Sarge is Now Frozen 380
JoeBuck writes "Steve Langasek has announced that Debian Sarge is now frozen. He produced a schedule that would lead to a Debian release at the end of May, though I would expect it to slip somewhat. I'm glad that the long wait for a Debian release will soon be over."
This Doesn't Change Much (Score:5, Informative)
For new Debian users, Debian testing images based upon the new installer have long been available here [debian.org].
My main question is why Debian didn't advertise the above-linked installation images more. Just finding a link to the new installer ISO images is like navigating a maze blind-folded. Yes, I understand that they're not 'release-quality' yet, but it would take just a simple warning on the page to download Debian: "Please try our new installer! Although it's not completely stable, it's faster and easier to use and is definitely worth a try."
Ubuntu's installer is based upon the new installer, and it's not unreasonable to believe that many people use Ubuntu because it's an easier-to-install Debian, in no small part due to the work on Debian's new installer (and the great work of Ubuntu developers).
How Debian works... (Score:5, Informative)
Just because there are always people who don't know how this works...
Each generation of Debian is named after a character from Toy Story. Potato, Sarge, Woody (the one I run), Slink, Hamm and Sid. Sid is always "testing", the most unstable places for apps to go. Remember who Sid was in Toy Story? Same thing. After packages get more stable, they get promoted to "testing". For a while, this has been "Sarge". After "testing" proves itself (and they demote packages that can't get more stable), it gets promoted to "stable"-- today that's "woody".
Sarge being frozen means that sometime in the near future, we'll have a new "stable", with more recent packages.
People who run servers but can't afford to qualify them much should probably stick with "stable". "Testing" is for desktop users who don't like much churn, but it's still more stable than Windows, IMHO. "Unstable" is for the bleeding edge who want someone else to do the compiling.
For more information, visit your local library [debian.org].
Re:So... (Score:4, Informative)
On any system that's used for real work, the later is much more sane. Upgrade when you've tested that path, not simply when it becomes available.
Re:Good news, even for Sid users. (Score:3, Informative)
Short answer: It shouldn't take very long at all since it's already been packaged for Ubuntu. A new X.org release with a different packaging structure is scheduled to be released soon, so that will complicate things a bit. The new release is supposed to be included in the next Ubuntu release if it gets out early enough, so most of the packaging work will be done.
Long answer: Debian X Strike Force [deadbeast.net]
Re:Is it kernel 2.2 yet? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:How Debian works... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:How Debian works... (Score:2, Informative)
No, Sid is always unstable.
Re:Good news, even for Sid users. (Score:2, Informative)
Get over it (Score:2, Informative)
Proof positive that you have no idea how Debian works. This isn't Windows, or OS X. If you want the release, just go get the damn release whenever you want. You don't have to wait for it to be stable before you do.
Re:Thank Goodness (Score:3, Informative)
They just have a terrible time getting a release out the door.
If you run testing/unstable you run fairly current software, and you're not that much further behind come the release, and at release time Sarge will be fairly representative of the "stable state of the art". It's just that in the couple of years between now and Etch, things will progress without being reflected in a stable Debian release. But come the next release, Debian will be there again.
It's like a staircase with widely spaced but high steps. other distros have closer steps but they're not so high... does that makes sense? I've only had one beer.
Re:How Debian works... (Score:5, Informative)
Not to nitpick, and I'm sure this is what you meant, but: Sid is always "unstable", not "testing".
In addition, to clarify. "After packages get more stable" is a combination of factors. Mainly:
I can recommend Why is package X not in testing yet? [bjorn.haxx.se]. It helps spell out why, heh, a package has not migrated into testing from unstable yet. It helps a whole lot when people whine about old testing packages.
So yes. I, like many other Debian users and non-users, hope the release comes soon!
-orange.
Re:The most important question... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:So... (Score:3, Informative)
So while I haven't heard of anything akin to Fedora Legacy, woody won't disappear overnight
Re:This Doesn't Change Much (Score:3, Informative)
Why is this important? (Score:3, Informative)
Oh - of course I see the argument in a production environment - and then again - I don't. As I said - been running Debian "testing" or "sarge" for 3 years on something like 20 machines or so. During that time I've had TWO problems that was so serious it made one machine (the one I was testing the update on) unusual for a short while. One was when somebody screwed up the Adaptec aix_7xxx driver in the kernel in the early 2.6.8 and the other was during the switch from LVM 1 to LVM 2. Apart from that - every single update have been successful. That IS pretty impressive if you ask me.
debian is never frozen... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:This Doesn't Change Much (Score:3, Informative)
How Debian (really) works... (Score:5, Informative)
Debian Stable seems to be doing just fine. It's a bit old, so hardware support is dated, but no one who needs a "stable" distro ever complains that Debian Stable isn't "stable" enough. Those using Stable are the same people who like to assume that Debian is a server-only distro, and wonder what all the fuss is about "new releases". Unless you're one of the new users who clicks on debian.org and mistakenly downloads and installs Stable, expecting a modern desktop with modern hardware support, Stable is great.
