Please create an account to participate in the Slashdot moderation system

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Debian

Custom Debian Distributions 203

Posted by michael from the something-for-everyone dept.
Andreas Tille writes "When the first Custom Debian Distribution - Debian Junior - started in the beginning of 2000 we did not expect that this would perhaps lead to a new way Debian could support its end users in general. The next step forward was done in DebConf3 in Oslo when several developers who care about Custom Debian Distributions met in person and decided to work together more closely. Finally at OSWC conference in Malaga took place a workshop aiming at exactly this issue. The result of the conference was to write a paper about Custom Debian Distributions to explain to the public what we had done and what we want to do. This is an implicit call for participation for all those people inside and outside Debian who work on the same goal: Enhance the role of Debian as the missing link between upstream software developers and end users."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Custom Debian Distributions More

Custom Debian Distributions

Comments Filter:

  • Debian (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MrRuslan ( 767128 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @12:14PM (#8747179)
    The raw Debian in it's current state seems more like a "platform" and less like a distro...it would be great to see debian make a bratnce base on raw debian like mozilla did with firefox...is this what they are trying to do with Jr then its a very good step..or am i missing something.

    • Re:Debian (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      No, Debian Jr. is designed to be a Linux distribution for children.

    • The raw Debian in it's current state seems more like a "platform" and less like a distro...

      I'd like to see Custom Knoppix Distributions. D/L an ISO and go.

      • Re:Re:Debian (Score:2, Informative)

        by MrRuslan ( 767128 )
        They do have some Custom Knoppix's like http://overclockix.octeams.com/ And Gnoppix... and there are some guides how to customize it yourself...I love knoppix it's a Universal tool and a good for rescuing system (Especially windows) I Dont's go anyware with out a CD.

      • Re:Debian (Score:3, Informative)

        by pyros ( 61399 )
        Have a look at Morphix [morphix.org]. It is exaclty Knoppix which breaks out the ISO images into categories (gamer, full GUI, light GUI, etc) and supports GNOME. I'm not sure if it supports a per-package granularity though.

        • Re:Debian (Score:3, Informative)

          by AlXtreme ( 223728 )
          Well, not _exactly_ Knoppix, but we try to keep everything in sync with Knoppix, that's for sure...

          We've gotten to the point where apt-get installing works from the livecd, and where debian packages on a directory on the livecd are installed at boot time, but we're a long way from per-package granularity. I'm not even sure we should go that far, as things get pretty messy with libraries et al. Being able to autobuild and autoinstall knoppix-like livecds is much more fun :-)

      • Re:Debian (Score:2, Interesting)

        by EvilAlien ( 133134 )
        I don't understand all the hype about Knoppix lately.

        I view Knoppix as a threat to adoption of Linux, risking marginalizing it as a toy or OS suitable for casual flirtation but undeserving of space on a harddrive. The ease it provides for a very shallow glimpse into Linux means that those trying it out never have to commit, and therefore never have to put effort into migration.

        The natural human resistence to chance suggests that this will hinder the adoption of Linux on the desktop rather than spur it

        • Well if thats how you want to look at it. However here Knoppix is a great thing, a godsend at times. It has been able to rescue systems and information I don't know often from systems that otherwise would have been simply dead or would have taken much longer to fix.

          If you want to think of it as simply a toy thats all it will be to you, but don't discount it as a real tool just because it can run entirely from a cd.

          • Re:Debian (Score:3, Insightful)

            by EvilAlien ( 133134 )
            Well, I do understand the value in system recovery, forensics, and security-related applications of Knoppix, Knoppix-STD, and other similar livecd products like INSERT and PHLAK. I don't *want* to think of Knoppix as a toy, nevertheless I see it presenting a bit of a threat.

            I also don't *want* to think of it simply as a toy, and don't, so please don't misunderstand my comments. I like the fact that you can get a pretty functional Linux box going running live off a cd, and this speaks to the power of Lin

        • Re:Debian (Score:2, Insightful)

          by rolling_bits ( 754633 )
          Knoppix style distro is great to learn Linux. You can reinstall the system in minutes. Once you learn enough you can author some scripts that download and configure the system as you like it, after a fresh install. Once you learn a little bit more you can remaster it including the tools you use and removing those that you don't use. So, Thanks to Knoppix and alike distros, Linux and Debian are getting widespread attention. I can live with choice. More than that, I love choices, as I would hate to use someth
        • Don't worry, Evil, some of us are on the front lines driving Linux adoption in corporations, where actions by a single person can affect far greater numbers of systems at a time. If an executive ever asked me for the quickest and easiest way to see Linux for himself, on his own time, I'd look for a Knoppix burn that shows off a nice, clean corporate-quality desktop (without all the Star Trek KDE crap on the original) and be sure to say, "Here, you can keep this or copy it for others. Remember, you can do th

        • Re:Debian (Score:5, Interesting)

          by RealAlaskan ( 576404 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @02:34PM (#8748576) Homepage Journal
          I view Knoppix as a threat to adoption of Linux, risking marginalizing it as a toy or OS suitable for casual flirtation but undeserving of space on a harddrive.

          I've been handing Knoppix disks out to computer illiterate folks I know. They can use it as a toy, and get used to the idea that Linux is something they can use. Knoppix has some little games, a nice web browser, they can write stuff, they can get pictures from their digital cameras (I do have to show them how to do the last two things, since there aren't icons on the desktop for ``write a paper'' and ``digital camera''.).

