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Debian's Testing Branch Nears Completion
DeviceGuru writes "With Debian Lenny (aka 'testing') poised to displace Etch as the popular Linux distribution's 'stable' branch possibly as soon as next month, blogger Rick Lehrbaum loaded the latest preview (beta 2) of Lenny's KDE CD image onto an available Thinkpad, and took it for a spin. How's it coming along? After detailing a handful of issues — and offering solutions for each (except Bluetooth support) — he concludes: 'Other than the need for a few hacks and fixes, my main complaint with it is its inclusion of way too many of KDE's rich set of applications, such as games, tools, etc.' From the looks of it, looks like Lenny might be the new 'Debian stable' soon!"
Like ubuntu, it is impossible for it to provide fellatio. As I understand it, you generally have to pay for that sort of service, and linux is (mostly) free.
It's only been sixteen months since Etch was released, not three years! Something's wrong!
'kde' is just a metapackage: it depends on the packages in that list (directly or indirectly). There's nothing wrong with leaving those other packages installed. The new apt/dpkg conventions try to help you remove cruft, so they let you remove those packages with `apt-get autoremove`. Instead of that, install a few that you need by hand to remove them from the list. When you don't see any in this list that you want, then run auto-remove.
Wait, your OS of choice has 50MB of extra stuff? Oh God, th world is ending! How will you possibly manage if you can't free up that massive portion of your dozens and dozens of GB of storage? It's a travesty! We should lynch the developers!
Just look at the icons in this shot. The fellow is running more proprietary code than some windows boxes I've met. Just be glad they aren't .bmp or, even better, .wmf format.
But KDE is simply a metapackage much like ubuntu-desktop, for example, if you want to install KDE you simply do sudo apt-get install kde, removing the package KDE only removes the KDE metapackage.
The only point of the KDE metapackage is to provide a 1-click install for KDE.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
No, they are not annoying. This is a very useful new concept in Debian, I believe that once you understand it, you can see how nice it is.
Explaining better:
All those packages are installed as dependencies of the metapackage 'kde'.
You are trying to remove one of it's dependencies (kdegames) and that's why apt-get want to uninstall all other dependencies and the 'kde' itself.
If you want those packages, but not the kdegames, you should install those packages by hand (or at least those starting with kde, that I think most of them are metapackages also).
It can be new in Debian, but only relatively new in Ubuntu (I believe is in some new version of the apt system), but quite old in Gentoo. And it was one of the things that I missed most in Debian.
It's the current testing branch, installed using the second beta of the Debian-Installer version to be included in Lenny. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
Some of us already live in the future and use SSD on our laptops. Every gigabyte here is precious, since there's often not dozens, hardly even one dozen. Those 50MB are easily much more, sometimes up to gigs of useless crap. All applications also take up space in the menus, which might be annoying on a portable device with a smallish screen.
c++;
I'm a little leery of this, since I've rendered ubuntu desktop systems unbootable by doing 2 and 3 -- and was told that it was because I should have done 1.
Find free books.
Read what apt says.
"The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:"
This does _not_ mean they're going to be removed.
"The following packages will be REMOVED:"
Only that specific convenience meta-package gets removed.
To further illustrate this, check this line:
"After this operation, 41.0kB disk space will be freed."
Somehow I think KDE takes more than 41.0kB, don't you?
If you really wanted to remove the kde meta-package together with all the dependencies that it pulled in (so all the things you didn't explicitly apt-get install yourself), you'd use "apt-get autoremove kde".
png is far better than jpeg for images with lots of gradients and solid colors like screenshots than. Compare similarly sized screenshots using png and jpg -- jpg will be full of artifacting.
If you were complaining about someone using pngs for photographs you'd have a point.
"Orthodoxy means not thinking--not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness." --Eric Blair
Please die now.
Just because someone does not know something, and asks a legitimate question, is no reason to give them instructions that will completely fuck over their machine.
Seriously man, how the hell can you act like that to another human being?
