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Debian Retail on CNN
Chuck Milam writes "CNN is reporting that Debian will soon be available via retail outlets. According to the article: 'The companies say they will donate all profits from the sale of the retail GNU/Linux package to
Software in the Public Interest, a nonprofit
organization for open source projects.' " I've seen the boxes. They're super sweet. Saw them shipping with a Myth 2 CD.
i just had to get in a first comment i havent used a professional distro in a while (put up a box, and it works), but i have to say, i'm impressed with debians dpkg utility (is presently running on 3 loosely "slackware" machines} i wish them a lot of luck Riscgrl!
I always liked Debian. Debian is #1 of all distro because of the GNU moniker, imho.
Xah
xah@best.com
http://www.best.com/~xah/PageTwo_dir/more.html
This is great to have people like VA and O'Rielly behind Debian. I tried 2 other dists before I settled on Debian, it's just so much better thought out.
I hope having these commercial organizations give it such a stamp of approval will increase it's acceptance in the coprporate IT world.
(I sure wouldn't mind seeing Debian become the "defacto standard Linux dist" either)
Now, I will buy the box for sure (of course if it doesn;t carry a hefty orice tag like $100). Non-profit for open source ... even I don't use it I will buy one to support the OSS. I paid for RH box once, and copy others' CD since then. Never actually need support, why paid for it? LIke I don't use Windows, but if I buy DELL, I need to pay for it ... doesn't seem right and no one complaint ... or maybe I am too sensitive on this issue
Not to flame you, but when you hear people complaining about Debian's install and configuration listen to them. Their confusion should be telling you something; ie the simple things are unnecessarily obscure in Debian and thus appear complex and difficult. That is a kind of failure. If you recommend Debian to new users of Linux --people new enough to be asking what should i try?-- you're doing everybody involved a disservice: chiefly the newbie asking for advice, but also Debian & Linux.
The bending over for the almighty dollar is the only sonstant in the universe. Even the noblest succum to it's lascivious dance when they think they have a shot at it. Ho hum. First Red Hat, now Debian. The former is often reviled as "the Microsoft of the Linux world"... now Debian...
Please tell me that you *don't* mean that if the same information (a retail Debian) had been published *without* the company names, that you'd be on here speculating that Retail Debian must be part of a "plot" to "hurt Linux"... That'd be one more loopy /. conspiracy theory (exemplified forever -- at an extreme, granted -- by the moron who posted that the FreeDOS Project was a Microsoft plot) and I just don't think I could take it... :) "Will hurt more than help": even if this were so, hurtful things *do* happen without our necessarily having to be "suspicious of the motives" of those who do them -- sometimes things come about through stupidity, inadvertence, or bad guesses, without our having to invoke plots or conspiracies... Anyway, I don't think it will hurt Linux -- the worst case scenario involving retail Debian given the fact of a competitive environment is: (First, *maybe* Linux-as-such is damaged in the perceptions of *a few individuals* -- but basically) *Debian* gets a rep as a bad or inferior *distribution*, and a lot of places stop carrying it -- this takes place on a retail level: Debian-lovers go on as always (except now they can special order Debian in a store if they like). No damage to Debian, no damge to Linux. Or, *maybe* even: some of the feedback leads to *improvements* in Debian... Benefit to Debian, no damage to Linux... How I see it anyway.
I tried out slink (2.1) for a few weeks, and found that it was poorly organized (the development teams)and the release was very backleveled, e.g. XFree 3.3.2?!?, when 3.3.5 has been out a while, and most importantly, No easy way to upgrade userland stuff unless you want to go the whole 9 yards to UNSTABLE.
I tried out FreeBSD, found it to be much more controlled in the development process (with a core team calling the shots). The "ports" system to be the best packaging system I've used (I love the idea behind apt, but it never really seems to work that well, and it creates too many needless dependencies which make upgrading certain packages too painful). I think Debian would be more successful if
1) they had a smaller band of decision makers (talk about endless flame wars over trivial stuff, follow the development groups.. No decision making process.)
2) decoupled userland upgrades from system level stuff (FreeBSD seems to have figured out how to do this, I don't know the technical details of what the differences are)
I hope to see Debian continue to grow and prosper, I love the idea..