          For these guys, Knoppix means exposure to Linux, and just a little bit of familiarity and de-mistification. The lack of commitment is vital here: these guys are deathly afraid of screwing up their machines. This is definitely casual flirtation, but that's a huge step forward with this crowd.

          I've been giving Knoppix disks to computer literate friends, too. For them, it's a chance to find out that Linux really does work on their hardware, that they really can do their work on it (they suspect that's true, so they're interested), and that they really can install it and keep it up to date.

          For this bunch, there is usually some Linux application that they want to run, but the new set of system administration tasks and the installation difficulty scares them off. With Knoppix, they can see how easy it is to install, and they can seriously evaluate it. This is FAR from casual flirtation! Not all of this crowd winds up using Linux daily, but most of them wind up with it on their hard drives, and their minds are opened a bit.

          Over all, I'd say that Knoppix is doing a lot of good. It's letting people progress a lot farther towards using Linux than they would ever go without this sort of distribution.

    • Re:Debian (Score:3, Insightful)

      by NateTech ( 50881 )
      RTFA.

  • Debian has surpassed many goals.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Indes ( 323481 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @12:14PM (#8747188) Homepage
    Debian has grown as far as users, software and continues to grow with the Linux community. Its abilities to be able to drop in a vanilla Linux kernel and go while being able to be quite flexable as far as setup goes for the user makes it one of the best distributions out there. Apt and dpkg are some of the finest software management tools I've seen in the unix community next to BSD's ports system.

    Debian will continue to grow, as will the debian community hopefully for the better of the GNU/Linux world.

  • Copyediting? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Xoder ( 664531 ) <slashdot.xoder@fastmail@fm> on Friday April 02, 2004 @12:14PM (#8747189) Homepage
    How does one help Debian copy-edit this piece? It really needs it. It was clearly written by a non-native English speaker, which is neither here nor there, but it does need some cleanup...

    I Edit [hellskitchen.org]

  • It begins at home (Score:5, Insightful)

    by beforewisdom ( 729725 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @12:19PM (#8747229)
    "This is an implicit call for participation for all those people inside and outside Debian who work on the same goal: Enhance the role of Debian as the missing link between upstream software developers and end users."
    If Debian wants a link between upstream software developers and end users they should do a few more simple tasks first IMHO:

    - get a real usenet group, not just a gated email list

    - create a friendly user community that doesn't slam people for asking questions "improperly"

    On the first point, debian-users is a huge, high traffic list that. Being able to pop into usenet is preferable for someone with only an occasional question. The gated list has failed.

    On the second point, people can & do to get turned away from a product by rude encounters.

    Yah, some people claim that is fine that they don't want "your kind of user", but the quote above belies the fact that the Debian project people want end users.

    All of the excuses for slamming people are washed away by the simple fact that reading and posting on the internet is 100% voluntary.

    If someone thinks a question is unworthy they should not waste their time by finishing reading it and they certainly shouldn't spend their time answering the question.

    Doing and complaining,/i> about either given the voluntary nature of the internet makes them look like a mean loser.

    It also drives the end users the Debian project people say they want away.

    Steve Both of these points are about providing accessible help and support.

    • Re:It begins at home (Score:2, Insightful)

      by garcia ( 6573 ) *
      get a real usenet group, not just a gated email list

      As a pretty regular Linux user (Debian for several years) for 8 or so years, I wouldn't read Usenet ever... I don't see how that could help anything.

      create a friendly user community that doesn't slam people for asking questions "improperly"

      Let the third-party Debian distributions deal w/that. Debian users are a special breed. Just like RedHat and SuSE and various others. That's the great thing about Linux distributions. Don't like the community?

      • Re:It begins at home (Score:5, Insightful)

        by alptraum ( 239135 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @12:50PM (#8747484)
        Let the third-party Debian distributions deal w/that. Debian users are a special breed.

        I really get sick of this elitest crap, that somehow a specific group is somehow "special". Before going off to become an engineer, I used to be a hardcore Linux user of Slackware and Debian, wow big deal, it's a personal choice. I'm a grad level engineer and this is a big problem in engineering as well; all the engineers think their flavor of engineering is the most righteous and everybody else is stupid, rather than realizing they all compliment each other and work together.

        When I have internships, it's even worse, It was really tiresome listening to the thin films guys talk crap about the lithography guys that talked crap about...it never ended and all it did was cause great amounts of inefficiency and backstabbing.

        In the end, this whole "us" versus "them" mentality causes exactly the kinds of problems described above, users being chided for asking "stupid" questions, people refusing to cooperate, etc.

        Microsoft doesn't have to fire a shot if the Linux community chops themselves to pieces.

        • I'm a grad level engineer and this is a big problem in engineering as well; all the engineers think their flavor of engineering is the most righteous and everybody else is stupid

          You're right, that is immature and stupid.

          .... Computer Science is obviously the best, all engineering is stupid. :)

        • Re:It begins at home (Score:3, Insightful)

          by dalutong ( 260603 )
          I don't understand it. Maybe the script kiddies who have installed debian propagate that elitism, but most of us don't.

          Debian is a distribution. It is a distribution that is community developed and based and one in which the contributers are proud. There is nothing wrong with that.

