Bugs Delay Release of Debian Lenny

A. B. VerHausen writes to tell us that over 200 release-critical bugs continue to push back Debian Lenny's release date. Originally slated for a September release, there is still a long road to be traveled before Lenny sees the light of day. Project leader Steve McIntyre says they may consider dropping some packages for the release if they continue to cause problems, and while an end of October release is the goal, only time will tell.

Comments

What else is new?

[martinw89]

Shocking!!!

Seriously, this doesn't seem unusual. I'm happy that the team is waiting until all the bugs are squashed.

Re:What else is new?

[andrikos]

Oh come on! Everybody knows that they should have released long ago and that we should be waiting for SP1 before we actually install it!

Re:What else is new?

[Locke2005]

Queue Orson Welles' deep voice stating "We will ship no Linux before it's time". Seriously, I always thought this was one of the major advantages contributing to Linux quality: not having to meet arbitrary release deadlines imposed by marketing and sales. Unlike one of Debian's Operating System competitors that will go unmentioned except to say that they're based in Redmond where the Vista is always cloudy. This isn't news because it is exactly what I would expect Open Source developers to do.

I just have one stupid question: when will Debian run out of Toy Story Characters to name releases after? (Methinks the Hand-in-the-box release will not be well received...)

Re:What else is new?

[ShieldW0lf]

I knew a kid named Lenny when I was young. When he grew up, he changed his name. Don't think anyone ever had to ask him why.

Who picks these names? Crispin Glover?

Re:What else is new?

[Spy der Mann]

Kill yourself.

bash: kill: yourself: arguments must be process or job IDs

Re:What else is new?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, a few years ago the running joke was whether Debian would run out of Toy Story characters before the heat death of the universe. They've shortened the release cycle since then, which doesn't seem to be working for them.

Re:What else is new?

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one would rather have "Lenny" than *any* of Ubuntu's childish names.

Re:What else is new?

[petermgreen]

The shortened release cycle seems to be working pretty well. Afaict thier current strategy is to aim for 18 months and be happy with 24. They achieved that with etch and it seems likely they will achieve it with lenny.

Re:What else is new?

[Hognoxious]

Hasta la vista.

Re:What else is new?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ubuntu's childish names.

You ain't seen nothing yet: 2016.4 will be Pulsating Penis!

Just wait till Debian names the next release after Wheezy, the asthmatic penguin.

Re:What else is new?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can it be any worse than FreeBSD's ability to 'release on time'?

It's almost a month after 7.1 was supposed to be released, and they are still on the first beta.

Anyway
Quality > Prompt Release Date

Re:What else is new?

[sgt scrub]

And then cleaning up the security breaches until SP2 is released.

Re:What else is new?

[darkpixel2k]

I for one would rather have "Lenny" than *any* of Ubuntu's childish names.

Agreed.

The major pain though is that retard users keep referring to it by 'codename' after it's been released.

The current version in development is 'Intrepid Ibex'. Yeah--the name blows, but when it's released, it'll become 8.10. Of course you'd never know if because idiots will still refer to it as 'intrepid'.

Now--think fast, and put these in the order of release and tell me the version number: "intrepid, hoard, gutsy, warty, vista"

That's right--it's a pain in the ass to remember the mapping of names to version numbers. (And yes, 'vista' is in there to throw you off track.

It's a lot easier to remember the order and release dates of: "6.06, 6.10, 7.10, 8.04, etc..."

If it came down to a vote, I'm willing to bet most people would like to get rid of the dumb animal names.

Re:What else is new?

[andrikos]

kill Kenny

Oh my God!!

Re:What else is new?

[ShieldW0lf]

Ubuntu Hardy is easier for search engines to find than Ubuntu 8.04

Which makes it easier to find references to what you're looking for.

Re:What else is new?

[master5o1]

Correction:

Kill yourself.

$ Kill yourself.
bash: Kill: command not found


Case-sensitive.

Re:What else is new?

[Anonymous Coward]

Words have meaning. Look up the difference between cue and queue.

Re:What else is new?

[master5o1]

I thought it would be Peppa Pig.

Re:What else is new?

[kv9]

settle down there, 623900.

Re:What else is new?

[Anonymous Coward]

pkill yourself

Re:What else is new?

[Anonymous Coward]

inability

What is it about 'when it's ready' that you don't understand? Do you need a visit from a couple of, ah, gentlemen, from Slackware to refresh your memory?

Re:What else is new?

[Tubal-Cain]

Why not Porky?

Re:What else is new?

[kevind23]

Debian See 'n Say? Still better than "Intrepid Ibex".

Re:What else is new?

[timeOday]

kill -9 $$

Re:What else is new?

[Anonymous Coward]

Er...? So just what are the bugs that are 'release critical'? The installer? In the kernel? In openssh (I thought those got found after release...)? Or just libPimpMyDesktop? Not much info in the OP to go on.

Re:What else is new?

[Anonymous Coward]

I just want to point out that this post was moderated "redundant", and it's the first post in the whole discussion. If you thought it was stupid you could have least marked it "overrated."

Re:What else is new?

[savuporo]

dude you are still on bash ? that is so unhip,
here is what dash has to say:
$ kill yourself
kill: 1: Illegal number: yourself

Re:What else is new?

[Anonymous Coward]

duh, he meant killall anonymouscowards

Re:What else is new?

[darkpixel2k]

Ubuntu Hardy is easier for search engines to find than Ubuntu 8.04

Which makes it easier to find references to what you're looking for.

There's no difference between searching for "ubuntu" and "hardy" in a document verses "ubuntu" and "8.04".

As a matter of fact, searching google for "8.04 -ubuntu" verses "hardy -ubuntu" returns interesting results.

There are more references to 'hardy' that don't have anything to do with ubuntu than there are to 8.04.

So it would appear to me that your statement is incorrect.

Re:What else is new?

[darkpixel2k]

settle down there, 623900.

Get off my lawn, 697238!
Damn kids...

Re:What else is new?

[darkpixel2k]

If it came down to a vote, I'm willing to bet most people would like to get rid of the dumb animal names.

Flamebait? WTF? Who gave Mark Shuttleworth modpoints?

Re:What else is new?

[elashish14]

Let's be fair to the Debian devs. They have to maintain more packages and any other distro, plus they have to make sure that it's stable on NINE distros. Plus their level of stability is unparalleled (sentence fragment). You can't blame them for taking a long time, I can't think of any distribution that comes close to what they do (run-on sentence).

Re:What else is new?

[myowntrueself]

As a matter of fact, searching google for "8.04 -ubuntu" verses "hardy -ubuntu" returns interesting results.

Yeah try "woody -debian"

Good job they never called a release "stiffie" really eh?

Re:What else is new?

[TwilightXaos]

If it came down to a vote, I'm willing to bet most people would like to get rid of the dumb animal names.

Oh yeah? Well then why don't these people solve their own damn problem. Take the Ubuntu releases and repackage them under another distro name! Name it Ultra Serious Linux (USL). Start with USL 9000, and go up in number from there.

Nothing stoping you. Infact, even charge for it, because everyone knows good software is not available for free. Use the same Ubuntu repos if you'd like.

Since you are so keen on voting, you could even let your corporate customers vote on what the name of the next distro should be.

Re:What else is new?

[GigaplexNZ]

Just wait till Debian names the next release after Wheezy, the asthmatic penguin.

They have already used the W letter for naming Warty Warthog. If you are referring to using X, try Xanthic Xerus (a yellowish African ground squirrel).

Re:What else is new?

[Hairy Heron]

Just wait till Debian names the next release

Last time I checked Warty Warthog was an Ubuntu release name.

Re:What else is new?

[mariuszbi]

I have multiple personalities: #killall self :)

Re:What else is new?

[darkpixel2k]

Oh yeah? Well then why don't these people solve their own damn problem. Take the Ubuntu releases and repackage them under another distro name! Name it Ultra Serious Linux (USL). Start with USL 9000, and go up in number from there.

Nothing stoping you. Infact, even charge for it, because everyone knows good software is not available for free. Use the same Ubuntu repos if you'd like.

Yeah, that's a logical, rational response.

That's like saying "You don't like notepad? Well just fork Windows."

Other than the /etc/lsb-release file, I never see the retarded animal name. It's just the forum, launchpad, etc...

But I'll keep your suggestion in mind. The next time I don't like the name, I'll just rsync all the ubuntu sites, scrape the wiki, and change every single reference from 'flaccid falcon' to '9.06' because it's such a good use of one person's time.

On the other hand, if they just did a quick poll, they could stop making up dumb codenames and just call the development versions 8.10-pre.

Nothing says "we're trying to attract business users" than codenaming your distro "hardy".

As much as I despise Microsoft, names like 'XP, Vista, Longhorn, ME', etc... are much better than 'hardy, warthog, heron, gutsy', etc...

Re:What else is new?

[eknagy]

"Kill"!="kill" (My Linux is case sensitive, you insensitive .* !)

Re:What else is new?

[jonadab]

> I'm happy that the team is waiting until all the bugs are squashed.

Well, I use Debian stable for a reason, so yeah, I'd prefer they get the bugs out before release if possible.

On the other hand, etch is starting to be obsolete. It isn't yet to the point where it's a serious debilitating problem (like, for instance, was the case with woody in the last few months before sarge came out), and I don't think I'd even care if I only used it for servers, but already for workstations there are applications that simply are not available, even with backports, even if you compile it yourself, because fundamentally the basic system libraries in etch are too old. For instance, a lot of newer stuff doesn't support the old version of GTK that etch still has. There have been three things so far that I've wanted to install, but it turns out I have to wait for eenny.

So, yes, I prefer that they wait until most of the bugs are out before releasing, because I don't want an unstable system. If I wanted bleeding-edge, I wouldn't run Debian stable, would I?

