. But this is /.. I think that many can easily see the truth here. Why? Because like myself, they liked the system, but hated the company. And as I have said lots, now that McNealy is gone, hopefully, things improve for the company (and appears to be).

One last thought for you. The more that you try to lie about the situation and make McNealy look good, the more damage that you do Sun. The obtained a well deserved reputation during the 2000s. That is the company tanked and laid off. Now, they are working to restore their reps and doing the right things.

Etch was sabotaged

[myowntrueself]

I don't think the full fury of their immature response was, however. I don't think they believed that people would put their effort into making a project succeed, then turn around and put it into making it fail by deliberately holding it back.

Theres only one word for what happened; sabotage.

Those developers sabotaged Etch by holding back their work in retaliation for their perceived slight.

This wasn't just immature tantrum-throwing -- this was deliberate and calculated sabotage.

They should be ashamed of themselves but they are too self-opinionated and self-important for that.

I am disgusted.

How about D.J.Bernstein for DPL?

Re:Etch was sabotaged

[Paul Crowley]

DJB isn't a big believer in the DFSG that defines Debian - much of his software is released under a non-free license that allows gratis redistribution, but not modification. Also he's not primarily famous for his diplomacy skills (although, neither is former DPL Ian Jackson). Finally there's no way on Earth you'd get him to take the job; it would mean sinking far too much time into things that didn't really interest him.

Re:Etch was sabotaged

[Bruce Perens]

Well, they would not have been able to hold back Etch unless they were the critical-path people for getting Etch done, would they?

Re:Etch was sabotaged

[myowntrueself]

DJB isn't a big believer in the DFSG that defines Debian... Also he's not primarily famous for his diplomacy skills

I am sorry... I was being extremely sarcastic. I think DJB is a nutcase (I've worked with qmail). :)

Re:Etch was sabotaged

[myowntrueself]

Well, they would not have been able to hold back Etch unless they were the critical-path people for getting Etch done, would they?

*Everyone* on the Debian 'team' is a critical-path person for getting Etch done; thats part of the problem. :)

It means that there is a huge number of people capable of sabotaging a Debian release if they feel slighted, insulted or otherwise disgruntled, immature, flakey or goofy.

I've said that I think Vista will be Microsofts last desktop OS. Perhaps Etch will be Debians last release.

Re:Etch was sabotaged

[MichaelSmith]

I am sorry... I was being extremely sarcastic. I think DJB is a nutcase (I've worked with qmail). :)

So do I (and so have I) but if the queston is can we find someone as driven as Theo de Raadt to lead a project then DBJ is about the only person I could think of.

Re:Etch was sabotaged

[myowntrueself]

but if the queston is can we find someone as driven as Theo de Raadt to lead a project then DBJ is about the only person I could think of.

One would need to find someone who is themselves driven yet does not drive others insane.

Re:Etch was sabotaged

[Paul Crowley]

I know how he comes across online, but I found him very likeable in person - and not just because he gave me money when I first met him...

His software does sometimes seem pretty idiosyncratic.

Re:Etch was sabotaged

[MichaelSmith]

One would need to find someone who is themselves driven yet does not drive others insane.

Debian is a big organisation and I wonder if it is beyond the ability of normal OSS "managers" to properly control. Professional organisations like Canonical can afford to invest in their staff, and a few lucky projects will get the services of experienced people for free.

Maybe Debian should modularise. Divide into smaller projects. NetBSD has the OS and pkgsrc as separate projects, not that thats a good example of a well resourced and run project.

Re:Etch was sabotaged

[myowntrueself]

Maybe Debian should modularise.

Now theres a thought.

If release-critical bugs in one or two of the dozen or so architectures supported by Debian didn't result in failure to release for *all* other architectures, Debian might be able to actually release in less than geological timescales. :)

And if they allowed for bug-fix updates for stable instead of only security patches... I remember reading about problems with Amanda and the version of tar which was going to be in Etch.