Sorry I just had to say WOW PC WORLD??? Advertising Linux software? Incredible.. The hype must really be hitting the fan now!!!
Make 'em learn! Newbies shouldnt be exempt from learning the intricate details of their computer that one tends to get familiar with when installing Linux. I'd say making it harder would help, and if newbies would read before they started asking easily-answered questions, perhaps the world would be a betterplace. =]
I'm taken aback by the neutrality/negativity of the comments so far. My first distribution was Debian. I found it just as easy to use as Redhat, the only problem is that X wasn't automatically configured. But looking back I found it to be a better overall system - seemingly less pre-planned with more of an emphasis on encouraging the user to use the command line and learn UNIX rather than various desktops. My 2-year old Debian CD also had more packages than my recent Redhat CDs.
I think the opportunity to pay $20 for a better (IMHO) system rather than 80 is something to be happy about. Plue it's non-profit. I'll definitely hold off mailordering the latest Debian and buy it at PC World.
Tried Debian, didn't taste sweet. Too many problems and X was very slow. Went to RedHat - nothing but problems. Switched to Slackware, smooth sailing. Most stable, fastest running, trouble free Linux I've found yet. A cinch to upgrade and maintain.
("/=" is Ada (and Pascal?) for "not equal".) After all, GNU=Hurd. This is a thought-provoking joke, not a troll. Of course, it is not the official Debian position. Please don't bother replying.
I never liked Debian. Debian is the last-resort distro because of the GNU moniker, imnsho. Leave Debian to the GNU Hurd. Debian have unnatural, unnecessary, and too-strong ties to the Gnu worshipping religion. I'll lend my support to the open source crowd who are more likely to promote the Public interest than the FSF's interest or the proprietary interests of anyone who licenses the software they own using the GPL.
The three major distributions to appear in retail stores (RedHat, SuSE, and Caldera) each use RPM as the package management system. This has made RPM the obvious choice if a package manager would be included in something like a Linux Standard Base. Unfortantly, the Debian group has been opposed to any standard base system including a standard package manger which isn't Debian's own dpkg. Since RPM is provided under GPL, any key features that dpkg has that RPM doesn't Debian could easily just add. Rather Debian has choosen to distrance themselves as far as possible from the commerical packaging method. For VA to now step in and promote this distribution can only serve to hurt VA's bussiness in the form of confusing possible commerical software publishers which would have seen RPM as an easy way of getting their own software available to the linux community.
Um, yeah, other than the fact that it's red, spirals in the opposite direction, makes fewer spirals, and has a rougher outline, it's *exactly* like the logo for sega dreamcast.
Exactly. I recommend you try LSL -- $5 for the Official Deb2.1 distro (that's four CDs) is a great deal, IMHO. I was very pleased with the service.
Oh, and while you're at it, give Debian a few bucks by buying the $10 package (LSL will give $5 of that to SPI -- I'm sure CheapBytes has something similar). It's easily worth it for all that Debian goodness!
AC
Rumor has it, a limited first run will hit the shelves mid to late november.
At least now newbies might not be so irritating by saying stupid things like "i have linux 6". Once they see other distributions around they may relise that in fact linux is NOT redhat. Even my teacher at collage thinks that his redhat install is linux version 6. When he asks what version of linux i have i say "i've got linux kernel 2.2.10 atm". He looks at me funny and says, why do you run such an old version? .. I just sigh and mention that he is running redhat 6 not linux 6 but he doesnt seem to understand.
Check The Debian SGML/XML HOWTO
And what about the Debian newbies? The box might look pretty, but once they get to Debian's install, they'll go screaming back to mommy.
Now, I'm all for Debian's success. The Debian developers I've meet are the most dedicated and knowledgable. Debian is one of the best Linux distributions, but it's not for the store-browsing newbie. To put it metaphysically: "one must reach Debian. Debian will not reach you."
This to me is a case of a few greedy companies trying to cash in on the name (if not the profits) of the coolest Linux distribution.
My personal experience with Debian has been almost entirely positive since I switched from Red Hat (I'd ordered both and wanted to give each a try, so I only spent a brief time with RH). At this stage, I *much* prefer Debian's installation and configuration to any other OS I've used, with the exception that dselect itself is painful to use. The interface pretty much sucks. Given a dselect with a clearer, easier to understand UI, I'd have no reservations about reccomending it for relative newbies.
