Slashdot Log In
Ian Murdock: Debian "Missing a Big Opportunity"
Posted by
Hemos
on Mon Mar 19, 2007 11:15 AM
from the tsk-tsk-tsk dept.
from the tsk-tsk-tsk dept.
Natester writes "While Debian struggles to get its next release (Etch) out the door, the project's founder, Ian Murdock, has spoken out about politics, the lack of firm leadership, and Ubuntu's meteoric rise in prominence. Murdock believes that Debian is "process run amok" — nobody feels empowered to make decisions, leading to the sluggish rate of progress."
Related Stories
[+]
Developers: MySQL Quietly Drops Support For Debian Linux [UPDATED] 339 comments
volts writes "MySQL quietly deprecated support for most Linux distributions on October 16, when its 'MySQL Network' support plan was replaced by 'MySQL Enterprise.' MySQL now supports only two Linux distributions — Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. We learned of this when MySQL declined to sell us support for some new Debian-based servers. Our sales rep 'found out from engineering that the current Enterprise offering is no longer supported on Debian OS.' We were told that 'Generic Linux' in MySQL's list of supported platforms means 'generic versions of the implementations listed above'; not support for Linux in general." Update: 12/13 20:52 GMT by J : MySQL AB's Director of Architecture (and former Slash programmer) Brian Aker corrects an apparent miscommunication in a blog post: "we are just starting to roll out [Enterprise] binaries... We don't build binaries for Debian in part because the Debian community does a good job themselves... If you call MySQL and you have support we support you if you are running Debian (the same with Suse, RHEL, Fedora, Ubuntu and others)... someone in Sales was left with the wrong information"
[+]
Debian Gets Win32 Installer 232 comments
An anonymous reader writes "Debian hacker Robert Millan has just announced the availability of a Debian-Installer Loader for win32. The program, inspired by Ubuntu's similar project, features 64-bit CPU auto-detection, download of linux/initrd netboot images, and chainloading into Debian-Installer via grub4dos. The frontend site goodbye-microsoft.com/ has been set up for advocacy purposes. Here are some screenshots."
[+]
Debian Package of the Day 58 comments
flok writes "The Debian project has started a new webpage: the 'Debian package of the day.' It does what it says — every day another package from the Debian repository is posted with an elaborate description and some nice screenshots. As Debian (and all the other distributions as well) contains way too many packages for it to be feasible to inspect all of them yourself, this is then a nice way of learning about all kinds interesting software packages."
[+]
Ian Murdock Joins Sun 123 comments
RLiegh sends us the second piece of news today featuring Debian founder Ian Murdock. In an entry on his blog, Murdock announced that he is joining Sun Microsystems as their chief operating platforms officer. As he put it in his opensolaris post, this "...basically means I'll be in charge of Sun's operating system strategy, spanning Solaris and Linux." In all likelihood one of his first priorities will be "closing the usability gap" between Solaris and Linux.
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
Ian Murdock: Debian "Missing a Big Opportunity"
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 330 comments
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Firm Leadership (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Firm Leadership (Score:4, Funny)
(http://technical-writing.dionysius.com/ | Last Journal: Monday November 05, @03:35PM)
Dazed & Confused (Score:4, Insightful)
While the sheer number of packages in the Debian repository is awesome, you are confusing _choices_ with a lack of focus. Debian's NOT pleasing everyone. They can't.
There will be many out there probably like you who are reassured with a self-contained environment that a Ubuntu provides. They have x number of apps configured a specific way that works okay in many situations but is really poor if more or something different is required.
In my business, I need to have log reports formatted a specific way. Well, there just so happens the log analysis package I use is in ubuntu's "universe." e.g. should work, but it's not an official distro package. Good news, it's quite well supported in debian's main package repo.
This is why ubuntu is kind of like AOL way back in the day or Microsoft server apps for good system administrators. Once you figure it out, you realize the limitations and move on.
When you are ready, Debian's there. Still Free.
Re:Firm Leadership (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://terminate.sourceforge.net/)
Re:Firm Leadership (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Firm Leadership (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://iabervon.org/~barkalow/ | Last Journal: Saturday May 31 2003, @02:01AM)
It's the bikeshed problem: everybody agrees that we want a bikeshed, and that it needs to be painted to keep from rotting, and nobody has a particular color it has to be, but nobody feels empowered to go out and buy paint, in case somebody turns out to be deeply offended by the color choice. Someone needs to take the initiative and pick something, and if anyone turns out to care, they can repaint it later.
