Debian 3.0 (Woody) May 1?

dex@ruunat noted that this morning, in a message to the debian-devel-announce mailing list, Anthony Towns, Debian's Release Manager, wrote: "I'm becoming increasingly confident in woody's release readiness. So, to go out on a limb: Debian 3.0 (codenamed woody) will release on May 1st, 2002." Congrats to all the debheads putting this thing together. I have a blank CDR waiting ;)

Version numbering?

[Mr. Marabou Man]

3.0 now? Why dont they follow the kernel version numbers? Would be so much easier for the rest of us ....

Re:Version numbering?

[rusty0101]

Like anyone else does so?
Mandrake 8.2, RedHat 7.2, ...

Release numbers for packaging distributions are, and should be numbered by the people maintaining the distribution, to reflect their own perception of whether the release is a major, or minor improvement over the previous release.

For Linus and co, the enhancements to the kernel that moved it from 2.2 to 2.4, were minor changes, things like adding USB support, do not warrent a major version number. If the scheduler or virtual memory manager gets a major improvement, that would probably warrent a version 3.0, or so.

With Debian, the kernel is not the only thing that gets improved by moving from potato to woody. Updates to the user interfaces; Gnome and KDE; many packages, OpenOffice, ssh, and others; as well as the improvements to the kernel, moving from 2.2 to 2.4; suggest that this will be a Major improvement to the Debian Distribution.

Then again, they may be looking at other distribution version numbers and thinking that the public will percieve Debian 2.4 to be less "market" friendly than Debian 3.0.

After all, I wasn't in on the decision to version the software, and these are only my opinions. I could be wrong.

-Rusty

apt-get is nice...

[gimpboy]

if you have a fast connection. if not you might want to build a local repository. this would take much more than one cdr. apt-getting 600 megs of stuff over a modem is not a happy thing.

on a side note. many people say with respect to debian: just apt-get blah and it will install it. they never say apt-get blah and if it fails try apt-get -f. if that fails try touching the file it's looking for, etc. point: apt-get doesnt work 100% of the time-especially when you're not using potato. when it fails, a new user will find it confusing and might be turned off by all the posts where people say: oh well that always works fine for me.

this is not a troll, but a serious comment. apt is a great thing, and when it works correctly it is wonderful. this is also not ment to slight the debian developers. they work hard to make sure all the packages work together and all of the dependancies are met.

Re:vs Mandrake ?

[njdj]

Debian includes more applications. And it's cheaper (even if you buy the CDs). It tends to be lag behind other distros when new stuff comes out (for example the current Debian stable distro, 'potato', is still using the 2.2 kernel - Woody will be the first Debian stable release based on 2.4). Part of the reason is that a Debian release is tested on 11 different architectures including Sun Sparc, 68000, alpha, etc whereas Mandrake is available only for 4 architectures (and most distros are just for Intel). OTOH this extra testing uncovers bugs that other distros just ship; Debian is widely believed to be the most stable and most nearly bug-free of all distros. Mandrake's main distinguishing feature is its GUI. It's supposed to be the easiest distro to learn and use. Debian is at the opposite end of the GNU/Linux spectrum in this regard, you need to be comfortable with the command line to like Debian.

Kernel :Version numbering?

[castlan]

Which kernel would that be? A BSD kernel perhaps? OpenBSD is at 3.0 last I checked, so that works out, unless you believe that Debian/NetBSD is more realistic.

Facetious, perhaps, but you fail to acknowlegde that Debian is a "kernel independant Operating System" that is popularly based on Linux. There is nothing stopping debian users from chosing KDE if that is their preferred desktop environment, just as there is nothing stopping x86 users from choosing The Hurd if their hardware supports it.

Debian has a larger scope then you seem to realize. Distinction from the Linux kernel is the best reason I can see for supporting a Major release increment to 3.0, as otherwise I would much prefer a more conservative path better utilizing the range of our decimal counting system under the auspices of 2.x.

While I hope my post has contained a modicum of sensibility, I fear that this is not the case.

Re:but when will we see..

[Anonymous Coward]

Gnome 2.0 - Just got released. Doesn't belong in a stable distro. It needs testing first.
KDE 3.0 - See above.
Mozilla 1.0 - See above.
Apache 2.0 - See above.
XFree86 4.2 - See above.
Linux 2.4 - It's in woody. If you want it, just run testing instead of stable. It'll be in stable on May 1, according to the above article. Or did you read it?

If you really want the above software, get it from sid/unstable. And don't bitch if it breaks.

Just add slackware, the compilers work fine.

[The_Dougster]

I was running XFree 4.0 on Potato with a 2.4 kernel a long time ago. Just compile the stuff and stick it in /usr/local. You don't have to use just Debian packages. Its compiler setup is great and it is trivial to compile most tarballs.

Parent was poorly moderated.

[castlan]

Not only does some moderator need a flogging, but this post should be distilled into a Slashdot Advocacy summary that all Debian Related Slashdot News items automatically link to. This would really make the comments for Debian items much less trifling.

I'd remove all of the political/economic theory references in the first point, and maybe just illustrate how Debian quality isn't compromised by profit-motive based considerations, or externally imposed deadlines.

Also worth mentioning is that Debian is not Linux, unless you want it to use Linux. If it can be phrased lucidly and marketably, a bullet might be spared for the "Open Organization" of the Debian Project, with it's clear policy and democratic operation which gave rise to "Open Source" as we know it today. That last bit might not be worth mentioning, as this document would ideally be less propeganda than a premptive strike against ad Nauseam misguided advocacy and "Linux" postings in Debian topics.

If such a document were to be made, would there be any way to float it by the Slashdot powers that be? If I weren't wasting my time, I'd gladly write it, and submit it to Debian Proper for approval. Is there any red tape trail that might end with an automatic footnote/link to Debian related items on Slashdot?