Chris Frost writes
"The Debian Project began the freeze of its next distribution release, 2.2, today." Hit the "Read More..." link to read the full press release. This has been a long time coming, and it's good to see another stable release in the future. I've been running potato for some time now, and I'm eagerly anticipating woody, the next unstable release.
------------------------------
The Debian Project
press@debian.org
http://www.debian.org
Martin Schulze
January 16, 2000
------------------------------
The Code Freeze for Debian GNU/Linux 2.2 has begun
"The code freeze for the next Debian release, code named "potato", has
begun", says Richard Braakman, current Debian Release Manager. He
expects the freeze process to take about two months.
Until the new version is released, there will be three distributions
available on our servers: `stable', `frozen', and the new `unstable'.
"The new `unstable' distribution, code named woody[1], was created
today", continues Richard. The `frozen' and `unstable' distributions
start out with the same set of packages. While `unstable' will be
updated rapidly, `frozen' will have only bugfixes applied in
preparation for its release.
[1] Debian releases are code-named after characters from the movie Toy
Story. Woody is the main character, the cowboy action figure.
>> About Debian
The Debian project is an organization of many users who volunteer
their time and effort. Its tasks include maintaining and updating Debian
GNU/Linux which is a free distribution of the GNU/Linux operating system,
and the development of the Debian GNU/Hurd operating system.
>> Contact Information
For further information, please send email to the Debian Press Team,
press@debian.org, or visit the Debian homepage at http://www.debian.org/"
Re:Place "woody" jokes here. (Score:1)
Woody - coming soon!
Re:This is great, but what about 2.4? (Score:1)
Waiting is not a Productive Thing(tm). Waiting encourages more waiting. Think of it this way, while we're waiting for kernel 2.4, well by the time it's out, XFree 4.0 will be just around the corner, so we'll wait for that.
Then something Even Better(tm) will be coming out Real Soon Now(tm) so you may as well wait for that too.
*bzzt* =) Just make sure it has drop in compatibility. Nuf said.
newbie question alert! (Score:1)
obviously neither are complete yet, but are getting close. And when released, what effect will that have on things?
I've been a loyal linux user for a short while now (about 8 months), preaching the virtues to anyone who would listen. But I'm considering giving up the ship and going back to windoze just cause it's so damn hard to accomplish anything in linux (permissions, changing to root anytime you want to do anything, no programs, compiling everything yourself and needing to go find libraries to do it when they work at all) and I'm getting worn out on it.
this is a serious question. I'm on the fence here.
I've heard the new X and KDE will revolutionize the OS, and I'm wondering a) when can we see them, and b) will they really make it worth continuing?
Re:2.4 should drop-in and run fine (Score:1)
packages for those with a new kernel package as well. Given the way that Debian works, that could
be an automatic upgrade: select the kernel and the other stuff comes in too.
All very true, but that's hardly the same thing as potato today being 2.3-ready like you claimed, now is it? I suspect that was the other poster's point, anyway.
It's just like my endless complaints (up to about 2 months ago, when potato bootdisks finally were released) about slink not supporting my system. All the debian people pointed out that potato *did* support my system, which hardly did me any good since I would have had to install slink first to upgrade to potato (at the time; that's since changed, and one thing I hope Debian continues is to make their unstable branch directly installable), and I couldn't install slink because it didn't support my system.
So, what if I'm on a box sufficiently USB-dependent that I can't install w/o USB support (say, USB NIC)? Am I going to have to wait another three years for a USB-capable, truly Linux 2.4-ready Debian?
This endless stability does come at a price.
Re:You missed the point (Score:1)
sufficient force for it to be maintained. You don't have to put up with some marketing department
discontinuing your favorite product.
I don't really see that as being different from Debian, where I have to put up with the "marketing department" never even releasing my favorite product because they're so busy hunting bugs that it's out-of-date when they ship.
Of course, one could also argue that the Debian development style isn't free, given the refusal to admit new maintainers into the club....
Re:Good that 2.2 is frozen, also a moot point (Score:1)
and have the lastest of everything, or have something that's thoughly tested(MUCH more then other
distros). And, "unstable" for the most part, as alot of people will tell you, is alot better then other
distros
There's only one problem with your argument: it's *NOT* a moot point.
Take me, for example. I like Debian, and prefer to run it. I have a box which won't even boot w/o a 2.2 kernel.
Guess what? That means I couldn't install Debian until November, when beta boot disks for potato finally came out.