Re:Firm Leadership (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Firm Leadership (Score:5, Interesting)
If I were a coder I would be much more likely to volunteer my time to Debian than Ubuntu. I'd rather donate to a fully democratic system than a benevolent dictatorship. And if I'm already coding for a project and they decide that they're going to "empower" someone to ultimately say what goes and what doesn't, I'd be more likely to quit contributing code.
Re:Firm Leadership (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.networkboy.net/)
Anyway, I feel that a benevolent dictatorship is actually the prize winner in the dev cycle. Once you get into the "please everyone, get a majority vote" mode of operation you run into endless debate as one side tries to convince the other side of the merits of their idea(s). Now I want a unanimous decision on a jury, but for a distro I want a clear path and direction. The dictatorship forces that path to exist. While I may want the path a different color, so long as it's going the same general direction I am then I'm OK with it.
The direction I'm interested in is a mainstream linux that I can deploy on joe sixpack's computer. I want a linux that is as friendly as OSX, and as compatible with hardware as Windows. I want a distro for the masses, and thus while you are entitled to fork it and tweak it, I think the main tree should be ruled by an authoritarian, rather than a committee.
I also think that the "open market" will decide this for us. Suppliers (donors of code and money) will "sell" to their ideals and buyers will install to their needs.
-nB
Re:Firm Leadership (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.ferrus.net/)
That niche is well supplied by Ubuntu. If you think the space needs competition to keep things fresh, it has it: Linspire and Mandriva.
Debian *doesn't* need to target that niche at all. The existing policy of slow, steady progress and periodic rock-solid server releases produces a distro that's an excellent basis for projects ranging from Ubuntu to Embedded Debian to build from. There are occasionally cases where Debian is a bit slower than it should be (multiarch for example), but that doesn't mean that what Debian is should be thrown away to make an Ubuntu replica.
Re:Firm Leadership (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://kamthaka.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Wednesday March 30 2005, @03:18PM)
What we call "benevolent dictatorship" in a group like this means decisive leadership with power make its decisions stick within the confines of the project. This is a very different thing than a political dictatorship (benevolent or otherwise), because in national politics there are no practical limits to which the power of a dictator is confined.
Philosophically, strong leadership within a voluntary project is consistent with the status of an individual contributor as a rational being. The contributor has the practical option of "voting with his feet", by jumping to a different project. A wise leader who relies upon voluntary contributors keeps the best of them happier contributing than leaving. A true dictatorship is inconsistent with the status of an individual citizen as a rational being, because a citizen cannot vote with his feet. The dictator can choose to make any trivial dissent a matter of life and death, and choose in a completely arbitrary way.
I once heard Prince Bandar claim that absolute monarchy wasn't really different than democracy, only in a monarchy people "vote out" the government by taking to the streets. While this might be wise for abolute monarchs to bear in mind, it conveniently ignores the fact that the subject of a true monarchy must be willing to risk everthing, his life, the life of his friends and family, in order to act in accordance with his reason or conscience. It sidesteps the question of whether it is necessary or beneficial to make the exercise of individual reason a life or death decision.
In the Debian case, anybody unsatisfied with Debian can join a different Linux distro project. Not only that, they can walk away still in posession of their entire body of contribution, as well as the entire contribution of everybody else. The only things the can't take with them is the community (they'd have to build their own or convince others to move with them) and the name.
The irony here is that the apparent anarchy of the free software paradigm makes it possible to exercise extremely decisive leadership with little or no ethical risk. There is nothing a free software leader can do to a contributor, other than refuse to take his contributions.
The utter inability of a project leader to inflict meaningful harm on a contributor makes elaborate safeguards for the dignity of the individual redundant. That respect is built into the software development paradigm, not the organization.
It's very important not to confuse strong leadership with dictatorship. Leadership is securing the voluntary cooperation of individuals, sometimes to a course of action that the individual does not favor. While leadership might be useful in a dictatorship, the key job skill for a dictator is the infliction of fear.
Ian Murdock to join Sun (Score:5, Informative)
It's being announced today that I'm joining Sun as chief operating
platforms officer, which basically means I'll be in charge of Sun's
operating system strategy, spanning Solaris and Linux. I just posted the
announcement on my blog (http://ianmurdock.com/2007/03/19/joining-sun/),
and it'll likely be making the rounds soon. Just wanted to
make sure you heard the news directly from me and to introduce myself.
First things first: I'm a long time Linux user, developer, and advocate.
