Is Ubuntu a Compatibility Nightmare for Debian? 638
An anonymous reader submits "Following Friday's release of Ubuntu Linux 5.04, Ian Murdock, founder of the Debian project, told internetnews.com: 'Ubuntu's popularity is a net negative for Debian.' He explained: 'It's diverged so far from Sarge that packages built for Ubuntu often don't work on Sarge. And given the momentum behind Ubuntu, more and more packages are being built like this. The result is a potential compatibility nightmare.' Ian suggests a method for averting crisis on his blog."
Problem? (Score:4, Insightful)
Crisis, what crisis? (Score:3, Insightful)
Bad (Score:1, Insightful)
FP
That's what happens (Score:4, Insightful)
Bad Ubuntu! (Score:4, Insightful)
The operative word there is eventually.
Sayeth Murdoch; "But what we really need right now as a community is for Sarge to be released."
You needed that at least a year ago. Fix your model so that Debian can keep up with the rest of the Linux world and you won't have to gripe about forks that don't exist.
Debian should be the foundation of a plethora of tailored distributions dominating the Linux market. The one and only thing preventing this is the fact that Stable is perpetually very obsolete. This is not Ubuntu's fault.
Here's a way to avert a crisis: (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously, they haven't had a stable release in nearly three years. Projects like Ubuntu were created due to the complete lack of leadership on Debian's part.
In the wake of Red Hat's withdrawl of a viable free linux distro, Debian should be thriving right now. Instead its fading away.
Debian out of date and stale? (Score:3, Insightful)
The real question (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone wins? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, no, everybody doesn't win. Providing compatibility with generic Debian would be a pain for Ubuntu, and would take energy away from more worthwhile work that people want to do on Ubuntu. Adding this kind of bag-on-the-side would be a win for generic Debian, and a loss for Ubuntu.
A better option might be for generic Debian to stop trying to support desktop users. The way things are stacking up now, generic Debian-stable is a great server OS, but a lousy dekstop OS. People who want to run the latest bleeding-edge version of Gnome or whatever are switching to Ubuntu. So what's the point of having generic Debian keep trying to support the latest bleeding-edge GUI packages?
I can't help thinking that this sounds like sour grapes on the part of Ian Murdock. The tone of his blog is like, "No fair, I don't want you to play with my ball anymore."
I don't think his comparison with RPM is completely apropos. RPM was poorly designed from the start, and was probably designed from the start as a tool for vendor lock-in. Apt-get, AFAICT, is well designed. If there's a problem maintaining compatibility between Ubuntu and generic Debian, it's probably because some of the desktop GUI libs are changing very rapidly.
Re:Problem? (Score:4, Insightful)
It just works.
Re:Problem? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's the same thing with KDE and GNOME, where I have to have two entire desktop environments installed just to run all the apps out there. The idea of choice has affected compatibility. You need to balance out all these ideals, not let one take over all aspects of thinking in all situations.
Just my $0.02, that's all.
Not seeing the whole picture. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Here's a way to avert a crisis: (Score:5, Insightful)
Ubuntu is cool (I run a Debian/Ubuntu mix), but in concentrating on the glamorous stuff they end up getting a bit more credit than they deserve.
What Ubuntu is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
I realize the point is to provide stability and not upgrade willy-nilly like Mandrake or some of the other distributions, but for crying out loud, if your last release was more than 18 months ago you really need to get one out the door. I don't consider the minor updates they've done to Woody to be sufficient... they need to make Sarge stable pretty soon or they'll lose even more people to Ubuntu and other Debian-lookalikes.
It's rather embarassing anymore even suggesting installing Debian Woody on anything at work since it's such a joke. We're going with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 instead which actually has a sane upgrade schedule. So, I'm not meaning to downplay the contributions of the Debian community, I love it to death at home when running testing or unstable, but suggesting a business run such out-of-date software on their production servers is absolutely ludicrous.
More like a blessing than a nightmare (Score:2, Insightful)
I tried everything from Red Hat (from 4.2 and up), Conectiva (2 and up), Mandrake (6 and up), SuSE (6.2 and up) and Gentoo (I was never able to determine the version I was using, because as soon as I finished compiling something, I had to emerge world again
The one I liked *the most* was Debian because it just works... well, at least that was the idea. Since there were no real distributions that worked for me (Debian did, but... hey, look at Woody and Sarge), I kept on using Windows.