I realised that if there was a bug which was not a security hole yet resulted in Amanda being rendered pretty well useless, it might not even get fixed once Etch got released... Thats pretty scary.

Re:Etch was sabotaged

[Eunuchswear]

Sorry, DJB's software is released under no license at all - he claims that simple copyright law is all that's needed:

"In the United States, once you own a copy of a program, you can back it up, compile it, run it, and even modify it as necessary, without permission from the copyright holder. See 17 USC 117".

"What does all this mean for the free software world? Once you've legally downloaded a program, you can compile it. You can run it. You can modify it. You can distribute your patches for other people to use. If you think you need a license from the copyright holder, you've been bamboozled by Microsoft. As long as you're not distributing the software, you have nothing to worry about."

http://cr.yp.to/softwarelaw.html

Re:Etch was sabotaged

[Cro Magnon]

I've said that I think Vista will be Microsofts last desktop OS. Perhaps Etch will be Debians last release.

Well, the odds are high that the end of the world will come before either MS or Debian can release their next versions.

Re:Etch was sabotaged

[myowntrueself]

the end of the world will come

Better yet, the Rapture when Jesus will save the world from the Christians.

Dazed & Confused

[asphaltjesus]

The immaturity posed by this comment being modded insightful is just sad.

While the sheer number of packages in the Debian repository is awesome, you are confusing _choices_ with a lack of focus. Debian's NOT pleasing everyone. They can't.

There will be many out there probably like you who are reassured with a self-contained environment that a Ubuntu provides. They have x number of apps configured a specific way that works okay in many situations but is really poor if more or something different is required.

In my business, I need to have log reports formatted a specific way. Well, there just so happens the log analysis package I use is in ubuntu's "universe." e.g. should work, but it's not an official distro package. Good news, it's quite well supported in debian's main package repo.

This is why ubuntu is kind of like AOL way back in the day or Microsoft server apps for good system administrators. Once you figure it out, you realize the limitations and move on.

When you are ready, Debian's there. Still Free.

Re:Dazed & Confused

[drinkypoo]

While the sheer number of packages in the Debian repository is awesome, you are confusing _choices_ with a lack of focus. Debian's NOT pleasing everyone. They can't.

I believe I just said that.

There will be many out there probably like you who are reassured with a self-contained environment that a Ubuntu provides. They have x number of apps configured a specific way that works okay in many situations but is really poor if more or something different is required.

I don't think you're paying adequate attention to what I actually said. I didn't say debian will fail because it doesn't provide the latest, greatest packages. I'm saying Debian will fail because it will get mired down trying to be democratic. Frankly, I don't think democracies work very well, but then, I don't think any bureaucracy works very well.

Also, I don't think you understand Ubuntu. If I need a package that isn't available on my system, I can install an [old, outdated] debian package if I want to. By the same token, if you need something newer that isn't available on your system, you can install an Ubuntu package. Of course, there may be many dependencies that make that unworkable, but in general the tactic is available.

In my business, I need to have log reports formatted a specific way. Well, there just so happens the log analysis package I use is in ubuntu's "universe." e.g. should work, but it's not an official distro package. Good news, it's quite well supported in debian's main package repo.

What do you mean by "supported"? You mean you can file a bug report? Pardon me if I am not excited. There are bug reports against debian packages that are years old and remain unfixed. Literally.

This is why ubuntu is kind of like AOL way back in the day or Microsoft server apps for good system administrators. Once you figure it out, you realize the limitations and move on.

I wouldn't use it for a server, but then, I never said I would. Ubuntu is the desktop Debian in my world. Debian is the server debian.

When you are ready, Debian's there. Still Free.

And still well behind, which matters far less on a server than on a desktop system. Which is why Debian is a joke as a desktop system (in order to achieve any kind of modernity you have to run unstable packages anyway) but just fine for a server. Maybe even better than using the latest and greatest.

Re:Dazed & Confused

[Fred_A]

This is why ubuntu is kind of like AOL way back in the day or Microsoft server apps for good system administrators. Once you figure it out, you realize the limitations and move on.

