Debian, Past Present & Future 157
solferino writes "Christoph Lameter, a major guru in the debian project, has put up a very well written talk that he gave earlier this week that addresses debian's past, present and future.
He includes a good background history of the project, some interesting sets of figures and projections (30,000 packages by the end of 2004!), a good discussion of the pros/cons of source based distros and his ideas about a new package manager he is developing (uPM). In all a very good read, whether you are just now considering dipping a toe into the debian well-spring or have been drinking from the source for a long time already."
I hope that they don't package everything. (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been using Debian for a few years now, after using Red Hat for about 1.5 years. I've really gotten to like it; server updates are easy, and running unstable on my desktop allows me to install many recent things with very little trouble (and no, unstable almost never breaks).
However, I'm not sure that listing absolutely everything should ever be a goal. Having a lot of packages is very good, because it's nice to easily have all of your choices laid out, but it can make it difficult when you're trying to choose software. I can only imagine the horror if they tried to list every CMS or MP3 jukebox (we get _buckets_ of those types of projects submitted to freshmeat, and most are very similar).
On the other hand, people shouldn't necessarily be restricted from putting new packages in Debian just because there are a lot of similar projects, because everyone has different needs. It's a difficult problem, and I'm not sure how/if the project currently deals with it (though most everything I've seen in there seems to be of reasonable quality).
How ironic.. (Score:2, Interesting)
More seriously though, UPM looks very cool. Hopefully it will be a success. Although I find it hard to believe that debian would adopt it, maybe that's why he seems to be planning another distro.
Why I run Debian (testimonial/rah-rah) (Score:5, Interesting)
I've run Debian for years, and I've always felt that other distros were better. After all, those other distros get much more press, they've got glitzy widgets and eye candy, and it's hard to resist that.
So about every 6 months I'll hear about a new version or distro and will give them a shot. I'll install them and make an honest effort to use it, rationalizing my choice just like the distro's marketing people want me to. But I always wind up throwing my hands up in disgust and thinking, "How can people use this crap from day to day?!"
Now, with many distros polluting the ideas of free software and open source -- feeding you a GPL license and then their own proprietary license which prevents you from copying CDs and giving them to all your friends or from installing on multiple computers -- there's more reason than ever to use Debian.
Debian's geek appeal is legendary. But now, with Debian's Desktop and Education sub-groups, the old idea of being proud of a geeky install is disappearing. Debian's beta installer is on par with every other distro's -- a fact that thousands of Debian users are eagerly awaiting.
Everyone's heard of apt-get and Debian's package management system. Yes, it's as slick as you've heard. But fewer people realize the huge scope of software available in Debian. I run all my desktop machines with Debian's "unstable" (think "unstable" as in changing; Debian's "unstable" release might have bugs, but there are certainly no more bugs in unstable than in the commercial release distros!). With that I have a huge selection of software -- over 10,000 packages. All of those packages are done by registered developers whose first job is to do it right.
When I read in Linux Journal or somewhere online about a nifty program XYZ123, I just try to install it -- 9 times out of 10 one of Debian's hundreds of developers has already packaged up XYZ123 for Debian. There's a huge advantage of having a distro that is controlled by geeks who like computers and who do this for the fun of it. Debian's developers are into GNU/Linux, and it shows.
On DebianHELP [debianhelp.org] we call Debian "militantly free software". Yes, that's what it is. That militant attitude permeates Debian and this is Debian's strong point. I like the fact that Debian people worry about little details in the license agreements. I like the fact that Debian segregates non-free software into its own little slum. I like that Debian has a "social contract" and clear guidelines about what it's interested in and what it's not.
Many times I've often said to myself, "Gee, why are those guys worried about that stupid thing..." (e.g. the old KDE-QT license battles). But time and time again I'm proven wrong as the correct view turns out to be the morally miltant view. Besides turning out a first-rate distro with loads of software, Debian's role as GNU/Linux's moral compass is something we can't afford to lose.
Debian's problems, RedHat sucks, but still use it (Score:3, Interesting)
First is it has way too many packages it tries to support. The articles says 9000 packages for 3.0 Woody. RedHat has something like 1800(I am sure this figure it slightly off) packages in RedHat 8.0 Psyche. So Debian has 5 times has many packages to support. I do think RedHat would do better to support more packages, but not that many more. I might add say abother 200 packages to RedHat which would put them at 2000, still 4.5 times less than Debian.
Second is that Debain tries to support way too many platforms. My personal philisophy is that while it would be nice to have the exact same distribution for every platform it is just impractical. It would help their development greatly if the cut platforms. If they wanted to be logical about it they could probably look at the number of users of each platform and create some minimum number of users to support that platform.
I do think that simplifying package maintaining is a good move, but they are trying to fix the symptom instead of the problem. I applaud them for delaying to make releases extremely stable, but I think some of their maintainers have the wrong idea. One example that comes to mind is the XFree86 maintainer continuing to maintain XFree86 4.1 months after 4.2 had been released.
Another point about Debian has been it's horrible installer. I am hoping the Progency installer does take over and is also improved upon.
I use RedHat and have for years, but I am looking for a new distribution. I am doing so because of bad decesions RedHat has made in my opinion. These include rushing releases to meet a deadline instead of holding back and making it truly stable. They love to talk about their Q/A team, but their touch is very obviously lacking in RedHat 8.0, but at least they aren't as bad as Mandrake Q/A.
Then there is having Havoc Penington as an employee and on top of that having him as a Gnome Developer. He has a philisophy of simplify the user inferace to make it more usable. I agree with this idea, but he takes it way to far. His definition of simplification is dumbing everything down and removing very useful features and settings. Even worse he has convinced many Gnome developers.