I founded Debian in 1993, co-founded a Linux distribution company called
Progeny in 1999, and most recently served as CTO of the new Linux
Foundation, where I was (and still am) chair of the LSB, the Linux
platform interoperability standard. I'm also a long time Sun fan.
As for what I'll be doing: While I'm coming in with some fairly formed
opinions about what Sun/Solaris/OpenSolaris ought to do (peruse my
blog a bit to learn more), I'm also a big believer in listening
before talking, and I have a lot of listening to do in the weeks
to come. So, please, feel free to drop me a line if you have
anything to tell me. And, please, be gentle while I get settled.
Gotta get on a call in a few minutes. In the meantime, I just wanted
to say hello, and to make sure you heard the news directly from me.
Later,
-ian
--
Ian Murdock
http://ianmurdock.com/ [ianmurdock.com]
Wait a minute.. (Score:4, Funny)
"the wreck that McNeally created" (Score:4, Insightful)
He also correctly identified Microsoft as Sun's up-and-coming competitor years before anyone else got it, and then correctly identified that the level of anti-MSFT rhetoric was causing major problems and cleaned that up, netting Sun a nice $2B in the process. Maybe slow to get on the x86 bandwagon, but he got there, bringing back one of the industry's best system designers in the process. He groomed two successors, one of whom now seems to be the real deal, but in many cases is getting credit for a lot of things McNealy had already set in motion. (And the other one is off perhaps tanking another company -- maybe this is where the "wreckage" came from?)
Sun *is* "selling like it once did." It's the 3rd largest server vendor in the industry. It's the 5th largest x86 server vendor in the industry -- again, something McNealy set in motion.
There's a lot of things he did wrong, but there's a lot more he did right. Sun went from an engineering workstation company to the third company regularly mentioned in the same breath as HP and IBM, two much older and more well-established companies.
This is coming off like a gush about McNealy and Sun, but really, consider it more a rant against calling something a "wreck" when you have no idea what you're talking about. Get picked for the board at GE, then you get to talk about someone else being a "wreck."
It's sad (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://perens.com/ | Last Journal: Tuesday February 07 2006, @08:49PM)
Bruce
Re:It's sad (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://opendevice.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Thursday September 09 2004, @11:35AM)
Sorry for the naivete, but I don't plain understand the rationale behind the DuncTank failure.
I mean, even if I'm a non-paid developer, what's bad in having me collaborating with payed developers if it helps getting the work done? Isn't it a bit like the GSoC? People in GSoC-funded projects should whine and hold back releases because "hey, why is he paid and I am not?" I just don't understand it, but I don't know the exact story behind the Dunc Tank collapse, so I'd like some enlightenment.
Re:It's sad (Score:4, Interesting)
If I was helping create a distro, and nobody was being paid... Then only a few people got money for doing exactly the same thing as before, exactly the same thing as I'm doing... I'd be upset, then disgusted, then I'd probably quit. (I wouldn't be so immature as to remain and hold back the project, though.) Then I'd either find something else to do with my life, find another distro to help, or make my own.
Yes, there's ego involved... Everyone on a 'team' wants to feel like their at least equal to everyone else. With some people being paid and others not, it draws a very clear 'you're not as valuable' line. This is exactly the reason that many businesses make it a fire-able offense to discuss wages with other employees. And I whole-heartedly agree with that policy.
Re:It's sad (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.hyperlogos.org/ | Last Journal: Wednesday July 18, @08:19PM)
I think it was anticipated. I don't think the full fury of their immature response was, however. I don't think they believed that people would put their effort into making a project succeed, then turn around and put it into making it fail by deliberately holding it back.
I think that while their contributions may be highly valuable and are in any case appreciated, the people who would do such things should be removed from the project. Their actions prove that they are interested more in their own reputation than in actually making the project succeed. If their efforts in some other place can assist the project, then so be it, but I think that keeping them around where they can enjoy further self-aggrandizement is only rewarding bad behavior, which encourages more bad behavior. When my little parrot squawks at me over and over again, fit to burst my eardrums (what bird experts typically refer to as "inappropriate vocalization") I don't yell at her; that just gives her attention. I cover her cage with a sheet, and wait for her to calm down. Perhaps the same response is appropriate in this situation.
I'd say that our continuous tendency to reward bad behavior is the biggest problem in the world today.
It IS saying that. In so many words! And as a contributor to the Debian project, these people have to decide what is more important; their own ego, or the Debian project. If they feel the former is true, then rather than deliberately holding Debian back, they need to go somewhere where they will receive the appreciation they feel they so richly deserve. Because there should never be room for someone whose ego is larger than the project.