Debian is fine to run on your desktop of you're happy with something basic or if you have enough time on your hands to polish it yourself. For those of us who have outgrown the urge of poking at the machine all day long just for the hell of it and who actually do something with it, a proper desktop distribution is actually much more comfortable to use.

Ubuntu might not be suited if what you do is mostly programming since for some reason you have to pick all the packages by hand (I hope they'll eventually fix this), but there are plenty of others to pick from.

On the other hand, as others have pointed out, Debian works fine on servers.

Here Ubuntu with KDE on top makes a fine desktop for me to do writing and imaging on.

Re:Dazed & Confused

[e2d2]

Ubuntu is Debian without all those useful packages. I've tried Ubuntu, then realized it's just a slimmed down Debian and everything useful was missing. I'll stick with Debian.

I think the real advantage the Ubuntu distro spotlighted was the "marketing" aspect, convincing people that it was the friendliest distro around with shiny happy naked people using it. I mean hell, it's gotta be good if you can't even wait to put your clothes on before using it.

Stable is the problem

[grumbel]

In the last years Debian has become more and more the base for other distros, while Debians very own distro, namely the "Debian stable" branch has faded away into total obscurity. Sure it might still run on a few server here and there and I have it running on my router myself. But its basically a total failure. Why? Simple, sure you might want a distro that doesn't ship the newest stuff of everything and instead focuses on stable software, but that is *not* what Debian stable is doing. Debian stable is simply old software without RC bugs assigned that doesn't get updated any longer. That often means that you won't see the bug fixes that happen in upstream. More then once it has happened to me that upstream already long fixed critical bugs that never made it into stable, would I have run 'unstable' I would have never run into the bugs in the first place. And of course it also happens a lot that I run into software that either isn't available in stable or so outdated that its just of no use any more, so I have to compile it myself, use untrustworthy third party repositories and do all that security update thing completly manually, since Debian stable of course doesn't provide any updates for unofficial packages.

Debian should just give up on the whole stable thing is it is now and instead turn it into a branch that is really worth its name, i.e. only package software there that is really stable and proven to work and not some FooBar 0.0.6 stuff that just happens to be floating around in unstable without RC bugs assigned, since that will be obsolete in a matter of weeks anyway and provides basically zero value at a point where stable is released, let alone years after that.

Debian testing/unstable as become an important core of other distros and they should really focus much more on that instead of trying to pretend that unstable one day will become stable, since that simply isn't what is happening.

Re:Stable is the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

if you don't like it just shut the fuck up and go away

Different markets

[zCyl]

The slowness of Debian updates is a feature, not a bug. ... It's why I run Debian on those servers - because it's a lot less stressful than running a faster moving distribution.

Definitely. I've been using Debian for over a decade, but what I'm seeing now is that Debian and Ubuntu are cooperatively focusing on two different markets. They aren't really duplicating effort, because they seem to be sharing packages and patches back and forth, and even users can setup hybrid systems if desired. But what they are doing is aiming for two different things.

For the moment, Debian seems to be producing a more stable distribution with server packages kept up-to-date and good attention to security fixes. Ubuntu seems to be producing a more user friendly distribution with simpler installation, ease of use, and more up-to-date desktop packages.

I see this as being beneficial so far. Any software developed for one of them can be ported to the other, and so having two separate organizations developing two different lines for two different purposes can make progress and quality better on the whole.

Listening to developers

[metamatic]

Actually, Debian is pretty bad at listening to developers too. That's why Ruby in Debian is so broken. As a Debian user contributing to Ruby, I tried to bring the two sides together, but the Debian folks just weren't interested in any kind of compromise.

3rd Party PHP Apps?

[mpapet]

So a a PHP app has you on the upgrade treadmill eh?

apt-get source phpXX should get you the build script to do your own package. It's all there. It's not hard either.

I had that job once. I found another employer who valued service and stability over forced upgrade cycles and service disruptions.

