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Debian GNU/Hurd 2015 Released

Posted by Soulskill on from the onward-and-upward dept.

An anonymous reader sends this announcement from the debian-hurd mailing list: It is with huge pleasure that the Debian GNU/Hurd team announces the release of Debian GNU/Hurd 2015. This is a snapshot of Debian "sid" at the time of the stable Debian "jessie" release (April 2015), so it is mostly based on the same sources. It is not an official Debian release, but it is an official Debian GNU/Hurd port release. The installation ISO images can be downloaded from Debian Ports in the usual three Debian flavors: NETINST, CD, or DVD. Besides the friendly Debian installer, a pre-installed disk image is also available there, making it even easier to try Debian GNU/Hurd. The easiest way to run it is inside a VM such as qemu.

29 of 52 comments (clear)

  1. Huh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Why is it 3 1.7 GB ISOs on 3 DVDs instead of 2 DVDs?

    in fact, why is it 5.2 GB?

    1. Re:Huh by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

      That's good question. Looks like they were too lazy to optimize it for the ~4.5 GB DVD / layer ...

      [ ] debian-hurd-2015-i386-DVD-1.iso 24-Apr-2015 07:24 1.7G
      [ ] debian-hurd-2015-i386-DVD-2.iso 24-Apr-2015 07:28 1.7G
      [ ] debian-hurd-2015-i386-DVD-3.iso 24-Apr-2015 07:32 1.8G

      The "typical" excuse would be to help with downloads but seriously who is using a downloader that can't resume in this day and age?

      Since the total is 5.2GB I wonder if they could re-compress the files down to 4.5 GB to fit on one DVD with say something like LZMA

    2. Re: Huh by debexpert1 · · Score: 1

      Ufff 5 gigs really? Wtf xD

    3. Re:Huh by Blaskowicz · · Score: 1

      When putting an iso's contents on a small USB drive (while keeping the fat32 filesystem and the rest of the files!) the less place it's taking, the better ; with debian you also typically only need DVD-1.
      If you do need off-line packages in DVD-2 and DVD-3, you can have the iso files stored anywhere and mount them anyway?

      DVD-R are somewhat unreliable so you're less likely to fail with a smaller iso, that would be another excuse.

    4. Re:Huh by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

      That's a good point about USB. The FAT32 4GB file size limit is probably the technical reason why the files are spilt into 3 archives.

  2. And Yes, Kids! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    It does run Duke Nukem Forever!

  3. My distro is better by NotDrWho · · Score: 1

    All other distros suck balls.

    --
    SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
  4. init changed by Tim+the+Gecko · · Score: 3, Informative

    The announcement:

    "the init system has been switched to sysvinit for a more Debian-like experience"

    The current Debian init experience (according to Slashdot comments):

    "Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light."

    1. Re:init changed by byuu · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Thankfully, Poettering is staunchly anti-portability, so systemd can't run on *BSD or Hurd. I consider that the only positive feature of systemd.

  5. Oh, yeah? by halivar · · Score: 5, Funny

    MY distro is emacs on systemd.

    1. Re:Oh, yeah? by vux984 · · Score: 4, Funny

      You've got it upside dowm. I run systemd on emacs.

    2. Re:Oh, yeah? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      My distro IS systemd.

      Everything else is redundant.

    3. Re:Oh, yeah? by pr0nbot · · Score: 1

      M-x editctl

    4. Re:Oh, yeah? by Polo · · Score: 1

      why not both?

  6. I love Debian by rogerbly · · Score: 1

    After being away working on CentOS and Archlinx for Asterisk radio station links, I'm back on Debian... home sweet home.

  7. Could this be.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    .. the year of the HURD desktop?

    1. Re:Could this be.. by tnk1 · · Score: 2

      I think they announced that back in 1977 as part of the celebrations for the 20th anniversary of the start of the HURD project.

    2. Re:Could this be.. by ClickOnThis · · Score: 1

      .. the year of the HURD desktop?

      Nah. More like 2060.

      --
      If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
  8. Re:systemd? by armanox · · Score: 1

    If that were the case then Debian GNU/kFreeBSD would be done too.

    --
    I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
  9. still only 32-bit by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 1

    GNU HURD still only runs in 32-bit mode. while you can run it on a 64-bit processor, you lose all the cool tricks you can do on 64-bit processors, especially when it comes to virtual machines.

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    1. Re:still only 32-bit by tnk1 · · Score: 3, Funny

      I've always felt that using 64 whole bits has been a waste of good address space. I'm glad HURD agrees. I'm actually contributing a patch to get them back down to 16-bit mode with the holy grail of finally returning to 8-bit. I have always felt that if you're running on a microkernel you should run with a micro address space too.

  10. Re:systemd? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Well damn: http://www.itwire.com/business-it-news/open-source/66034-systemd-again?-debian-drops-kfreebsd-as-official-architecture

    In a post to the release team, Debian developer Jonathan Wiltshire wrote: "We discussed kfreebsd at length, but are not satisfied that a release with Jessie will be of sufficient quality. We are dropping it as an official release architecture, though we do hope that the porters will be able to make a simultaneous unofficial release."

    One of the reasons for this decision - though unstated by Wiltshire - could be systemd, the new init system that will be the default for the Jessie release. It cannot be used with any kernel other than Linux.

  11. Got to ask by Chrisq · · Score: 1

    does it run systemd

  12. Congratulations by MythicalMan · · Score: 3, Funny

    I was about to make an ironical comment but decided to send a positive message. I will do the same when they release the next version (supposing that I will still be alive at that time).

    --
    --- Signature? You must be kidding!
  13. Re:systemd? by Lennie · · Score: 1

    That last part is a bunch of bull shit.

    You can run Debian without systemd with the Linux kernel just fine.

    So kFreeBSD and Hurd can run without systemd just fine too.

    --
    New things are always on the horizon
  14. Re:systemd? by squiggleslash · · Score: 1

    Well in fairness some modern operating system components that ship with Debian, such as recent GNOMEs, are transitioning (or have transitioned) to having systemd as a dependency. Yeah, you can "just not use GNOME", but over time more and more of the operating system will transition that way.

    And it kinda ignores why systemd exists. Over time, I'd expect Debian to make itself more systemd dependent, as doing so allows Debian to introduce long awaited security and stability improvements by allowing it to transparently use cgroups and run unprivileged daemons that can listen to privileged ports, things that are not practical under sysvinit (though might be under Upstart.)

    What I'd like to see is Hurd to introduce the functionality that systemd is reliant upon so it too can be ported.

    --
    You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  15. Great, all we need now is the right major crisis by xiando · · Score: 1

    All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the GNU World Order.

    --
    9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
  16. Does it run ... by hritcu · · Score: 1

    Does it run emacs?

    --
    If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough. (Alan Kay)
  17. Re:systemd? by Lennie · · Score: 1

    Yes, seems desktop environments on Debian have some dependencies on systemd.

    Anyway, kFreeBSD on the server should be fine.

    --
    New things are always on the horizon