It's easy for you to say that it's a simple matter to upgrade if you want, but the problem is that that's a specious argument--it's not always a simple matter (or even possible at all) to upgrade, because the base you'd be upgrading from may not work.
READ THIS PLEASE (Score:1)
Debian is made up of volunteers.
The "organisation" debian does not put together a distro designed to grab market share, but to be a great system.
Dselect perhaps may not be for everyone. BUT YOU DON'T NEED TO USE DSELECT- just skip that step and apt-get the whole system.
Slashdot comments have VERY low standards regards to debian.
Please do NOT comment unless you know what you are saying.
Incidently- Debian is one of the best systems around for those who are in the right frame of mind to use it. That includes me, and everyone I know
NOTE: I am not a "Debian developer"
People who don't use Debian (Score:2)
Do you?
How can I avoid dealing with them completely? There are so many of them when I go out into the world. I go to a resteraunt, and ask the waitress if she used Debian, and she doesn't even know what it is........ ARGGHH... where can I get some service in this town.
Re:Great indeed, now how about a real installer? (Score:2)
Re:Place "woody" jokes here. (Score:2)
Upgrade from NT to Linux to replace your Microsoft with a Woody!
Re:The above is exactly the elitism I describe. (Score:2)
Linux has to lose the elitism and make an idiot proof installer if it ever hopes to displace Microsoft.
We're here to make a good system which is powerful, configurable, flexible, and, above all, usable. This mentality that we must somehow "beat Microsoft" is misguided.
If we make what amounts to an OSS version of Windows, then what was the point? We've "beat Microsoft" at that point, but in so doing have become just like them, albeit a much poorer version.
What in God's name is so difficult about dselect? There is one problem with dselect which I can think of, and it isn't because of dselect: it's because of maintainers who screw up their dependencies, and that's going to be a problem regardless of what package manager front-end is used.
Make good software because it's good software, not to "beat Microsoft." When you make something idiot proof, you attract idiots, which isn't very beneficial.
I'm not trying to be "31337" here, either. I'm just sick of people saying that "if it isn't idiot proof and/or like Windows, then it's worthless and the users and developers are just trying to be elitists."
Elitism is a good thing, just as descrimination is a good thing. It just has to be appropriately applied. Not hiring someone because he's black is probably very stupid; I can think of very few situations where that's appropriate (e.g. acting). On the other hand, I can think of very few situations where it is appropriate to hire someone because he's put five million piercings on his body, has tatoos all over himself, dresses like he lives in a dumpster, has orange hair, and has marbles surgically implanted under each eyebrow. Unless the guy will never have contact with clients and is really good, I don't want him in my business.
If Linux hopes to ever displace Microsoft, it needs to be a good system, with good users, with good functionality, security, and flexibility. Making a OSS version of Windows is a waste of effort.
Re:Runs fine here (Score:2)
I have to say, I like console-apt, only a couple of gripes which I can ignore.
Re:change apt sources? (Score:2)
Just use 'potato' as the name.
Re:People who don't use Debian (Score:2)
At least you didnt ask her if she wanted to see woody.
(apologies in advance)
Console-APT (Score:2)
Re:The debian people should quit (Score:2)
Use what you like, and stop moaning. Just becase Debian only increase the minor version for each minor release is no reason to bash them.
Re:Console-APT (Score:2)
Re:A problem with debian strategy (Score:1)
--
Debian for the bandwidth challenged (Score:2)
This more or less means downloading the OS from scratch. Trivial on a T1, non-trivial on a modem.
There is some truth to this, but it's quite possible to do Debian on a modem (I did), or with something less than a T1.
In my case, I used a 2.1 install disk essentially as a base-system installer, and built up the rest of my system over the course of a week or so. If this is your first Debian box, this is a good way to fly. It's better to assemble a system slowly and see how things click into place than to try to load everything at once. My download sessions would run 8-10 hours. I've got dual phone service, (one of which is never in use, one of which is <g>). So it works. As stated, apt-get update and apt-get download -d can be scheduled for automatic execution (remember to echo a 'y' or linefeed to the latter for cron jobs).
Other alternatives:
Other points to recognize: with Debian, more debs => more bandwidth required. Because each package has a probability of being updated, you are essentially required to provide more bandwidth to keep your system up to date. More arguments for keeping lean selection on board. If you're not using a package, lose it. Your updates will go faster.