Re:3rd Party PHP Apps?

[myowntrueself]

apt-get source phpXX should get you the build script to do your own package.

I've found that when a package is not in stable backports, trying to build it from the source packages for testing ended in 'dependency hell' where in order to build it I needed to build dozens of other packages, usually things like debhelper for example, which would not be built without building dpkg etc as well.

In many cases the build process was circular and I could not work out how to straighten it out. I am sole system administrator here, I don't have time to work through things like this.

Instead we are going Ubuntu for sites which require keeping up with the state of play for PHP.

No chance to survive?

[Medievalist]

I thought that was BSD...

The stable server argument

[wytcld]

The problem with the "stable server" argument is that for any public-facing server stability has to be maintained not just in the relationship of daemons to kernel to hardware, but in the relationship of daemons to security and capabilities. Gone are the days when I could just set up Slackware on a client's machine and then leave it alone for a year or more, all the while with it happily running without reboot. The OS has to be kept current enough to rapidly update to meet the latest security threat to any outward-facing daemon, or any weakness in the kernel waiting for the next daemon vulnerability to leverage it. And the client expects to be regularly offered new features so that they keep looking smart to their customers.

That adds up to having to balance between the sort of stability that comes through not changing anything once it works, and the sort of stability that comes from staying close to the front end of the development curve. Old stuff may not rot from within, but it gets undermined and outdated.

Unfortunately that also happens on the level of distribution maintainers. I've been tracking Gentoo more than Debian lately, but it sounds like Debian's experiencing the same thing: Core organizational roles get taken by people who, unlike the project founders, love their little positions of power much more than they love the quality or brilliance of the project. And the most bureaucratic of them network together to consolidate their power over the chokepoints of the processes necessary to move the distro forward without just going out and forking it.

I have no idea whether anything can be done, once a distro reaches this stage, to save it. Nor do I think that the commercial distros are immune to similar problems - after all, the very worst example of an OS ruined by bureaucracy is Windows, and is Red Hat really that far behind it in this regard (he asks, not having looked at the latest Red Hat incarnation yet)?

Debian Weekly News says it all

[myowntrueself]

http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/ says it all really...

It is *called* 'weekly' news yet, in most cases, it comes out monthly.

Seems pretty inevitable...

[MS-06FZ]

Hardly surprises me that every few years, a group so rigorously dedicated to a set of strongly defined principles would suffer a period of amok time. It's simply logical.

Old news

[Apreche]

How is this news? I knew Debian was dead the first time I saw Ubuntu Warty Warthog. Feisty is due in less than a month. The only reason Debian still exists is for those crazy free-only people who refuse to install a proprietary driver that's free as in beer, increases the functionality if their computer, and they would never look at the code even if it were open source. I say let it die, who cares?

Re:Old news

[Anonymous Coward]

Hogwash. Debian is not "dying", and certainly not at the hands of Ubuntu. If Debian were to disappear, it would take Ubuntu with it into oblivion (as well as Mepis and Knoppix and Puppy and the list just goes on). Get your history right. IMHO, Debian (Sid, really) is one of the most important distros, _because_ it's more of a "meta-distro" than a viable desktop choice for most people. Debian is technically very flexible (the "Universal OS" blah blah), and because of its social structure it has no real stake in terms of user base/"rising like a meteor" according to some capitalistic scheme. So I don't think it's "hurting" Debian that a lot of users go for *buntu. Debian doesn't really need users in that way. The users are dependent on Debian to keep the Unstable repositories moving, though.

That said, yeah it's too bad that the Etch release is generating so much bad publicity, the whole DuncTank war was a sad affair and so on. But I don't see how Debian as such is in any great peril.

Re:Old news

[Talian]

You better ask your Ubuntu developers where they get their upstream then. Ubuntu benefits greatly from Debian being actively developed.

On the Desktop, who cares? But on the Server...