          One of the general community values of using debian is the "militant" support of Free software. There is nothing wrong with beleiving in that.

          When someone is a "special" breed, it does not mean that that person is "especially"
          • Oh yeah. My sig is a joke. Maybe it isn't extreme enough.

            It's something like "i know most people think that debian users are elitist, so i'll explode that sterotype." It is like this, "don't lecture me, I'm American!" The sterotype is that Americans are arrogant and so I'm playing on that sterotype. But it's a sterotype and not always true.

            I should change it to make it more clear, but I haven't come up with a really good line yet.

        • In the end, this whole "us" versus "them" mentality causes exactly the kinds of problems described above, users being chided for asking "stupid" questions, people refusing to cooperate, etc.

          I don't see it as an us-vs-them fight. Its more of a difference of opinion.

          There's this idea that GNU/Linux has to become the Next Windows or Next OS X. There's the idea that GNU/Linux has to be User Friendly, that it has to Cater to Newbies, and every application needs to be Useable without Reading the Man Pa

      • Good Job! You have explained in just a few sentences why Linux has taken so long to start finally moving forward in the home desktop movement. YOU are why Open Source has failed for the past 4 decades. Thankfully, your breed won't be around much longer - at least that's the trend.

        I'm a Debian User, and I avoid the Debian community as much as possible. The "Third party distributors" are the only thing keeping Linux alive. The last thing the OS world needs is a continuation of plumber's crack computer t
        • Get over myself? What did I say that would make you think that I believe *I* am something special?

          I suggest YOU get over YOURSELF and think about what I wrote.

          I don't agree w/what they are doing but they are doing to themselves. I suggested that people move to the third-party developers. Isn't that what free markets supposedly do? People don't like one product because of whatever and it fails?

        • Re:It begins at home (Score:4, Insightful)

          by BlueStrat ( 756137 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @03:21PM (#8749089)
          I originally chose Debian as my very first linux OS install about 2 years ago. I liked the idea of a comepletely open-source, free OS. Still do. I'm a retired (medical disability) electronics tech, self-taught, except for a high-school vocational electronics class. Worked on everything from guitar amps to avionics systems in private/corporate jets. If it runs on electricity, I've probably had a job either designing it, building it, or fixing it. I'm not a software expert, but I'll put my basic troubleshooting skills and intuitive "feel" for machinery and equipment of any kind up against anyone, so I'm not technically illiterate by any means. I RTFM'ed my butt off, and got through the install. However, after being treated like a retarded child and ridiculed for asking a question that may have been obvious to a long-time Debian user, but wasn't covered well in the docs or man pages, I decided that the Debian community was just too elitist for me. It's sad, because I still think that Debian is technically an excellent distro, but I just refuse to be a party to the attitudes I found in the Debian community, and feel that by using Debian, I would be supporting the continuation of such elitist attitudes. I now use Mandrake and Gentoo, and have started teaching myself to code (still just a babe here, yet) and plan to eventually contribute to the above distros. The difference in attitudes is night-and-day. Debian lost a user, and a potential contributor/developer. The Debian community and developers have the right to conduct themselves and run things any way they want to. I have the right to pass them by. There are simply too many other excellent distros out there, with friendly, helpful people that are happy to share their knowledge and experience with newcomers without any elitism.
      • Debian users are a special breed

        The only 'special breed' in the Debian community is the dicks who think anyone who asks a question that should be obvious must have been conceived by a weak sperm. It has nothing to do with being a Debian guru and everything to do with some emotional insecurity. The kind of person who would maliciously tease a classmate who couldn't read. These sorts of people really do turn off newcomers from whatever group they're trying to get into.

        I don't know what it is about debian, b

      • Re:It begins at home (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        I've been using Linux since '95 (Debian user since '96) and I don't agree.
        I once subscribed to the debian-user mailing list (a couple years ago) and stayed on for a few months. Then I got tired of all the damn POP3 traffic taking up my disk I/O every time the cron job started. That mailing list is too damn big! Usenet servers can better accomodate huge traffic like that, not to mention it would save bandwidth (instead of everyone forced to receive every message... what a waste!)
        Now when I have a problem
      • Let the third-party Debian distributions deal w/that. Debian users are a special breed
        What makes them special?

        My post made the point that they are simulataneously wanting a particular end and doing things to make that desired end not happen

        There is a word for that and that word is not "smart" :).

      • Special breeds often suffer from inbreeding.
    • ... another l337 distro. But it has an extremely user-friendly and helpful web forum forums.gentoo.org.

      The Gentoo forum attracts new users because it is an easy and user-friendly way to get help... it is also nicely designed. It doesn't require approval by a moderator to ask a question.

      The Debian answer to every complaint is basically "this is free, we don't have to please you." Which is certainly true and understandable. But Gentoo is just as free.

      So I recommend Gentoo to people who want to learn Li

      • The reason I run Debian... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Short Circuit ( 52384 ) <mikemol@gmail.com> on Friday April 02, 2004 @12:57PM (#8747562) Homepage Journal
        ...is because a friend(Jeff Teunnissen) recommended it to me. He's also a Debian developer.

        For the first few months, whenever I ran into a problem I couldn't figure out on my own, I called him (I lived in the same general neighborhood.) I also hung out in an IRC chat room where a bunch of kindly Linux users also hung out ... After a while, I learned to RTFM, especially after I started asking questions he couldn't answer.