You also don't have to upgrade your system. "If it ain't broke...". You should stay current on security alerts, but otherwise, if what you've got works, stick with it. Under unstable, there is a rather alarming frequency with which things break (does anyone out there have a successfully installed emacs19 or emacs20 from the past four months?), though usually this just means that the upgrade doesn't install. A --force usually works, though you're taking a risk.
What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?
v 2000? It should be solid as as a fscking rock (Score:2)
What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?
Corel Linux -- Debian in steppin' out threads (Score:2)
Corel's Linux distro is built around Debian. It's one of the most slickified distros out there -- if you believe MSNBC's writeup [msnbc.com]. If you want Debian package management without the krufty interfaces, give it a whirl.
What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?
Installer or package manager? (Score:2)
First, do you mean "why do distros come with one installer" or "why do they come with one package manager". There's a difference.
The installer is somewhat insignificant -- you want a piece of software which can boot the system, partition disks, set up some reasonable base defaults, and connect you to a package management system. Ideally you only need do this once. To date I've heard of bootstrap installs (you've got a running system and build a second under it), RH, Debian, YAST, etc., Windows-based installation programs, etc. There are several flavors of installer built around RPM, dpkg, and whatever it is that Slack uses. Reasonably moot issue. Why does everyone seem to have their own? Probably a combination of NIH and support (we support our installer...).
The package management system is a different horse. This is what you're relying on to maintain, upgrade, and verify your system over time. In large part it consists of a package database, some method for identifying dependencies and/or relationships, and possibly some way of resolving them. This isn't a task which is easily split among several systems on a single box.
There are tools for managing packages from one system under another. 'alien' is one such tool, and it permits RPMs to be installed under Debian, and vice versa. But AFIAK, you lose many of the benefits of integrated package management. Ultimately with today's package management architectures, someone's got to rule the roost, and peered administration isn't supported.
Got any better ideas?
What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?
Good news! (Score:1)
Thou it does present a problem... which version to stick with until woddy final is out? Frozen or ongoing potato? I think I'll have to choose frozen, just so I don't have the huge downloads i mentioned.. (or so I hope, anyway.)
that, and I don't have to change my apt.sources file to use frozen.
bash: ispell: command not found
Re:DIY (usb patch) (Score:1)
There's a near full backport of the usb subsystem to 2.2.x, actually. Try www.suse.cz/development/usb-backport/ [www.suse.cz] for a patch to update 2.2.14 to 2.3.39's usb stuff. not sure how solid it is, as i haven't tested it yet, and it's better to have the usb stuff in a "stock" kernel than depending on patches, but maybe this might make it into 2.2 upon release of 2.4? or am I just dreaming again?
bash: ispell: command not found
Re:Great indeed, now how about a real installer? (Score:2)
You can use it via the web interface (above) or via the CLI tool [rpmfind.net].
...j
Re:Place "woody" jokes here. (Score:3)
Re:Silly codenames... (Score:2)
I believe you're referring to the Utwig [gamestats.com]..
-- Does Rain Man use the Autistic License for his software?
Re:Installing it over ftp? (Score:1)
It was a long time since I installed Debian, but I think the problem is that you also need to get the base system, which basicly is a large tgz-file containing the most basic parts of a GNU/Linux system. From there you can use apt to download everything else.
I'm not sure how well the potato boot disks are working, you can always use the slink disks instead, and then install potato from there.
FreeBSD rocks! (Score:1)
The real question, though is how easy it is to stay up to date once it's installed, since you're likely to be doing that much more often than actually installing/reinstalling (if you're not a windows user, anyway). Again, I find FreeBSD's cvsup && make world mechanism to be as near hands off as one can get. Simply beautiful.
Re:change apt sources? (Score:1)
Re:Silly codenames... (Score:1)
Explain your cryptic reference, and I'll explain mine:
Go play Star Control 2; you obviously haven't yet.
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [152.7.41.11].
Re:Silly codenames... (Score:1)
However, thanks for the Star Control link! (I love those games... Any game that uses mods for sound must be cool.)
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [152.7.41.11].
Silly codenames... (Score:4)
Maybe if I had a microwave card for my computer, I wouldn't care, but I find it's too much trouble to constantly be heating and stirring those frozen potatoes. They take forever to heat up, and even after that, they don't always have that even consistency.
So I use RedHat 6.0, even though I don't know if I have to microwave a "Hedwig" or not. (Hedwig? Is that an alien from Star Control 2?) However, I guess if I used Debian, I could just try to Slink around the whole issue...
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [152.7.41.11].