Well, what's the point? I'm typing this on Ubuntu, which I've been using since january. It's exactly what I liked on Debian, plus up to date packages. Thanks Canonical.
Re:Similar problem when Mandrake forked (Score:5, Insightful)
It's also rather annoying that Murdoch witters on about "avoiding the fate of the RPM world" - uh, hello? Last time I checked we're all Linux users. And Linux ISVs hate the current situation because they already have to produce lots of packages, or more likely simply not bother and produce a Loki Setup or a tarball (tarball! how DOS is that?).
Debians problems seem to be directly tracable to:
The end result is Ubuntu - a fork. Unfortunately Ubuntu doesn't really tackle the packaging problem seriously: it improves on Debian by only stabilising a small base system, but this means you get to choose between (a) an out of date and small but stable repository (main) or (b) a large and up to date but often broken repository (universe). And I still haven't figured out WTF the "metaverse" is yet.
Unfortunately the Ubuntu developers only go so far - they still believe it's possible for Ubuntu to package everything end users will ever need, even though at least in Warty, universe wasn't even enabled by default. I don't see any way for Ubuntu to stabilise universe without getting bogged down in the same mud that Debian did.
Re:Everyone wins? (Score:5, Insightful)
A question that really needs to be answered is "What does Debian see as its role?" They've said that they want to speed up the release cycle. How much? At a certain point, won't it be redundant given Ubuntu releases with a six month release cycle? Who is going to use Debian proper? Who does Debian want to use Debian?
I think Debian functions exceptionally as a platform to base derivative distributions off of. Why make actual releases if other distributions are making releases that are more attractive? There are a few good reasons to, but I think alternative solutions would be better.
1) Ubuntu's support period isn't long enough.
Ok, so instead of making a release, pick up an Ubuntu release after it is deprecated and support it for another year.
2) Ubuntu's value comes from its corporate backing. We can't change the fundamental processes that we have going in the non-profit Debian world because Ubuntu could disappear someday.
The work that Debian proper does is far more than the few Ubuntu developers do. They just build on top of what is already there. If Canonical decides to stop supporting Ubuntu, just adopt it as part of the normal operations of Debian. Think of it as another branch.
I think once sarge gets out, some discussion needs to occur about what the future holds for Debian so its users can make choices accordingly. There are better ways to operate than what's currently proposed.
Re:Here's a way to avert a crisis: (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm not running UNSTABLE, but I still have the latest linux kernel and - more or less - the most recent (or nearly so) versions of most applications and servers.
Debian is a constantly evolving beast. It changes daily. It's not some static system that only ever is what it is at each "release".
You want bleeding edge, debian - install it. Nobody is stopping you. Just don't force those of us who want a reliable, steady, proven Debian to accept an unproven level of changes just so you can say "look I have teh latestests on my servers! I ROXOR!".
Re:Here's a way to avert a crisis: (Score:5, Insightful)
You just had to take a potshot at RedHat, didn't you? Lots of people I know have been really happy running Fedora and making use of the resources RedHat provides for Fedora users. I don't see any reason for it to be considered unviable.
P.S. If you're talking about RPM dependency hell, that was a problem even with RedHat, and doesn't prove why RedHat stopping its Desktop distro sales was bad.
Re:Problem? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Here's a way to avert a crisis: (Score:2, Insightful)
That server has been in operation under a heavy load for almost four straight years now and it's running the latest version of all important servers, except it's still 4x PHP and hasn't quite gone to 8x Postgresql. But I wouldn't want that anyway, since they've yet to be tested and proven in the Debian world (and if I really wanted to deal with them, I'd just suck them down from unstable or compile them myself).
I liked the look of Mandrake, but couldn't get it to utilize my 23" Cinedisplay. It insisted at displaying it at a stupidly low resolution, no matter how I munged the ModeLine. I finally gave up after a week of tooling with it.
Really, I wouldn't use anything except Debian as a linux server. Rock solid. I don't need bleeding edge. I need tried and true and tested. And for the rare bit of bleeding edge, I apt-get src and deal with it on my own. For desktop - well, I'd gladly play with any of the other contenders. And regularly do. I just wouldn't entrust them to my servers.
What if you don't care about desktop environments? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
Working with the Debian people can involve more bureacracy and red tape than working with the federal government, and some developers can't stand that. The philosophy of "Choice is Good" when it comes to users having a choice of desktop environments, word processors, etc. is often made, but don't forget it applies to FOSS developers too. Don't like the way a project is organized? Work on something else. Don't like the direction it's taking? Fork it. Choice keeps devs happy.