Because let's face it, I might HAVE a greater contribution to make than you do, and there is only so much money to be shared. So I might get that money, and you might not. My contribution might BE more valuable than yours is. Does that mean yours is not valuable? Of course not. Does it mean that YOU are not valuable? By the same logic, it cannot mean that. It can only mean that I am more critical to the project than you are, and thus it is worth it to pay me to be sure of retaining me. In this world we all have to accept that we are not at the pinnacle of every scale, not least because many are contradictory. Even if I were the most badass programmer to ever have lived (which I clearly am not, but bear with me) I would probably not be the best person on the planet. There's only so much of each of us to go around, if you are spread thin then you never reach much of a height in any category.
It sounds to me like some of these people are good programmers, but not very good people.
Re:It's sad (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://hecker.debian.net/)
The lack of social skills is a really sad aspect in our community. I suspect it is at the root of your comment. Some geeks take a long time to mature (and some never do ;-). You had your shot as DPL, and the recent voting for SPI director suggests there is still room for improvement. Claiming that we should never meet seems defeatist to me. Meeting together and working on our social skills looks like a better choice to me. If we start out by recognizing we need to practice our social skills, we can improve.
Times have changed. The old joke about no one on the internet knowing you are a dog still applies. But our respect is still based upon skills and knowledge. We just need to augment our view of what a person accomplishes to contain a social aspect too. The process may not be pain free. If we must deal with expulsion requests [debian.org] or a myriad of flamefests, then so be it. The Debian core values remain intact. We need to learn how to scale to larger numbers without diluting them.
Ian Murdock... (Score:1, Flamebait)
(http://www.umcs.maine.edu/~err)
Debian's meteoric rise in suckitude correlates very well with Murdock's departure and the further stepping away from the way he ran things.
Ubuntu is the new Debian--even despite its often-busted packages and all.
The problem with Debian (Score:5, Funny)
(Last Journal: Monday October 01 2001, @06:53PM)
IDNRTA (Score:2, Insightful)
(http://www.leperkhanz.com/ | Last Journal: Wednesday October 01 2003, @05:17AM)
Ubuntu is trying to be a Windows killer. And it could be. Wine is "good enough" with the right settings for 90% of what most people want to do coming from a Windows world. Drivers exist. No, they're not FOSS, and I understand why people want FOSS ones, but....
Why doesn't Ubuntu seal the deal?
With beryl, good drivers, and built in FOSS apps that beat MS at every turn (Firefox > IE, Beryl > Aero, Thunderbird > Outlook, and VLC > WMP), it seems like the win would be fast and clear. Nobody wants Vista, especially when you have to pay. Ubuntu comes preconfigured in a way that is over all superior to every Windows that has ever existed. It's more solid and reliable, it has four desktops (though they moronically all have the same wallpaper by default, and it happens to be shit brown), it has a very nice user interface (though *i* and many others feel it could take some design cues from Windows 98 with regards to menu structure and some other minor details), and it's free. Oh yeah, and it's open source, so anybody who doesn't like part of it can fix it themselves.
But nobody has. It's like people take pride in allowing the world of uneducated masses sucking on the corporate tit of MS. I just don't understand it.
Feisty could win the OS wars decisively, but given the over all FOSS community attitude towards ordinary people....
Damn, gotta catch my plane.....
Sad?
rhY
Re:IDNRTA (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://slashdot.org/)
Feisty could win the OS wars decisively, but given the over all FOSS community attitude towards ordinary people....
Um, if this attitude was such an obstacle, then Ubuntu wouldn't exist in the first place. If anything, Ubuntu is proof that there is a significant portion of the FOSS community that wants to bring FOSS to "ordinary people". Sure there are people who don't, and they're running Slackware.
So given that, I must have completely missed the part where you specified what it is that is preventing Ubuntu from winning the OS wars decisively. You say it's comes preconfigured in a way superior to Windows. Personally I think Ubuntu, and Linux in general, has a ways to go before it's really an "ordinary people" as in "Windows replacement for everyone" kind of OS. I think they're a long way from winning the OS wars decisively or otherwise. But it is getting there, by leaps and bounds. You seem to think it's even farther along this path than I do, poised and ready to claim victory, so I'm again left wondering what it is you think is holding Ubuntu back.