Re:DIY (Score:2)
However I *do* think that having the latest kernel permits certain conveniences as far as default packages and installation set-up goes.
Agreed. Perhaps some sort of Potato and 1/2 would be in order? There are some really nice features in the new kernel. It's not too hard grab and install those but it would be nice to have it integrated into apt without having to configure for unstable. Now it's just a matter of figuring out how ;-) Perhaps if it were split off like non-us is done now and somehow, supplimental CDROM handling is added? The biggest problem I have now is that the fast install over fat pipes at work doesn't work so well over 56K at home (not that that's Debian's fault).
WRT to firewalling, the new way is iptables. There is an ipchains compatability module that allows the tables to be handled through ipchains. I'm using that on several boxes now with good results.
Re:The above is exactly the elitism I describe. (Score:3)
There's nothing wrong with an installer that has an expert mode, a normal mode, and install wizard. Again, to deliberately exclude those not already deep in the fold is the very definition of elitism.
I just don't see it. There are several different distros that all give you a good Linux system. Some are targeted at professionals, some to business, and others to novice home users. There IS a need to make the home versions more friendly, and it appears that the work is being done. Perhaps you should write the perfect install wizard for novices?
One thing I DO know for certain is that all of them are easier than SLS was when the kernel was in the 0.9x versions. Of course having to download off of a BBS at 9600bps didn't help either.
Re:Great indeed, now how about a real installer? (Score:1)
And dselect does NOT suck. Its just complicated.
Re:change apt sources? (Score:2)
(OT, was Re:Debian experience not universally good (Score:2)
Aptitude author speaking.
Part of the reason that you don't see some of the features you mention is that I'm working on things in approximate inverse order of difficulty. Most of what you mentioned (except for the undo feature) is almost trivial to add, so I haven't yet
Daniel
Re:Package updates in stable? (Score:2)
Daniel
Re:dselect must go. This is non-negotiable. (Score:2)
Daniel
Re:A problem with debian strategy (Score:2)
Obviously, you are.
Daniel
Re:(OT, was Re:Debian experience not universally g (Score:2)
No problem. Sorry if I gave the impression I was jumping on you, but you're the first person who's provided detailed feedback (aside from "looks cool"..
My complaints were more directed towards capt, which is much more developed
Actually, depending on your point of view, I may be extremely close to having a superset of capt's features. OTOH, I haven't explored that program deeply; it looked like maybe it had more in it than met the eye immediately..
The "undo" i was referring to is how in dselect if you push +, then decide you don't want to install it after all, you can hit _ and it'll be in the state it was before the +.
Hmm. You're referring, I believe, to being able to purge packages? I'd think console-apt could do that..aptitude can (in fact, the default binding is '_') -- you just won't be able to tell what you did till the next release (I just added an indicator for it a few minutes ago
Just checked and you're right, console-apt doesn't have a purge mechanism. It's about two lines of code, so I have no idea why it's not there. (well, actually I do have one idea: purge facilities may not have been in libapt when console-apt was started)
i would've thought that to be as trivial to add as anything else.
What you're talking about is. If you look at the TODO for aptitude (don't take it too seriously, some of that stuff is just random ideas I came up with when I was planning the program), one of the top items is multilevel undo support. The main reason this is tricky is that selecting a single package can potentially cause a cascade of modifications to package states, so code to save the old state, track the new one, and find the differences is needed. Not too hard, but in the spirit of Aptitude I'm going to make it ridiculously general and solve several other annoyances in the same fell swoop. Unfortunately, this complicates the problem significantly and I've been too intimidated so far to do it
What would be really nice would be to pick first sort by status/priority/availability/section/whatever/non
I assume you mean 'group' here instead of 'sort' -- for me 'group' implies that the packages are placed in a separate, collapsable subtree, whereas 'sort' just implies that they get sorted within the subtree.
This is *definitely* on the Aptitude TODO. I estimate that it'll get into 0.0.6 but I'm trying to avoid promising anything about release schedules
The internal infrastructure to do most of that is actually already present; I just haven't written the configuration code yet (which is going to be hairy, since C++ doesn't make classes into first-class objects so to build association tables you need factory routines and..argh, my head is hurting already
As for sorting..I was originally going to provide more of this, but grouping worked out so well that I may just stick with the alphabetical sorting I'm doing now.
All in all, it's good that so many package selection programs are available, so people who hate one can use another.
Absolutely correct.
