Debian Turns 20

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Posted by Soulskill on Friday August 16, 2013 @05:43AM from the and-many-more dept.

New submitter stderr_dk writes "According to Wikipedia, the initial release of Debian happened 16 August 1993. In other words, it's Debian's birthday and you're all invited. 'During the Debian Birthday, the Debian conference will open its doors to anyone interested in finding out more about Debian and Free Software, inviting enthusiasts, users, and developers to a half day of talks relating to Free Software, the Debian Project, and the Debian operating system.' Over the years, Debian has been forked a number of times. Some of the more well-known forks are Ubuntu and Knoppix. The latest release of Debian pure blend was Debian 7.1 'Wheezy' on June 15th 2013."

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THANKS!!! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-08-16 05:47 · Score: 5, Insightful

Thanks to Debian devs, community, and everyone else involved.
1. Re:THANKS!!! by unixisc · 2013-08-16 08:50 · Score: 5, Insightful
  Two things I'd like to really appreciate Debian doing:
  
  1.)Supporting as many hardware platforms as they could, and not yanking support simply b'cos it's going nowhere. I'm looking at you, Itanic!
  2.)Being platform agnostic as well - coming out with distros of FBSD and HURD
  I really hope that Debian's non-Linux platforms fully develop and mature. Also, I'd toast Debian for being prudent and offering unliberated software separately, in defiance of the FSF jihadis. While on that topic, Debian also should be commended for joining OSI and embracing Open Source as well as their own FSG.
2. Re:THANKS!!! by lvxferre · 2013-08-16 12:49 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  Also, I'd toast Debian for being prudent and offering unliberated software separately, in defiance of the FSF jihadis.
  
  Agreed. Debian plays as "the last sane man" [okay, distro] regarding that: they realize that open source is freer than closed source, but closed source is still freer than no program; installing by default only free but allowing the users [if they wish to do so] install non-free is the least restrictive thing they could do.
  Happy birthday, Debian!
  
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Happy Birthday Debian! by monzie · 2013-08-16 05:49 · Score: 5, Informative

.. and to all the contributors - Thank you for creating this awesome distribution!
Is it really? by geek · 2013-08-16 05:57 · Score: 3, Informative

I'm not so sure. The Debian group "formed" for lack of a better work on 8/16/93 but they didnt release anything til almost 1995. So the group might be 20 years old but the distro itself maybe not.
1. Re:Is it really? by some+old+guy · 2013-08-16 06:04 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Dude, it's a party...lose the buzzkill. :)
  
  --
  Scruting the inscrutable for over 50 years.
2. Re:Is it really? by KiloByte · 2013-08-16 06:38 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Hmm... sounds like a good reason to party twice, then. And I'm at the DebConf at the moment...
  
  --
  The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
3. Re:Is it really? by rubycodez · 2013-08-16 06:41 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  wrong, 0.01 was released August 1993 and was usable
  in fact, if you are referring to the 1.0 release in 1995 that had the bad CD with wrong stuff on it
4. Re:Is it really? by jones_supa · 2013-08-16 06:49 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Correct. Here's the full background story of the CD incident for anyone who's interested:
  Debian 1.0 was never released: InfoMagic, a CD vendor, accidentally shipped a development release of Debian and entitled it 1.0. On December 11th 1995, Debian and InfoMagic jointly announced that this release was screwed. Bruce Perens explains that the data placed on the "InfoMagic Linux Developer's Resource 5-CD Set November 1995" as "Debian 1.0" is not the Debian 1.0 release, but an early development version which is only partially in the ELF format, will probably not boot or run correctly, and does not represent the quality of a released Debian system. To prevent confusion between the premature CD version and the actual Debian release, the Debian Project has renamed its next release to "Debian 1.1". The premature Debian 1.0 on CD is deprecated and should not be used. [1]
5. Re:Is it really? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-08-16 07:40 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Until they got their own distro working they had to use another one. They chose Gentoo, so it took a year to compile.
6. Re:Is it really? by rubycodez · 2013-08-16 10:02 · Score: 2
  
  funny, at work the clamav has caught java jar vulnerabilities and malware our superior proprietary tools missed, and it isn't yet at 1.0
One of the best by Anonymous Coward · 2013-08-16 06:06 · Score: 5, Insightful

Debian is probably the most consistent among all Linux distributions. I love the community spirit and non-commercial nature of Debian. Rock solid and stable and of course truly free "as in freedom".
And with the goal of being the "universal operating system" which recently come true with becoming the official OS on the International Space Station, I look forward to the next 20 years of Debian awesomeness and galactic domination!
1. Re: One of the best by Anonymous Coward · 2013-08-16 06:18 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  Not necessarily. You can always use Debian "Testing" or even the "Unstable" repositories for the latest-and-greatest software, and it's very stable too despite the name.
  However, I do hope that Debian stable gets a faster release cycle someday. A yearly release would rock! Until then, Testing and Unstable are your friends for a great Linux desktop.
2. Re: One of the best by beefoot · 2013-08-16 07:00 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  It is called stable for a reason. For server environment, stable works really well. Hell no way I would want to upgrade my server every year. Every 3 years --- maybe. Ideally would be every 5 years. As you pointed out, if you want newer stuffs, go with testing or unstable. They are called testing / unstable for a reason. Ubuntu's release schedule drives me nuts.
3. Re:One of the best by Chris+Mattern · 2013-08-16 08:24 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Yeah, consistently out of date.
  Because God knows, you don't want to miss Ubuntu's next exciting innovation.
4. Re:One of the best by rubycodez · 2013-08-16 10:00 · Score: 2
  
  said the anonymous coward. Meanwhile, I really do admin over 400 production servers of various distros (and a little Unix and windows too), some run by groups with Ubuntu server and I have indeed seen the folly of using that bleeding edge distro
A true Debian fan here by Anonymous Coward · 2013-08-16 06:06 · Score: 2