But on the other hand, I hope it doesn't take *too* much longer. I mean, I can wait a month or two, for a more stable product, but let's have it before Christmas, eh?

Re:What else is new?

[paving-slab]

As much as I despise Microsoft, names like 'XP, Vista, Longhorn, ME', etc... are much better than 'hardy, warthog, heron, gutsy', etc...

Are you sure Longhorn is better than Hardy?

And anyway, how can a Longhorn be Microsoft?

Re:What else is new?

[Daengbo]

That's my advice about Ubuntu, oddly ....

Re:What else is new?

[mhall119]

Now--think fast, and put these in the order of release and tell me the version number: "intrepid, hoard, gutsy, warty, vista"

warty, gutsy, hardy, intrepid. Ubuntu names went in alphabetical order starting with Dapper Drake (6.06). If you memorize the fact that warty and hoary were used before alphabetical ordering, you're mostly fine.

Re:What else is new?

[darkpixel2k]

warty, gutsy, hardy, intrepid. Ubuntu names went in alphabetical order starting with Dapper Drake (6.06). If you memorize the fact that warty and hoary were used before alphabetical ordering, you're mostly fine.

Except now in my head if someone says they are running gutsy, I have to think to myself: Ok--Dapper was 6.06, E comes after D...WTF was it again? Oh yeah, Edgy, so that was 6.10 unless they released late...which release was late again? Oh well, doesn't matter. F was feisty...uh..7.04, and G was Gutsy...7.10. Ok--So you're running a version release about a year ago.

Instead if they just said "I'm running 7.10", I can think to myself: 7.10, that was about a year ago.

There is NO point to the stupid codenames. It doesn't actually change anything. The software still runs the same. Get rid of 'em.

Re:What else is new?

[mhall119]

Except now in my head if someone says they are running gutsy, I have to think to myself: Ok--Dapper was 6.06, E comes after D...WTF was it again? Oh yeah, Edgy, so that was 6.10 unless they released late...which release was late again? Oh well, doesn't matter. F was feisty...uh..7.04, and G was Gutsy...7.10. Ok--So you're running a version release about a year ago.

Instead if they just said "I'm running 7.10", I can think to myself: 7.10, that was about a year ago.

Yes, if you're interested in the age of a release the code name is not very helpful. Then again, sequential numbering wouldn't be helpful either: when was OSX 10.2 released? Nor would cool-sounding names: when was XP released? In this example, it's not the animal names that make it difficult, it's any naming scheme that is not date-based.

There is NO point to the stupid codenames. It doesn't actually change anything. The software still runs the same. Get rid of 'em.

They're useful as code names, especially when you are using a date-based numbering scheme.

Dapper was originally supposed to be 6.04, but it's release was delayed so that extra work could be put into making it the first LTS release, so it became version 6.06. If it had been officially called 6.04 during development, then they would have either had to change it, or kept the inaccurate date-based version number.

Re:What else is new?

[darkpixel2k]

Dapper was originally supposed to be 6.04, but it's release was delayed so that extra work could be put into making it the first LTS release, so it became version 6.06. If it had been officially called 6.04 during development, then they would have either had to change it, or kept the inaccurate date-based version number.

So call it 'ubuntu-pre', 'ubuntu-dev', 'ubuntu-head', or whatever. Those are all decent codenames.

As for date-based, Microsoft really hit the nail on the head naming their OS Windows 95 and Windows 98 with software called Office 2000

It's easy for me to say to a client "You're running Office 2000. That's about 8 years old. It was released in 2000."

I don't even know the release date of Windows ME, or Office XP, let alone my clients.

Stick with a date-based numbering scheme. As an added benefit, clients will realize it's based on the year and want to upgrade when that number starts to get too old.

Re:What else is new?

[mhall119]

So call it 'ubuntu-pre', 'ubuntu-dev', 'ubuntu-head', or whatever. Those are all decent codenames.

You mean like 'debian-stable', 'debian-unstable' and 'debian-testing'? Well that doesn't tell you much either, because if I installed 'debian-unstable' 3 years ago and never upgraded, then what am I using today?

As for date-based, Microsoft really hit the nail on the head naming their OS Windows 95 and Windows 98 with software called Office 2000

Yes, date-based release numbers are helpful, we've already covered that. They kind of confused the issue by having both Windows 2000 and Windows Millennium, though. However, even Microsoft uses code names during development, like Whistler and Longhorn. It sure would have sucked for Microsoft if they had called Longhorn "Windows 2003" from the start.

Stick with a date-based numbering scheme. As an added benefit, clients will realize it's based on the year and want to upgrade when that number starts to get too old.

And Ubuntu does this, and also uses code names to avoid premature commitment to a release date. This seems to provide the best of both worlds.

Re:What else is new?

[jonadab]

> Seriously, I always thought this was one of the major advantages contributing to Linux
> quality: not having to meet arbitrary release deadlines imposed by marketing and sales.

While that's true up to a point, it is also nice to actually ship a release occasionally. I don't mind too much if it takes a few more weeks, or even a few more months, but if you let things go on too long your system libraries are so old that application developers won't support them. That has *started* to happen to etch already, albeit mainly only with desktop-type applications (e.g., Anki, Firefox 3, that sort of thing). But if it goes on for too long, like with woody, it reaches the point where the distribution is so antequated nothing modern will support it at all, and it becomes pretty much useless even in server space because you can't install even very basic and critical things like major CPAN modules. When that happens, a lot of people switch to other distributions. (In fact, a large part of the reason Ubuntu became so popular was because warty *and* hoary came out while people were waiting for sarge.)

Re:What else is new?

[darkpixel2k]

You mean like 'debian-stable', 'debian-unstable' and 'debian-testing'? Well that doesn't tell you much either, because if I installed 'debian-unstable' 3 years ago and never upgraded, then what am I using today?

No, I mean like 6.06, 6.10, 7.04, 7.10, 8.04, and 'ubuntu-unstable'.

Then, when it comes time to release, rename 'ubuntu-unstable' to 8.10, and start a new 'unstable' branch.

When I check out a project from subversion, I can check out the trunk, or a named version. Use something similar for Ubuntu. If I pick ubuntu-unstable, I always get the latest, greatest, and sometimes broken stuff. Or I can pick a specific version like 8.04. When 8.10 comes out, I can choose to upgrade if I'd like.

I don't think we're every going to agree 100% on this. It's a preference thing. We both agree that you need a code name rather than a specific date since a project might slip--I just can't figure out why they picked animals. Dumb.

My opinion is that if they are trying to pick stupid 'cute' animal names, why not pick something equally as stupid like 'Ubuntu fuzzy lovie bunny' which is scheduled for 8.10?

Think that codename is retarded? What makes it any more or less retarded than Gutsy Gibbon?

The answer is opinion. So take a poll and figure out what the community wants.

Re:What else is new?

[mhall119]

No, I mean like 6.06, 6.10, 7.04, 7.10, 8.04, and 'ubuntu-unstable'.

Then, when it comes time to release, rename 'ubuntu-unstable' to 8.10, and start a new 'unstable' branch.

But again you have a problem. If I told you I was running "ubuntu-unstable" you would have no idea if it was the current unstable, or the unstable from 3 years ago. At least if I said I was running "Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex" you would know what I had.

My opinion is that if they are trying to pick stupid 'cute' animal names, why not pick something equally as stupid like 'Ubuntu fuzzy lovie bunny' which is scheduled for 8.10?

Think that codename is retarded? What makes it any more or less retarded than Gutsy Gibbon?

They don't try to pick "cute" animal names. They pick animals names and attributes (hardy, gutsy, intrepid) that give an indication of their goals for that release. The goal of 8.10 isn't to have the latest and greatest packages, it's mobility, for which an "Intrepid Ibex" seems well suited. The goal of 8.04 was stability and reliability for an LTS release, so "Hardy" also seemed appropriate. 7.10 was to test experimental things like Compiz, so "Gutsy" was chosen.

Re:What else is new?

[darkpixel2k]

But again you have a problem. If I told you I was running "ubuntu-unstable" you would have no idea if it was the current unstable, or the unstable from 3 years ago. At least if I said I was running "Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex" you would know what I had.

Yeah--but how do I know if you're running Intrepid with updates from this morning verses the Alpha 3 CD?

You have the same issue if you use codenames or version numbers. I could be running 8.04 from it's initial release (with the SSL vuln) or I could be running it with the fixes. (Yeah, I know they tagged it 8.04.1). When it comes down to troubleshooting an issue, it doesn't really matter the codename, or the release version, but rather the package versions. Think about the upgrades to 6.06 since it was first released...

They pick animals names and attributes (hardy, gutsy, intrepid) that give an indication of their goals for that release. The goal of 8.10 isn't to have the latest and greatest packages, it's mobility, for which an "Intrepid Ibex" seems well suited. The goal of 8.04 was stability and reliability for an LTS release, so "Hardy" also seemed appropriate. 7.10 was to test experimental things like Compiz, so "Gutsy" was chosen.

So if they want to give the impression of mobility, they could pick any number of codenames. Ubuntu Mobile, Ubuntu Roaming, etc...and yes, you could use Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex, or even Ubuntu Devel. But whatever--it's personal preference. I just think 'cute animal names' isn't very corporate. And while that is only one of Ubuntu's apparent goals, it's a big market--and the one likely to purchase support and landscape from Canonical.

Re:What else is new?

[mhall119]

Yeah--but how do I know if you're running Intrepid with updates from this morning verses the Alpha 3 CD?

You can't, but it still gives you a much better idea that "ubuntu-unstable".

So if they want to give the impression of mobility, they could pick any number of codenames. Ubuntu Mobile, Ubuntu Roaming, etc.

I think you misunderstand. The 8.10 release is focused on improving mobility and connectivity in the standard Ubuntu desktop, it is not separate product designed for mobility of mobile devices.

.I just think 'cute animal names' isn't very corporate.