        Debian was the first distribution of Linux I ran (aside from Red Hat 5.2, which I ran for a day...), and most of what I know about Linux I learned on my Debian machines.

        The moral of the story, I guess, is to have someone you know around to ask questions of. Among my friends just trying out Linux, I recommend Debian, and offer my advice.

      • Re:Compare with Gentoo (Score:3, Interesting)

        by 7-Vodka ( 195504 )
        I use both debian and gentoo.
        One of the MAJOR advantages of gentoo is that it's easy to sit down for 20 minutes, learn how to create your own ebuilds, make one in 5 minutes and have it accepted the same day.
        Debian just sucks for this.
        • I've learned how to build packages for many different systems. RedHat is pretty tough, Crux and Arch are easy. I don't know about Gentoo, but I'd imagine it'd be a bit tougher than Crux (given that there is significantly more power there).

          In Gentoo, you encounter things like USE flags when you simply use it enough, so you basically get most of the training for writing packages while using it.

          Debian and Gentoo both have a history of really zealous users that like to tell the whole world how great their d

      • Actually, a new package intended to help Gentoo users switch to Debian was announced on debian-devel yesterday:

        Package name : apt-gentoo
        Version : 0.0.1
        * URL : http://www-jcsu.jesus.cam.ac.uk/~mma29/apt-gentoo /
        * License : GPL version 2 or above
        Description : enhanced package installation

        apt-gentoo enhances the Debian package installation experience to make
        it fully competitive with newly-popular source-based distributions.

        As packages are installed, apt-gentoo automatically downloads the
    • Of course, not everyone are at the same level of knowledge. There are small differences, and there are big differences.

      There are people who might post a question regarding a firewire module failing to load after updating to kernel 2.6.x, posting dmesg output and whatnot, and you have those who post "Why will not Debian install on my computer, please e-mail me the answer!!". These postings can not co-exist in the same forum. There will simply be too much noise for the more skilled users to stay interested i

      • To put it on the edge, it is not like they get paid to sit there and answer questions five minutes of Google or a manual lookup can answer.

        True, but nobody is forcing them to answer any questions.

        If the find a question boring they can just ignore it.

        The fact that they don't and that they are smart enough to know that the internet/irc/usenet is voluntary only leaves the reasons of immaturity/hostility/etc as a reason for slamming people.

        Yah, Debian users are a "special breed" like the other poster

    • HOWTO Be Helped By The Debian Community (Score:4, Interesting)

      by krmt ( 91422 ) <therefrmhere@yah o o . com> on Friday April 02, 2004 @02:30PM (#8748543) Homepage
      create a friendly user community that doesn't slam people for asking questions "improperly"
      This is a difficult thing. I hang around in #debian quite a bit, and I see both the types of people who are happy to help and those who are only there to make themselves feel smarter and better than the rest. And I can honestly say that the former are more plentiful than the latter, but users tend to actually listen to the dicks. Why? I don't know... maybe they really would rather get in a pointless fight than get something fixed, but it's something I see all the time. The trick is to listen to those who are trying to help you, use /ignore when necessary, and simply grow a thicker skin.

      On the other side, as someone who tries to help out with support, I see two general kinds of users. One is the type who just wants their hand held all the way through the process. They'll not bother to do a couple of google searches or search the Debian list archives. They won't bother with the manpage because "it takes too long to read" (as though logging in to IRC, asking your question, clarifying your question, and waiting for a response is any faster). Sometimes they'll even lie about what they actually did to their system. These people are amazing and get ridiculed. Those who troll and say "Debian sucks! I can't get this piece of crap to work, so I'm going to gentoo!" (as many people on slashdot recommend) tend to be astounded when the channel unanimously says "Ok, see ya later!" These people aren't treated very well, but that's because they're not treating anyone else very well in return.

      On the other hand, users who ask smart questions and are willing to do some basic searches and reading are helped quite a bit. Many people in #debian genuinely try to help these people, because we can all see ourselves in this position. You're not guaranteed an answer, or even help (oftentimes no one can help with your question) but if you're willing to do a little bit of your own free tech support then you'll do just fine. Remember, when someone points you to a manpage or the Installation Manual (yes, there is one, and it's amazing how few people read it) it's not because they're being a dick, it's because the doc really does have the answer. An "RTFM" always comes with a pointer towards what to read in my experience, and if you're willing to listen you'll do fine.
      If someone thinks a question is unworthy they should not waste their time by finishing reading it and they certainly shouldn't spend their time answering the question. Doing and complaining, about either given the voluntary nature of the internet makes them look like a mean loser.
      Agreed. How do you expect to change that though? Debian is, by nature, a very open project, and as such places like debian-user and #debian are relatively unmoderated. Do you want to close off the lists somehow? Do you want to moderate them? Who do you propose to do the job? And by what guidelines? And by what mechanism? These are serious questions, and they don't have easy answers. "Fixing" a community isn't easy, and if you want to help I suggest hopping on debian-user or stopping by #debian and try and change things one user at a time.

      • Agreed. How do you expect to change that though? Debian is, by nature, a very open project, and as such places like debian-user and #debian are relatively unmoderated. Do you want to close off the lists somehow? Do you want to moderate them? Who do you propose to do the job? And by what guidelines? And by what mechanism? These are serious questions, and they don't have easy answers. "Fixing" a community isn't easy

        We fix it the same way Debian is run, by open participation.