I have tried Debian, Sourcer, Mandrake, Gentoo, and even Slackware before RedHat. None were better than RedHat in my opinion. Like when I used Windows, I wish for something better.
Re:Debian's problems, RedHat sucks, but still use (Score:3, Interesting)
I run debian on my TiBook and on my P-III at work (as does everyone there, except for management). It really is a blessing to have the same environment everywhere and that everything works (almost) the same way, whatever computer you're using. Not that I use the more exotic archs, but I definately can understand why it is desirable to support other platforms as long as people are using them.
It definately would be nice if the university (that I go to) would replace their aging Solaris 2.6 installation on their sparcs with woody. But that probably won't happen...
Another angle (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is the combinatorial explosion of testing effort dictated by the support of a large number of packages on a large number of platforms.
To this there's no easy answer. However, I do not believe that the 'competition' will really come from source-based distributions such as Gentoo mentioned above - ultimately the amount of testing to be done is the same, by getting you to compile things yourself, Gentoo makes it no more likely that a combination will actually work.
Ultimately the threat to Linux as a platform is the Dotnet virtual machine - a software platform comprehensive and abstract enough to reduce the n*m testing needed for Linux and Windows today back towards the 'n' of a single platform. Once Dotnet gets established, the relative cost of writing cross-(hardware)-platform applications will plummet and Linux will be unable to catch up.
The only genuinely equivalent technology available to Linux is Java. Therefore the only viable strategy for a group such as Debian, meaning a group that is serious about having broad hardware support and comprehensive package support and some assurance of quality and comptibility, is to embrace Java, encouraging the development of Java applications and supporting the Java VM as comprehensively as possible.
These issues have of course been discussed on
To date, the only real counter-arguments that have stood up are those of simple denial, that is, putting off the day where cross-(hardware)-platform compatibility has to be addressed so far into the future that it is likely that Linux will already have become an irrelevance by the time convergence takes place, or the reckless and naive assumption that the open-source community can clone, and will be allowed to clone, the the Dotnet platform in its entirety.
It will be interesting to watch how key development streams such as Debian, KDE, StarOffice etc. attempt to reconcile these conflicting demands. From the perspective of Java developers like me, it's becoming hard to resist the rather depressing conclusion that at least some of these difficulties are self-imposed.
But she gets him anyway! (Score:5, Interesting)
http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2002/
A quote from this message sums up exactly in one sentence why debian is worthy of the support and admiration of the community:
"I refuse to treat non-i386 users like second-class citizens."
As a linux-using powerbook owner, I thank you. I can't count how many times I have been told that I am not worthy of consideration because my niche is too small. Thank you debian for extending the useful lifespan of my computer several years while everyone else snorts derisively and tells me to buy a new Mac.
Red Hat users - try apt-rpm (Score:3, Interesting)
Its a really handy tool ported from debian. See http://apt.freshrpms.net [freshrpms.net]
Now if only Red Hat would adopt it instead of up2date...
Re:The problem is right there in the numbers (Score:4, Interesting)
All I know is that making a gentoo package is a piece of cake, while making a debian package and maintaining can be hell on earth.
Re:I didn't make him...for you!! (Score:2, Interesting)
I believe that having so many ports in Debian greatly increases software's robustness, since different architectures' peculiarities can point out flaws in a program's logic. At the same time, most software, once it's been ported to a few architectures, will work on any other new architecture with little or no work, so there is a great cost-benefit tradeoff for adding more ports. Stuff like XFree86 can be an exception, since it's so hardware-specific, but the benefits of porting are probably still worth it. Why else would Linux work on 20 different architectures!?
New apt features in woody (Debian 3.0) (Score:3, Interesting)
- Yasa
Re:The problem is right there in the numbers (Score:4, Interesting)
I guess it all depends on one's definition of a "working" system then. As you said, if a system works for you, then use it. If not, fix it, or find a better system. I was just suggesting ideas regarding something I personally see as a shortcoming, which is ever-growing release cycles, and a possible solution to fix it.
One of the major complaints regarding Woody was that it took so long to release, and then had rather outdated software. Between the time the distro was frozen, and the time it was released, so much software was updated, including some pretty significant packages.
Personally, I think Debian should change their release focus. I think a good strategy would be that of having a regular, six month release cycle that focuses on moving packages from testing to stable in a concise manner. Rather than trying to put out a mammoth update which takes two years to ship and is obsolete the day it is released, I think the needs of the users would be better addressed with two annual releases spaced six months apart, but of more of a minor nature than a major. This kind of "rolling update" would make sure that reasonably recent packages are steadily making their way into stable. It would also shorten the freeze to release period, since less packages would be updating (usually) with these minor releases.
Some people have proposed splitting the distribution into subdivisions (core, desktop apps, games, development) and this might not be a bad idea, either. Provided of course, that certain inter-division dependencies were properly managed. The Debian core team could focus on the base system and server packages, while letting the desktop team handle UI's and applications, and the games team handle.. well, games. Each group could release updates independently of each other, perhaps with core as the baseline to which the others must adhere for library versions, etc.
As for impatience, I personally think that two years is too long to wait for a stable release, especially in the open source world where software is such a moving target. And yes, I know testing is more frequently updated and mostly stable, but try telling that to an IT manager. IT managers want "stable", not "testing". It's a political thing and it's stupid, but it's reality. Which is why I come across more and more Red Hat shops every day.
Re:But she gets him anyway! (Score:2, Interesting)
- a happy iBook owner