[Anti-Trend]

I don't understand why so many desktop users are flocking to Ubuntu, which seems slow to me and has had quite a few show-stoppers, especially since they are essentially repackaging Deb at this point. On a desktop, Debian "Sid" (the unstable development branch) is quite bleeding edge, yet with less breakage than a "stable" build of Gentoo after a few make-worlds, or even Ubuntu right out of the box. This makes it very attractive to me as a powerful and current desktop for general use and development. Plus, the community itself is very knowledgeable, if not a bit grizzled. What's wrong with Sid on the desktop? For most people, absolutely nothing. For others, the biggest hangup is that there's just not a lot of exposure for it, and a net-inst can be tricky for n00bs. So while that can be improved, it still seems like a walk in the park compared to installing Win95 from floppy.

On the server however, it's a totally different beast. Be it webhost or data center, most admins are understandably wary of "unstable" distros -- as they should be. Now don't misunderstand me, Debian "unstable" is a damn site more stable -- in a reliability sense -- than the so-called "enterprise-grade" product which currently holds monopoly status in the industry. But as an admin, I don't want a system who's core packages change often, even if they are changes for the best. So the release candidate, "Etch", may be reliable and basically finished, but is effectively excluded for server usage en masse because it's not officially finalized. Again, this is because if the server changes and breaks part of the app stack, there's nothing but blood and tears for you as an admin. With that in mind, I hope to see Etch released and accepted abroad, so that Debian can get out of this rut of negative public perception, and consider being one of the best Linux distros anywhere.

Re:On the Desktop, who cares? But on the Server...

[grumbel]

### On a desktop, Debian "Sid" (the unstable development branch) is quite bleeding edge

That however is only true for most packages, not all. From time to time things get delayed in Debian a lot (thanks to stable release cycles), Xorg for example took a long while to make it into Debian, far longer then everywhere else, that was quite annoying. Debian Sid also lacks a lot of preconfiguration that Ubuntu has. I still use Sid since the last time I tried Ubuntu it indeed had more breakage then Debian, however that was a few years ago. When I ever need to do a clean reinstall I would probably go with Ubuntu due to the preconfiguration and the more focused development (i.e. no delays holding back on important new software due to one reason or the other).

Re:On the Desktop, who cares? But on the Server...

[Anti-Trend]

Debian Sid also lacks a lot of preconfiguration that Ubuntu has. Have you ever chosen to run the expert installation routine?

...the last time I tried Ubuntu it indeed had more breakage then Debian, however that was a few years ago. Well, I can vouch that it still exists. In fact, breakage almost seems to be a culture in Ubuntu. Maybe it's because most of their users have migrated straight from Windows to Ubuntu without experiencing any other Linux or UNIX systems at all, and they are used to things breaking when upgraded. I'm also quite displeased with the current state and functionality of *ubuntu, especially their implementation of KDE. It's slow enough to make Gnome appear comparatively fast on that platform. Same goes for the crazy sudoers thing; I'd strongly argue that sudoers will only improve security when used for select operations, not root access. Root is root, call it what you will. And when root also = user, that's a bad thing.

Re:This is why you need to vote SAM HOCEVAR for DP

[poopdeville]

Hello timecop!

I love your work on Naruto Shippudden. The scene where Naruto learns that Gaara became Kazekage is great. How did you manage to make such great art for your fanfic?

Fantastic

[Anonymous Coward]

Yours is one of the most reasonable posts I've ever read on Slashdot. Bravo!

Out of curiosity, how long did it take you to write that? Did you proof read it, or did you just dump it out and it came fully formed? In any case, once again, thanks for your wisdom and insight.

Too much of a good thing

[DragonHawk]

The slowness of Debian updates is a feature, not a bug.

You can take that too far.

I've never successfully installed Debian "stable" on any machine that was less than three years old. I've tried maybe ten times over the past seven years. Debian's policy of providing a very vanilla, conservative kernel, combined with the ultra-slow release cycle, virtually guarantees this problem.

These are my experiences. Maybe I'm just unlucky. But as a consequence, I don't run Debian in production. FWIW. YMMV. HAND.