        The people who will slam some

    • have you tried www.debianhelp.org ?
      they may be rude sometimes, but ussually you get an answer you need.

  • What about the Debian distribution for lawyers? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by spiritraveller ( 641174 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @12:19PM (#8747231)
    I remember reading about a Debian distribution for doctors and another one for lawyers.

    Are those projects still in active development?

    I would like to get involved in a distribution for lawyers... since I intend to become a lawyer before the year is up (taking the bar at the end of July).

  • Differences between custom and based? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by gmuslera ( 3436 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @12:20PM (#8747236) Homepage Journal
    There are a lot of distributions that are in a way or another "based" on debian (knoppix, mepis, xandros?, etc), whats the difference between those custom and the based on debian ones? Just the project that holds them? Is a technical difference or more like a political one?
    • well, usually they'll take a certain number of packages from the debian main, contrib, and non-free sections and roll them into a CD distro that is not something enormous (12CDs IIRC for the latest debian stable).

      For example, knoppix is a single bootable CD with all the expected packages. They have a fancy default GUI interface (gnome or something like that), nice pretty installer (x86 support only though, not the zillion other archs that debian supports) and roll it all up into a single coherent, but smal

    • Re:Differences between custom and based? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by GrnyS ( 131646 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @01:50PM (#8748060)
      From the developer's perspective, by making a Custom Debian Distribution, my project, Debian Jr., can afford to focus strictly on making Debian better for children, and not have to worry about providing a whole new infrastructure that is necessary for a Debian derivative.

      From the user's perspective, they are going right to the source for support and bug reporting, rather than filtering everything through a third party. They don't need to worry about whether package foo from Debian main will work with their Debian derivative or not. And if package foo *does* break, someone is actually on the hook for fixing it, whereas with a derivative you're likely to encounter this:

      User: Package 'foo' is broken when I use it with Debian derivative 'bar'. Help!

      Derivative developer: Sorry, that's your problem. We don't maintain 'foo'.

      Debian developer: Sorry, that's your problem, I don't run 'bar', so I can't debug it.

      --
      synrg at debian dot org
      • It sounds like a good idea, but I never understood why they choose the expression "custom distribution".

        If they had chosen the expression subproject (or perhaps metapackage) then they could have avoided many misunderstandings.

        By the way I am looking forward to see xpilot-ng in Debian-junior :)

  • Upstream developers? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by SunPin ( 596554 ) <slashspam@cyberT ... com minus author> on Friday April 02, 2004 @12:24PM (#8747273) Homepage
    Just want to point out a subtle hypocrisy...

    If Microsoft referred to themselves as "upstream developers", they'd have hell to pay.

    • No. (Score:2)

      by moyix ( 412254 )

      "Upstream software developers" refers to the people who actually create the software. Debian takes their work and packages it for end users. Hence, they could accurately be called the link between upstream developers and end users. They are certainly not saying that they themselves are the upstream devels.

  • Debian just doesn't get it. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 02, 2004 @12:28PM (#8747311)
    Debian does *not* need to be creating distros for LAYWERS. What they do need:

    1) ftp-able ISOs. No jigdo crap.

    2) Recent updates. Something from the 21st century would be nice. Debian's "stable" is positively ancient.

    3) If Debian wants more participants, then take a page from Linus -- lose the attitude. I want Linux, not a freakin' religion. We're peers, not apostles.

    Randy
    • Recent update? Ever tried Sarge with some SID packeges...In some cases even more up to date Gentoo and not as easy to break...the "Stable" is just a title not a description...look at MS's Stables...

    • Re:Debian just doesn't get it. (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      1) ftp-able ISOs. No jigdo crap.

      I think BitTorrent would also be a good idea. To be more polite about it.

      I want Linux, not a freakin' religion. We're peers, not apostles.

      Oh, you already thought of BT. Good, then.

      • Re:Debian just doesn't get it. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by samjam ( 256347 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @12:49PM (#8747477) Homepage Journal
        I think I'm a pretty good developer and very computer literate.

        Jigdo isn't worth the time it takes to say it.

        And why (0h why) do the debian installers insist on using stripped down kernels WITHOUT any compiled modules either? Whats the use of that?

        For installation ISOs include nearly EVERY kernel module.

        I had no end of trouble with debian and SID/Sarge installer BECAUSE the installation-time kernel had the right modules but the installed kernel didn't! I had to keep "recovering" from the installation CD to get a box with PCMCIA net drivers and spent ages trying to get a .deb (not udeb - what are udeb anyway) that had the right modules.

        Yeah I could have downloaded the whole kernel source and compiled it on a P75 laptop with 80MB RAM but I didn't think it worthwhile.

        Sam

    • Re:Debian just doesn't get it. (Score:4, Informative)

      by RedDirt ( 3122 ) * on Friday April 02, 2004 @12:42PM (#8747410) Homepage
      Amen!

      I've been trying to get Debian on a box for the last couple of days and have been having a heck of a time. Gee, I want to use XFS - so, I snag an XFS enabled installer. Oops, I also want to use LVM. Hmm, there are installers for that too, but none that support both. Well, I did find one but it doesn't support USB devices (like my keyboard). C'mon guys, use anaconda or yast or something. It's all open source.
      • actually, yast has only just become open source in the last few weeks (/. story here [slashdot.org]) - you expect something as mature and rock-solid stable as debian to drop in a completely new installer (that does NOT support the 10+ architectures that debian supports) in the space of two weeks? You're kidding right?