Daniel
Re:A problem with debian strategy (Score:3)
There are two things to note:
First, this isn't an official "Debian strategy", although many users end up doing it; in fact, it's a periodic occurance on debian-devel for someone to start a huge thread predicting the End Of The World As We Know It[tm] due to the slow release schedule, and for just about everyone else to agree that things need to speed up. There are several proposals to restructure the archives and make it easier to cut new releases more often; it looks like (I believe) they'll be in place before Woody.
Second, this isn't as much of a problem as you think, as long as you aren't being charged for modem time and/or bandwidth. I've tracked unstable for long periods of time over a modem. The trick is to set up a cronjob to download stuff in the middle of the night. Also, if you want to use less bandwidth, you can download less frequently than once a day (say, once every week or two) or upgrade individual packages that you want a newer version of.
Daniel
And in other news today... (Score:3)
Sun Microsystems, a new contender from Palo Alto, California, has released a hitherto unseen operating system, Solaris.
And finally, a dark horse company named Microsoft in the city of Redmond, California, has announced that it will soon be releasing an operating system known as "Windows", with versions starting at 2000.
Daniel
PS - apologies if you didn't mean what I thought you meant
Re:Installing it over ftp? (Score:3)
Daniel
Re:Place "woody" jokes here. (Score:1)
--
Re:dselect problems [offtopic] (Score:1)
Debian Gives Me A Woody! (Score:1)
Re:The above is exactly the elitism I describe. (Score:1)
Re:The above is exactly the elitism I describe. (Score:1)
Re:The debian people should quit (Score:1)
Hmm.. so you would rather NOT have that 10% increase? What, you're too proud to take better advantage of your processor? Come on... haven't you ever felt that you were getting slightly cheated by installing RPMs built and optimized for the 80386 rather than your 80686?
--
Re:Good that 2.2 is frozen, also a moot point (Score:2)
A Redhat release is just as stable as a Debian release. The reason that Debian takes so much longer to release is that they include many more packages. That is good because you can find the packages you need on the CD, without the need to retrieve them via rpmfind. But I think that most people would give that diversity up to have more up to date packages.
It's also not true that you can just grab an updated package if you need it. Any current Slink user can tell you that. Package maintainers tend to make updated packages just for unstable, since that's what they run.
Re:Console-APT (Score:1)
> depends on, not what packages depend on it.
> I want to see what I can remove without causing
> a cataclysm
apt-cache showpkg packagename
look for the Reverse-Depends section
Re:i agree, debian == 2.x technology (Score:1)
Nuff said about you, I'm afraid.
When Solaris went from version 2.6 to 2.7, they decided to instead adopt 7 as the number of the version.
Windows NT has version 4.0 and Sun was afraid that clueless people would assume that NT was better because 4.0 is bigger than 2.7
Real Managers of course know that NT is a better server because it also run MS Office, which they (think they) know.
I'll have a woody every morning! (Score:1)
Soon, I'll have a woody every morning after I come in the office. It sounds very exciting!
Re:2.4 should drop-in and run fine (Score:2)
I'd assume those facilities are significantly changed from 2.2 to 2.4, and thus you will have to get new packages for those with a new kernel package as well. Given the way that Debian works, that could be an automatic upgrade: select the kernel and the other stuff comes in too.
Thanks
Bruce
* ISDN
* Anything NAT-related (the ipchains -> netfilter transition)
* PCMCIA-CS stuff
* All the IP routing stuff
Re:You missed the point (Score:2)
It appears they are making changes that will let them admit new maintainers again. A lot of previously manual processes for managing maintainers seem to have been automated recently.
Thanks
Bruce
2.4 should drop-in and run fine (Score:3)
Thanks
Bruce
You missed the point (Score:3)
You touched on the point without seeing it. In a world where we're used to nothing lasting forever, wouldn't it be nice to have control over how long things last?
Free software gives you that. As long as there are a few people interested in running it, there is sufficient force for it to be maintained. You don't have to put up with some marketing department discontinuing your favorite product.
Thanks
Bruce
Dselect (Score:3)
I'd like to see more work on gnome-apt. A panel full of check-boxes is all you'd really need to set all the flags that dselect manipulates. The calls are there in libapt.
Thanks
Bruce
Runs fine here (Score:4)
There will doubtless be some humor around the code-name of the next unstable version. You can refer to downloading it as "getting a woody" :-)
Thanks
Bruce
Place "woody" jokes here. (Score:4)
Thank you for your consideration.