Which is why the release names are date-based numbers, only the code names are attribute-animal.

Re:What else is new?

[darkpixel2k]

Yeah--but how do I know if you're running Intrepid with updates from this morning verses the Alpha 3 CD?

You can't, but it still gives you a much better idea that "ubuntu-unstable".

Right--so instead of being 6 months old, you could potentially be 2 years old.

But who cares. If you are a developer installing a development release, you're smart enough to figure out what's going on. If you ask for help and someone says: "type 'cat /etc/lsb-release' in a terminal" and you spit back "...ubuntu-devel..." they can say "do an apt-get update && apt-get upgrade" and then let me know how it works.

Hell--update-manager already does that. If there is an updated version of the package you are trying to report, it won't let you report a bug--it tells you to update first and try again.

I think you misunderstand. The 8.10 release is focused on improving mobility and connectivity in the standard Ubuntu desktop, it is not separate product designed for mobility of mobile devices.

Yeah--I know. Leave it up to the marketing guys to figure out better names than what I came up with.

Which is why the release names are date-based numbers, only the code names are attribute-animal.

And I think we just went full-circle. My original bitch was that retards constantly use the codename in the forums even after the f*cking thing has been released. Just get rid of the dumb codenames--then you can't have some dumb website or forum post using the term 'warty'.

Re:What else is new?

[mhall119]

Leave it up to the marketing guys to figure out better names than what I came up with.

Um, when we did that we got "Intrepid Ibex".

And I think we just went full-circle. My original bitch was that retards constantly use the codename in the forums even after the f*cking thing has been released. Just get rid of the dumb codenames--then you can't have some dumb website or forum post using the term 'warty'.

Now that I agree with. I think that the repository names should be changed to the release number instead of the code name on the official releases.

Good!

[bjourne]

This is good news. There are many distributions that just take the latest and greatest of every package without doing proper quality control (Ubuntu, Gentoo, Fedora, etc). The price they pay is regressions and stuff that doesn't work. There needs to be distros like Debian which, while always delayed, has all the important bugs ironed out.

Re:Good!

[Meshach]

Obviously you have never worked in software QA. There are always bugs that make it into released project. The art of good project management is deciding which bugs can be allowed into the final project (ie which will actually impact users).

Also I am pretty sure that Ubuntu is based on Debian.

Re:Good!

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously you suck at reading comprehension.

There needs to be distros like Debian which, while always delayed, has all the important bugs ironed out.

Re:Good!

[Hatta]

Exactly. And if you're too impatient to wait for them to get all the bugs out, that's what Sid is for. I've been using debian unstable since it was lenny, and it's always been very good. It's very rare that there's actually a bug in a package I use, so it's plenty stable for my purposes.

Re:Good!

[SmackedFly]

Gentoo actually has some of the harshest requirements for packages entering stable I've seen, just after debian. Sure, you can override them, but that goes for the Debian unstable branch too, which a lot of people are running anyway, so where's the difference.

Re:Good!

[gparent]

If you think Ubuntu has the latest and greatest packages, maybe you should try it once. Most of the packages are outdated and I don't rely on the package manager if I want the latest version anymore.

Re:Good!

[WK2]

There needs to be distros like Debian which, while always delayed, has all the important bugs ironed out.

Debian is like Debian. Seriously, how many Debian distros do we really need? 1 is fine with me.

Also I am pretty sure that Ubuntu is based on Debian.

Ubuntu is based on Debian Unstable. Their release processes are entirely different. Ubuntu includes buggy packages that Debian would reject in a stable release.

Re:Good!

[JshWright]

Lenny was never Unstable. Unstable is always Sid.

Re:Good!

[morgan_greywolf]

If you think Ubuntu has the latest and greatest packages, maybe you should try it once. Most of the packages are outdated and I don't rely on the package manager if I want the latest version anymore.

To be fair, Debian does do quite a bit more testing than Ubuntu. OTOH, Ubuntu does a lot more spit-and-polish integration than Debian and is unafraid to take controversial stances on things like binary drivers or distributing Firefox with Firefox branding (as opposed to Ice Weasel or whatever) or distributing some codecs that may be violating patents or using code from other distros (like system-config-printer).

Debian is more about stability and reliability, while Ubuntu is more about the end-user experience.

When you make a Linux distro, you have to make a few tradeoffs. The differences between Ubuntu and Debian are mostly about differences in decision-making regarding these tradeoffs.

Re:Good!

[Sancho]

Ubuntu tends to have the latest and greatest packages up front. For example, 8.04 was released with a Firefox 3.0 release candidate. The trick is that they don't upgrade packages arbitrarily--they'll upgrade or backport for security fixes, but not for the newest version. You'll have to wait for the next major release if you want that.

It's a nice compromise between bleeding-edge and stability. I'm sure that the process is only made more difficult by upstream developers mixing bugfixes with new features.

Re:Good!

[Firehed]

I thought Linux was supposed to be to OS X as OS X is to Windows in terms of stability (ie, not just rock-solid, but it will punch you in the gut if you try to crash it)... is this not the case?

Re:Good!

[andrikos]

In Ubuntu, the trick I do is to use binary packages of the latest stable version and source packages from the upcoming (yet unreleased) version.
When something is missing you can download the source package of the new version, make the compile, generate a binary package and install it in an automated way.
An extra plus: during the process you can also patch the source.

Re:Good!

[zero-point-infinity]

Sure, based on Debian Sid - a little ways back on the scale of stability vs current versions. So while, yes, Ubuntu is based on Debian, its choice of where to branch off cuts out some of Debian's QA process. How you feel about the advantages and disadvantages of that choice is of course a matter of taste.

Re:Good!

[swillden]

Which Linux?

Re:Good!

[Hatta]

Really? I thought they changed that each release. I dunno, I just use "unstable" in my sources.list.

In any case, I've been using unstable since 3.1 was current. It's never done me wrong.

Re:Good!

[RAMMS EIN]

Depends on the version of Linux and what software you use with it. There are a mind-boggling number of different versions of the kernel out there, in various distributions, and sometimes in custom-made operating systems...and then we aren't even getting to the applications, yet. Among all those, I am sure you will find everything from rock-solid to "crashes at the drop of a hat, or even without that".

Re:Good!

[Hognoxious]

How you feel about the advantages and disadvantages of that choice is of course a matter of taste.

It's nice to be able to make that choice.

Re:Good!

[X0563511]

An extra-extra-plus-good bonus:

If a new binary package comes along since your last build, the package manager will notice and suggest you update. You don't need to worry quite so much about your build getting stale.

Re:Good!

[andrikos]

If we could also get updates on the source packages, that would be even greater!

Re:Good!

[Anonymous Coward]

"testing" changes each release

currently, stable points at etch and testing points at lenny

unstable always points at sid

oldstable, btw, currently points at sarge

Re:Good!

[Constantine XVI]

You're thinking of "testing".

Stable == current release (etch)
Testing == next release (lenny)
Unstable == bleeding edge (sid)

Re:Good!

[ari_j]

Debian used to release when they felt like the system was in a good enough state to release, with no set schedule. This is exactly why that's a good idea - now, they have to choose between being buggy or being behind schedule, whereas before they did not have to make that trade-off.

Re:Good!

[X0563511]

I think you can. apt-build is the package that handles that. It sets up a local repository that your builds go into.

Re:Good!

[darkpixel2k]

Also I am pretty sure that Ubuntu is based on Debian.

Yes, in much the same way that elephants and helicopters are both made out of molecules.

Re:Good!

[ari_j]

It is much more correct to say it the way you just did - "using unstable since 3.1 was current." The reason is that there is never an instant in time when the current snapshot of unstable will become a release. Individual packages (or versions of them) migrate from unstable into testing, and at some point testing is frozen for release and then becomes stable so that it can be unfrozen for new packages to come in from unstable. That's why unstable is always sid - it's constantly changing and never frozen. By contract, stable is a snapshot at a moment in time modulo security fixes or the occasional point-release update and testing works toward a freeze.

Re:Good!

[sydneyfong]

Obviously you don't know Debian.

Debian does have bugs when released. As another poster have mentioned, you missed the "important" qualifier word. Many software are released with bugs that practically make it unusable for its stated purpose, but this is rather rare* in Debian.

* Note: "rare" does not mean "non-existent". I have encountered non-trivial showstoppers but with much less frequency than other distributions.

Ubuntu is not "like" Debian with respect to its bug tolerance. It has a fixed release schedule of twice a year, and while generally stable, is not as anal as Debian on its insistence of squashing out every "important" bug before release. The technology is more or less the same, the philosophy is rather different.

Re:Good!

[stevied]

Depends. "Linux" in general usage = Linux kernel + critical userspace stuff (glibc, etc.) + apps / services.

Stable kernel versions are generally very, very stable. Ditto the critical, foundation userspace stuff.

As on most other platforms, the apps vary. Because we're talking open source here, unstable test versions are usually available, and often the bleeding-edge stuff the developers are still editing is available, too. Different distributions choose what to ship, depending on what their target audience is.

Also, regardless of the stability of individual components, there are often issues that arise from the interactions between the components. That's actually where Linux distros are a huge win over other OSs: the developers test, patch, and integrate a huge swathe of free software alongside the core OS, in a way that commercial OSs don't (they may do the testing bit, but that's all.)

Ubuntu, AIUI, made a deliberate decision to be slightly less anal about rock solid stability and nailing every last bug, in order to be able to ship more up-to-date versions of the applications that most people use day to day. Crashes are undesirable, but having features missing that you want to use is also undesirable. And having said that, Ubuntu is usually pretty bomb-proof too.

"Linux" is a complex ecosystem, but it offers choice, and switching between different flavours once you've found your personal "sweet spot" is still much less painful than migrating between other OSs.

Re:Good!

[chibiace]

yes i got annoyed the other day that my ubuntu install didnt have the latest version of transmission compared to my laptop which is rolling with sid.