Re:Ubuntu Sarge (Score:5, Insightful)
who cares that it isn't compatible with Sarge? Is Sarge really compatible with Sid?
This is an important question. Ian is complaining that Ubuntu, a released distro, is incompatible with Debian Sarge, an unreleased unstable distro. This is like Bill Gates complaining that Firefox 1.0.2 is incompatible with Windows Longhorn Beta 2. As long as Firefox released first, it is the second-comer who is responsible for playing catch up.
Can Debian Sarge keep up with "standards" created by Ubuntu? I doubt it; Debian is not renowned for its agile development..
Why can't Debian wait a few years? (Score:1, Insightful)
Now imagine if Ubuntu had instead been a group of developers who decided to combine their efforts with the Debian group to improve Debian?
Yes imagine what 7 layers of bureaucracy could have done for the Ubuntu team. Warty Warthog would have been released in 2008 and Debian developers could continue to ignore that fact that they suck.
Re:Problem? (Score:3, Insightful)
That said, given the speed that the Ubantu people seem to work at, do you think they would have hung around developing Debian at a snails pace? Some people like the way Ubantu does things, personally I'm going to stick with Debian, I like the slow and steady it works for my needs. Same with KDE and Gnome. I hate Gnome. I can't stand it, but I like KDE. I would use CDE before using Gnome. Choice is there for a reason, you'll never please everyone and each of these projects appeals to different people.
Re:Funny thing, perspective. (Score:1, Insightful)
ian is wrong, ubuntu will only help debian (Score:3, Insightful)
1. it will attract (and is attracting) a huge userbase that will very quickly understand the benefits of apt and the benefits of debian. there is no better example of what a polished linux desktop can be than latest gnome/kde on top of sid (ubuntu), properly patched and configured for the user. this is huge and extremely exciting, it is the best example of 'how a linux desktop is not only workable but superior to the competition and can only attract more talent.
2. ubuntu's goal is not to 'fork' but to 'freeze and polish' every six months based on unstable. some packages must be forked for obvious reasons, not for the sake of forking but because ubuntu serves the desktop and not all 11 architectures - what that means is ubuntu forks packages only so long as they can safely be used on the desktop while being patched on the other architectures.
3. all the interest in ubuntu will eventually trickle down to interest and excitement in debian
4. all the development going into ubuntu will eventually trickle down to debian. the problem right now is simply timing. debian will only start to see the fruits of ubuntus labour after sarge is released, and when unstable become testing. then and only then will debian start to see an accelerated track as a result of this newfound excitement.
5. debian is the easiest and larges distro out there. ubuntu only seems like a negative from the perspective of sarge's release schedule and ubuntu just jumping into the scene. give it time, you will see debian kill suse and redhat to the point that i predict they will drop their individual efforts and simply adopt debian as their core and base their proprietary services around debian.
it is inevitable all shall be assimilated.
Binary Compatibility Is Hard(TM) (Score:5, Insightful)
Easy enough; it's the implications that are subtle. Like that building a key system library with different options makes it a different package. That changing a key system library thus changes the entire configuration management scenario. That a package that has different subcomponents, each with their own dependencies, is a package that depends on all of them. That auto-built dependencies tend to be even pickier then the real ones. That packages are only as good as their (builder supplied) metadata. And so on and so forth.
There must be something about this that is either hard to comprehend, or hard to accept. It gives a lot of RPM users trouble, it gives Debian users a sense of superiority, it's what makes BSD ports work so well, and it's largely responsible for making Microsoft Windows the unholy mess that it is. Clearly, there's a disconnect here.
Take a look at some common misconceptions in the software world.
It appears a disproportionate number of Debian users carry a false sense of superiority about their package tools, when what really makes Debian win is the size of the distribution package pool. Specifically, that having such a large pool of configured, compiled, and tested packages readily available via "apt-get install foo" leads a lot of Debian people into think APT is somehow magic.
Likewise, RPM properly saying "I don't think you have the pieces you need for this to work" leads so many people into thinking that RPM *causes* "dependency hell". RPM simply reports it. YUM (and things like it) can help you with it. But the nature of binary software itself is what *causes* dependency hell.
And the fact that BSD ports downloads, configures, builds, and installs all specified components *from source* leads BSD bigots into thinking that the BSD ports packagers must be doing a much better job then Red Hat or Debian packagers. Rather, they just bypass the problem of binary compatability.