Debian experience not universally good (Score:3)
Alas, I persevered for 4 weeks during which I had to update numerous libraries (some repeatedly) in order to get Netscape and other quite normal stuff to work, always following the appropriate installation procedures for the item in question. Towards the end of this period, things got so bad that not only would Netscape no longer work properly, but the GIMP wouldn't come up at all. In utter frustration, I dumped the whole lot and went back to RedHat.
I have no idea what went wrong but it did, badly. This doesn't concern me too much personally (I'll try again when potato is released), but I can't help wondering how Linux newbies are coping with Debian, as opposed to Debian newbies that are fully-fledged Unix old-timers. If I managed to screw it so thoroughly then there must be quite a bit of rope available for hanging oneself in the distro.
[Yes, of course it was all my fault. I'm merely wondering how it was possible for it to happen at all, against a backdrop of more than just a little experience and a total lack of such problems with other systems, spanning Linux, many Unixes, and BSD. Very bemused.]
I'm using Slink & kernel 2.2 (Score:2)
Note that kernel 2.2 was a huge change compared to 2.0. On the other hand, 2.4 is more like an incremental release (don't forget that 2.2 was released only a year ago). So Potato and the Penguin should live happily together
___
Installing it over ftp? (Score:2)
___
Re:Here's what I recommend. (Score:2)
I use dselect almost exclusively now, especially when doing updates (so that I can hold packages which I don't really need to be upgraded, rather than having to do a 100MB download once a week).
---
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
Metered local calls (Score:1)
I'm in England, we have metered local phone calls. Any time my computer dials online, I am being charged. To pay for (at a guess) a day or two of solid online, slowly grabbing new debs, would cost about an order of magnitude more than a CD of the same files.
vim (Score:1)
:set flame
aBesides, real men use vim.
:set noflame
:x
A problem with debian strategy (Score:4)
Re:'bout dang time! (Score:1)
--Malachi
Re:A problem with debian strategy (Score:2)
Re:upgrading from 2.0 (Score:1)
But why? (Score:2)
Erm, why exactly? I find it interesting that people rush to install the latest release of a distribution. Surely you can keep your packages up to date in the mean time? Why exactly does installing the latest release improve your system?
I don't actually use a distribution, having compiled everything on my system myself. But if I did, I certainly wouldn't want to install something over my carefully crafted system. What would be the point?
"Sir, I'd stake my reputation on it."
"Kryten, you haven't got a reputation."
Re:Great indeed, now how about a real installer? (Score:2)
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
Re:Place "woody" jokes here. (Score:2)
Frozen Potato?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
Re:Place "woody" jokes here. (Score:2)
I'd also like to point out, on a political note, that Al Gore may have invented the internet, but he's not getting the uptime that Bob Dole gets, with his woody. If I were running Woody, the box would HAVE to be named "Viagra".
"Moderation is good, in theory."
-Larry Wall
Good that 2.2 is frozen, also a moot point (Score:5)
A "stable" release is thoughly tested, sometimes TOO thoughly tested =) But when you have something that's critial on being rock stable, these are they way to go to start. And if there is a program that you need a later version because of mroe functionality, you can do that too.
Tou can just as easily update packages buy pointing to "unstable", or now "woody". I can get updates to programs AS THEY ARE RELEASED. I don't have to wait for the distro to update everything themselves every couple months. Or if I really need something, hunt down a package, or get teh source and compile myself. I can just type "apt-get dist-upgrade" and my system is the latest it can be.
And with the large number of packages, I can be sure that whatever piece of free software(speach and beer), that they will ALL update with that one command. And I can rest assured that although I didn't compile that myself, it's not only a safe program to run, but it's configured to correctly work on my system. How can you go wrong? The more packages the better.
So, waiting for a release for the most part is a moot point. You can install Debian whenever you want, and have the lastest of everything, or have something that's thoughly tested(MUCH more then other distros). And, "unstable" for the most part, as alot of people will tell you, is alot better then other distros
Just one thing though, Debian "stable" releases change so much from
Re:Great indeed, now how about a real installer? (Score:2)
Slackware is, IMNSHO, one of the easiest distributions to install - simply because it's very, very hard to get yourself into a situation that you can't get out of.
I've had RH and TurboLinux (bletch!) stop in mid-install more times than I can remember. Debian took me forever to figure out (this was, admittedly, the 1.3 release, I believe). The graphical installers of the latest distros just annoy me. But Slackware works every time - and there's always some way to shoehorn it onto whatever hardware you have.