Re:Good!

[andrikos]

Wow! I had no idea about this! Thanks really a lot!

Re:Good!

[Anonymous Coward]

Lenny = white
Carl = black

Re:Good!

[kevind23]

Ubuntu doesn't "take the latest and greatest", they take packages from Debian unstable and by the time a package is released on Ubuntu, a new version is probably out.

Re:Good!

[kevind23]

Also I am pretty sure that Ubuntu is based on Debian.

Yes, but they are two completely different entities. Ubuntu is primarily used as a desktop OS (usually for users unfamiliar with Linux), while Debian is a strong server backend. As such, Debian has to be much more particular about its releases, making sure that the stable releases are in fact very, very stable. Ubuntu, however, is rarely used as a server, and therefore its releases don't go to extreme lengths to squash all important bugs.

Re:Good!

[X0563511]

No problem! I discovered it while browsing the repository. I guess that's one of those things you would find out about in the New Maintainer's Guide or the Policy Manual. I've never gotten around to reading them.

There's another apt-* package out there that will list known bugs as you install the packages (... packages will be installed, continue Y/N? ... Known Bugs: continue Y/N?)

Re:Good!

[andrikos]

I also found apt-src which seems to be far less buggy than apt-build and also let's you maintain your local packages across different source versions. Still haven't tested them thoroughly though.

Re:Good!

[Peter La Casse]

I thought Linux was supposed to be to OS X as OS X is to Windows in terms of stability (ie, not just rock-solid, but it will punch you in the gut if you try to crash it)... is this not the case?

That's a huge generalization. Even Windows can be made to be stable under some circumstances. There are many Linux distributions, and some are less stable than others.

Re:Good!

[marcosdumay]

You don't assemble 30 thousand packages toghether without bugs. The kernel + default libs + GUI are a quite stable bundle.

Re:Good!

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why he is QA instead of programming. :)

Re:Good!

[Danny Rathjens]

Debian also runs on twice as many architectures as Ubuntu. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Linux_distributions#Architecture_support

Re:Good!

[hakr89]

There needs to be distros like Debian which, while always delayed, has all the important bugs ironed out.

..cough..OpenSSL vulnerability..cough

Re:Good!

[setagllib]

Without a test harness in place, you wouldn't find that bug anyway. Now that it's been found, I'm certain tests are in place. The reason software is getting so much more stable in recent years is that bugs are becoming more familiar and better understood, and processes are evolving to handle bugs better.

Re:Good!

[ToasterMonkey]

Also, regardless of the stability of individual components, there are often issues that arise from the interactions between the components. That's actually where Linux distros are a huge win over other OSs: the developers test, patch, and integrate a huge swathe of free software alongside the core OS, in a way that commercial OSs don't (they may do the testing bit, but that's all.)

*Ahem* First-party integration is the BIGGEST difference between Linux, the OS, and any commercial OS. That's where other OSs win over Linux. I really don't believe calling what Linux vendors do "integration" is very accurate. It's more like "test, patch, and bundle."

Also, the kind of 3rd party software that doesn't get much/any OS vendor testing (say enterprise apps for example) is also a group of software you don't find in any Linux package repository. Most of the functionality you do find in a Linux repo IS well integrated and tested in commercial OSs. If the commercial OS vendor doesn't ship with a certain functionality, you can 99% of the time run the native port of the same software that's in a Linux repo. Port made possible because of extreme lack of integration.

Frankly, free software should NOT be tied to Linux, and should run on any platform with little integration work required, even if Linux suffers because of it.

Re:Good!

[morgan_greywolf]

True, but the other architectures except maybe Loongson, which is primarily irrelevant outside of China, are not used in Ubuntu's main target, which is desktops. Remember -- Ubuntu is primarily a desktop distro. M68Ks, for instance, while still widely used in embedded applications, are not present in any current production personal computer. MIPS, SuperH and DEC Alpha are all in the same boat, and that last one was EOL'd by Hewlett ComPaqard (for the second time) in 2007. ARM has, to my knowledge, only been used in embedded systems. S390 and S390X are no longer produced by IBM and are unlikely to find use in desktops anytime soon.

Re:Good!

[Kjella]

I thought Linux was supposed to be to OS X as OS X is to Windows in terms of stability (ie, not just rock-solid, but it will punch you in the gut if you try to crash it)... is this not the case?

Yes and no, there's no magic bullet that'll automatically make all experimental code become rock solid. Everything, even including the kernel sometimes have "experimental support" for something, in practise it means you can end up with a kernel panic if you use that particular hardware / feature. If you stick with the tested and true, it's usually extremely stable. The same goes for applications, but there's definately several classes of applications. Stable versions of server applications are also typically extremely stable, from there it really depends how important that is. I sometimes play chess online and the alleged "stable" package with LTS support isn't, it'll crash out from time to time. Oh well start it again, log in and request a resume so it's not the end of the world. I guess the answer to your question is that you can usually have it as stable as you want, but it has a tradeoff in terms of new features. If you're perfectly happy with where the bleeding edge was a year ago or more, it will be extremely stable.

Re:Good!

[s1lverl0rd]

Agreed. I switched from Ubuntu to Fedora, which 'under the hood' a totally different OS. No problems at all (just remember to type 'yum' instead of 'aptitude' :P )

Re:Good!

[jonadab]

> I thought Linux was supposed to be to OS X as OS X is to Windows in terms of stability (ie, not
> just rock-solid, but it will punch you in the gut if you try to crash it)... is this not the case?

Some distributions are more careful than others. Debian stable is one of the more conservative distributions, so yeah, it doesn't crash much. (I have seen it crash, though. One time I remember, it turned out the primary hard drive had been dead for a while, and the system had been running out of the cache for a few days, but eventually something was actually *needed* that wasn't in the cache, and then the kernel panicked.)

On the other end of the scale you have bleeding-edge distributions like Gentoo, which always have the latest and greatest everything, but as a result you get stuff that's only been very lightly tested.

It's a trade-off, of course.

I also remember when it used to be much easier to crash or freeze a Linux system. Running out of swap space, for instance, would bring things to a grinding halt *real* fast. The kernel team made some major improvements to the vm system somewhere along the line (I want to say in 2.0 or 2.2, but I don't remember the exact timeframe) and so it handles low-memory conditions *much* better now. (You'll still occasionally see an *application* crash because it's using too much memory, but it no longer makes the whole system unusable.)

Re:Good!

[ciggieposeur]

*Ahem* First-party integration is the BIGGEST difference between Linux, the OS, and any commercial OS. That's where other OSs win over Linux. I really don't believe calling what Linux vendors do "integration" is very accurate. It's more like "test, patch, and bundle."

I'd like some of what you're smoking, srsly. Have you even seen how many tweaks the Linux distros make to source and build systems to get 3rd party apps to behave? After all is done, nearly all apps have their configuration in /etc, they can be tweaked through the distro's installer system, their man pages and documentation are in the right /usr directories, the GNOME/KDE/etc. menus have both their names and functions, and they tend to do the right thing when multiple users log in to use them.

Compare that to the god awful mess strewn around "C:\Program Files" and the Start menu once you've installed more than a couple apps on Windows, or the mess in /Applications on OS X (where an app is just a directory that can be dragged to the Trash (unless it's Microsoft Office) but there is no standardized way to organize things). Applications don't get to assume shared libraries on Windows or OS X either -- either they dump 12 versions of the same .dll in System32 or they bundle for themselves whatever doesn't ship with the host OS, but in most Linux distros they get to share and benefit from shared security updates. And commercial Unixes are no better: they tend to just stuff all 3rd party applications in /opt and /usr/local and wipe their hands of everything else.

I'd say the commercial OSes do a good job with "make sure everything installs and runs", but they suck big time at "make sure everything fully integrates with the existing system". While Linux distros may have lots of room for improvement, they are still way further along than their commercial counterparts.

Re:Good!

[Anonymous Conrad]

ARM has, to my knowledge, only been used in embedded systems.

Actually ARM's first ever use was in a desktop. But they don't make them any more.

Re:Good!

[Walter Carver]

why do you hate ubuntu?!!! :P

Re:Good!

[INowRegretThesePosts]

I don't rely on the package manager if I want the latest version anymore.

What do you mean by "don't rely on the package manager"? Do you install software that are not in .deb packages? That would be a terrible way to administer a system and hope it keeps consistent.
Using a reasonably current Ubuntu release, plus (possibly) the backports repository, seems enough for me.
And if for any reason you do need a package that is not in the normal repositories nor in backports, please make a .deb from it. There are tools for that.
Also, software like wine has its own repository that always has the latest, and it is an *Ubuntu repository*. You get all the comfort of package management, automatic updates...
In summary, please respect your system integrity and avoid non-.deb packages at all costs.

Re:Good!

[Respect_my_Authority]

Notice that Debian fixed the OpenSSL vulnerability as soon as somebody found it and filed a bug report about it. (In this case, the person who discovered the bug was a Debian developer.)

Obviously, Debian developers can't fix bugs that they don't know about. It's just as important to report bugs as it is to fix them. Making a stable Debian release is a community effort -- users report any bugs they can find and developers do their best to fix the important bugs that actually affect usability, stability, or security of the programs that Debian packages.

So let's fix that sentence you quoted:

There needs to be distros like Debian which, while always delayed, has all the reported important bugs ironed out.

Re:Good!

[Respect_my_Authority]

Ubuntu, AIUI, made a deliberate decision to be slightly less anal about rock solid stability and nailing every last bug, in order to be able to ship more up-to-date versions of the applications that most people use day to day. Crashes are undesirable, but having features missing that you want to use is also undesirable. And having said that, Ubuntu is usually pretty bomb-proof too.

Unfortunately, it appears that only a small minority of users have found the latest Ubuntu release (which is also their "Long Term Support" release) "bomb-proof".