And, again, this is also largely responsible for why Windoze sucks so much. When everything is a binary which you have no source for, and no two packages share information on what is being installed, and you can only install one version of any given library at once time -- then, yah, it's a minor kind of miracle the thing ever works at all.
Binary compatability is hard.
Re:Similar problem when Mandrake forked (Score:5, Insightful)
What I think both Debian and Ubuntu should do is forget about their huge package repositories, on the grounds that it's an unscalable way to distribute software and focus purely on making a great OS. That means things like UTF8, graphical installers, graphical config tools, SELinux integration.
These are all being worked on. But see how Fedora was ahead of them in all of these areas, and in some still is. That's because the Red Hat team focussed purely on the base distro instead of trying to package everything in the world, which is impossible.
Now, Ubuntu basically has a chance to do this. Strip even more out of main - why is Inkscape there? How many Ubuntu users are also vector graphics artists? It's out of date already, and has been for months, yet you can get up to date packages direct from inkscape.org. Take it to the logical conclusion: make Ubuntu a base operating system that is super easy to extend, with only the basics in main (music player, web browser etc).
Now support 3rd party packaging, so users can go to inkscape.org if they want a graphical editor and install it straight from there. I think they should use autopackage [autopackage.org] to do that, but I'm biased. There could be any number of ways of doing it. The point is, stop being packagers and become OS developers.
Ubuntu could do this without too much pain. Debian, on the other hand, never could. When you think of Debian, do you think of a slick, modern desktop OS? No? Neither do I. I think of 18,000 packages. But who cares how many packages you have, if the OS sucks. If Debian were to deprecate most of the packages, it would cease to have a purpose on the desktop because it's such a poor desktop OS (as Ubuntu has made clear). It could refocus and with time, catch up, but it would take a lot of effort and dedication and belief in the new way. I don't think Debian can do that. I think it'll fade away rather than change.
Attempting to package everything the user wants is sinking Debian, and it'll sink Ubuntu too unless they change the philosophy instead of just doing minor tweaks. Ubuntu universe includes Coq, a theorem prover whos own authors estimate that it has only 100 regular users, yet does not include gaim-vv, which adds webcam support to Gaim. What is wrong here?
Re:That's what happens (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is, "a lot of people" means "people who want a desktop distro for x86." Far from having a grudge against Ubuntu, I've been installing it on all my systems. It's a very nice distro. But Debian has a bit less flexibility because it's trying to guarantee that a
I don't want to see
Re:Problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Problem? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not seeing the whole picture. (Score:3, Insightful)
Ubuntu is GREAT for Debian (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, Ubuntu packages do not work on Sarge -- Ubuntu starts from SID (which is what I am typing this reply on and have been using since 2000 without a reinstall!). I do not expect Knoppix packages to run on Sarge, or Mepis or Ubuntu. Ubuntu, while closely tied to Debian is a different beast. SID packages are already high quality. Ubuntu just polishes they up a bit further, makes TOO MANY things brown, and pushes it out the door every six months. I run it on my work laptop, and it works like a charm (except the infamous Broadcom wireless grrr).
The reason Ubuntu is great for Debian is that they are paying Debian developers who ARE pushing back patches both to the upstream, and to SID. I believe that when X.org hits SID, it will be better because of Ubuntu than it would have been in Ubuntuless world. Ditto for many other packages.
Re:Problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not really possible. The IMHO biggest differences between Debian and Ubuntu are their release schedule and package inclusion policy:
So, if you want to create a nice, up-to-date Debian based desktop system, you can either try to convince the 1000 (?) Debian developers that they should change their ways, change the release procedure, and change the criteria for deciding the inclusion of packages. Or, you can just start a new distro, and do as you please
RPM distros (Score:1, Insightful)
Whole topic is but a troll (Score:3, Insightful)
I think this thread is just Ubuntu hype - our logs don't see any trend. Please note there are SEVERAL other dist based Debian. I think Debina has more children than any other distro - says good things about Debian.
hypocrisy (Score:4, Insightful)
1. Debian is not a company.
2. Debian has changed its release architectures after Sarge so that Etch is not slowed down by unknown, exotic and/or obsolete architectures.
3. Sarge is not ready NOW because of the large number of architectures. ARM has only 2 auto-builders now and hasn't even compiled the release of glibc that has to go into Sarge. After it finishes compiling, the archive will be frozen.
Everyone can start their own little distributions here and there, usually leaching off of distributions like Debian. They find a limited niche market and people start talking about "Debian dying". Well, I think we had that discussion before Woody as well.