Good for Debian! I will certainly check it out; however unless they have significantly improved the installation procedure since I reviewed Debian for CPUReview newbies are likely to have problems installing it. Don't get me wrong, I liked dpkg; but the installation would have been very confusing to a prospective Linux user.
--------- Webmaster, http://www.cpureview.com and
Let me try it this way. I come from an electronics background. I've been a hobbyist/technician since about the time the first IBM PC came out. When I first started playing with computers, it was the hardware I was most interested in, so I learned about that before really delving into the software aspect. The way I approach things is from the bottom up; if I learn how the hardware works, then I can always figure out at least what the software should be doing, and usually why it does or doesn't as well. It seems the most obvious way of doing things to me, but many people find it strange.
There were things about computers (I would have to really sit down and think for a while to come up with concrete examples, but the general concept is what's important) that just stymied people I knew, but made perfect sense to me; I just expected them to work that way. Someone will look at something and say "Why does it do that", and I find it unusual that they think it should do anything different. Most people have chalked it up to the fact that my "mind just works that way". As an aside, my family can tell you some hilarious stories about times I missed things totally obvious to everyone else for the same reason; it has been said that if you want to find the hardest way to do something, let me do it.
Whatever these differences in thinking actually are, it seems that perhaps they're the culprit here. If so, it's definitely something that will need to be kept in mind as Debian moves forward (maybe this is a good place for 'value add' for resellers, esp. if the Debian distribution proper doesn't address it).
I've always kind of assumed this as well, but I hear this so much that I'm thinking that there must be some fire to go with all the smoke. I asked for elaboration in a thread above, and there are already a couple of good responses.
I'm starting to think there is more to the 'technical/non-technical personality' issue than I've generally accepted, and this explains the differences in perceptions of Debian's installation process.
I do listen; the problem is, that while people seem happy to say that it was hard, they seem relatively reticent when it comes to pointing out specifics. This is not necessarily their problem; if you flat out don't understand something, it can be difficult to explain to someone what it is you don't understand.
As far as the simple things being unnecessarily complex and obscure, this seems to be the general consensus. I personally don't find it true, though; thus my request for elaboration (and I think your comments are definitely helpful).
So far, I haven't had any problems recommending Debian to people, but most of the people I deal with are familiar with the innards of their computers, and many have previous Unix experience. I'm thinking this makes a bigger difference than I generally give it credit for. I'm also really beginning to believe that Debian is made by people with a certain personality type, and is optimized for that way of thinking. I think this would go a long way toward explaining why some people think Debian installs are cake, while others find it impossible (note that if this is the case, it should probably be changed as soon as is practical).
I hear this again and again about Debian's lack of ease of installation and configuration, but I just don't see it. I don't mean as compared to Red Hat or Suse, etc. (they might very well be much easier), I mean just in absolute terms. Now admittedly, I like getting into the innards of things more than the average Joe (and this may be the entire explanation), but I've never found installing Debian hard. I've installed more Win95 machines than I can count, and I'll take a Debian installation over that any day of the week. I've also had someone that had terrible problems installing Red Hat (one of the 5.* versions) find happiness after I recommended he try Debian. This may have been because I was able to give more focused help after the switch, though.
Keeping in mind that my viewpoint is most probably warped (I like tinkering with things, and I know more about PC hardware than anyone I know) I would find it helpful if you could point out some problems with it. Not as compared to other distros, but along the lines of things that someone with no previous Linux experience (but with experience installing other OS's) would look at and go "huh?". If the person who posted the first reply to your comment could offer some points as well, that would be great.
Again, I have no illusions that what you say isn't true. But as I am obviously reasonably ignorant of or unaffected by the problems, and I fairly regularly get asked to recommend a distro by people trying Linux for the first time, I'm quite interested in hearing an elaboration of your viewpoint. Thanks.
Newbies who walk into Best Buy and blindly pick up a software package without doing any research on the subject before hand are not only newbies, they are fools. I would not advocate dumbing something down for the sake of fools who do not do their homework. But newbies (fool and non-fool alike) need to start somewhere, and this is a concept that Red Hat has taken to heart to a degree greater than debian has. But that has come at a cost. I, as a seasoned Linux user, have found debian to be a bit more difficult to install than, say, recent versions of red hat, but debian has given me fewer headaches in the long run.
