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Debian 4.0 'Etch' Released
An anonymous reader writes "Earlier today we discussed the possibility that Debian Etch might be released soon. Well, according to debian.org, it has already happened. Etch has been released: 'The Debian Project is pleased to announce the official release of Debian GNU/Linux version 4.0, codenamed etch, after 21 months of constant development. Debian GNU/Linux is a free operating system which supports a total of eleven processor architectures and includes the KDE, GNOME and Xfce desktop environments. It also features cryptographic software and compatibility with the FHS v2.3 and software developed for version 3.1 of the LSB.'"
I still remember my Woody days *sniff*
Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD]
For a second there I thought maybe this was a late April fool's joke...
etch ships with CONFIG_IP_ROUTE_MULTIPATH_CACHED (experimental) enabled in the kernel. This breaks the multipath route behavior in iproute. As the google search shows, it is wreaking havoc with anyone using multipath and dual-wan systems. Those who upgraded this morning to the new stable may be in for a ride. This is a known and documented issue but cannot be found in debian's bug tracking system. This issue is not unique to Debian but it should not have passed through the release engineering for the new stable release.
Seriously though, this is a rather surprising bug to slip through.
Never eat more than you can lift -- Miss Piggy
Short answer: no. Long answer: not until those sites release their content in a format that can be legally distributed by debian. "Free Software" does not only refer to the price.
Debian has turned into a political zoo of OSS dinosaurs, who are too big and too ancient. They spend lots of time arguing over political issues and raise barrier too high for hew developers.
During Debian Project Leader (DPL) election campaign candidates were almost in unison looking up to Ubuntu as an example on how to attract new users and developers. With Etch out and new DPL in Debian's goal can be summarized in one phrase: "Let's catch up with Ubuntu"
How Debian's brand new DPL wants to do this:
- rework website
- rework bugtracking system
- sex up the desktop, and
- encourage optional desktop releases every 6 months...
I wonder how they are going to do it... Especially the last bitI think this new Debian release is good news for Ubuntu which relies on it, so their next release can be on the 4.0 foundation.... but why would Debian want to compete with Ubuntu? They both have different goals in mind. I love Ubuntu to death, but with the 6 month release cycle, it feels like it's always advancing, but also not as stable as something that I would want to use on a server.
Debian's next testing version will be code named "Lenny" (from the movie Toy Story).
http://times.debian.net/1034-Release-update:-Etch
Doesn't even include firefox...
:(){
Yes, read the release notes for the answers to those questions. (and much much more! act today!)
Just to follow up, by "non free repository," you'll need something outside the normal Debian repo system -- probably Penguin Liberation Front, certainly nothing U.S.-based -- in order to get that software. (Although I think the Debian/Ubuntu PLF mirrors are down at the moment.)
In addition to Flash (patent issues) and the Win32 codecs (patents), you'll also need libdvdcss2 (DMCA) if you want to play DVDs, and you might as well get LAME if it's not in there by default (god knows -- probably patents).
Putting
deb http://www.debian-multimedia.org/ stable main
into your sources.list ought to work, but I'm not sure how actively that repo is maintained (it still lists sarge as the stable tree). The VideoLAN people likewise just have instructions for Sarge but hopefully that'll change soon.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
As I was recovering from a spring flu, I was bored enough and decided to upgrade from sarge to etch on my trusty old 600Mhz 256MB Compaq Deskpro. For the most part it went smooth and nice, but what amazes me is why the X stuff is still somewhat awkward. Hardware is certainly not bleeding edge. Maybe I'm just without a clue after a decade of professional multiplatform unix administration, but it sure beats me why X stuff still needs to be this clumsy - we're in year 2007, aren't we - ? Recently I installed two Dell 2900's at work and with Fedora FC6 it was surely as smooth as ever could be. Now someone jumps in and tells that 'Debian is not intended to be easy'. OK, but how is this intended to boost anyone's productivity to battle with stuff that was perhaps ok back in the early 90's ? Debian is such a stable (pun intended) and rock-solid platform to run servers on, I sure like it, but I'd like to see some minor refinements in getting wheels to roll. Used to run sarge at work, used to set up sarge systems for friends small businesses and home use, but have since then moved on to Fedora due to these unnecessary issues. Beat the living daylight out of me but I just don't feel like attacking the xorg.conf or XF....conf with vi anymore "cool" these days. Especially on very common hardware. Other than that, thanks for the debian folks for the release !
"Means." You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
In particular, the English language is defined by common use, not by some hypothetical Academie Anglaise, and certainly not by Slashdotters.
It's Ubuntu's dad.
The upgrade seems smooth enough, though it's rougher than woody -> sarge was for me. Then again, I'm running much more complex systems now.
/var/backups when you upgrade slapd, or it'll require some hand fixing and a db4.2_recover.
- squid may break if you use it for transparent proxying. It wants the "transparent" option after the listern directive(s) now to enable transproxying, but never used to.
- the xlibs upgrade does not go well if it can't remove everything in certain directories. In particular, having the jedit package installed screws this up badly. I had to do some manual fixing to get this working.
- Make really, really sure you have enough room in
- You'll probably want to use the maintainer's CUPS config, then re-configure it to your specs. The CUPS config has changed a lot and is not really compatible.