Debian has a very large number of packeges available for it. As of right now, Sid has over 16600 packages. Distributions like Ubuntu do not maintain these packages. They are just managing the core (base) and a few other packages.
Anyway, release cycles every 3 or 6 months are not necessarly good. People using Debian want stability. Why do people on slashdot bitch about MS dropping support for NT or 98, yet they complain that Debian stable is 3 years old! Huh?
Woody ships with a 2.4.18 kernel. This kernel does not support SATA. Woody does not support 2.6.x kernels with module support out of the box. But you can install kernel 2.6 on woody. You can run woody on a SATA only system (can't install it from CDs though). Can you install NT4 or Windows 98 or Windows 2000 or even XP out of the box on a SATA only system? My latest, greatest XP installation does NOT detect my SATA chipset. I mean, WTF?
Anyway, as soon as Sarge ships, people will start trolling that it does not support PCE-48X or their modem or something.
People wanting RHEL software stability without the pricetag and still want to have security support would be using Woody for the last 3 years. I am using Woody on a number of machines. I don't have to worry about upgrades with unexpected bugs. I don't have to worry about sudden ABI changes or compiler changes or kernel changes or GUI changes or coputeguration changes or
So, why again is Slashdot population (I guess you can it that) complaining about Woody being stable less than 3 years, yet when it comes to MS, well, they release NT when? I think it came with IE 2!! And now that they drop support, people complain left and right about the need to upgrade..
Why are people here so hypocritical? You can run Sid with latest, greatest if you want. You can get latest Sarge installer here: http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/ [debian.org] There are many people that will be running Woody months *after* Sarge gets released.
</rant>
Re:Here's a way to avert a crisis: (Score:2, Insightful)
Chances are you gave chipset info during the installation. This is for the purpose of getting the system installed (you're configuring the installer's network support, not the installed system's). Once it is installed, it is your job to configure it for the hardware present. Other than the installer, there really isn't a mechanism by which you tell Debian about your hardware in an automated way -- that's between you and the kernel. This is why I use Debian -- it's a GNU system that makes it easy to keep the system current while staying out of my face. This is also why I don't recommend Debian unless I know that the person to whom I'm recommending it will be able to compile their kernel. It's not a matter of elitism, it's a matter of how much control the user wants, and the level of behind-the-scenes magic they're willing to deal with.
Saying that Debian is not user-friendly is fair. However, calling it "1996" because it doesn't try to make decisions for you is like calling a shiny new Corvette "1947" because it has a manual transmission and doesn't try to make gearing decisions for you. It's an orthogonal issue, and some people still prefer a stick-shift.
Re:Problem? (Score:3, Insightful)
No, we'd have no such release, because the problem is not a technical one that requires more coders, it's a community one that Debian has shown no willingness to either accept or address. We would still be stuck waiting on 11 different architectures to be done before anything could be released, we'd have no timeline for updates, and we'd still get no respect from the maintainers. None of this has anything to do with adding more developers to Debian. The technology of Debian is excellent, and the politics and social issues are undermining it.
I'm going out on a limb and predicting the Debian/Ubuntu split will end up like XFree86/x.org split. I'm worried about the other architectures as developers leave Debian for Ubuntu. I hope that Debian will continue to exist and be used due to its wide platform support (unlike XFree86), but it will very quickly become irrelevant on x86 and PPC - the two largest Linux platforms.
Re:Ubuntu is the Judas distro to Debian (Score:4, Insightful)
Ubuntu is a betrayal of Debian.
Canonical has hired a number of critical packagers and maintainers of infrastructure of Debian and paid them to do priority work for Ubuntu instead of work on Debian.
Oh my god!!! Canonical had the nerve to PROVIDE A MEANS TO LIVE for Debian developers, and give them an opportunity to make a distro based on Debian and gives bugfixes back to Debian. What assholes.
Ubuntu, keeping in mind, depends on masses of packagers and developers who have chosen to package and quality-check for Debian. Canonical, in turn, depends on providing paid support for Ubuntu.
Actually Ubuntu currently depends on a certain South African that loved Debian and wanted to make a new distro based on it. He has admited to /. that he hopes that the paid support thing work out, but he doesn't mind if Ubuntu turns into charity if it doesn't.
A start-up for-profit commercial entity cannot hope to duplicate this success, is unable to do so as so many others have done in a relationship that can be described as mutualism or commensalism, and instead satisfies itself with being a blood-sucking parasite that will end only in its own destruction along with that of the host.