I don't think I missed your point. I agree with what you say. All I'm saying is that the fool variety of newbie will always exist. Given that, the folks who create distributions have to allocate resources toward various aspects of their distro, one aspect of which is the install. Given the decentralized development model of linux distributions, there is no way to prevent the problem of releasing an arguably shitty installation routine which may alienate new users. This is indeed a problem, but the solution to this would be centralizing the development model.
;)
But you are right about people getting a bad first impression, and not wanting to have anything to do with it for a long time. But I think this is a property of how Linux distros are made, and there is no good way to deal with that problem, complaining included. I, for one, have no right to bitch about Debian's (or anybody else's) install process, because I haven't made any effort to improve it. (not that I think you were bitching
back to diffEQ. Ack.
Maybe. But you're missing my point. There are TONS of fools out there buying software at BestBuy/CompUSA/Circuit City/etc. If the fools walk out with Debian, go home, and hate it because it's harder to install than say Red Hat, we will never see that user touching Linux again. ..to me, THAT is a potential problem. I know people who tried the first version of MS Word, compared it to Word Perfect, and didn't even want to HEAR about MS-Word for another 5 years. NOw, I know you'd love to tell me how bloated and piss-poor MS-Word is, but you ahve to admit, it's better than trying to use Word Perfect.
Werd.
You're missing my point partially. I'm trying to say that for someone that walks into Best Buy and says "wonder what the LInux thing is all about. " and walks home with Debian, it WILL be harder to install. You obviously know what you're doing, and that puts you in the same category as me: Debian User. However, my friend dennis for example was a first time insatller about 2 months ago. He installed Debian on one box, Red Hat on the other, and never used Debian again. It is NOT as easy.
Werd.
But can anyone but me see this as a potential problem? Right now, newbies who walk into Best Buy (for instance) can choose any Linux they want and it runs easily...Debian is, even though I love it dearly, much MUCH harder to get running to the level that a newbie expects.
Without proper packaging and some warning, it could actually damage Linux's inroads into the mainstream if all of a sudden people are getting home and trying to install Debian...
Don't think I'm trying ti diss Debian. I use it on about 3 machines right now. But just because I use it, doesn't mean everyone should...and retail purchases are going to consist largely of people just getting their feet wet with Linux. Seems risky to me.
Werd.
Couple of things so the non-debian people know ;)
;)
:)
Not everyone uses the syslinux boot floppy that redhat uses. Debian do their own boot floppies complete with dire warnings about fdisking your system
The redhat install system may be GPLed, but IMHO it kinda sucks.
For the *most part* the Debian 2.1 installer is much nicer, the only problem is package management using dselect.
Debian 2.2 is going to replace dselect however, so hopefully we should see a nice easy to install debian, even for first time debian installers
Oh, and just so you know... Debian has a 2 disk FTP install. It can also install over a PPP connection, which is something that I dont believe Redhat can do...
smash
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
On the release schedule with debian thing...
:P My potato box here has been totally upgraded from slink to potato without even needing a reboot...
;)
Most debian users probably DO run out of unstable and do an "apt-get update; apt-get dist-upgrade" every day, but its not really necessary.
Besides, once you get the system installed, you can always just do that later in one hit, or just decide to upgrade the packages you want.
I really don't think the Debian developers are concerned with meeting any "release schedule".
Debian 2.1 (slink) may be about the same age as redhat 5.1 or so, but it is pretty much bug free, and the security issues can be fixed with a simple apt-get dist-upgrade
Debian 2.2 will be "released" when its good and ready, and in the meantime, people will desperately want the bleeding edge will just run from unstable anyway
smash
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Debian 2.2 is going to replace dselect
:/ )
:) )
:)
No it's not. At least, I hope not; there's no good alternative yet (console-apt is not and may never be; I've looked at the code and that's all I'll say on the subject
Debian has a 2 disk FULL install
Only if you have a good way to get the base system (ie, a local NFS machine or a DOS partition). There was just a discussion on debian-devel about getting base via FTP -- it looks like it may go into potato.
it can install via PPP
But not [easily] on a network where you need dhcp. RedHat handles this nicely. Again, there are noises being made about fixing this in 2.2 but I don't know for sure what's going on. (now, if I can just get debian-boot-request to handle my subscription messages properly..