Re:This is great, but what about 2.4? (Score:2)
This is great, but what about 2.4? (Score:3)
Considering that the 2.4 kernel should be out in the near future (another month and a half or so) and the freeze is quite likely to last at least that long before a release is made, how long before debian catches up to the newer kernel series?
Will there be an updated potato using 2.4 after the new stable kernel is released, or will we have to wait another year to catch up again?
--Cycon
(Incidentally, I have been using potato as the OS on my primary without any problems for months now, but it's the servers that I have to manage that I'd rather see kept up to date...)
Re:DIY (Score:3)
Of course compiling and replacing the distribution kernel is non-issue, but the problem with having an entire distribution released with an older kernel is that you lose the ability to add in and use certain features that are only available with the new kernel.
For instance, a linux firewall is controlled by ipfwadm for the 2.0.x series kernels, ipchains for the 2.2.x series kernels, and there will be a new system (whose named elludes me for the moment) for the 2.4.x series of kernels. In order to administrate a newer kernel you need different tools, and therefore different packages.
A better example perhaps would be USB support in the 2.4 kernel. With a release based on the 2.2.x series of kernels you lack USB support for items which may be of use during an install -- such as the keyboard, or mouse (for setting up X graphically). I may be wrong, there may be a patch for USB kerboards under 2.2.x, but I think you get the idea of where I'm going by now.
Simply put, I by no means wish to critisize the debian project for any issues that have aroze in getting potato out the door, I think everyone there is doing an outstanding job, considering the volunteer-based nature of the distro (as opposed to the corporate-funded efforts of Redhat, SuSE, Caldera, etc.) -- However I *do* think that having the latest kernel permits certain conveniences as far as default packages and installation set-up goes.
--Cycon
smoking crack (Score:2)
What, exactly, is proprietary about Red Hat? Everything they do is GPL'd back into the community. Do you mean more *comercial* distributions?
Re:Place "woody" jokes here. (Score:3)
or
"My woody never goes down"
or
"We offer 24/7 support for your woody"
oh well, you asked for it...
Re:Great indeed, now how about a real installer? (Score:2)
Re:You missed the point (Score:2)
Also, we already have the ultimate control over how long things last. The only reason that things change so much is because people continually clamor for specific technologies. Technologies that we like, stay around. Those that we don't, never make it, whether they are good or bad, open source or proprietary. That being said, free software dos increase the granularity of the decision process, from one made on a macro level to one made on a micro level.
Finally, it is very, very silly to say that free software always leads to a better product, which was what the original poster wrote. Just because I have control over the product (which I agree is a great thing) doesn't automatically guarantee that the product is better.
Re:I like the philosophy of Debian. (Score:2)
ITYM "end-luser".
Well said those colleagues of yours! Plain and simple: if you are unwilling to learn how to use something, and properly at that, there's nothing we can (or should) do for you, so don't waste our time and go back to pestering M$loth Support.
Seriously, there's nothing that gets to me more than unwillingness. Inability, need a helping hand, those are FINE by me, and will get all due sympathy. Unfortunately, unwillingness also gets due sympathy too - nil!
Re:Place "woody" jokes here. (Score:3)
Hurd distribution (Score:2)
Anyone notice? Potato is not only release 2.2 of Debian GNU/Linux, it's also the long-expected version 0.3 of GNU/Hurd (the first of Debian GNU/Hurd). Check the binary-hurd-i38 6 [debian.org] directory. Admittedly, many (if not most) Hurd deb packages are actually binary-all packages (and some are plain useless under the Hurd) — one Hurd developper jokingly said the Hurd would take its revenge by committing a lot of Hurd-specific binary-all packages.
True, the Hurd is still far from stable now (and moving this tree from frozen to stable will sound something like a joke), but this is an important landmark nonetheless.
Re:Runs fine here (Score:3)
the latest Xfree86 packages (3.3.6) for potato seems to be broken, at least in my system... all fonts are screwed up, and that makes X unusable.
This is the first I've heard of this problem. I've gotten enough feedback already on the 3.3.6 packages to know what the common problems were, and this is the first I've heard of any font trouble. Please file a bug report describing the problem. How exactly are the fonts screwed up? What font packages do you have installed? If you can help me to find out what the problem is, then I can help you to fix it. It could be with your system, or it could actually be a bug in one of the X packages. If the latter, then the sooner you report it, the better, and Debian 2.2 will be improved for everyone.
