Debian Dropping Linux Standard Base (lwn.net)

basscomm writes: For years (as seen on Slashdot) the Linux Standard Base has been developed as an attempt to reduce the differences between Linux distributions in an effort significant effort. However, Debian Linux has announced that they are dropping support for the Linux Standard Base due to a lack of interest.

From the article: "If [Raboud's] initial comments about lack of interest in LSB were not evidence enough, a full three months then went by with no one offering any support for maintaining the LSB-compliance packages and two terse votes in favor of dropping them. Consequently, on September 17, Raboud announced that he had gutted the src:lsb package (leaving just lsb-base and lsb-release as described) and uploaded it to the "unstable" archive. That minimalist set of tools will allow an interested user to start up the next Debian release and query whether or not it is LSB-compliant—and the answer will be 'no.'"

Comments

Debian Spiral

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems like Debian has decided to live up to its logo, the spiral. In adopting systemd and abandoning LSB, Debian has begun its death spiral.

Re: Debian Spiral

[Anonymous Coward]

Debian is behind Ubuntu and Linux mint. That accounts for most desktop Linux installs doesn't it?

Re: Debian Spiral

[Sarten-X]

it happened over your continual vociferous objections

That's exactly the problem.

I have a dog in this fight. I'm a sysadmin, who often gets involved in engineering Linux-based systems. My top priority is that everything works reliably when I need it. I don't really care what style of startup scripts we use. If it's something I already know, that makes life easier in some ways, but I'm not so arrogant as to assume that a better way isn't possible. If that new system's better just because I know that somebody's reviewed their assumptions in the last decade, that alone is worth a bit.

Then there's Slashdot. While most rational discussions about systemd tend to discuss pros and cons, Slashdot's hivemind seems to have decided that systemd is simply evil, with no clear reason why. I understand that we're all traditionalists, but this often goes beyond common sense. As you've noted, the arguments are loud, repetitive, and vehement, and they've been going on for longer than I care to remember. There are no suggestions for improvement, other than to fork huge projects and insist that nothing can ever change.

Frankly, the objections are a bit old. They're often just reiterating rumors and outdated information, and contribute nothing to the conversation. I expect the developers have heard the objections, and either resolved the complaints or chosen intentionally to take a different path. As a community, can we please now move on to the next topic of discussion?

Re:Effort significant effort

[edittard]

Yup. That's two efforts more than the editors make.

Well

[fyngyrz]

as an attempt to reduce the differences between Linux distributions in an effort significant effort

My effort significant effort is effectively effortless. It's the effort effect at work. So there.

"editors" -- I don't think that word means what the slashdot "editors" think it means.

Re:Well

[gstoddart]

Bears shit in the woods?

Thanks jerk. There goes my childhood.

You think that's traumatic ... humans shit in houses. In freakin' houses!!

And fish? You're not ready to hear about the fish.

Re:Effort significant effort

[tripleevenfall]

I don't think that's fair at all. The editors make an effort significant effort to bring us quality high quality content.

Re:Effort significant effort

[basscomm]

Huh, looks like I accidentally my submission somehow. That was supposed to read, "...Linux Standard Base has been developed as an attempt to reduce the differences between Linux distributions in an effort to make programs portable between distributions without significant effort."

Re:Effort significant effort

[Kenshin]

"Huh, looks like I accidentally my submission somehow."

Maybe you accidentally your keyboard.

WTF?

[kamakazi]

What is all this doom and gloom about debian spiralling into oblivion and the end is coming? Did anybody read TFA before posting? The only thing that I can see from the LSB that has actually had a positive effect on me is the FHS, to which Debian is still adhering.

The LSB in its entirety actually contains a list of required libraries and standardized symlinks which may or may not be used on a system, but which must be there for "LSB compliance". IRL Debian package maintainers spend a lot of time and effort building dependancy lists into their packages so you DON'T have to have all those libraries on your system if you are not going to use them.

If you use dpkg or a wrapper (apt-get, aptitude, etc) to manage your system the LSB requirements are redundant at best and bloatware at worst.

The only situation where something like the LSB really makes sense is proprietary copy and run programs that depend on proprietary pieces. Even closed source proprietary software can utilize the apt database to resolve dependencies if it only has open source dependancies, or if the company hosts their own repository.

A large company running large numbers of Linux machines that wanted to standardize will probably (hopefully) do so to meet their requirements, rather than a generalized LSB desktop spec which attempts to be all things to all people.

If people went to their local computer store and bought software packages on CDs, and installed them on computers that did not have internet connectivity, the yes, up with the LSB. Do you do that? I don't even use a full installer package to install an OS anymore, just a network capable installer that then pulls all the dependancies in the appropriate versions from a repository on the net.

Yes, it was a noble concept, to try to define a standard set of always available libraries, and where they were, but in reality you rapidly run into the same problem software has on Windows, where software is written to depend on shared DLLs, but because people don't update their OS, or because people do update before the developer tests against a new version of the shared DLL, so software starts shipping with it's own copy of the relevant DLLs, and you end up with multiple versions of standard DLLs on your system.

When I started playing with slackware years ago, I really wished for something like the LSB, because I was sneakernetting everything home or taking days to download things on dialup. Those days are now distant memories.

Both rpm and apt solve the same problems, but do so without requiring a pile of unused libraries that just sit around cluttering up your system.

And just as a last point, how in the world does the LSB/NO LSB discussion compare in any way to the systemd/sysvinit discussion? One of them fundamentally changes the way a system operates, the other one just installs a bunch of packages that you can install just fine on your own. That's not an apples and oranges comparison, that is an apple and cinderblock comparison.