Testing, which is a somewhat new addition to Debian, doesn't really seem to be fulfilling its mission. The goal for Debian Testing was for it to always be "ready to release". In theory, then, Testing would be an ideal base for third-party distros. Unfortunately, for some reason, few Debian-derived distros use Testing as a base. Most use Unstable instead. Testing is also supposed to be the branch that users can place on a non-production box in order to test out what the next stable will be, and to help stabilize it. Structurally, however, there is little difference between Unstable and Testing. Packages from Unstable are automatically migrated to Testing after a couple of weeks, unless they have glaring flaws. In the time between Debian Stable releases, most upstream sources go through multiple development cycles. Due to this and the constant churn of packages from Unstable into Testing, much of the work done stabilizing Testing is done in vain. Testing is touted as the ideal desktop, and many even use it as a server due to the outdatedness of the Stable branch. Debian Testing is more stable than 90% of other operating systems. But the Testing branch lacks security updates, and broken packages are frequently removed completely from Testing in order to enforce the "ready to release" philosophy. Also, the branch is in constant flux, meaning third-party support is near impossible.
Unstable is supposed to be a developers' and ricers' haven, with the latest up-to-date packages, fresh from the build farms and ready for hours of enjoyment. Unfortunately, Debian Unstable isn't new and unstable enough for many users. Creating Debian's well-built packages takes time, so the latest software usually isn't available overnight. Also, for fear of breaking Unstable, developers have created an even more unstable branch, Experimental, to contain truly unstable packages. Unstable is sometimes preferred over Testing as a desktop because there is no wait for security updates to migrate.
Re:Sarge's March Forward (Score:4, Informative)
Well first of all it doesn't need to be that sort of successful. Mark Shuttleworth has said before [slashdot.org] that he hopes to break even but he doesn't mind if he doesn't and the whole thing is charity. Success to him is building a big community, helping Debian, and having an OS he likes to use.
He has a lot on money and he already has put enough aside to keep Ubuntu going for a while. Ubuntu has a much better foundation than most new distros (thank Debian for that) and has come at a time when OSS is getting exponentially popular.
testing-sarge-stable? (Score:1, Informative)
A how-to would be great, an email how-to in debian-testing would be great as well (the one discussing pinnning was a bit hard to figure out, I followed it but borked it, if someone makes a how-to, please make it readable for newbies, thanks!).
Stability... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Why is this important? (Score:1, Informative)
Not a good idea to be running testing on a production machine and your two issues proves that. Unless of course your production machines aren't really that important and you can afford some issues. But in any case, testing is strictly for testing the next stable release. Things break very often in testing. You were lucky you only had problems twice. You should be using either stable or unstable. unstable is actually more stable than testing. There may be times when testing is problem free, but there is certainly no guarantee of this and the nature of how its used in Debian means there will be problems.
Now stable being important for a production environment is really quite simple. Install stable release, setup a script to do automatic security updates, and that's it.. You don't have to touch that machine for a very long time. The package versions stay the same and the only updates are for security vulnerabilities.
People who want to run a stable release do not want a "floating" update or to stay current. They want a set of packages that do not change so that the apps they are running will run consistently and there is no need to worry about a new version of a dependency breaking some functionality they are depending on. THAT is the key quality of Debian.
a hell of a stable release (Score:1, Informative)
Debian-Installer [debian.org]
Re:Big woop now it's only 3 years behind. FP and F (Score:2, Informative)
The same as always: software aging (also termed "bit rot"). Look at woody (the last release), and you know what is wrong: standard kernel is 2.2 (therefore no support for most USB devices), XFree version 4.1 (good luck finding a graphics card that is supported), mozilla is version 1.0, openoffice.org is not even included, and KDE is still stuck at version 2 (which conflicts with version 3, so that you cannot run *any* KDE 3 application).
So whatever happens to sarge, it is going to be *way* to late. Plus sarge is not nearly up to date either. It is still based on XFree 4.3, and has no support for amd64. Which means it will be obsolet way before Etch can possibly be released.
It is a shame, because apt-get is so much superior to any rpm based solution I have seen. But unless you can run testing, Debian is not really an option on the desktop.
Re:How Debian works... (Score:2, Informative)
No need. It's called a custom installation [ubuntulinux.org]. It gives you a minimal system, just apt-get anything else you need.
Re:testing-sarge-stable? (Score:1, Informative)
this is part of my /etc/apt/sources.list
deb ftp://ftp.fi.debian.org/debian/ [debian.org] testing main non-free contrib
deb-src ftp://ftp.fi.debian.org/debian/ [debian.org] testing main non-free contrib
I pasted it to show you that testing is not actually part of the url there. First there is the url and then on the same line it's specified which packages to use. So, yes, you should change that "testing" to "Sarge".
Re:Good news, even for Sid users. (Score:3, Informative)
Just so you know, I've been a Debian user since '96 and a developer since '01. I run a large Debian site with several hundred servers and workstations. I am very happy with Debian's technology and believe it really helps for running a large infrastructure. However, the stable distribution is painfully outdated, even for servers. We've been running it on our servers, but have had to build custom kernels to support modern hardware and have had to back port most of the server packages we use. We have been running sarge on our workstations for almost two years at this point, because woody is just not acceptable in such an environment. Running an unreleased OS on hundreds of machines, especially when they're not all installed at the same time and thus have different versions of many key packages, is really quite difficult.
A lot of people have called for Debian to simply do away with the stable release all together, since "everybody just runs testing or unstable anyway", but that really wouldn't work in an environment such as mine. Too many people run Debian on just a couple of machines and really don't see what the problem is. You get a very different perspective on it when you have hundreds. All we need is predictable release cycles. 12-18 months for major releases is attainable and perfectly reasonable for me as a user.
noah