Also, I'm not sure that ppp is in base2_1.tgz. Is it? I vaguely remember having to sneakernet the ppp deb last summer when I had cause to install it on a new system.
There are lots of good things about Debian, but please get your facts straight
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
From the Debian Social Contract (emphasis mine):
4. Our Priorities are Our Users and Free Software.
We will be guided by the needs of our users and the free-software
community. We will place their interests first in our priorities. We
will support the needs of our users for operation in many different
kinds of computing environment. We won't object to commercial software
that is intended to run on Debian systems, and we'll allow others to
create value-added distributions containing both Debian and commercial
software, without any fee from us. To support these goals, we will
provide an integrated system of high-quality, 100% free software, with
no legal restrictions that would prevent these kinds of use.
Everything that's officially in Debian is free software, and (with the exception of ssh, grr..) you can usefully run a Debian system without ever touching non-free software. But that doesn't stop people from packaging useful non-free software -- in fact, the Debian ftp archives contain some (in the non-free/ section) as a service to the users.
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
Dont get me wrong : I think Debian is the best distribution around. But the problems that they have been experiencing seems to offset some of the quality benefits that they provide.
What are these problem?
1. A formless decision making process which takes really long to make any decision. I feel that they really need a leader figure with the authority to arbitrate over any decision that is getting prolonged. This leader can be democratically elected or can be anyone who is accepted by the developers.
Some of the consequences of this problem has been (a) A lag in the versions of the kernels and associated programs that they have released (b) An incapacity to set (or meet when set) internal deadlines (c) Raging flamewars on the developer lists which contribute little or nothing to free software. (d) An inablility to get rid of people who are more of a millstone than a help - for example, developers who dont respond to queries / bug reports about their package or do not update their packages from upstream. These packages could probably have better support if they were just orphaned or listed as unmaintained.
2. Openness : Debian prides itself on being open, and indeed, it is more open than other distributions since almost all of their mailing lists are open to the public for scrutiny.
This openness, however, is relative. There is atleast one private list which non-developers cant read. I question the necessity for existence of this list. What is it that Debian needs to discuss behind closed doors that it cannot discuss in the public eye, since Debian itself is not a commercial organization? Witness the recent uproar over the non-admission of new developers which was discussed on debian-private. Did it help that this discussion was totally hidden from the general public? All it did was convince the general public that there is some unofficial policy being implemented to not allow new developers - all denials to the contrary.
Just my two cents....
There is no such thing as luck. Luck is nothing but an absence of bad luck.
I've been using linux since 95. I bought Slackware 95 (might have been 96) that year and was pleased when I had similar tools at home that I had at school - but I gave it up. A couple of years later I wanted Linux at home again and I went shopping for a new Linux distribution. I had heard that Redhat was *really* easy to use, but I also heard that Debian was better overall system. I'll tell you what the only reason is that I chose Redhat over Debian. It was because Redhat had a 2 to 3 floppy disk ftp install and Debian had a 7 to 12 floppy disk installation.
I hear a lot of people moaning that Debian installations and maintenance can be difficult for newbies. So I'm thinking - didn't redhat GPL it's installation program? Couldn't Debian use that? I mean *everyone* uses the SysLinux boot floppy that so and so created, why not share Redhat's installation process between distributions?
The only obvious reason I can see for Debian to not use Redhat's installation process is mindshare. Debian stands to lose mindshare if their distribution uses technologies in other distributions. But I know the Debian project to be about freedom. So I hope that they'll have the freedom of mind to make the right decision. Which might mean writing their own installation wizard. Who knows.
Joseph Elwell.
Everything I've read says that the boxed set costs $19.99, and includes the O'Reilly book.
However, the book is listed as costing $32.95, and includes a debian CD.
What is the difference between the two? Is the book bound/packaged differently? Different CDs?
"Warning! For advanced users only."
...I think that sums things up rather nicely.
Debian is great, but I would never recommend it to a newbie (such as someone who might stumble upon a box in Best Buy). Its really not a "first" distribution. When our LUG does install-fests we use Mandrake, which is nice and cuddly. Most of the members, however, run Debian.
I like the Debian banners that I've seen around the web:
"Debian: your *next* Linux distribution."