Re:IDNRTA (Score:4, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Friday February 02 2007, @11:08AM)
Thunderbird Outlook and in some cases, *nothing* = Outlook for calendaring, contact management, etc. When Linux has a drop-in replacement for Outlook that connects to Exchange Servers and can handle PSTs, they'll have the killer app needed to crush Office. Until then, it'll be no sale. Believe me, programmers would probably love to switch but they still need to get email at work from the Exchange Server.
And no, solutions that require interdiction with Exchange administration do not count. Drop-in replacement is exactly that, just your Windows domain username and password.
-BA
Re:IDNRTA (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://www.repvik.org/)
rant:
Thunderbird > Outlook? Seriously? Outlook is one of the very, very few apps that Microsoft got somewhat right. As opposed to Thunderbird, it can be used to share calendards, contacts and stuff easily. Thunderbird is just an E-Mail app. Outlook isn't.
VLC > WMP? For some values of VLC, that is correct. But the userinterface is better on WMP. How on earth do you get a slider in fullscreen mode on VLC?
And your statemend about open source is just plain wrong. I can't see my mom "fixing" the freaking lameness that is "cut and paste" in gnome. It's simply broken, it doesn't work. When it does work, you have to try pasting in three different ways! Open Source doesn't mean anybody can fix. It means that the knowledgeable *may* fix stuff that they find annoying. Even then, it might not go upstream so other users can benefit from it.
I'm an ubuntu-only user, so I think I am semi-qualified to know what I'm talking about. I dig linux. I've been digging linux since '93. I've had windows too periodically, but linux usage far outweighs windows usage.
Linux sucks, unless you're somewhat skilled. Take the Gnome copy-paste dysfunction for example. When copying in the terminal, *sometimes* it picks up what I've marked with my cursor, so that I can just press shift-insert. Sometimes it doesn't. WTF? WHY NOT?. Oh well, then I have to right-click to make it put the text on the clipboard. So... now I've got the text on the clipboard, everything should be fine and dandy, right? NO! I still can't use shift-insert in a sane way. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't and I have to rightclick *again* to paste! WTFISTHAT? I've switched to Kubuntu not long ago, and thank god... The copy and paste functionality appears to actually WORK AT ALL. It works pretty good. The even better part is that you can predict if it works or not. With gnome you just can't.
How do you suppose I fix that? It's open source isn't it? Then I should be able to fix that easily!
To all the proponents of Linux On The Desktop:
1. Please stop flounting linux as totally superior. Be realistic. It sucks in many ways, but it sucks in other ways than Windows
2. Make sure that you point out that learning linux isn't as easy as windows. Really. Do it. Please.
3. Make sure you've pointed out 2.
4. Accept that Linux is a Tool, just like Windows. Every tool has its good and bad sides. Windows has a (mostly) coherent user experience, linux has not. Windows has (inflexible) wizards, Linux has extreme flexibility (at the cost of complexity). You can't have it all. EVER.
You can mod me down now. Just had to get that out. Should be incoherent enough to make it hard to read
The no RC bug ideal... (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://slashdot.org/)
Yeah, 'When It's Ready' (Score:2, Insightful)
Slowness (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.alioth.net/ | Last Journal: Friday November 09, @03:53PM)
On a point of pedantry, also you cannot have a meteoric rise. Meteors fall!
Different markets (Score:5, Insightful)
Definitely. I've been using Debian for over a decade, but what I'm seeing now is that Debian and Ubuntu are cooperatively focusing on two different markets. They aren't really duplicating effort, because they seem to be sharing packages and patches back and forth, and even users can setup hybrid systems if desired. But what they are doing is aiming for two different things.
For the moment, Debian seems to be producing a more stable distribution with server packages kept up-to-date and good attention to security fixes. Ubuntu seems to be producing a more user friendly distribution with simpler installation, ease of use, and more up-to-date desktop packages.
I see this as being beneficial so far. Any software developed for one of them can be ported to the other, and so having two separate organizations developing two different lines for two different purposes can make progress and quality better on the whole.
Debian has it's place (Score:2, Informative)
When Did NetCraft Confirm This? (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.friendwich.com/ | Last Journal: Thursday November 09 2006, @12:05PM)
1. Another post mentions a concatenation of problems. I agree with this post.
2. Ubuntu is not a good server distro!
Stable and well-tested older packages are a strength of Debian. Yes there is a large class of sysadmins that like keeping odd hours running buggier systems. They generally burnout or learn how valuable stable is. To address the rather immature "needs newer packages" complaints, may I refer you to http://www.backports.org/dokuwiki/doku.php [backports.org]
3. Depth of Knowledge
There are still, many excellent Debian sysadmins out there that share and certainly have brought my skills up to a higher level. I don't see the same depth in Ubuntu forums.