Branden Robinson, Debian XFree86 package maintainer
Stability! (Score:4)
Potato will lose little by not providing the new kernel by default - it is easy to upgrade your system later. However it keeps a kernel with a year's worth of field testing on it. Bugs undoubtably still remain, but it will be many months before 2.4 is as stable as 2.2 today.
The same thing applies to XFree86 4. By staying with the current XFree86 3.3 version Debian will lose some new features, but it will have a well tested X subsystem. If things go well people can upgrade later, while corporate users aren't affected by 4.0 (relative) flakiness.
Finally, an analogy I often use is to hiking gear. The whole purpose of hiking gear isn't to "look cool" (although that's always nice), it's to get me into the remote backcountry *and back.* That's why I might test out new gear on local trails, but I use ratty old gear when I'm going to be many hours away from help. The cost of a shoe falling apart isn't $100, it's a bloody foot torn to shreds by hiking barefoot in the Rockies for miles, so I stick with things I know are reliable even if they're slightly outdated.
Re:The debian people should quit (Score:2)
Chris Hagar
Re:Great indeed, now how about a real installer? (Score:2)
I find dselect/dpkg and now apt to be a very easy, self-explanatory set of programmes. But linux itself isn't yet for the clueless. You need to have some understanding of computers before you install it and that won't change for probably another year.
RedHat attempts towards it, but its too difficult in redhat to upgrade and install packages and dependencies for new users who've never heard of freshmeat.
#include <signal.h> \ #include <stdlib.h> \ int main(void){signal(ABRT,SIGIGN);while(1){abort(-1)
'bout dang time! (Score:2)
I've been wanting to play with Debian for some time (I usually run RedHat because it stays fairly recent and usually works) but running slink was like being stuck in the stone age. I hope the Debian fellows have some kind of plan for more frequent updates, or at least more in line with the rest of "the Linux world." (i.e. not having your stable distro using Kernel 2.0 with glibc 2.0 when 2.2 and 2.1 have been out and stable for almost as long as your distro.)
-=-=-=-=-
Prepubescent demographic awaits first woody! (Score:2)
Since it's unstable you may have to play with your woody before it works.
What'll they do when their woody freezes?
Is that enough?
Re:This is great, but what about 2.4? (Score:2)
> the new stable kernel is released, or will we
> have to wait another year to catch up again?
Well the whole point of the freeze is to lock
things in for testing. Moving a new kernel in,
after the freeze, would defeat the whole purpose
of the freeze and stable.
AFAIK Debian policy is ONLY to update stable
for security fixes.
Of course, unstable is always available and anyone
who uses potato should be able to download a
woody kernel package and install it with no
fuss. Unlike the old 1.3->2.0 jump, there should
be no huge, distribution-wide differences so
packages should be compatible.
Personally, I compile all my own kernels anyway.
Package updates in stable? (Score:2)
Re:The debian people should quit (Score:2)
Here's what I recommend. (Score:2)
I install the base system as slink, usually from floppies (many machines don't have CD-ROMs, because they really don't need them). I go through the whole config. process as usual, except that I switch to a virtual terminal to use fdisk instead of cfdisk.
At the point where it first puts me into dselect, I immediatly quit. I hate dselect, and have only tried to use it once...never again!
The first thing that I do is to edit my apt sources file to use the FTP links, and also to include non-us and KDE. Of course, I also change it to use "potato" instead of "stable".
Then:
apt-get update
apt-get dist-upgrade
This will take a while
This system has made Debian installations very easy and fun for me. Every now and again, I do an "update" followed by "upgrade", to get all the latest packages.
I hope that it works for you.
Debian is a bit different (Score:3)
With Debian, the difference in which version you use is in which FTP (or HTTP) directory you choose for your package source. To "upgrade", you simply change your
When Debian upgrades a package, if it notices that you've changed any files (such as edited configuration files, which is to be expected
1. Keep your version of this file? (default)
2. Install the version from the new package?
3. Show the difference between the 2?
This is only a small example; it's really quite nice. Debian is also nice to use in the same manner as you (eg, install the base 28M system, and compile everything else yourself).
Re:Place "woody" jokes here. (Score:3)
HEADLINE: Woody penetrates server market, Microsoft falls flat.
For the first time ever, Finnish Wood is better than Norwegian Wood. (With apologies to Linus)
[Hint for those under 30: Look at http://rmb.simplenet.com/publi c/files/faqs/said.html [simplenet.com]]