Outlook replacements: Kontact

[Anonymous Coward]

Kontact does a very nice job of subbing for Outlook: handles PSTs, does Exchange over IMAP (or POP3 if you've got that enabled Exchange-side), tasks, RSS feeds. I prefer mutt for actual mail (ok, so you know my stripes), but for managing scheduling, Kontact (really a wrapper around KMail, Kalendar, and a few related PIMish things) does very nicely.

Karsten M. Self <karsten[at]linuxmafia.com>

The "90s"

[Anonymous Coward]

Sun's peak annual revenue in the 1990s was $11.7B in Sun Fiscal Year 1999. Sun's peak was in FY2001 with $18.2B in revenue.

To put things into perspective, Sun's top Fiscal Year was FY2001, with $18.2B. Second was FY2000, with $15.7B. Third was FY2006 with $13.1B.

Wait! 2006? That was last year wasn't it? Are you saying the third best year in Sun's history was McNealy's last year as CEO? Yes, it was.

Are you saying when Scott stepped aside, revenues were increasing from $11.1B to $13.1B, and not "still heading downward" as some people believe?

Are you saying last year Sun had higher sales than any year in the 1990s? Yes, I am.

Everything you are seeing happening now (the major only server vendor growing revenue, the only major server vendor gaining share) at Sun is primarily due to decisions made by Scott McNealy, or made while Scott McNealy was Sun's CEO.

Have you tried Solaris lately?

[Anonymous Coward]

Have tried Solaris lately? Have you tried Solaris 10? Have you been to an OpenSolaris User Group meeting? Have you heard of Dtrace, Solaris Service Management Facility (aka "Greenline"), Zones (included BrandZ "Linux Zones" in Solaris), FireEngine, and ZFS? Do you realize even more is coming such as Nemo and Crossbow?

No other OS has Dtrace. No other OS has ZFS. BSD and OSX are planning to port both. No other OS has Zones (AIX is working on its version, called "Corrals"; Linux has Virtuozzo, but it is a layered product).

Every OS is copying Solaris now.

HP-UX? Give me a break! The only development HP-UX has done in 10 years is port to Itanium. Tru64? A once great OS with a major problem: What if they built an operating system and no ISV came?

I know how you feel, Murdock

[kindbud]

Murdock believes that Debian is "process run amok" -- nobody feels empowered to make decisions, leading to the sluggish rate of progress."

That's how apt-get makes me feel, like I am not empowered to make any decisions. So even if I know that a library dependency is met, I am not empowered to override apt-get and tell it to install the package anyway. Apt-get is emblematic of the Debian project's biggest strength and, as Murdock has pointed out, its greatest weakness. "Process run amok" is a good way to describe it. People need to be able to make exceptions, because no one - not even the Debian maintainers - is a God.

Re:I know how you feel, Murdock

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely you're kidding right? You can easily force apt-get to ignore dependencies.

You should really be ashamed of yourself.

Re:I know how you feel, Murdock

[dondelelcaro]

So even if I know that a library dependency is met, I am not empowered to override apt-get and tell it to install the package anyway.

You can trivially do this using the force options of dpkg, or better, by using the equivs package.

Re:I know how you feel, Murdock

[kindbud]

Of course. And then you are forever committed to using dpkg. apt-get will refuse to install anything else until the dependency failure is resolved.

Re:I know how you feel, Murdock

[dondelelcaro]

Of course. And then you are forever committed to using dpkg. apt-get will refuse to install anything else until the dependency failure is resolved.

Which was why I mentioned equivs, which is the appropriate way of telling the packaging system that you've satisfied the dependency in some other way.

Re:I know how you feel, Murdock

[kindbud]

Cool. Now about that documentation.... ;)

Re:I know how you feel, Murdock

[dondelelcaro]

Now about that documentation.... ;)

While I agree that our documentation does need work, in this case searching for Circumvent debian dependency checking finds equivs right off, and the Debian Reference second. People like you who have run into problems like this and haven't been able to find the documentation should think about what Debian should do to make the documentation more accessible and then file wishlist bugs against the appropriate packages (ideally with patches) so that those of us who already know where the documentation is, and therefore don't ever bother to look for it, know how to make it more accessible.