4. Ubuntu Money
Mark's bringing money to the table, he gets to call the shots. That's well and good because the honeymoon is on right now. What happens when the honeymoon is over? Debian doesn't look organized compared to a guy calling the shots with his bankroll. It's an apples-and-oranges comparison.
5. Etch
I'm running etch right now on my desktop and in testing. It was ubuntu-release quality months ago.
Am I the only one... (Score:1)
Debian will never die. (Score:1)
(http://freeshells.ch/~bsah/)
http://www.debian.org/users/ [debian.org]
Ditch Stable (Score:2, Insightful)
They have the most ears (Score:1)
Stable is the problem (Score:2)
Debian should just give up on the whole stable thing is it is now and instead turn it into a branch that is really worth its name, i.e. only package software there that is really stable and proven to work and not some FooBar 0.0.6 stuff that just happens to be floating around in unstable without RC bugs assigned, since that will be obsolete in a matter of weeks anyway and provides basically zero value at a point where stable is released, let alone years after that.
Debian testing/unstable as become an important core of other distros and they should really focus much more on that instead of trying to pretend that unstable one day will become stable, since that simply isn't what is happening.
Debian Weekly News says it all (Score:3, Funny)
It is *called* 'weekly' news yet, in most cases, it comes out monthly.
Seems pretty inevitable... (Score:3, Insightful)
(http://1-4-4.home.comcast.net/ | Last Journal: Wednesday March 01 2006, @03:16PM)
Old news (Score:2)
(http://www.apreche.net/ | Last Journal: Tuesday November 08 2005, @11:17PM)
On the Desktop, who cares? But on the Server... (Score:2)
(http://anti-trend.org/ | Last Journal: Saturday November 18 2006, @07:06PM)
On the server however, it's a totally different beast. Be it webhost or data center, most admins are understandably wary of "unstable" distros -- as they should be. Now don't misunderstand me, Debian "unstable" is a damn site more stable -- in a reliability sense -- than the so-called "enterprise-grade" product which currently holds monopoly status in the industry. But as an admin, I don't want a system who's core packages change often, even if they are changes for the best. So the release candidate, "Etch", may be reliable and basically finished, but is effectively excluded for server usage en masse because it's not officially finalized. Again, this is because if the server changes and breaks part of the app stack, there's nothing but blood and tears for you as an admin. With that in mind, I hope to see Etch released and accepted abroad, so that Debian can get out of this rut of negative public perception, and consider being one of the best Linux distros anywhere.
I know how you feel, Murdock (Score:2)
(http://www.thekindbud.com/)
That's how apt-get makes me feel, like I am not empowered to make any decisions. So even if I know that a library dependency is met, I am not empowered to override apt-get and tell it to install the package anyway. Apt-get is emblematic of the Debian project's biggest strength and, as Murdock has pointed out, its greatest weakness. "Process run amok" is a good way to describe it. People need to be able to make exceptions, because no one - not even the Debian maintainers - is a God.
No such thing as a "meteoric rise"...! (Score:1)
(http://www.geocities.com/raceintospace/index.htm)
Re:Debian is dead (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://kill-9.hobbiton.org/)
the debian that can be installed in 40 minutes is not the true debian.
i used to have a debian Tshirt that said "it's what your mom would use if it was 20 times eaiser."
i think that the debian group will always be needed to do the heavy lifting and the ubuntus of the world will add specifictiy and compatibility.
Re:Debian is dead (Score:4, Insightful)
Ubuntu is pretty sweet for the desktop, but there's too much desktop-y stuff involved in it. Without doing some research, I wouldn't even know how to do an Ubuntu install completely free from any window manager whatsoever. With Debian, however, there's nothing I don't want installed by default. I only have to deal with a GUI if I want to. And since I don't want to, installing my window manager is as simple as "apt-get install screen". Done. Hurrah!
Anyway, the whole idea that Debian is somehow this painfully difficult distro is just absurd and I don't know why people buy into that. It might be more difficult than normal to get a fully operational desktop and window manager with all the trimming going than something like Ubuntu where it's all pretty much built into the installer by default, but in every other aspect, you can't get much easier and straightforward than debian. I've been using it since about 1999 and I keep playing with other distros every couple of years to see if I can be swayed away (and other than Ubuntu for pure-desktop systems), I don't see any compelling reason to stray from Debian. And even then... only to a Debian-extension like Ubuntu...
