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Debian

Debian Wins $25K Award From LinuxWorld 123

Posted by timothy from the not-always-all-about-the-benjamins dept.
Phexro writes: "According to this story at newsalert, Debian has been awarded the $25,000 IDG/Linus Torvalds Community Award. It will be presented during the LinuxWorld Conference & Expo on Tuesday, Aug. 15. Go Debian!" Congratulations to the Debian crew for this. Non-Debian users benefit from the pressure that Debian puts on other distros -- just by existing -- to mind their P's and Q's when it comes to Free software, and for proving that elegant upgrade systems don't have to be glitzy or labyrinthine.
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Debian Gets $25,000 More

Debian Gets $25,000

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  • When I was a Mandrake user, I tried MandrakeUpdate several times. It frequently seemed to have problems connecting to the master download site to get the list of mirrors, which made it pretty useless. I only got it to work properly a couple of times.

    At least, if apt-get seems to be having problems, I can go edit /etc/apt/sources.list by hand and point to a different mirror site. I didn't see an option like that with MandrakeUpdate.

    Eric
    --

  • Debian's installer is easy right now.

    Oh yeah, I bet that I would find a truckload of non-techies that won't agree with you. What you are saying is that you think it is easy. That doesn't necesarily mean that everybody thinks it is easy.

    dselect is a pain, but it's not that bad.

    You can't make up your mind can you, because you are contradicting yourself.

    Also I said nothing about removing the text based install, It is just that a graphical install should be the default if not otherwise specified.

  • maybe they'll just use it for there geek diet budget. i don't know if anyone has ever bought these guys any food for there efforts.

    thank god for debian, the stable release may not be out as fast as the other distro, but the when it's out, it'll be damn stable. unlike some of the other software producers( *cough*windowsNT*cough*).

    when the thought that counts, get something else. for some quality, get debian or slackware. =)

  • IMHO, Debian's installer is at least comparable to the Red Hat 5.x text-mode installer. I don't find it confusing at all. I actually prefer text-mode installers to graphical installers; the graphical installers require more out of the system during installation, which means that there's that much more that can go wrong. (Yes, 16-color VGA is hard to screw up these days, but if it's not necessary, why bother?)

    Eric
    --

  • yeah. how bout increasing the frequency of releases so i dont have to wait YEARS to see a new stable debain ? all the hardware on the planet is useless if i cant get a modern stable distro. cmon guys - speed it up !

  • It says on the buttons what happens when you click on them. It doesn't say on the prompt what happens when you type something... actually, it usually doesn't even say what you can type at all.

    Now, if you take this as any sort of advocacy towards GUI tools you're wrong. In essence, I agree with you - I just tried to answer your question

  • Why Debian is So Great... (Score:5)

    by Outlyer ( 1767 ) on Monday August 07, 2000 @04:22PM (#872482) Homepage
    There are so many things that make Debian the best. I was a Stampede developer a while back, and I made the move to Debian after frustration with the way Stampede was going. but I digress...

    There are a couple of issues people have with Debian, first, they claim that it's always late. How is it late? Unlike some other distros that release 'betas' every once in awhile, Debian maintains a very stable stable, and a more risque devel version. I personally use the devel (woody) release, but when I'm building a server, or a workstation for work, I use the stable. Best of both worlds... you can have the most current versions of everything, or stick with the tried and true. Sounds like it's fair to me. The releases are immaterial for the most part, seeing as an apt-get upgrade -u keeps your packages current, or bugfixed.

    Next people complain about the way Debian sticks to their Free Software Guidlines. It's important to stick to morals, which is important with all these gigantic Linux companies. Someone has to set the standard and do the Right Thing. I can't believe they don't get more respect considering how they've defined morals, and stuck to them, in spite of backlash over KDE et al, and everything else. It's truly admirable.

    Fact is, I can convert an RPM package or install a third-party package if I want, so it's not like running Debian locks me out of proprietary software. I run Codewarrior, and ApplixOffice without any problems. I've even tried some betas of KDE2, all install and work perfectly. Another benefit of the extensive testing I mentioned earlier.

    So, don't flame Debian. Even if you don't run it, you can respect their tenants. Doing the right thing, building a stable solid distro and ignoring commercial interests is what matters to them, and I have nothing but respect for them.