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=764847

It is also worth noticing that Ubuntu doesn't officially support their "universe" component (although there are some community members who try to support "universe" packages on a best-efforts basis). This means that the Ubuntu Security Team doesn't scan packages in "universe" for potential vulnerabilities, although "universe" in enabled by default. This is another deliberate decision that Ubuntu has made -- they have decided to be less anal about both security and stability in order to meet arbitrary release deadlines.

Re:Good!

[stevied]

Ye-es. I'll have to confess that I'm actually still running Gutsy, for various reasons :/

Ubuntu's kind of in a tricky position. They're aiming for usability by very non-technical / non-Unixy folk, but not being the dominant OS in the world, hardware support increasingly seems to be a pain. I'd actually quite like to see a "Recommended Hardware" list, so when I need a new graphics card, or DVD-RW drive, or whatever, I can just walk into PC World with a couple of pages of printout in my hand, rather than having to do a a couple of hours of research first (or take my chances.)

Also, a lot of Ubuntu users are going to be hobbyists, perhaps with combinations of unusual hardware or unusual mods that they've made to their existing installation. This is always going to make upgrades "interesting."

As I said before, all the Linux distros (and to a large extent the *BSDs), and most open-source software, form a big ecosystem. It's an ecosystem which treats technical knowledge as a form of culture, and once you're in it it does seem much easier to get stuff done (particularly uncommon / unusual stuff) than in the commercial world (unless you have big $$$ to spend.) I'm not sure how Linux best serves "the man in the street": apart from embedded devices, I'm guessing that it will be as a foundation platform for new appliance-y devices (netbooks, mobile phones, set-top boxes), where the hardware is modern and known, and where the users aren't necessarily expecting Windows.

I didn't know that universe was now enabled by default. That sounds like a bad move, particularly if people install network services or clients.

Re:Good!

[fatphil]

They may not be able to fix bugs that they don't know about, but they can certainly avoid adding bugs that they don't know they're adding by not adding any code unless they're completely sure that there can be no bugs in it.

Some _added_ the SSL vulnerability. It didn't just appear. If someone had contributed _less_, there would have been fewer bugs.

(However, I'm exclusively a Debian user, on 5 different architectures over the last 10 years.)

Re:Good!

[True Grit]

On the other end of the scale you have bleeding-edge distributions like Gentoo, which always have the latest and greatest everything

Nitpick: Just because the latest and greatest is available doesn't mean you have to install it. Technically what you just said is incorrect because distros like Gentoo and Debian Sid only have the latest and greatest if you want it and specifically ask for it.

I've routinely held up updates for weeks just because they weren't essential for me, so I waited to give the things time to settle out any unforeseen bugs. I did the same kind of thing back when my system was running Debian Sid (Unstable), back then I'd go a week or more before running a resync, and once having done so, I'd only upgrade sparingly.

The advantage (IMO) of this is having access to those more/most recent things that *are* important to you. Obviously, no matter how careful you are, you'll end up seeing more bugs than any stable distro that doesn't change for 2 years, but if you are very conservative in what you allow to update (and always wait a couple of days before doing an update of anything), you can achieve very good stability without being frozen in place for a long period. And if the worst case happens, and something is buggy, you can either wait for it to be fixed if the bug is not a major problem, or just downgrade to the previous version if it is. If you're conservative in your updating, then this will not happen often enough to become an annoyance.

There's still a trade-off to be made here, but at least now you have some choice in the matter.

Re:Good!

[gparent]

I don't rely on the package manager if I want the latest version anymore.

What do you mean by "don't rely on the package manager"? Do you install software that are not in .deb packages? That would be a terrible way to administer a system and hope it keeps consistent.

It's as consistent as my Windows box is, so it's really not a big deal. It's not like I'm admining an important machine, it's just my own PC.

And if for any reason you do need a package that is not in the normal repositories nor in backports, please make a .deb from it. There are tools for that.

I didn't know (or care) about the tools to make .deb packages, to be honest.

At any rate, whenever I installed the latest Boost libraries on my system, it wasn't a big deal to deposit the source files at the right place in /usr.

Re:Good!

[INowRegretThesePosts]

It's as consistent as my Windows box is, so it's really not a big deal. It's not like I'm admining an important machine, it's just my own PC.

This is one of the reasons that Windows PCs have to be reformatted yearly, and some people reformat every semester. Each program that is installed and later uninstalled or updated leaves cruft behind, and the computer gets slower and slower.

Re:Good!

[gparent]

People reformat yearly because they're idiots - I havn't had to reformat my older gaming PC for 5 years because I don't leave running a ton of shit on it. Most apps will uninstall cleanly, if they don't it's rather easy to run a search in the registry or use a tool like CrapCleaner.

Then again those problems don't affect a Boost install on the /usr of a Linux box, unless your favorite command is 'find'.

Who still uses Debian?

[Anonymous Coward]

I still use Debian Sarge on my current server. I consider Ubuntu to be more mainstream though.

Re:Who still uses Debian?

[stevey]

If you use Debian Sarge then you use Debian!

Although you've been missing security updates so you should upgrade it, or replace it.

Re:Who still uses Debian?

[Anonymous Coward]

I still use debian on this old laptop that won't support fast new flashy distros like ubuntu (memory too low), which I use on newer computers when I can.

Re:Who still uses Debian?

[clang_jangle]

Who? Only a few thousand sysadmins, researchers, and other conscientious geeks. There's so much more going on in the real world than you'll hear about in the media...

Re:Who still uses Debian?

[morgan_greywolf]

I still use debian on this old laptop that won't support fast new flashy distros like ubuntu (memory too low), which I use on newer computers when I can.

I run Xubuntu on an old AMD K6-2 Compaq Presario with 192 MB of RAM. Works great. I've even got support for my D-Link USB wireless adapter installed.

Re:Who still uses Debian?

[dedazo]

I recently switched from CentOS to Etch.

For me personally it's a pain in the butt to get Debian up to date with the things I need on there, which is trivial in CentOS. We're talking about latest versions of things like Python (Etch still ships with 2.4.x) and so on. Not impossible, just time consuming.

Slicehost offers Ubuntu as a server image option. Call me crazy but for some reason I just don't trust a desktop-oriented distro to run a dedicated server. Not to mention all the stuff included in the default install that I have no need for whatsoever. So short of Slackware, I went with Debian.

So far so good.

Re:Who still uses Debian?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ubuntu isn't that bad on the server. The server version doesn't include all kinds of extra packages, believe it or not, and the 8.04 release will be supported with security patches and such for the next 3 years.

Nothing wrong with Debian, but I just wanted to let you know that the things you think about Ubuntu aren't really true.

Re:Who still uses Debian?

[kevind23]

I've been using Debian Lenny for almost a year. Before that, I used Windoze XP.

Re:Who still uses Debian?

[pjbgravely]

Ubuntu supports the server version for 5 years.

Re:Who still uses Debian?

[Slashdot Parent]

For me personally it's a pain in the butt to get Debian up to date with the things I need on there, which is trivial in CentOS. We're talking about latest versions of things like Python (Etch still ships with 2.4.x) and so on. Not impossible, just time consuming.

I hate to have to be the one to tell you this, but Python 2.5 is present in Debian Etch--it's just not the default version.

I hope you didn't waste a lot of time on this one, because apt-get install python2.5 was all that was needed.

Good luck!

Re:Who still uses Debian?

[dedazo]

Oh, I know it's there. It's not like I downloaded a tarball and built from source or anything like that. I installed it with apt-get.

It's just time-consuming to then switch /usr/bin/python to point to the new version, verify nothing else broke, etc. Especially considering 2.5 is almost two years old now.

But I understand this is a Debian thing, so I try not to complain about it too much =)

No!

[Anonymous Coward]

Not Lenny!

Re:No!

[morgan_greywolf]

Not Lenny!

Denny!

Re:No!

[andrikos]

Kernel panic message:

Oh my God! They killed Lenny!

Meanwhile, In 'Unstable'...

[ewhac]

Meanwhile, in the 'unstable' tree, the changelogs aren't getting updated.

In 'aptitude', I pick through the packages with updates available and look at the changelogs to see what got changed to see if it's one I want to take. About a week ago, a bunch of updated packages showed up, but the corresponding changelogs seem to have gone AWOL (examples: there is no changelog for smbclient 2:3.2.3-3, or iceweasel 3.0.3-2).

I've seen this sort of thing before, but never understood why it was happening. Can anyone shed any light?

Schwab

Re:Meanwhile, In 'Unstable'...

[Slashdot Parent]

Which changelogs are you referring to? These? Or the changelogs within the package?

Re:Meanwhile, In 'Unstable'...

[MasterOfMagic]

If this is happening, first check the changelog for the affected package in /usr/share/doc. If it is out of date or missing, you need to file a severity minor (with the following rationale) against the packages missing the updated changelog. This is not a violation of Debian policy (which would warrant a severity of serious), but it's suggested by policy and trivial to add.

Re:Meanwhile, In 'Unstable'...

[WK2]

The above user does not want to install the packages unless they have a change he would interested in. Changelogs are only available in /usr/share/doc AFTER the package is installed. Although, I suppose he could manually download the .deb, unarchive it using ar, tar, and gz, and then see if it would have a changelog in /usr/share/doc that way.

I have noticed something similar as the above poster; it might have the same cause. I will sometimes browse packages.debian.org/sid/package-name, and then click on changelog, and get a 404. I don't know why it happens.

Re:Meanwhile, In 'Unstable'...

[MasterOfMagic]

The changelog presented in aptitude should be up to date as well. It's pulled from the package. He can likely file the same bug as before mentioning the fact that the changelog isn't showing up in aptitude (which could be an aptitude bug, after all), but having never done that, I'm not sure what the response would be.

Weird about the problem on p.d.o before. I've had problems recently with apt-listbugs not being able to connect to the bug tracking system to check the bugs before an install or upgrade on unstable.