Re:Choose the server option. (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://dev/null/)
And that's exactly why Debian is better than Ubuntu in most scenarios (although Ubuntu may still be better for most users). Someone is asking how to install Ubuntu without GUI and the answer is to install it with a full webserver stack. Some people have more specific needs than 'Desktop' or 'LAMP server' and in all of these cases Ubuntu has no added value, worse yet, it looses out on lower stability and having to deinstall stuff as a first step right after the installation.
Apart from that, it's way more fun to actually decide for yourself which packages to use. If i wanted the software to take as much as possible decicions for me I'd be using Microsoft stuff, they are way better at deciding what's good for their customers.
Re:Debian is dead (Score:5, Insightful)
Debian was NEVER supposed to be "difficult to use". This is something that has happened with the time - other distros became desktop-oriented and debian kept being power user-oriented.
It just happened, but that doesn't means that you shouldn't be able to install debian in 20 minutes. From the Debian social contract [debian.org]
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 environments.
Debian users are asking for an easy to install/use, desktop oriented distro. The Debian project is just not providing such thing, so they go and choose other distros that actually listen to them, like ubuntu.
Re:Debian is dead (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.tim-richardson.net/)
Additionally, I wonder how much cash is being burnt to keep Ubuntu cracking along. Perhaps it is not sustainable? Debian is, I would say. It has proven itself.
Re:Debian is dead (Score:2)
(http://www.hyperlogos.org/ | Last Journal: Wednesday July 18, @08:19PM)
Debian Stable not dead in my server room (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.daduh.org/ | Last Journal: Friday July 20, @11:20AM)
That's all I care about. Is it stable? Yes. Is it secure? Yes. Does it perform a function I need? Yes. Then deploy.
Re:Debian's problem (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.kibbee.ca/)
Re:Debian is dead (Score:3, Informative)
(http://not.a.url.in.sight)
Truth to tell, I don't really notice that much difference between running Debian testing and Ubuntu. At least no-one at my house is longing for the days when we ran Ubuntu.
So I am curious, what fabulous things am I missing? Or maybe the fact I am a fairly experienced Debian user negates most of it.
Re:Debian is dead (Score:2)
What would be good, however, is if Ubuntu and Debian could co-ordinate their releases better. I see absolutely no reason why Ubuntu LTS (Long Term Support) shouldn't be based off or synced to Debian stable, other than the fact that Debian and Ubuntu don't co-ordinate their releases. If Debian could make regular releases and actually have slushy freezes, soft freezes, and hard freezes months before the expected release date, there's really no reason why Debian stable couldn't be both stable and released regularly. It just requires good project management. With this in place, syncing Debian stable and Ubuntu LTS would just be a matter of mutual agreement.
Re:Debian is dead (Score:2, Interesting)
(http://www.nybergh.net/)
Re:Debian is dead (Score:2)
Because Ubuntu's installer hung up my machine every time I tried to run it and Debian didn't (neither did FC4 but who wants that?). I really wanted a decent apt-get implementation and went straight to Ubuntu. After about 4 tries at install, I tossed the Ubuntu install CD in my stack of useless CDs (yes I did verify the CD was good) and downloaded the Debian net install CD. It installed quickly and cleanly and it has even passed the wife acceptance factor. As long as people are making their secondary boxes into Linux machines, Debian is far from dead.
Re:Debian is dead (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://bill.herrin.us/)
Ubuntu is to Debian what Fedora is to Red Hat. It moves fast with the best new versions. It has all the bugs in the best new versions and deprecates old interfaces and configurations with that same speed.
Here's what I want from a server: It should be rock solid with an absolute minimum of bugs. It should run with essentially no attention for several years. Routine security updates should should be prompt and complete but require little or no operator attention. In particular, no routine update should result in an old configuration file becoming incompatible. Barring exceptional circumstances, it should run itself without my attention.
And when it does finally come time to upgrade to the next major release there should be a minimum negative impact on the server's existing configuration. If a piece of software drops a feature I'm using then it shouldn't automatically upgrade to the next version. Instead, the old version should remain available with security updates for a good long while.
Debian delivers on this. Ubuntu, as fine a system as it is, does not.