HOW THE F*CK IS UBUNTU A PARASITE!!!!. It gives back bug fixes. It has developed things that Debian will need in the future (Xorg). It has built up a vibrant community, and gets the word Debian and release in the same sentence together (even if it is only "Ubuntu, the debian based distro, released today.") Even if Ubuntu didn't give back bug fixes, Debian's license allows this to happen. Yet the Ubuntu devs do upstream their work. Troll
And you wankers who want the latest and best but cannot see past the inconsequential metric of a release date of a "stable" set of packages, are selling your souls and that of the best distro of Linux to ensure it will happen.
And all you wankers that can't figure it out- Ubuntu is a good thing for Debian. The progect is hurting bad and it needs a shot in the arm, Ubuntu is that show in the arm...
Re:Problem? (Score:4, Insightful)
The Ubuntu developers couldn't have gone in and contributed to Debian because their contributions aren't wanted in most of the Debian world.
One does not replace the other, but they are very complimentary.
Re:Solution: Ubuntu - Debian co-maintainers (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, don't you think all that is up to Debian? I think Ubuntu may or may not agree, but I don't see them having a problem. You got yourseleves into a quagmire. You must do something about it. Debian used to have a lot of respect, but you lost a lot of it...Stop acting like Ubuntu is the problem. Ubuntu is the solution. For most of ex-Debian users.
I don't mean to be rude, but you gotta develop focus on the issue. The problem is Debian and how it's handled as a social project, and its choice of software packaging technology.
Re:repositories? what? (Score:3, Insightful)
I know exactly what your problem is. You have added the Marillat, and it has a new version of Mplayer that Hoary doesn't have current enough libs for. What you need to do is either:
A. Disable that Repo. and try again with the multiverse added. For Hoary, a compatible Mplayer was added to the multiverse. Using the marillat repo for anything for than grabbing the w32codecs and the dvd codecs is a sure way to cause problems.
B. Don't use Mplayer. I personally like Gxine a LOT more. Try it, it installs in Ubuntu easily.+
Re:Simple solution: (Score:3, Insightful)
In business schools around the country it is called smart marketing.
Re:Not seeing the whole picture. (Score:5, Insightful)
If Debian dies than it will either be remade in another Debian-influenced distrobution or the developers and users will migrate to other distrobutions... like Ubuntu. Don't be so arrogant, the world is not crashing. Free software doesn't die with its developer, remember.
Re:Bad Ubuntu! (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think that the "server" release cycle should be any different than the "desktop" release cycle. As an enterprise Debian admin, let me tell you that stable is just as outdated on servers as it is on workstations. Users are particularly unhappy about MySQL and PHP versions. As postmaster, I'm saddened by Mailman, Exim, Horde, and Cyrus. In all cases, those server apps are so horribly outdated in stable.
I think the big difference is that enterprise users need longer support cycles, not longer release cycles. That is, a stable release needs to be supported for a long time. That does not preclude the release of another, newer stable release. The problem with Debian is that, except for a short transition period (one year, when woody was released) there's only one supported "stable" release. You're forced to upgrade to the new stable when it comes out, or else you're stuck running something unsupported.
As an example, Redhat announced a while back that they'd support a given version of RHEL for, what, 3 years after its release? That's what enterprise/server users need. RHEL will release newer versions, and we as users can upgrade when we see fit to another supported version. With Debian, that's really not possible.
Unfortunately, Debian is having a hard enough time getting people to work on the security team supporting just one release. Trying to support something like 3 releases at once is not likely to happen given the volunteer nature of the organization.
noah
Re:Problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
For production servers, I agree with you.
But for desktops and developmment servers, I don't agree.
x.org is not included in any official Debian repository. I don't consider it to be 'bleeding edge'. It certainly isn't well-tested and stable, but it's not bleeding edge. The alpha- beta- or latest point release of a package is 'bleeding edge'-- so just exclude those latest packages if it bothers you.
Either way, packages like this should have be in some sort of Debian test version. The Debian devs say they need to postponing x.org so that it won't interfere with the latest release of Debian. But this shows that there is something fundamentally wrong with the Debian release cycle.
If Ubuntu takes pressure off the Debian project to be all things to all people, then perhaps Debian can refine it's core competency (being the best server distro); which might help it stay a little more polished and up-to-date.
I think you are right on the money. Debian will probably focus on server stuff, and Ubuntu will focus on desktop. It's a good possible symbiosis.