Re:Meanwhile, In 'Unstable'...

[Lennie]

It's not just in Debian, I've seen the same in Ubuntu.

Re:Meanwhile, In 'Unstable'...

[petermgreen]

The changelog presented in aptitude should be up to date as well. It's pulled from the package.
That seems unlikely to me since it would require the package manager to download the whole package to show the changelog.

Re:Meanwhile, In 'Unstable'...

[MasterOfMagic]

From the aptitude documentation

changelog
        Downloads and displays the Debian changelog for each of the given source or binary packages.
        By default, the changelog for the version which would be installed with "aptitude install" is downloaded. You can select a particular version of a package by appending =version to the package name; you can select the version from a particular archive by appending /archive to the package name.

Re:Meanwhile, In 'Unstable'...

[petermgreen]

It doesn't say where it downloads the changelog from though............

Re:Meanwhile, In 'Unstable'...

[Anonymous Coward]

So? You were wrong, suck it up.

Re:Meanwhile, In 'Unstable'...

[ewhac]

changelog
Downloads and displays the Debian changelog for each of the given source or binary packages.

*sigh* And guess where it downloads them from?

http://packages.debian.org/changelogs/pool/main/

Challenge: Find the changelogs for samba 2:3.2.3-3 and iceweasel 3.0.3-2.

Schwab

Re:Meanwhile, In 'Unstable'...

[Upsilonish]

both are unofficial ports from bsd.

Re:Meanwhile, In 'Unstable'...

[MasterOfMagic]

Yes, like I said, this is a bug. It should be reported. I would ask someone on #debian first though.

Re:Meanwhile, In 'Unstable'...

[Anonymous Coward]

From my experience, it takes time for changelogs to appear on web (where aptitude takes them from), so they might not be available for very recent changelogs.
I usually just download such packages and look right into them (using mc).

No "haha" tag?

[Anonymous Coward]

If this article was about Microsoft instead of Debian, you know the tone would be substantially different.

Re:No "haha" tag?

[martinw89]

Actually, I think we would be glad if Microsoft was holding back a release because of critical bugs. Sure, there would be the occasional jackhole who said Microsoft sucks because they can't keep a release date. But, if they were being as open as Debian and admitting to fixing critical bugs (and presenting them for us to see), I'm sure there would be some insightful comments about the increased quality being worth the wait.

Re:No "haha" tag?

[evanbd]

If we thought the delay would actually allow MS to release a product free of serious bugs, we'd be glad. If, however, they miss release dates and then release with major known issues still present, then we laugh.

Re:No "haha" tag?

[Firehed]

Some insightful comments, sure. But most would be giving them shit and making remarks about it being the next Vista and whatnot. But to paraphrase someone's sig, Slashdot has scattered insight in a sea of mediocrity - so that's really to be expected ;)

Re:No "haha" tag?

[Sancho]

Possibly, but I truly don't think Microsoft could ever do right around here. Short of releasing the OS under either the BSD license or the GPL, they will forever have a reputation as software bloaters, monopolists, and DRM-supporters. And such a reputation is not undeserved.

The truth is, I'm not sure they could ever make a stable release of Windows. Vista was horribly delayed, horribly buggy on release, and had dropped a fair number of planned features in order to prevent further delays. If they'd planned to quash most of the bugs before release, I wonder how long it would have taken to get it all done?

Debian has the benefit of a good reputation and of having free software. People aren't scared to run pre-release versions of Debian in production, and it's relatively simple to fix many bugs yourself while waiting for something official from Debian. This means that Debian gets more testers doing real work with their release candidates.

Compare this to Microsoft, who also publish beta and release candidates for free (though free-as-in-beer.) How many people ran Vista full-time before it was released? Heck, Microsoft can barely get people to run it full-time now that it's been out for a while!

Re:No "haha" tag?

[RAMMS EIN]

``If this article was about Microsoft instead of Debian, you know the tone would be substantially different.''

Yes. And that's a bit hypocritic. On the other hand, there is an important difference between Microsoft and Debian: while both produce operating systems, Microsoft mostly deals with only things they develop themselves, and doesn't package all applications for a given release of their operating systems. Debian, on the other hand, deals mostly with software they don't develop, and still manage to package an impressive chunk of that for seamless integration with their operating system. I also think their final release dates and feature sets don't tend to differ as much from the initial announcements as do Microsoft's...

Re:No "haha" tag?

[Shade of Pyrrhus]

But then you have the difference that you're PAYING for Windows, while Debian is an open source project that you get can for free. The thing here is "Hey look, these people are waiting to give us something for free until they've ironed out the bugs". You can go grab Sid if you want - can you get Windows 7 for free already, with free updates?

Comparing apples to oranges doesn't always work.

Re:No "haha" tag?

[Lennie]

Maybe they should create something people actually want to use, instead of have to use because of application compatibility and then people also would most likely rather use the older version because of the same reason (XP)

Re:No "haha" tag?

[mweather]

When have you EVER seen an article about Microsoft delaying a product release because of bugs?

Re:No "haha" tag?

[X0563511]

Microsoft has earned the reputation they have here. Had Debian repeatedly fucked up and said "we meant to do that" or "there is no problem", we WOULD treat them the same way.

Re:No "haha" tag?

[mweather]

Short of releasing the OS under either the BSD license or the GPL, they will forever have a reputation as software bloaters, monopolists, and DRM-supporters

That might have something to do with their bloated software, their monopoly, and their support for DRM.

Re:No "haha" tag?

[Anonymous Coward]

So we're supposed to have lower standards for free software? Look, software either "just works," or it doesn't. I don't have time to waste editing stupid config files.

Release ti, and call it Ubuntu

[russlar]

1. Release is as is 2. Call it Ubuntu 3. ????? 4. ENDLESS PROFIT!!!

Re:Release ti, and call it Ubuntu

[morgan_greywolf]

Be careful. I hear Mark Shuttleworth has a patent on that.

Re:Release ti, and call it Ubuntu

[mweather]

These packages are older than the ones in Ubuntu. Ubuntu comes from Debian Unstable. Lenny is Debian Testing, soon to be Debian Stable.

Re:Release ti, and call it Ubuntu

[zero-point-infinity]

Debian Testing also comes from Debian Unstable. So considering that packages have been migrating from Sid to Lenny up until the freeze (subject to the criteria intended to keep Testing from breaking), Lenny's packages will in general be more recent than those in Ubuntu 8.04. And a quick look at the Intrepid release schedule shows a Debian Import Freeze a full month before Lenny was frozen. Which gives one good reason to expect similar package versions between Debian Lenny and Ubuntu 8.10. That's the theoretical analysis anyhow. Looking at the actual version numbers ... well, from the packages tracked by DistroWatch I don't think that I'd say that Lenny's lagging behind.

Re:Release ti, and call it Ubuntu

[Tubal-Cain]

That's odd, because Ubuntu (beta) is running Firefox 3.0.3, while Debian Testing was only at 3.0.0 or 3.0.1 a few days ago.

Re:Release ti, and call it Ubuntu

[zero-point-infinity]

Considering that Iceweasel 3.0.3 is in unstable as a fix to a security related bug, I would not be particularly surprised if it migrates into testing by the time that Lenny is officially released.

Re:Merge Debian with Ubuntu

[martinw89]

I don't know, becuase Debian and Ubuntu both have different purposes and combining the two would cause community strife and lowered productivity overall?

Nahh, that's not it. Nevermind.

Release When Ready

[mpapet]

For production quality operating systems there is *nothing* better than release when ready. Given the sheer number of packages and diversity of platforms, all the Debian volunteers do a great job.

It remains the corner-case user who needs the latest and greatest release of any given package.

As an fyi, I've been running Lenny for at least 6 months as a clean-install desktop with no issues. Upgrading from stable to Lenny had issues for me. I've got two servers running Lenny without show-stopper bugs right now.

Lenny's got a really nice KDE4 in an unofficial repo at deb http://kde4.debian.net/ . I encourage users to check it out. Don't enter bugs against these packages in Debian though.

Re:Release When Ready

[X0563511]

I've been using Ubuntu for a while, the Sarge release was just poor timing relative to some newer versions of packages (in my case).

Assuming Lenny has what I need, would you say putting Lenny on now would be OK? I'm using Ubuntu 8.04.1 now.

I'm not afraid of hackery or bug reporting, so as long as it won't explode on me, I should be fine.

Re:Release When Ready

[X0563511]

Oops, I meant etch, not sarge.

Re:The truth about the milanesa

[Hatta]

This is an obvious copy & paste troll.

Good luck with that.

Lenny

[Anonymous Coward]

Lenny.. Officially, the Church will not take a
position on the religious implications of
these ... phenomena. However, since they
started, people have been lining up at every
church in the city to confess and take
communion. We've had to put on extra
priests. Personally, I think it's a sign
from God but don't quote me on that.

Re:Lenny

[Spy der Mann]

This reminds me of a Ghostbusters quote:

Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!
Forty years of darkness, earthquakes, and volcanos!
The dead rising from the grave!
Human sacrifices, debians and redhats living together! Mass hysteria!

Why don't they just fork from Ubuntu

[Antique Geekmeister]

Seriously.

Please, we want Debian 4.1, not 5.0

[wikinerd]

Stop seeking .0 releases. Debian 4.0 Etch users want Debian 4.1, not 5.0, because a .1 release can come out much more quickly and with less potential for bugs than a .0 release. What I would like to have is a 4.1 release, followed by a 4.2 and 4.3, and potentially a 4.4 release, which will all make small incremental improvements and risk-free popular package updates within short timeframes, and only then a 5.0 release with lots of new but more riskier package updates and maybe also architectural changes if any.