        The installer problem is well known. But really, writing a pretty GUI interface to work on the wide variety of architectures [debian.org] that debian supports is no mean feat.

        Would be nice to have a fancy GUI x86 opti
        • Yeah, I know yast has only been available as open-source for the last week or so. I guess I really don't care if all the hand-holding of a GUI is present, I just want to be able to boot up a CD, partition and format my drive and then load the software. Even the do-it-yourself approach of Gentoo would work for me. Just make it possible for me to setup my disk(s) properly and then run the installer to fill up the space. That's really all I want. Right now, Debian doesn't seem to want me to do that. :/
          • Debian's next stable release (due soon) has a nicer installer. I've used it on my laptop. Loved it. I don't do xfs so I don't know about that though. I also don't use lvm.

            I can see the difficulty it would present. I would think that it would be a problem no matter where you were, though. XFS and LVM are not part of the standard kernel. I can't really suggest anything except doing an XFS setup first and then getting (maybe having to compile, but compiling in debian is nice. howtos abound.) an xfs and lvm ke
            • I'm trying the beta3 installer at the moment. I first tried the nightly snapshot, but the kernel in that image wasn't configured to allow DHCP. ::boggle::

              As far as XFS and LVM goes, LVM has been standard since at least the mid 2.4s and XFS since the late 2.4s (2.4.24 was when it was included as far as I remember, tho I'd need to go back through Marcello's release announcements to be certain).

              I've no real complaint about XFS since I'm used to using an unofficial installer (SGI's for RedHat), but LVM ... t
              • First -- I envy your user number.

                Second -- When I saw the release notice for debian installer beta 3 (on debian planet) i could have sworn I saw it say that this kernel (2.4.25) has xfs and lvm built in. I know there is also a iso for xfs, so the article might have meant that. I don't know.

                As for DHCP... i don't know what to tell you. I've installed using the mini (3mb) and 100+mb iso wirelessly using DHCP to find my address. I have to assume it was with the nightly.

                I wish you luck.
      • Funny. I installed Debian Stable on my Apple Powerbook in about an hour. Then I changed my apt sources to unstable and ran "apt-get dist-upgrade" and had a nice current Debian Sid install in a few hours. Then I configured, compiled and dropped in my 2.6.4 kernel...Got Mac OS X running in Mac-on-Linux...Not hard really. But with Redhat I bet it would have been a nightmare.

        • If my "needs" were a bit simpler, I'm sure it'd be a lot more smooth. It's just that I've gotten used to a few of the more esoteric things that RedHat (more accuratlely, RedHat + SGI) makes easily available. Volume management is something that I cannot live without anymore. It's also nice to have a filesystem that allows me to shrink/grow volumes (hence XFS). ::shrug:: I guess having Veritas' filesystem and volume management tools at work has spoiled me. :)

    • Re:Debian just doesn't get it. (Score:5, Informative)

      by danidude ( 672839 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @12:52PM (#8747505) Homepage
      1) ftp-able ISOs. No jigdo crap.

      Try this [debian.org]

      2) Recent updates. Something from the 21st century would be nice. Debian's "stable" is positively ancient.

      brainstorm:~# cat /etc/apt/sources.list deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian unstable main contrib non-free deb ftp://ftp.tux.org/pub/java/debian unstable main non-free brainstorm:~# dpkg -l kdebase ii kdebase 3.2.1-1 KDE Base .. brainstorm:~# Pretty recent, huh?

      3) If Debian wants more participants, then take a page from Linus -- lose the attitude. I want Linux, not a freakin' religion. We're peers, not apostles.

      Them just use it, man! U don't have to be an apostole to put the CD in the drive, intsall, boot and use it! It is a pretty damn good distro AND it worries about political/social questions, but if u don't care about that, fine, it stills a damn good distro!

    • you mean ftp-able iso's like these [debian.org]?

    • I want Linux, not a freakin' religion.

      Linux is what it is (Free), and will *remain* what it is, because of the "religion". Having religion doesn't mean you have to attack other people, but it does mean preserving yourself in your own beliefs, or finding ways to adapt them. GNU does not feel any need to adapt, and the results have been quite good: Linux, the GNU tools, Gaim, OO.o, GNOME, GIMP, Samba, Apache (which has a compatible license last I knew)...

      I get a little bit tired of people criticizing t

      • Re:Debian just doesn't get it. (Score:4, Informative)

        by merdark ( 550117 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @01:34PM (#8747869)
        I get a little bit tired of people criticizing this point. Without the religious fervor, without defending the GPL, none of these things would be able to maintain an Open-and-useful state.

        Then why are the BSDs in an open and useful state? You have the typical myopia associated with religion, or since people like to point out no god is invovled here, cult.

        You wouldn't tell your local preacher to shut-up for being a {bible,torah,koran,*}-thumper, would you?

        If they stay in their church on preach only to the brainwashed, no. But if they go door to door and send messages to governments trying to convice them to officially follow the religion, then hell yeah I'll tell them to shut up!