--Lenny
Slackware->Red Hat->Mandrake->Debian
Hmmm? It doesn't appear in that many places; most of the copyrights are still held by individuals (SPI discourage s copyright assignments to it).
SPI was founded as a legal representative for Debian (e.g. for the purpose of receiving donations, acquire hardware etc.), and has now broadened its scope to include other projects.
Most of the organisations producing shrinkwrapped CDs seem to prefer a relatively slow release cycle though.
I doubt it; the product is aimed at commodity hardware.
or is Debian going to be concentrating on the x86 version of the distribution?
No. "Debian in a Box" is a product of SGI, O'Reilly and VA, not of the Debian project. While SGI &co may be focussing on a commercially supported Debian package for commodity hardware, the Debian project is actively working on several architecture ports, some of which have already been released.
Not really. Note that the "GNU" in "Debian GNU/Linux" is part of "GNU/Linux", i.e. the operating environment based around the Linux kernel. Debian is not a part of the FSF, although we maintain strong ties to the FSF (see e.g. Debian GNU/Hurd).
The Debian project has always encouraged others to use Debian GNU/Linux as a basis for building distributions as Corel has been doing, and SGI, O'Reilly and VA are doing now.
Debian proper ("main") is and will continue to be 100% pure software, but the Debian Social Contract is pragmatic enough to acknowledge that our users may want to use non-free software.
Will the 68k, PPC and other ports be available to buy in shops, or is Debian going to be concentrating on the x86 version of the distribution?
Oddly, the graphic accompanying the article shows a penguin and an original Macintosh...
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Regardless, the interest in the various Debian architectures is definitely there. Hopefully the folks putting out the Debian boxed set wil realize this.
BTW, at my local Microcenter they already have a quite sizeable "Other OS" shelf. It's mostly Linux, but there's plenty of FreeBSD and BeOS stuff there as well. Very cool. Also, their books section is full of lots of Linux stuff. I even picked up a copy of TeX Unleashed (or something like that, one of those TeX books) for $3... :)
---
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
Quine "quine?
I was referring to the previous comment, which was asking if the boxed set would support anything other than Intel. Yes, many people have gotten boxed Debian. That's what this article was about.
---
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
Quine "quine?
> I really don't think the Debian developers are concerned with meeting any "release schedule".
Actually, that's my point. Shrinkwrapping a product for retail sale is quite a different approach than volunteers maintaining a distribution over the net. Someone who downloads the Debian core, boots and apt's the rest is well served by Debian's stable/unstable branch design. A retail customer counting on the convenience of a CD might be put off by finding out that the CD they just bought at Borders is well over a year old and requires *many* megabytes of download through their 56k modem, whether for the occasional security issue or just compatibility with 3rd party apps.
Don't get me wrong, I may be a Red Hat guy myself, but I have nothing but respect for Debian's contributions and commitment to Free Software. I'm not critisizing Debian for a style that obviously works for many people, I'm just not sure their release schedule (or rather lack of one) will work for a shrinkwrap market.
---------------------
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John 3:16 - God's Public License
Glad to see Debian getting some recognition and wider distribution, but I'm wondering how this will be handled. It seems that Debian users typically use the "unstable" branch and update in near real-time (daily, whatever) to stay current, as opposed to the "stable" release which goes for quite a while between formal updates. Will the requirements of retail distribution push Debian into an accellerated release schedule?
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John 3:16 - God's Public License
Here's a quick list of things that would make a newbie go "huh?" during a Debian 2.1 installation from CD.
This is just off the top of my head...
Or is there an easier way?
Uhm, why not buy a Debian CD from LSL or Cheapbytes?
It costs, what, $US5?
*LOL* .. Thanks, that made my day...
nothing more funny to see than someone making a 'first post' lame comment a full 18 minutes after the real first post..
Hehehehh..
Delphis
Take a look at Debian's vendor listing for a distributor near you.
My Blog. Sela Ward can sell me long distanc
Building a distribution is a lot like making sausages: the end product is usually nice, but you really don't want to know how it got that way.
;-). It mainly deals with sensitive "political" issues, or topics of internal organization, rather than development issues. Non-sensitive issues should be on -devel or the new -discuss (I think that's what it's called) list.