"You'll be missed!"

[Anonymous Coward]

If I was helping create a distro, and nobody was being paid... Then only a few people got money for doing exactly the same thing as before, exactly the same thing as I'm doing... I'd be upset, then disgusted, then I'd probably quit.

That's the situation for most nontrivial open-source projects. (You think no Linux kernel developers get paid?) Thankfully, there are plenty of programmers who aren't as "immature" (your word) as you, because a whole lot of these projects do just fine with a few paid programmers and a lot of volunteers. I've been on both sides of this, and I never had a problem with it.

Everyone on a 'team' wants to feel like their at least equal to everyone else. With some people being paid and others not, it draws a very clear 'you're not as valuable' line. This is exactly the reason that many businesses make it a fire-able offense to discuss wages with other employees.

You don't need to discuss wages to know who's valuable. Every week at my dev meeting at work, I look around the table and think "those two are good programmers, I'm glad they're here" and "those three have done nothing but waste our time -- I wish the boss would fire them already". And I'm sure I'm not alone. In any social situation (which work always is), people know who's valuable.

If Linus posted that he had just been fired, nobody on LKML would suddenly think that his contributions were worthless.

Re:But what if things weren't as hypothetical as t

[Aladrin]

You got modded troll, and I believe that's wrong. You are simply an idealist. I -am- the jealous type, I admit it. But in that, I'm only human. How could you possibly work beside someone, doing just as much work as they do, and get paid nothing while they get paid anything at all? Especially when you remember the team that existed because it believed in the ideals of the system, instead of the goals of the persons/companies paying a portion of the team?

The paid people are essentially lobbyists, whether they know it or not. They may not even consciously make decisions in favor of their sponsors.

As for not being on the team... When it was all un-paid, I like to think I'd have liked it there. Now, I'm -also- glad I'm not on the team because it'd be just heartbreak for me, paid or not. Jealousy is obvious if I was not paid. Guilt and greed if I was.

No, I'm glad I'm not on the team, also. And I wish those who can't handle the situation would quit as well. I -like- Debian. It was my first distro that I managed to actually get up and running and use for a few years. (As opposed to a few days.) I've been through Slackware and I'm on Kubuntu now, which is obvious Debian-based. Kubuntu wouldn't be what it is without Debian. It's just too bad Debian couldn't just be that on its own.

Maybe a major re-org will shake it up and refocus their efforts. Or maybe it'll kill it. At this point, there's no stopping it, though.

Re:IDNRTA: Here you go...

[Anonymous Coward]

Dunno WTF you mean. I run Ubuntu on a corporate MS LAN with Evolution (the default email client) talking to Exchange. ALL I had to do was to type in the URL of the Exchange server, and it worked. Maybe you should do some research before you come with yet another "Linux is not yet there" BS

No such thing as a "meteoric rise"...!

[Peyre]

It's nonsensical, really, to talk about a "meteoric rise"--since meteors don't rise; they fall.

Re:IDNRTA: Here you go...

[Bright Apollo]

There is no POP3/ IMAP access allowed on my corp LAN. Maybe you should hesitate to offer guesses about corporate LANs to which you are not a member.

-BA

Meh...

[Anonymous Coward]

If anything, Ubuntu is the new Red Hat, the ubiquitus distro that almost everyone has heard of and everyone tries out when they first try Linux. And if Ubuntu has seen far, it's because it has stood on the shoulders of giants. Without a stable base like Debian to work off of, projects like Ubuntu and Knoppix would not have been and continue to be possible.

And personally I continue to use Debian more because Ubuntu-isms (no, I DON'T want my default XFCE install looking like a cheapass ripoff of GNOME by default, for example) piss me off, not for idealogical reasons.