        • Then why are the BSDs in an open and useful state? You have the typical myopia associated with religion, or since people like to point out no god is invovled here, cult.

          I don't think the parent wasn't arguing that the FOSS movement wouldn't be possible without GPL defenders, just that if people now didn't defend the GPL, it would get trampled on.

          About the myopia, that's not a statement of fact--it's just a feeling that you get when you think of "religion." Somehow, people of all sorts of faith are thoug

          • Wow, I think this thread, and more specifically the parent post, illustrates beautifully why in nearly twelve years of Linux use, I have never found Debian palatable.

            Elitism unleashed. Everything but everything boils down to philosophical self affirming debate.

            The ball is blue.

            T'isn't.

            Yes, it is. I'm looking right at it.

            That, of course, would depend on your ability to perceive reality in your current state. It appears as though, perhaps, because of your lack of understanding of my point of view (whic
    • As far as the "recent updates" goes, I suggest running your systems as a mix of stable (for ssh, or other internet-exposed services that you want security updates for) and unstable/testing.

      Via the magic of apt-pinning [sbih.org] you can install packages from later sources onto woody, with dependencies being met as needed to install them.

      It really makes it easier to run a secure ssh box, but get the most recent aptitude (for example).

      • This is just asking for problems. I tried this, and before long my box had incompatabilities up the wazzu. Finnaly, it really borked itself and I went to a pure testing install, which borks itself considerbly less, but also makes me wary of running internet servers on it. Even small ones.
      • Mixing binary packages works, but is generally held to be asking for trouble sooner or later. However, it's normally a matter of two commands to "backport" a package from a more recent branch like testing or unstable, which will compile them against the stable libraries. There are also tools like apt-src to help with this.

    • Re:Debian just doesn't get it. (Score:5, Informative)

      by ogre57 ( 632144 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @01:41PM (#8747953)

      What they do need: 1) ftp-able ISOs. No jigdo crap.

      You mean like this [kernel.org] one, or would you prefer a different mirror [debian.org].

      2) Recent updates. Something from the 21st century would be nice.

      Well, could be wrong, but looks like gnome 2.6.0 packages [debian.org] began appearing on 3/27 for x86, and yesterday for power pc. How much more recent do you want? (does any other distro have gnome 2.6 yet?)

      Debian's "stable" is positively ancient.

      True, and I'm not happy about it either. But as I understand it consensus last summer was to wait on the new installer [debian.org]. Holdup seems to be getting folks to test it on all the different platforms [debian.org] Debian supports. Meanwhile Debian's "testing" is more stable than most folks releases; hell, so's their "unstable" for that matter.

      Last I read Debian hopes to release "Sarge" this summer. You can help that happen by testing the installer [debian.org].

    • Huh? Lose the aptitude? No way!

      Oh, wait, you said "attitude."

      -matthew

  • Debian continues to improve! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Bodhammer ( 559311 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @12:32PM (#8747337)
    I started with Slackware in the mid-90's, moved to RedHat for 5-7.3 and started using Debian last year.

    I've been very impressed with the stability and with apt. I do wish that Debian had a little quicker package release but at the price, I really can't complain too much.

    Yesterday I had a another wonderful experience during an install. We have an old Dell PowerEdge 2000 PIII 450 w/ Perc/SC2 raid. I was having trouble getting it going under the Woody install. For grins, I decided to try the Sarge installer [debian.org]. EVERYTHING just worked! It saw the Intel EEPro100 and the RAID controller - both of these were problematic under Woody.

    Of course I would like a faster release and better hardware detection during install. Kudzu with Knoppix does work well. Packages that I want to run right now are still not packaged in .deb (Zope 2.7, Plone 2.0)but it's not a show-stopper.

    The bottom line, Debian has the true open-source community and distribution. It has excellect quality control. It has excellent responsiveness to security issues. Debian has the potential to be the "one true distribution" and Sarge is looking very good!

  • Debian needs a subdistro with less archs (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ponds ( 728911 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @12:45PM (#8747441)
    The main beef that people have with Debian is the dated packages.

    While most of the trolls from Gentoo Zealots (No attack vs Gentoo here, I'm a Gentoo user myself) and the like are unfounded because they speak vs packages in Woody; there are still a ton of packages in sarge and sid that are less than current.

    The problem with this is not the fault of the Debian Developers, it's the fact that Debian supports a vast number of architectures as well as a vast number of packages, causing QUITE alot to update, even with a minor version number change on one package.

    NetBSD is the only platform other than debian to successfully nearly this many architectures. The way that NetBSD does it is source packaging; I do not think that this is the way for debian to go.

    What needs to happen is a project to support Debian for a few platforms: the x86, the PPC, the sparc, and maybe two or three others. Classic Debian would run parallel to this, and obscure archs would still be supported.

    Two new package trees, called something like desktop-sarge and desktop-sid, would be mirrors of the sid and sarge trees, but only support the major archs. This way, a DD doesn't have to compile vs 37 or whatever archs before he updates his package; the new version would come out for the major archs early, and the obscure archs could wait until however long it took.

    Instead of everyone waiting for months.
    • DDs don't have to compile for all archs. Debian has autobuilders. All that the DD has to do is make sure that the package is compilable on all archs (which usually just means uploading the source package to the archive and waiting for the bug reports to roll in). Unfortunately, some of the autobuilders are slow and overloaded.
    • What would be cool is to have apt optionally point to source repositories. I don't know much about Debian, but having had to figure out how to package for a number of different systems, it's all pretty much the same.