Re:Problem? (Score:3, Insightful)
I run the testing release of Debian at home, and have just recieved a few snide remarks about Xorg not existing and XFree86 being prevalent. However who gives? I can still run Doom 3 and UT 2004.
But I really don't see why you would need all the flashest apps on a production machine. Isn't the idea of production that it works and works well? I know management usually through newer and newer hardware at a solution to try and make up for the crap algorithms that have been implemented to make the time frames.. but even then is it really essential that every latest feature of the underlying hardware be supported?
No, its not. Actually its unlikely that every feature of the hardware is ever actually supported. Definately not by a windows box, nor even a Red Hat box.
Though, I disagree with a need for the latest and greatest bells and whistles being installed in production environemnts. I do not disagree with the need for Debian to speed up its release process. I think I have been using Woody as a testing release for over a year now. And though I am happy with what I am using. I'm not really impressed with the process.
Re:Problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, I didn't mean it that way.
Out of the box, right after the install on Kubuntu, I can plug in a USB keychain and have it working. My video card drivers are correct and xorg.conf is working. I have a working office suite, web browser, etc. I don't have any further config files to learn, master and then tweak to get X working or my digital camera to connect or to get CDs burning. I've a good out-of-the-box functional system for what most end-users need.
To many power-users, these features are pointless fluff, but I really like having all this working when the install is done. Knoppix does this but it installs a ~lot~ of extra stuff. I just noticed a Braille TTY server (Brittle?) running on my Knoppix box last week! The Ubunutu family gives you a much thinner, but still very "end-user" usable distro. And that's what I want.
My life is so busy with work, family, two kids now, open source work, writing, that when I turn to ~any~ operating system, be it Linux, Windows, Mac or whatever, I don't want to get a bare system and tweak it out. I just want to get in and drive.
Ubunutu/Kubuntu save me hours (or days) setting up a new box. That time is worth something to me. If you have time to setup a new box, hand pick your installs, run them by hand, tweak the settings, etc and so on until the box is "your own", then go for it! That box is worth something to you. We each pursue what we value the most. There's room for both, right?
In case you are wondering, I have seven computers in my home. A MythTv client, a MythTV server and my laptop all running Kubuntu. My desktop and "server" box (web, cvs, svn, file sharing, etc) both run XP. My wife and kid are on XP. I'm sure if it's relevant, but I'm a big fan of "what works".
There are things that you can only do in Windows, like run the Shrek Match game for my kid or use Quicken to synch up with my bank, or play the latest video game.
There's a lot more you can do in Linux, but I'm not we have a compelling app yet that can pointed to as superior and an average consumer recognize it. Perhaps a free install with an operating system, Office Suite, graphics tools and a few games is a part of that equation?
Re:Problem? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:it IS a problem (Score:3, Insightful)
You're an asshole, and just proved my point (Score:4, Insightful)
That's exactly what I was talking about. I ask a question, and you bite my head off. If this is such a trivial question, then why isn't there a simple solution?
Perhaps you should try some of your solutions yourself, instead of blindly assuming they work well. A quick Google search does not show any Definate answers [google.com]. There is no obvious, definitive answer on debian.org [google.com].
I see some mailinglist posts made by people who I don't know. I also see a bunch of sites which have no obvious authority in the Debian project. Where's the offical word from the Debian leaders? Why should I trust what some stranger says on the mailinglist?
This is why people keep asking.
If the Debian devs want people to stop asking this frequently asked question, perhaps they should drop the elitist additide and put it in the Debian FAQ [debian.org]-- that's why we have a FAQ.
Debian stable has fallen down (Score:3, Insightful)
Because free software is free as in beer, packagers assume there is no big burden in making their packages depend on the latest versions of dependencies they have around at the time they build. They don't do the hard task of testing and building packages with older dependencies even though they would run fine on them.
On the other hand, developers for the W operating system tend to try to make their package run on as many versions of it as they can, and they test it on as many versions as you can. What that means is that a very large amount of the time, you can install the latest version of some software package on Win98, often even Win95, and almost always the 5 year old Windows 2000.
Try to have a 5 year old version (with security updates of course) of just about any linux distro and try to install the latest version of some hot new package you want. It will rarely work. It may not even be available in your package manager, and if it is, it will want to upgrade vast numbers of packages in your system that you don't actually truly need to upgrade.