I use a lot of Debian's work for everyday use from Linux Mint on my laptop, to Debian on an x86 server, to Raspbian on a RPI. It's really nice stuff, simple, classic, yet amazingly powerful. Congrats Debian!
-- stoops
Re:Have they fixed their "Firefox" problem yet? by geek · 2013-08-16 06:12 · Score: 2, Insightful

For Debian, ideology trumps usability. It's why Ubuntu exists.
Why so serious? by intermodal · 2013-08-16 06:18 · Score: 2

It's a time to celebrate, not to have what sounds like a fairly businessy and serious event. This is like celebrating the Fourth of July by bombing Britain.

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1. Re:Why so serious? by Eunuchswear · 2013-08-16 06:34 · Score: 2
  
  It's a time to celebrate, not to have what sounds like a fairly businessy and serious event. This is like celebrating the Fourth of July by bombing Britain.
  Soundls like a plan to me.
  Go for it!
  
  --
  Watch this Heartland Institute video
2. Re:Why so serious? by Hognoxious · 2013-08-16 08:14 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Go ahead, lardy-boy. Given your awesome talent for geography you'd probably hit Bahrain, Bhutan or Belgium anyway.
  Hang on, I'm in Be . .. .Â£$@* & no carrier
  
  --
  Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
most memorable and significant fork by CAIMLAS · 2013-08-16 06:25 · Score: 3, Informative

One of the most memorable forks of Debian was Stormix (not mentioned on WP): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stormix
For those who don't remember, or weren't there: it was a very nicely cleaned up Debian installer with additional driver support and simplified configuration. It ran very well on a wide range of systems and was way, way ahead of pretty much everything else with respect to software installation and system configuration.
The Stormix company, when it failed, became Progeny, if I recall correctly. Progeny was a greatly used add-on repository for Debian which eventually had a lot of the functionality added into the core of Debian.
Without Stormix, later efforts like Knoppix and Ubuntu would not have been possible.

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1. Re:most memorable and significant fork by Rinikusu · 2013-08-16 09:40 · Score: 2
  
  Stormix was one of the few boxed Linux sets I bothered to purchase, simply to help support the company and its efforts. I never used it (redhat & beos user at the time), but I liked where it was headed and definitely appreciated Knoppix when it came out. For similar reasons I picked up OpenBSD and FreeBSD CDs from walnut creek? because it's good to have options and it was an easy way for me to help "support" stuff like this.
  Linux Mint is my distro of choice at the moment. Long live debian!
  (and one day, I will have a slack machine)
  
  --
  If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
Re:Have they fixed their "Firefox" problem yet? by sqrt(2) · 2013-08-16 06:26 · Score: 4, Insightful

It's too bad Ubuntu went full retard back when they released Unity, and then just threw the oars out of the boat entirely with the Amazon spyware fiasco. Thankfully there's still sane derivative distros like Xubuntu and Mint that can leverage the useful work Canonical is doing.

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Re:Have they fixed their "Firefox" problem yet? by gl4ss · 2013-08-16 06:28 · Score: 5, Insightful

maybe complain to firefox about their branding/copyright/licensing?

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world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Re:Have they fixed their "Firefox" problem yet? by rubycodez · 2013-08-16 06:35 · Score: 4, Insightful

just download the latest tarball from mozilla and unpack it into a directory like /local or /opt, then run firefox/firefox on that path what's the big deal?
http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/
And in celebration... by Chris+Mattern · 2013-08-16 06:42 · Score: 5, Funny

...Debian will be available FREE all day today!
Thanks, from an embedded designer. by gmarsh · 2013-08-16 07:19 · Score: 2

I've used Debian extensively in the past for embedded Linux development - I've got equipment in the field running on the x86, armel, mips and powerpc ports, from biscuit PCs running full GUIs to $10 uP's doing network-attached-widget duties in the corner of a PCB.
Debian's "non-x86" ports work well, the distribution is simple, trims down small, easily modified for whatever purpose, and it just plain gets the job done. Couldn't be happier with it.
Celebration by jtotheh · 2013-08-16 08:08 · Score: 2

To celebrate, I enabled jessie(testing) in my sources.list, used aptitude to install a 3.10 kernel with RT (I was running 3.9) and rebooted - everything seems to be working great.This is on a Macbook Pro running wheezy(stable) with reFind boot manager. Thanks Debian!
Re:So what are they up to? by Chris+Mattern · 2013-08-16 08:47 · Score: 2

Ho ho ho. A riot, you are. Debian stable (7.1, "wheezy") uses the 3.2 kernel (and incorporates patches from as far upstream as 3.4.47) and GCC 4.7.2. Debian testing ("jessie") (which you shouldn't hesitate to use if you need the newer versions of stuff) has the 3.10 kernel, and GCC 4.8.1.