      If you could point to source repositories, daring end users could download the source packages when they hit a new version, bump up the number, see if it works untweaked, fix it if not, and send the info back to the maintainer.

      There are 3 types of users for a distro--developers and maintainer

      • If you could point to source repositories, daring end users could download the source packages when they hit a new version, bump up the number, see if it works untweaked, fix it if not, and send the info back to the maintainer.

        A Debian source package normally contains the "pure" upstream source of the software, a bunch of Debian-specific patches, and a few control files to set consistent compile-time options, which are used by the dpkg-buildpackage tool.

        Often if you need a shinier version than even Unsta

  • Redian, or maybe Debhat (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pyros ( 61399 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @12:47PM (#8747456) Journal
    I've been trying a bunch of distributions lately as I don't necessarily want selinux for my home desktops (selinux is a major part of Fedora Core 2). What I've determined so far is that I really like Red Hat's system admin/config tools. You have one tool (sometimes two so you have a gui and command-line, but they're really they same thing in that case).

    Mandrake and Suse have a single admin suite that does everything. Some people love them, and I'll admit that they do look polished. I just don't like having to have a bunch of extra backends installed for hardware and services I don't have just to have the admin tool installed. I haven't really tried Ark, Lycoris, Lindows, or Libranet (Ark wouldn't either wouldn't install or wouldn't run after install, I forget) but my assumption is that being KDE based, they have the same feel of one big tool.

    I really like the package selection available on Debian. But getting things to run the way I want can sometimes be a chore. On a previous attempt at debian I had trouble with IDE drivers after install. I couldn't get my USB mouse to work and was ridiculed on #debian for loading the usbmouse module instead the obvious task of installing usbmanager. When I asked the #debian folks for the location of an testing/unstable net install CD it took ten minutes of people asking why I didn't want to use floppies to install stable and then dist-upgrade. I don't have a floppy.

    The new instaler is a super awesome step. I like that the debian install actually installs a kernel package now, and that in expert mode I can choose which kernel to install. But fonts still suck ass and I can't seem to improve some of them (gdm, the gnome login splash screen, and the gnome logout dialog). I didn't have trouble getting my USB mouse to work this time, but I can't get my thinkpad 600X's touchpad to work (and yes I've tried the config from the sites on the webring found at www.linux-thinkpad.org). Red Hat and Mandrake support the PS/2 touchpad and hotplugging a USB mouse out of the box. Copying my RH config didn't work. Configuring it by hand per the docs doesn't work.

    I've recently discovered (in the process of installing flashplugin-nonfree and msttcorefonts) the update-* commands. But they seem to be there mostly to effect changes you have written into the config files already. I've found nothing so far on Debian which helps me get the config files right.

    So finally arriving at the point of my post, I would like to see Red Hat's system-config-* set of single-purpose config tools ported to debian. I do realise that the RH tools aren't the penultimate solution (they haven't worked for me getting a Riva TNT2 with nvidia driver and Voodoo2 with tdfx driver dual-head setup working so far), but I think they're better than anyone else's offerings so far.

    • But fonts still suck ass and I can't seem to improve some of them (gdm, the gnome login splash screen, and the gnome logout dialog).
      Do you have the ttf-bitstream-vera package (or some other nice fonts) installed? Try running "dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig" and toggling the autohinter. Sometimes the autohinter makes things better, sometimes worse.

    • Re:Redian, or maybe Debhat (Score:4, Informative)

      by alexpage ( 210348 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @02:49PM (#8748747)
      I've found nothing so far on Debian which helps me get the config files right.

      I take it you know about dpkg-reconfigure?
      • That runs the package's debconf scripts, right? So for gpm, for example, it will ask me four questions, with no auto-detection or suggestions, and it doesn't give me a setup that supports hotplugging my usb mouse unless I configure it for the usb mouse. In which case the PS/2 trackpoint won't work. That's what I'm saying is missing, on redhat, I run system-config-mouse and I can use both the trackpoint and hotplug the usb mouse (both work simultaneously when the usb mouse is plugged in). And the config appl

  • Debian in a nutshell. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by claes ( 25551 )
    + Good package management system
    + Good influence on the free software community

    - Elitistic tendencies
    - Lots of flamewars
    - Moving too slowly

    ? Conservative
    ? Lots of packages
    ? Supports many architectures

    For me personally, the last points are negative. I don't mind about 11 architectures, since most of them I will never use. In my summary, Debian actually ends up with negative score. But this is subjective of course. For some people, 11 architectures are more important than a release with current software.
  • Don't let me down, man! [slashdot.org]

  • Dubious about Distros (Score:2, Insightful)

    by petrus4 ( 213815 )
    I'm giving premade distributions a wide berth these days. It's true that I was here singing the praises of Xandros 2.0 a few weeks back...but that was before I found out that gcc didn't work with it out of the box, and the entire system broke hard (I had to reinstall it 3 times before I finally got rid of it) when I tried to install it.
    I'm currently working my way through the book Linux From Scratch, and as the host for that I used a massively stripped install of RH 7.3.

    I figure if I want emphasis on us

Slashdot Top Deals

Get hold of portable property. -- Charles Dickens, "Great Expectations"

Close