Without divulging what takes place on -private directly (the rules say "don't quote anyone elsewhere w/o permission", but the de facto rule is you don't refer to discussions on -private unless they're already general knowledge... a kind of Clintonesque compartmentalization if you will), I will say there are a lot of "sausage" things going on there: discussions about the Corel license, the new-maintainer situation, serious security issues, and whether or not there is a "Debian Cabal"
Also, to respond to your comment about -devel having flamewars. Yes, moderation avoids that problem neatly (because the flamewars are abrogated by moderators). -devel isn't moderated, nor should it be (and who would moderate it?). I suspect if we were to move to a more hierarchical scheme, many developers would quit.
My Blog. Sela Ward can sell me long distanc
I've thought a bit more about this, and come to the conclusion that -private lets developers participate more (not less) than having just a public list.
;-). The Cabal inherently leaves lots of people out
Why? Well, imagine there's a group of people in Debian privy to more info than the rest of us,
say like the guys who work for Novare or VA or the DPL. Without a -private
list, they have to pick and choose who gets the information (for the sake of this discussion,
let's call the chosen group The Cabal
of the process. Wouldn't it be better to let everyone whose identity we've verified participate?
Thus, everyone is part of the Cabal. I much prefer this to the model of other projects, which is basically that at "some point" you get to join the "star chamber" where the real decisions get made (like *BSD's "core" groups, or the [I'm speculating here] Alan Cox-Linus Torvalds brain ethertap).
My Blog. Sela Ward can sell me long distanc
Is Suse not available in a box in the US?
And hands up who gnoticed that the article referred to GNU/Linux?
Will the 68k, PPC and other ports be available to buy in shops, or is Debian going to be concentrating on the x86 version of the distribution? I could understand a decision to only produce an x86 version, as this will certainly be the most popular, but it would be good to see the 68k/PPC/other versions as well for those who favour non-x86 architectures.
-Stephen
The companies say they will donate all profits from the sale of the retail GNU/Linux package to Software in the Public Interest, a nonprofit organization for open source projects.
I think this rocks.
As a former 2-year RedHat user (with a bunch of Slackware before that), I just switched to Debian 2.1 about 2 weeks ago... after messing with dselect for a few hours and almost giving up, I finally got it working. Then I couldn't get X working. It kept core dumping on me. Finally I figured out that it was because it only have glibc 2.0.7 and the new X servers I was trying to download were all linked against 2.1 (I couldn't use the one that came with Debian since it didn't have support for the TNT2) Once I installed the new glibc (with a simple dpkg --install, even) everything fell into place... now I love it. Everything about it is so much nicer than RedHat (and especially Slackware) I recommend people give it a try - you'll be pleasantly surprised.
I think this is definately a good thing - what Debian really needs now is more public exposure.
"Software is like sex- the best is for free"
Important to remember that Debian is often considered closest to Linux' roots. Franky, I can't imagine a distro I'd rather see in this position. I might have missed it, but I'm *assuming* that a no-sweat (by Linux standards anyways) installer will be packaged. And if people buying this haven't heard that Linux Windows, well...
/. reader noted that a market leader that acknowledges someone else as a threat ceases to be seen as the market leader. Microsoft did just this in it's Linux Myths page. I'm willing to bet that MS is shooting a blue eggroll out it's collective a** on this one.
.02
I think this is absolutely wonderful. Even more for the fact that the retailers will be donating the profits to more of the same.
A
...and that thought alone just made my whole day. =)
My
Quux26
My
Quux26
www.crashspace.net
"No! No! Please. I only want binaries and a propietary license! No source code, GPL is evil!"
What a world we live in, eh?
--
Your options so far have been the Caldera and Red Hat Linux distributions....
(reaching for the "inaccurate reporting" EJECT button)
Uh, yeah. Right. Whatever.
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
Kudos to C gN gN gnews for that. I wonder if RMS thinks its gnice.
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
Well, I learned something new about security AND humanity today.
Decency suggests that next time you should just politely log someone out if they were foolish enough (or exhausted and therefore forgetful after 48 hours of Loki-Hacking) to leave themselves logged in.
The lesson was still appreciated...thank you. I shall not do something as foolish again.
--ryan.