- cyrus delivery socket permissions may need resetting if you use cyrus & postfix.
Overall, though, for a system as complex as my servers, the process was largely fuss free.
Let's see:
- There's Gentoo for the script kiddie/ricer set
- RedHat for the clueless corporate types who're lost if they can't use a purchase order to obtain it
- Fedora for the lost souls who haven't yet figured out that it's never going to recover from RedHat's abandonment
- Suse is a German distro owned by Novell -- see RedHat
- Ubuntu is an ancient African word, meaning "I can't configure Debian" (as someone's sig once said)
- Lots of other small distros with funny names that won't be around in two years time
OK, Slackware is great for hobbyists, I'll give you that.So anwyay, which are the distros we're supposed to be taking seriously? Besides Debian?
Try having the CDs mailed to you -- you'll get higher bandwidth that way. 'Course, the ping times suck.
They could instantly surpass Ubuntu by pretty much adding all the stuff Ubuntu does (it's all FOSS anyway, right?), but making these small changes:
1. Give users an option to use commercial drivers right off. The new Ubuntu is doing this, but the implementation is still a little rough around the edges, and it's not at all clear that commercial drivers are frequently better than the FOSS ones, which is certainly true for GPU issues.
2. Default to Iceweasel and Icebird. Debian does this already, so they are a leg up. True FOSS is true FOSS, right? And for some dumb reason Ubuntu still defaults to Evolution.
3. Make it even easier to turn on compiz/beryl. Still pretty hard even in feisty, requires xorg.conf editing and such... Lame.
4. Make the default menu look more like windows. You know: "Start" menu, Quicklaunch, App running display (with preview), System Tray, Clock/Calender. Eliminate the top bar that gnome defaults to.
5. Have four potentially different wall papers for each desktop. The first distro to do this is ahead of the Linux Pack.
6. Include some really good foss games. You know, games with 3d sound and video, and online multiplayer. Urban Terror is free (as in beer). Use that one, till a better full FOSS alternative comes along. Hell ioquake3 with the original quake 3 demo files would be better than what most distros ship with.
7. Have Iceweasel, Icebird, Pidjin, Tomboy Notes, and Open Office Writer automatically in the quick launch.
8. Make it REALLY EASY to get EVERY CODEC.
9. Install Wine, and while you're at it, fix wine so that you can easily create a launcher on the desktop to any windows app, running under wine, that runs like intended right off the bat.
10. Have a gorgeous theme by default. For some reason the Ubuntu crowd is obsessed with shit brown. This is the part that is easiest to beat Ubuntu on.
Do this, and Debian will be THE distro for everyone, and easily supplant Ubuntu, Windows, and Mac OS X.
Do it not, and remain the odd arcane distro that only a few back room IT nerds use while half assed FOSS OSes (that duplicate each other's efforts, and rarely work that well out of the box) continually lag behind the corporate behemoths that have already got themselves pre installed on 90% of sold computers as it is (Windows/Mac).
I mean, or just stay private and personal, and to hell with saving the world, which seems like the current Linux mantra.
rhY
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
The only thing I'm happy about is that most of these sites are migrating to using streaming video using a Flash-based player like YouTube does so they just use normal HTTP for the transfer mechanism and are simple to get working through a firewall. In the bad old days I had to worry about shit like RealVideo proxies, Quicktime, RTSP, PNA, Windows MMS, etc. While they're probably more efficient, they require your firewall to have a specialized application proxy and it's just an extra pain in the ass if they break the protocol in a new version. The sites that aren't using a Flash player are just streaming Quicktime/Windows Media over HTTP as well so it has the same effect. The main pain-in-the-ass site I experience is with CNN and FoxNews.
Ubuntu users do. Ubuntu completely relies on the Debian upstream packages for each release. Ubuntu them patches everything and submits the patches back to Debian. You could argue that Ubuntu could do all this by itself but Debian is massive and is known for its high packaging standards which is a good thing. Ubuntu and Debian, at the end of it, are two different things with two different goals. Debian wants stability, Ubuntu wants the latest technology and packages. Ultimately, Debian should still be important for servers and Ubuntu for the desktop. Just don't dismiss Debian yet.
If we can hit that bull's-eye, the rest of the dominoes will fall like a house of cards... Checkmate.
Debian - Gives the user control to choose what they want to use, more packages more options..
Ubuntu - Makes most of the initial choices for the user..
Debian - manual configuration of a lot of items..
Ubuntu - a bit better at auto-configuration of hardware.
Debian - Etch 20,400+ Packages in the official repository
Ubuntu - Fiesty I think it's around 6000 Packages but can't find a stat anywhere to confirm exact munber.
Debian 13 hardware Architectures i386, x86-64, PowerPC, 68k, SPARC, DEC Alpha, ARM, MIPS, HPPA, S390, IA-64, AMD64, Intel EM64T
Ubuntu 3 Hardware Architectures i386, AMD64, PowerPC,
I've used child distros in the past an always ran into problems. I would then switch to the parent distros to get away from the problems.. So I use Debian rather than one of it's numerous children to prevent a repeat of my previous experiences. http://www.debian.org/misc/children-distros
far...out