I run Debian Lenny on the desktop along with many sid and custom stuff. On the servers side I still run etch 4.0, with only a few volatile and custom stuff. I can say that Lenny is surprisingly stable for a testing branch, and that choosing a few packages from it to release as Debian 4.1 would be a great thing, but I can see that a 5.0 release with all packages would probably take some time, albeit not too much as I can see that work progresses quickly (I download newest packages regularly and my bugs get fixed every few weeks, although a few packages seem to be stagnant).

Please, Debian, give us a stable 4.1 now, a "mini-lenny" just to keep ourselves (for the server side at least, as I expect most of us to run lenny on the desktop) an the rest of our userbase and potential new users happy with updates popular packages. After a sucessful 4.1, you can focus on delivering the more time-consuming 5.0, but please first consider a 4.1 or 4.2 before the major step.

Re:Please, we want Debian 4.1, not 5.0

[Antique Geekmeister]

I am laughing very hard that RHEL tried to say there's no such thing as a '.0' or '.1' release, and it's all 'RHEL 4' or 'RHEL 5'. Take a look at the available media, though, and you'll see that they're really still doing what they did with the old RedHat 6 and RedHat 7: .0 is unstable, .1 has bugfixes, .2 is stable.

Re:Please, we want Debian 4.1, not 5.0

[Slashdot Parent]

What I would like to have is a 4.1 release

Well, don't project what you want unto the rest of the world.

Debian stable is a server distro. Every time there is an upgrade, a full regression test must be done to the server. This is expensive and time-consuming. The whole idea of Debian stable is that it is stable and doesn't change often. No one running stable wants the latest and greatest. We want stability and security fixes. That's it.

Clearly you already know about the testing and unstable releases, but did you know about backports and volitile? Volitile is great for things like anti-virus and anti-spam software that you really do want and need upgrades. Backports is a little different--it's basically upgrades for popular packages in stable, and you can pick and choose which ones you want.

Stable means stable, and backports and volitile are great tools to help you. If you want the latest and greatest, that's what the testing release is for.

Re:Please, we want Debian 4.1, not 5.0

[turbidostato]

"Debian 4.0 Etch users want Debian 4.1, not 5.0, because a .1 release can come out much more quickly and with less potential for bugs than a .0 release. What I would like to have is a 4.1 release, followed by a 4.2 and 4.3, and potentially a 4.4 release, which will all make small incremental improvements and risk-free popular package updates within short timeframes, and only then a 5.0 release with lots of new but more riskier package updates and maybe also architectural changes if any."

So you know personally all "Debian 4.0 Etch users" to know what they want? *I* am a "Debian 4.0 Etch user"; do you really dare say what I want?

Buy I can accept that *you* want a Debian 4.1 then 4.2 then 4.3 prior to Debian 5.0. Well, do you why Lenny is not on date? Because it is not ready. Do you know why is not ready? Because not enough qualified hands.

Now: are you continuing telling what people want (without backing up data, by the way) or will you do something to get what you want?

"Please, Debian, give us a stable 4.1 now, a "mini-lenny""

You do know there's already an "Etch'n half", do you?

Re:Please, we want Debian 4.1, not 5.0

[idontgno]

Red Hat marketing may not acknowledge point releases, but they do indeed exist. And CentOS tracks 'em. That's why I know. (Too cheap for RHEL, too lazy for Fedora. I use Kubuntu for desktops, but the server has always been in the Red Hat lineage.)

Re:Please, we want Debian 4.1, not 5.0

[jgrahn]

Please, Debian, give us a stable 4.1 now, a "mini-lenny" just to keep ourselves (for the server side at least, as I expect most of us to run lenny on the desktop) an the rest of our userbase and potential new users happy with updates popular packages.

I suspect it's too late for that. The Debian developers would have to dig up suitably old versions (yet fresh enough!) of their packages from months back.

Also there is the domino effect: if foobar-11.0 is a package version which everyone wants, and the foobar people decided, for 11.0 they need a bleeding edge gcc, or Gnome/KDE whatever, Debian would have to include these bleeding edge dependencies. That might create a cascade effect, and they'd have to bring in bleeding edge versions of other things which depend on gcc/Gnome/KDE. ... and you'd end up with 5.0.

(Disclaimer: I am not a Debian developer.)

Re:Please, we want Debian 4.1, not 5.0

[Anonymous Coward]

What I would like to have is a 4.1 release

Well, don't project what you want unto the rest of the world.

Debian stable is a server distro. Every time there is an upgrade, a full regression test must be done to the server. This is expensive and time-consuming. The whole idea of Debian stable is that it is stable and doesn't change often. No one running stable wants the latest and greatest. We want stability and security fixes. That's it.

Clearly you already know about the testing and unstable releases, but did you know about backports and volitile? Volitile is great for things like anti-virus and anti-spam software that you really do want and need upgrades. Backports is a little different--it's basically upgrades for popular packages in stable, and you can pick and choose which ones you want.

Stable means stable, and backports and volitile are great tools to help you. If you want the latest and greatest, that's what the testing release is for.

No, Debian stable certainly is not a "server distro". Where did you get that from? Debian has always been a general purpose distro which can be used as a server as well as a desktop. And that's fine with me. If you need a "server distro", go to Ubuntu.

Re:Please, we want Debian 4.1, not 5.0

[fritsd]

As the saying goes: (sorry no attribution known; it came from linuxjournal.com apparently)

"Windows: Where do you want to go today?

MacOS: Where do you want to be tomorrow?

Linux: Are you coming or what?"

So, I wish you all the best with your project to make a new release, convince other people to make a new release, or pay people to make a new release.

Re:Please, we want Debian 4.1, not 5.0

[xenocide2]

Debian stable is a server distro

Then which Debian release is for desktops?

Re:Please, we want Debian 4.1, not 5.0

[CoolHnd30]

That would be called Sidux (http://sidux.com/).

It's Debian hot and spicy.

It's not "official" Debian, but it's the best way to run unstable as a desktop.

Re:Please, we want Debian 4.1, not 5.0

[Anonymous Coward]

>Debian stable is a server distro.

My desktop doesn't seem to agree with you.

Re:Please, we want Debian 4.1, not 5.0

[Slashdot Parent]

Then which Debian release is for desktops?

Most desktop users would prefer to work with updated software, and do not prioritize stability. While there is no reason you couldn't run a desktop machine off of Debian stable, I think you would have a better experience running the testing release.

That is, if you run Debian on your desktop at all. If I were building a new desktop machine right now, I'd use Ubuntu.

Re:Please, we want Debian 4.1, not 5.0

[Randle_Revar]

Whichever one you want. I use unstable, personally.

Uhm, Good?

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhm, Good?

Re:The truth about the milanesa

[Antique Geekmeister]

Oh, my. Then I guess I have to return my salary and discard my stock in 3 different major Linux-based industries from the last 10 years? That's too bad, I was keeping that to retire with.

Continuing a Subject sentence in the Comment

[jonaskoelker]

Is really annoying.

Why don't they just fork from Ubuntu?

I suggest you take a look at Utnubu (http://wiki.debian.org/Utnubu). It's a debian (sub)project to cannibalize all the good parts from Ubuntu. One of their goals is to "Collaborate with Ubuntu: Reduce duplicate effort, join efforts, try to co-maintain packages compatible for Debian and Ubuntu."

What would be gained by doing a carbon copy rather than stealing only the good bits?

Re:Continuing a Subject sentence in the Comment

[Antique Geekmeister]

I see that irony is apparently considered an optional course of study here.

Debian has no release date!!!

[marcosdumay]

Debian has no release date. It never had, and doesn't seem to have any plans on adopting release dates. Thus, Debian can't be "late", since being late implies on missing a release date, and Debian doesn't have that. Or, maybe I didn't repeat that enough, so let me tell you: Debian never made a compromisse on releasing any version on any exact day.

What Debian does have is a list of bugs. Everytime testing is frozen, it is created a list with the showstopper bugs, and release happens when that list becomes empty. The list can increase if more bugs are found, or decrease if bugs are solved or some functionality removed.

Debian also do have people betting when it'll be out. Those people give specific (or sometimes not very specific) dates, but that isn't a release date for the team, just a guesstimate.

Re:Debian has no release date!!!

[RAMMS EIN]

While I don't dispute the claims you make, I would like to point out that

1. Debian does make announcements about prospective release dates. These aren't firm promises and shouldn't be interpreted as such, but it is disappointing when they miss those dates by months.

2. Releases aren't only made when the bug count drops to zero. First of all, there are bugs that aren't considered "release-critical". Secondly, sometimes (I think this happened with etch) releases are made with known issues and a promise to fix those issues Real Soon Now. Thirdly, the way the bug count is brought to zero usually includes simply throwing out packages that have known bugs. If many people want such a package, that isn't very helpful.

3. Bugs that would have been "release-critical" are often discovered after a release is made. The current stable release, etch, had more release-critical bugs pending against it than lenny (the upcoming stable release), last time I checked.

What all this means is that Debian will _not_ generalyl be released at any date that has been mentioned, and will _not_ generally be bug-free when released.

Having said all that, it's still my favorite operating system, as it takes less of my time to use and maintain than anything else I have tried (and that is quite a lot).

Re:Debian has no release date!!!

[dedazo]

Some of those bugs are trivial (some are even documentation-related), so I doubt they are *all* blocking at this point.

Re:Debian has no release date!!!

[Respect_my_Authority]

You can say "It's disappointing that Debian missed their internal goal of releasing Lenny in early September 2008". But you can't really say "It's disappointing that Debian failed to release Lenny in September as they promised", because the official release schedule clearly says that Lenny will be released "in the second half of 2008".

http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2007/06/msg00005.html

So that's what they've actually promised, and there's still plenty of time to keep that promise. Just a week ago the number of RC bugs in Debian was over 270. Now it's a bit more than 200. It'll be interesting to see what the RC bugs count shows one week from now.