OK, so the gentleman downloaded and installed the *KDE* version of Debian Lenny, and then says his main complaint "is its inclusion of way too many of KDE's rich set of applications, such as games, tools, etc."
I can understand that; I once installed Windows XP, but there were far too many Microsoft applications for my liking.
Forgive me I'm a fucking idiot :)
"Orthodoxy means not thinking--not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness." --Eric Blair
Debian is mainly used as a server OS, it isn't generally held up as a shining example of how Linux is ready for the desktop. It is fairly widely used in production environments, and by developers and other geeky types, and it is considered an excellent stable base for other, more specialised distros. Like, for example, Ubuntu -- which is more than "ready" for the desktop.
In order to criticize in a meaningful way, one needs to know the subject at hand. Otherwise, you're just trolling and making inappropriate noise. And really, "freetards"? What kind of "tard" does that make you then? :) [HINT: This is a geek forum.]
Caveat Utilitor
Er, no. Read what apt says--it doesn't uninstall those packages, they're just marked as unnecessary and can be removed.
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
Funny, that doesn't sound like the future to me. Sounds more like you're living in a solid state version of 1997.
Caveat Utilitor
I for one (in addition to welcoming our KDE overlords) think it is great that games are being included by default. More distros need to do this. Every LiveCD should be able to show people that Windows isn't the only OS where you can waste time playing Solitaire. A LiveCD/default install that doesn't have this is probably going to feel like an incomplete system to the average desktop user.
Just use apt-get remove kpilot kdegames kde_whatever_you're_trying_to_get_rid_of and watch your output. When it says "the following packages will be removed: list_of_packages" only the packages listed after "removed" will be removed. So, as someone else pointed out, kde is safe to remove (it is a meta package) and of course the kdegames and kpilot and plenty of others can also be safely removed. /. will be the day that /. ceases to exist for me.
Also, I hope you will ignore the trolls who give false answers or tell you to RTFM. They are full of crap, and you are to be commended for having the courage to ask such questions. The day you can't get a decent answer to a valid question on
Caveat Utilitor
Please can you tell us more about the windows boxes you met. What are they like to talk to? Are they overly trusting? I bet they're the polar opposite of the OpenBSD boxes I met. The conversation went like this:
Me: Hi guys! Enjoying the tofu at this conference?
OpenBSD_box1: Who the fuck are you?
OpenBSD_box2: We don't know you, get lost before we beat you to a pulp.
OpenBSD_box1: He's leaving, but let's beat him anyway!
OpenBSD_box3: Hey! He's still conscious! You guys are such slackers!
I hate printers.
ROFLMAO : If i want debian that ISNT as cutting edge? With the super fast release cycles of debian stable whizzing out of the gate so fast I too say : Slow Down, lets not get carried away!
Nowhere did I say that, but since you ask: depends upon whose desktop. I put my Mom on Ubuntu, and wouldn't dream of putting her on Debian. I'm not going to teach her to use synaptic, much less apt. Plus the drivers, default configs, and things like the Ubuntu update manager make all the difference for the non-geek user. Personally, I do use Debian for several of my desktop machines, but I was using it back when we had to install with dselect, so I know the CLI well enough that Ubuntu just feels a bit bloaty to me. Not that it's bloaty for a non-geek, who's probably used to winXP. It's all relative.
Caveat Utilitor
I read The Fine Article; a few comments on the author's article:
Iceweasel
=-=-=-=-=
One of the complaints is that he wants "real" Firefox rather than the renamed Iceweasel. Well, until the Mozilla Foundation says differently, that isn't possible. Mozilla withdrew their prior permission to ship Firefox with a replaced logo that fit the Debian Free Software Guidelines, and the only way to comply with both Mozilla and the DFSG was to rename the application. So if you want to complain about this, write to Mozilla. I think Debian totally made the right choice to rename.