And like it or not, even though upgrading is good, upgrades are scary. They are scary for ordinary non-guru users and they are scary even for guru users who are trying to run production systems they depend on. Upgrading should happen regularly, but it should happen on the user's schedule, not at random because I want to run some new software.
Ideally upgrading should not be so scary, but it is. Things break. More than once I have had a major upgrading result in a day of downtime, and I think I know what I'm doing.
It is not satisfactory to tell your senior citizen mother to run unstable and upgrade regularly. It's not going to happen.
Re:Problem? (Score:4, Insightful)
One could also wonder if vulnerabilities in old packages are less and less likely to be patched over time because they are being used less. That does concern me.
Re:Problem? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Binary Compatibility Is Hard(TM) (Score:2, Insightful)
This is the most important reason as to why I run Gentoo. It lets me escape dependency hell. Binary packages will always be more dependancy sensitive. I hope your post will make others see the problem with binary packages, and that there is a solution. Great post!
Debian so far behind (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Problem? (Score:1, Insightful)
Nice straw man. You're either deliberately missing the point, or monumentally stupid.
The previous poster didn't have a problem with stable applications, but rather modern applications (or more precisely, the lack of which.)
"Stable" is not mutually-exclusive with "modern".
As other distros have proven, you can have stable, modern applications - Debian "stable" is so woefully out of date it's not funny anymore (yes, it used to be funny - now it's just pathetic.)
Re:Problem? (Score:3, Insightful)
When's the last time you saw a KDE 2.x update? A Mozilla 1.0 update? Nobody is maintaining this stuff anymore, except for the debian guys.
IMHO the KDE guys are much more qualified to fix KDE than the debian guys. I can understand that you might want to wait a few months before incorporating a KDE release in a distribution. But the debian guys are behind a lot of versions and they're not even trying to keep up. And this is the case with most major packages in Debian. They're shipping stuff that the original developers no longer care to maintain. Really when's the last time you installed a mozzilla 1.0 patch or a KDE 2.x security update?
When you are running a server this doesn't really matter much because on a server you don't constantly install new software but instead you focus on a handful of server applications (e.g. apache and mysql). You can afford to compile the latest versions of those applications yourself if you need to. This is what debian is good at: laying a good foundation for running a handful of customized server applications that really matter to you. I'd pick debian if I needed to run a stable linux server.
However, this philosohy doesn't scale well to the desktop. Almost all debian desktop users run testing or a debian based distro derived from testing. Testing is not that good. On all occasions I tried it I managed to freak out apt-get in no time with a very small number of apt-get installs, updates and upgrades. Last time (two weeks ago) apt-get install kdebase did the trick. Poof errors all over the place. Probably it was fixable but it shouldn't need fixing in the first place. Debian users recommend using testing for desktops, I'd recommend using a finished and tested product instead. There are plenty of those around. Some are even derived from debian testing. Ubuntu is currently doing what the debian community is currently not doing: supporting end users.
Interestingly the debate shows that maybe the deb package format is not so perfect. Wasn't the package format intended to prevent this kind of compatibility problems? For years the debian people have been claiming the superiority of the
DLL Hell (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm guessing you're trolling, but you do touch on some points in my original post worth expanding upon. As I said, Windows has these issues, too.
Have you ever noticed that the more software gets installed on Windows, the more likely it is to have trouble? There are a number of reasons for that, but the biggest is known colloquially as "DLL Hell". As I said, Windows only allows you to have one version of a shared library installed at a time. So you get all these crazy dependencies where program A requires library version X, but program B requires library version Y, so you can't have them both on the same system at the same time.
My personal favorite example of this is how if you install Microsoft Outlook 2000 (the Exchange client) on your Exchange 2000 server, you will cause the Information Store to stop working until you replace a certain set of DLLs (and thus break Outlook). Fifteen years of binary compatibility? Hell, Microsoft can't get it to work in the same year!
The ability to have the system load and run-time link an executable image does not mean that binary compatability issues don't exist. Linux has had that all along, too. But in Windows, you don't even get the warnings that RPM (or whatever) gives you. You just get screwball behavior.
This is why in Microsoft's ".NET Framework". Microsoft has implemented to so-called "managed code assemblies", which reference the specific libraries they were built against, and call those versions in. Of course, this is a radical departure to how Windows manages shared library and run-time linking. Everything has to be restructured to make use of it. I'm not sure how that qualifies as "compatible", either.
Microsoft isn't exempt from this reality anymore then Linux or BSD is.
I'm not going to bother responding to the Linux flame-bait.