Re:Netcraft (Score:2)
(http://www.noooxml.org/petition)
The King is dead, long live FreeBSD
Re:Fuck Debian (Score:3, Informative)
(http://www.the-h.net/)
Re:Fuck Debian (Score:2)
Honestly, I'm more productive with Debian than I am with other Linuxes (at least with Deb as a server). I don't want to have to go through the testing cycle every couple months to upgrade. I've got stuff to do, and babysitting a constant upgrade cycle is not one of them. Debian's policy of not changing software versions inside stable means I know that APIs will remain stable and fixed until I do a full upgrade, which is a good thing for me.
I like that Debian is slow to update things. My job is not to babysit servers...it's to make s*&t work. If I don't have to mess with a server, and can count on it working reliably for long periods of time...yay.
Re:Debian's problem (Score:5, Informative)
The politics of the Debian development is sad to hear. It's always bad news. It's a shame because Debian is still a great distro. Even with all the internal conflicts, it's still my favorite distro.
Re:Fuck Debian (Score:2)
(http://www.mrcopilot.com/ | Last Journal: Tuesday August 02 2005, @10:10AM)
Um Debian does not hide their idealism, they are quite up front. http://www.us.debian.org/intro/free [debian.org]
If you are saying there is no place in the enterprise for these ideals, You haven't look around enough.
There are many of us who not only believe in these ideas but support them exclusively.
You are free to use what you like but saying I think Debian needs a wakeup call. It should either be abandoned or made correct; is the most idiotic statement I've heard since joining the movement. (And that is saying something.)
Debian Servers are rock solid and have been since way back. Many a workplace run debian servers without users/admins even noticing the purity/idealism you speak of.
(I spoke too soon, New idiotic statement)difficult enough without having the personalities of brilliant yet insignificant(to me) developers holding back shipping dates
Wow. Just Wow.
Ok guys, we cannot have these discussions any longer, Jaxon6 (You know the guy who pays nothing, contributes nothing and bad mouths us on the intarweb) needs us to deliver for him now. I know freedom, trademarks, stability, blah, blah, blah, Jaxon needs to use firefox but doesn't know how to install it. Fix it. Jaxon6 has spoken.
I remember those ideals I had a decade ago when installing Debian from floppy.
Good to see you Got over those Childish notions of freedom and equality bub. You are a Man now.
As a developer let me be the first to say Fuck You and have a good day.
Re:Debian is dead (Score:1)
(http://parszab.nir.hu/)
Re:Fuck Debian (Score:1)
HP seems to get it. Why don't you?
Re:Debian is dead (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://harun.abd.assami.googlepages.com/ | Last Journal: Thursday November 25 2004, @12:07AM)
Re:What a big baby! (Score:1)
I suspect you cheated reading his blog... (=
Re:Politics suck (Score:2)
Re:Debian's problem (Score:5, Insightful)
I never understood this argument. I don't consider myself an expert in the various Linux distributions, especially not Debian. However, I settled on Debian for the exact opposite reason. I wanted, for my home computer, a bleeding-edge system that I wouldn't have to re-install ever because a "newer version" was released.
So I switched to Debian unstable, got packages almost as fast as in Gentoo and other bleeding-edge distros, and since then, never bothered re-installing anything from scratch. I just let my system evolve. Sometime this leads to broken bits, but I don't mind much, fixes are generally released fast enough for my tastes.
So... if you want a rock-solid server OS, get Debian stable. If you want a bleeding-edge, configurable OS, get Debian unstable, and you have testing inbetween for a more mainstream-type distro. I'm not saying that everybody should use Debian only (I myself use other distros quite often) -- just that the "out of date" argument is really getting old.
Re:Fuck Debian (Score:2)
Re:Ubuntu no better than Debian (Score:2)
By the way, even Unstable is often not up-to-date. It depends on when the package maintainer gets around to well, maintaining the package!
Re:Debian is dead (Score:2)
Chicken-$gt;Chicken
You can eat them both, but when you eat mountain oysters you don't say "damn this tastes like chicken". Point being....they're both good but you can't beat the original. Oh and we can argue about which came first the chicken or the egg.....it'll be about as productive as comparing Debian and Ubuntu.
Re:Ubuntu no better than Debian (Score:4, Informative)
(http://www.pobox.com/~meta/ | Last Journal: Sunday February 29 2004, @09:19AM)
It isn't, though.
PAM in Testing was broken for months, and X in testing was broken for a while after the changeover to X.org. That's what led me to give up on Debian [ath0.com]: 'stable' was too out-of-date, 'testing' was too unstable. By cherry-picking from 'testing', Ubuntu seems to be able to find a happy medium.