Don't say, "don't quote me," because if no one quotes you, you probably haven't said a thing worth saying.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
I've read through the posts, and I see a few complaints about the number of disks required. For those of us spreading Linux to less-than-up-to-date machines, the Debian floppy install is a godsend. I had a Sparc IPC which was old, old, old - the only way Linux was going on that thing (version 1.OLD prom) was Debian's 8-disk install. Only recently have the RedHat Sparc images become palatable to that old machine.
Only NetBSD seems to exceed Debian in its cross-platform projects. If the floppy disk images are included in the commercial distro, they can advertise compatibility with machines below the latest pentium 3, and even hold out the promise of Linux on old 486's without a CD. I think that's at least worth considering...
Everyone will start to cheer when you put on your sailin' shoes.
I agree with you wholeheartedly. Using Debian is much easier than other distros. Maintenance can even be automated to a better degree, if you choose (cron, anybody?). However, the very initial installation of Debian is much more difficult than others, I think. It's getting over that hill of "Let's get it installed and working" that is so hard. Once past that, though, it's very easy to get along with.
GPL made simple: What was my stuff is now our stuff. If you improve our stuff, please keep it our stuff.
Hi there, I am a former RedHat and FreeBSD user. Free BSD was very nice, but not for me, and RedHat made me see red getting it to work with my NIC (never did, even after new kernel)
Anyways, on the Debian website, it says it has an integrated SGML environment. What does this mean? What is it used for?
I ask because I do quite a bit with XML now, and need to do some new development on a Linux system.
Thanks,
E
EverCode
How strange. I find Debian very easy. Unlike the other distro's alot is automated for you. 'update-menus' leaps to mind. No other distro that I'm aware of has such a nice menu system. Debian is all about rigorous standards and management systems. Redhat, my former distro, seems to be less concerned with uniformity (e.g. gnome menus/kde menus/etc)
I saw Debian on retail at Media Markt in Switzerland about six months ago. 2 CD's for about CHF 35.00 (~US$ 24.00).
Does anyone know when this will be out? I browsed all the articles I could find on it, and the release date was not mentioned anywhere that I could see.
And the brethren went away edified.
This would expand (OK, just a little bit, but you get the idea) the userspace info on the distro a touch -- would this not be useful too?
Just a thought.
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Death will come, and will have your eyes
-- Pavese
This is -good news- , but where can I buy this. I've spent alot of time trying to download DebIan, but thanks to BT, it's never quite happened. SuSEs CDs are great and stuff, but I've never been able to attempt DebIan without a bag full of floppies. Give me a URL (in EU if pos).
I'm a newbie, and I found debian 1000x easier than redhat. I just installed redhat, and I've had nothing but problems. First problem is that it set enlightenment to be the default window manager -- I can't use VisualAge for Java in enlightenment -- it crashes constantly. (bringing X down with it I might add. I have to hard reboot) Second problem is that none of the "easy to use" software is included. xv and xemacs are missing, and instead I get electric eyes and emacs. Aside from those problems, the man pages are also inconsistent. For instance the manpage for afterstep says that afterstep configuration files are located in one of several places. When I check those several places, I find theyh don't exist. RedHat decided they should go elsewhere, but didn't bother to amend the documentation it seems. Finally, I can't telnet or even ping my computer running redhat, when I did not have that problem with Debian. (it works intermittently, and when it does it is slow) I'm going back to Debian, is MUCH easier to install and it actually WORKS out of the box.
It's about time that there was a good non-commercial distro out there for general sale - maybe it will eat at the profits of the commercial distros. To be honest, though, I find it annoying that everything about debian has "Copyright #%#@ Software in the Public Interest, Inc." at least twice on it. Couldn't they tone it down a little bit?
Visit
For those of you who don't know, SPI does promotion and education of free software systems. They are a good organization and have been affiliated with Debian for a while. Their web page is at http://www.spi-inc.org/.
-no broken link
Well PC World in the UK took out 1/2 page ads in the broadsheet papers this week advertising Mandrake 6 and bundles of Linus s/w
I think it's a great move for Debian, and the open source community. Debian just has to advertise it somewhat. People will recognize Redhat, but few people are going to recognize Debian in a retail outlet unless they are part of the "enlightened" linux community. BSD's have been doing this stuff for years, but only to benefit their own works. Still benefits the open source community, but not everyone. This group is helping out a lot more than just themselves, which hopefully will benefit everyone. :)