Shorter explanation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_IceCat
Longer explanation:
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=354622
Playing a DVD
=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The author wasn't able to test playing a DVD; normal movie DVDs that use encryption won't play out of the box. This is because Debian cannot ship libdvdcss2 as part of the main distribution for legal reasons, same as other distributions. There are other external repositories (outside of the US) that contain libdvdcss2 -- but it may not be legal to import the package into the US. You might find some choices if you put "Debian" and "multimedia" into Google and see what comes up.
Modem
=-=-=-=
Wow, the author set up the POTS modem. When is the last time you had to use one of those? Gotta give him credit for going through that effort.
- Chris
Everyone becomes conservative with upgrades after the first time that a box 3000 miles away fails to come back up. Seriously, waiting for a remote reboot after a kernel update is always the longest two minutes of my life.
Even the headless boxes at my apartment wait for me to set aside time to haul out a monitor and keyboard if anything goes wrong during an update. It's better to assume that something will go wrong and be pleasantly surprised and ahead of schedule than to sit staring at pings that have been timing out for the last five minutes (while you think, maybe it's just taking a long time to init... yeah, right!).
And, regardless of what anyone says, a virtual machine test environment doesn't have anywhere near the complications that you get with heavy metal. A successful virtual machine test just means that nothing is assured to go wrong, nothing more.
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
It's not Beta 2 of Lenny. Only the installation program is Beta 2. So that's a big mistake.
And the mistakes continue.
The advice to remove iceweasel and replace it with Firefox is crazy. Iceweasel is 99.99% Firefox, and the version that comes with Debian is optimised to use libraries and other software in the distribution (like spell check). If you follow the advice and use the mozilla version of firefox, you lose this integration.
Some sites "sniff" for browser type, and iceweasel is not detected as Firefox (wsj.com, google docs). This is easily fixed by going to about:config, searching for useragent, and changing "iceweasel" to "firefox".
All firefox extensions that I know of work with iceweasel.
To install acrobat reader, just add the http://www.debian-multimedia.org/ repositories, and add the package acroread with Synaptic or apt-get.
This is not good.They actually managed to get a new Debian version out before I got laid...
C|N>K
I resent that. I'm personally looking forward to the new release of Debian. I've been hearing good things about KDE3, so I'm hoping that it's stable enough to be included in this version.
I also hear that some mysterious issues with OpenSSL have been fixed by Debian developers, which could save us from memory leaks and increase performance. Personally, I'm amazed that the OpenSSL devs haven't fixed this issue themselves yet.
Obviously, this distro is where all the exciting new development action happens. I'm very excited to be on the bleeding edge with Debian!
You can use:
aptitude unmarkauto package-1 package-2 ...
on those other packages that you don't want to be mark as auto-installed.
Quick way to get 30% Funny 70% Troll: defend Opera browser on
Learn how to work 'equivs' - then you get your nifty metapackage that "provides" kdegames, which tricks "kde" into staying installed.
Equivs was made specifically to fix this "issue".
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Debian is mainly used as a server OS, it isn't generally held up as a shining example of how Linux is ready for the desktop. It is fairly widely used in production environments, and by developers and other geeky types, and it is considered an excellent stable base for other, more specialised distros. Like, for example, Ubuntu -- which is more than "ready" for the desktop.
Really, Debian is meant to be all things to all people. It makes a wonderful server, and a wonderful desktop. You just have to be willing to configure it as such.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Run e.g. 'apt-cache show kde' and read the fine description. The same stuff is also available inside aptitude, or at http://packages.debian.org/anypackagename
It is absolutely not a new concept in Debian, it's been in aptitude for ages now... the changelog says clearly:
[...]
aptitude (0.2.9-1) unstable; urgency=low
* New upstream release. Debian bug-related changes:
- aptitude now tracks automatically installed packages, similarly
to deborphan/debfoster. (Closes: #122726, #102205, #114464)
[...]
-- Daniel Burrows Sat, 9 Feb 2002 11:24:08 -0500
[...]
apt-cache show <packagename>. If it's a meta-package, the Debian devs are usually good enough to provide that in the description. In fact, the standard phrase goes something like "This is a meta-package that depends on all other packages to facilitate install. It can be safely removed after install."
Mart
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?