Re:Debian has no release date!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Problem with "bugs" in current stable is that it's measured from Lenny PoV -- there have been new goals and requirements set for new release, and older stable does not conform to them (well, they wouldn't be "new" then :) ).
It's not fair to be measuring bugs in stable this way.

Re:Debian has no release date!!!

[Kjella]

2. Releases aren't only made when the bug count drops to zero. First of all, there are bugs that aren't considered "release-critical". Secondly, sometimes (I think this happened with etch) releases are made with known issues and a promise to fix those issues Real Soon Now. Thirdly, the way the bug count is brought to zero usually includes simply throwing out packages that have known bugs. If many people want such a package, that isn't very helpful.

3. Bugs that would have been "release-critical" are often discovered after a release is made. The current stable release, etch, had more release-critical bugs pending against it than lenny (the upcoming stable release), last time I checked.

One of the things that happened to Debian, at least when they had 3+ years between release was that yes, there were new RC bugs found in never versions but upstream basicly said "That version is aaaaaaaaaaaancient, we'll only backport to semi-current releases" which left Debian with a lot of work to do and essentially a whack-a-mole game of new RC bugs that sorta never got to near zero. The simple truth that there almost certainly are unknown RC-class bugs in lenny, and at some point you must accept it's now as close to ideally stable as it gets and release. There will be patches after that anyway even if the known RC count is zero.

To quote Simpsons:

[Verdatum]

"Not Lenny!!!!"

Re:The truth about the milanesa

[morgan_greywolf]

Hello? El Lobo? Is that you and your Linuzzz-hating ass?

Don't use Sarge

[swillden]

I still use Debian Sarge on my current server.

Bad idea. Support for Sarge ended in April, so you haven't been getting any security updates since then, and there are some known weaknesses.

You should upgrade to Etch, ASAP.

Re:Don't use Sarge

[ignavus]

I still use Debian Sarge on my current server.

Bad idea. Support for Sarge ended in April, so you haven't been getting any security updates since then, and there are some known weaknesses.

You should upgrade to Etch, ASAP.

Look, just get his IP address and do it for him.

Re:Don't use Sarge

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, just get his IP address and do it for him.

Fixed.

Debbie and Lenny?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's good to see they're back together again. They make such a nice couple.

Re:Merge Debian with Ubuntu

[Anonymous Coward]

They merge on a regular basis (~ every 6 months), usually from Debian to Ubuntu.

That figure was from almost a week ago...

[Anonymous Coward]

... and now there's less than 200 rc bugs left to be squashed:

http://bts.turmzimmer.net/graph-large.png

Re:The truth about the milanesa

[Gavagai80]

Explain him why in his Ubuntu, Kubuntu or Fedora, he cannot see many web pages: he must download the Flash and the Java plugin, in order to install them with complicated commands.

Using the command line to install java and flash? Which century are you posting from?

No more floppy installation? You bastards!

[wiredlogic]

It looks like there aren't any floppy installation images for Lenny i386 . This is a real sore point for me since the Etch floppies wouldn't properly boot from a USB drive on my laptop and I had to fall back to Sarge to bootstrap a fresh installation. I was hoping they'd have this fixed but apparently they just decided to lazily drop support altogether.

It's really frustrating that Debian is letting floppy installation support slip. This is a big deal for those of us with old or unusual hardware that can't boot from a CD or memory stick or through netbios/PXE.

Re:No more floppy installation? You bastards!

[petermgreen]

The problem is the kernel team aren't cooperating :(. They won't keep the -486 kernel slim enough and they won't sanction the creation of a seperate kernel flavor just for the floppy installer to use it.

With etch the kernel had grown to the point that they had to kick everything that wasn't absoloutly essential (including USB floppy support) from the boot floppy.

With lenny a couple of bad things happened. Firstly the UPX recompressor stopped working for current kernels. And then just as there was talk of fixing that the lenny kernel grew to the point that it just wasn't feasible to put it on a floppy at all.

Re:No more floppy installation? You bastards!

[PitaBred]

Dude. Spend $50 and get a modern machine with an optical drive, or that boots properly off of USB. Used laptops are easy to find.

Re:No more floppy installation? You bastards!

[couchslug]

"This is a big deal for those of us with old or unusual hardware that can't boot from a CD or memory stick or through netbios/PXE."

I'm all for old and unusual hardware, but what are the odds that anyone geeky enough to use Debian couldn't get around this problem in their sleep? If it is not acceptable to crack open the hardware to snatch the hard disk for OS installation in a modern computer, there are any number of ways to install anyway. (I'd just whip out the screwdrivers and slam the drive into another machine. Linux is tolerant of being installed on one machine then being transferred to another.)

Installing an older version of Debian via floppy and then upgrading comes instantly to mind, followed by using a Linux or DOS boot floppy to access an external CD drive/USB drive/etc. This stuff isn't old hat, it's "ancient hat". The computing.net forums have lots of info for people with ancient machines, BTW.

Re:No more floppy installation? You bastards!

[dbcad7]

The thing to ask yourself is why you are upgrading ?... I can understand the holding on to old but useful hardware.. that's cool.. but if it is so old that you can't boot anything but a floppy, then you just need to accept what you have available for OS now.. and be happy.. doesn't everything that you need to work, work now ? .. are you going to get new functionality with the upgrade ?

If the bios is so old, and unable to be updated to boot from another device.. then accept your fate and the facts that you have pushed it to its limits, and that it's time to either continue the way it is with what you got, or upgrade the hardware.

Re:No more floppy installation? You bastards!

[Randle_Revar]

>fresh installation
Why are you doing this? Just upgrade in place, like everyone else, instead of reinstalling.

Re:No more floppy installation? You bastards!

[Slashdot Parent]

This is a big deal for those of us with old or unusual hardware that can't boot from a CD or memory stick or through netbios/PXE.

How much old, unusual hardware do you have sitting around that doesn't already have Debian on it? Is there some reason you need to reinstall the OS?

Every single Debian release comes with upgrade instructions. Or were you absent the day they taught apt-get dist-upgrade?

Ow..my eye!

[ichthyoboy]

I'm not supposed to get release-critical bugs in it!

Kernel

[Chiisu]

What version of 2.6 will Lenny include? I assume it won't be 2.6.27...

Re:Kernel

[zero-point-infinity]

Lenny's at 2.6.26

Re:Kernel

[kevind23]

uname -r tells me 2.6.26

Re:Merge Debian with Ubuntu

[kevind23]

Why don't Debian and Ubuntu just merge? It would make a whole lot of things easier.

No, it wouldn't. Debian and Ubuntu are two totally different distros. Ubuntu is flashy and tweaked heavily for a friendlier UI. Debian is flat-up Linux, and makes a very powerful and stable server backend. Merging them would result in chaos, especially among users like myself who don't feel like teaching Windows converts to Ubuntu what a kernel is.

Offtrack, isn't Debian == Deb + Ian anyway?

Yes, it is. I fail to see how that is at all relevant, however.

Re:why not

[zero-point-infinity]

Well there's the part where Lenny isn't the unstable version - Sid is and the name "Sid" manages to both fit Debian's naming scheme and convey the concept of "unstable". The testing branch is somewhere between stable and unstable. It's metastable, if you will. (Yeah, yeah, I know. Responding to a joke with a serious response is bad form and all that...)

ANOTHER Version?!?!?!

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean, it's nice that they are waiting and all, but seriously, ANOTHER version?

It would have been really nice if they would have just taken the time out to code it correctly the first time around, rather than coming out with another version every three months.

Re:ANOTHER Version?!?!?!

[setagllib]

Try 12-24 months. Debian make the best effort to "get it right" of any community-supported distro, and the results tend to be the best too.

turmzimmer

[fritsd]

Last time I looked, it was here, but as that page says this is an unofficial list.
Methinks some of the bugs look bad, but at least you can *see* what's happening "in the kitchen" with Debian.

Not until its ready

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep it real. Don't release until its ready. Fsck microsoft. They always hit their deadlines. They always release with 20,000 release critical bugs, but by marketing they release on time! If they can get half of the outstanding bugs released in the first service pack, they are happy. Half of the rest by the second service pack, and so on. Debian has never done this, and its not time to start. Go with 0 known bugs on release day. Stuff may pop up after release, but at least things are 'clean' at time of release.

Lenny is the leader

[Anonymous Coward]

Have to say, I'm eagerly awaiting the release. Been using Lenny to get around some bleeding-edge hardware issues and I have to say it's the best Debian release I have seen to date and I've been running Debian systems for 12 years.

Re:Lenny is the leader

[Anonymous Coward]

You could have stuck with etch and used the etch and a half kernel:

http://wiki.debian.org/EtchAndAHalf

Shitty Name for Dyslexics!

[LostMyBeaver]

Took me three tries to read it as Debian Lenny as opposed to Lesbian Denny.

Fact

[Anonymous Coward]

Kill a rabbit and you will be called a rabbit killer.

Bugs?

[Anonymous Coward]

i'm using Lenny now for about three months on production systems (a workstation, several servers, three virtual machines and on four boxes at home). i did'nt run into any bugs bugs yet. Etch was a great release but Lenny is really much better. i admit i've always had troubles with Etch's default kernel (2.6.18) but the 2.6.26 is really great, which means it compiles without giving any warnings on all of my machines (very new and very old ones...:-). I don't care when the next release will be as long as it is the usual *high quality* i'm as Debian user accustomed to. is'nt it a good thing they admit problems instead of pushing a wacky release for no reason.

you gonna be da wormface

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a fun exercise. Let's imagine this is a story about a Windows release being pushed back due to bugs, and compare tags.
Current: lenny debian bug whenitsready linuxlinux debian
Windoze: defectivebydesign donotwant itsatrap evil momsbasementisscary
Intellectual honesty on this site would be a refreshing change. I could stop being embarassed for referring my peeps here.

My captcha is beagles?!! Is this tech stuff to hard for you ladies?