    (Incidentally, I've bought a bunch of Debian merch, like a very nice T-shirt which has a slogan that I think applies very well to Debian "Code matters more than commercials" Seems like a laudable goal to me)
  • So what do you do for a living?
  • You can use unstable (which hardly ever is unstable) if you would like. just because we don't make a dang press realse and have shiny boxes in stores doesn't mean we are not producing!
  • They do. Although there was a recent skirmish [slashdot.org] started by an idiotic faction that wanted non-free removed. What the hell does this have to do with the story though?
  • I don't think I'm going to touch this post, except to say you're sure to enjoy our next release, after potato.

    As for the sig, it's a brainteaser -- figure it out yourself..
    --
  • You're either real good, or real free-time-enhanced....
  • People must really look at what being part of linux and things like debian really mean in a social context. When people *donate* their time for something it's because they believe in it. It's kind of like the people who work for the salvation army, the peace corps, or the make a wish foundation they are all efforts to take our noblest impulses and make them more effective. In history it's traditionally been called reform and it tried to offset the social darwinistic interpretation of humanity and make something more than just money grubbing. That's why I have traditionally tried to help those less fortunate than myself and help various causes. This is a good thing. Of course not everyone can work for no money because humanity is composed of humans and they have basic and not so basic needs to be met. The world will not wither away and your job will not be compromised by you say spending every saturday or say 1 hour after work doing something for debian.
  • Before or after they: 1. Made the distribution non floppy friendly. 2. Force source builds of various handy packages that people actually use like various ones in debian to get any third party stuff of merit to work. 3. Follow the "trendy" thing to do and change their versioning to suit a bunch of slack jawed yokels. 4. Actually upgrade things in a sensible and timely manner without repartioning things. There are many, many, rasons not the least of which is that I like the fact that people actually care about my distribution. Damn ignorant trolls. And I suppose you believe that a stone bleeds right?
  • My fellow posters have said it better than I have that having an official release is subjective and that it really should be looked at in terms of other things. A good comparison would be perhaps redhat's experimental distro (can't remember the name of it) and say unstable debian. While you can say that there are bugs in a development process there really haven't been too many show stopping bugs as of late. By any indication this is a good thing. I have been installing components that have worked for me quite well from an initial base of slink (debian 2.1) and have retrieved new packages from unstable and have found little problem with this. I also know that it's rock solid when you have slink and the like. However the level of archaicness starts to feel on you. Debian is more of an ideal for what a linux should be and I think that since it is an ideal something has to suffer a bit and if all it is is an "official" stamp then so be it. And yes there are bugs in debian in fact you could say that there are perhaps a rather average ammount. I still would like a good comparison between experimental for redhat's line and debian's unstable.
  • Just FYI, Potato is slated for August 9th (or abouts AFAIK) if the Test Cycle 3 goes well. Latest kernel and all that jazz.
  • Actually the term reds isn't really a totally correct one. The real "reds" were the individuals of the bolshevisk persuasion who fought against the white army and ultimately became the rulers in what is now the Russian federation. As a amateur historian I should know. It would be more correct to call the largest body of communists that have any real power Maoists or sympathizers of the castro regime.
  • Isn't there a browser program for it?
  • SLACK-jawed yokels!!!!! SLACK!!

    guffaw guffaw guffaw guffaw!!!

    :))))))))))))))))
  • The freedom of speech is relative. For instance in The Netherlands, there are a some things you can be fined for if you say them. So I think free as in beer is a more universal freedom. (In Europe that is, In the US there seems 2 B some strange 21 year law???) SysV

  • "What does it say about an organization that releases a flagshhip product that has thousands of full time programmers doing supposedly quality work and that still manages to contain various anoying bugs and failures?"

    Debian uses a piecemeal upgrade process so it is hard to compare directly to Red Hat. I'm sure Debian has a huge bug tracking database like Red Hat. However, Debian is always in development and can use the excuse that bugs should be expected in development.
  • RE:you can use just 5 floppies...download the rest

    Well if you have only ide drives, then you can use the idepci floppies(just 2: boot and root) with the ethernet drivers in the kernel, and you can download the rest(drivers, base and packages)

  • 1. Debian's package management system rocks. Just "apt-get update" (updates the list of available packages) and "apt-get distupgrade" (was it apt-get upgrade? w/e, it updates all available packages).

    2. It is stable as heck. Whenever debian releases a "stable" release, they really mean it. If you want more modern libraries, you can just as easily get the "unstable" version, a bleeding-edge repository that is still just as stable as what normally gets released as "stable" by commercial distributions.

    3. It very strongly upholds the free software ideals. For those that want certain non-free versions, there is a separate repository for non-free software. The main distribtion installed by defalt is 100% pure-as-in-stallman's-weird-church-of-free-softwar e-thing-that-he-does-at-his-lectres free.

    --
  • No shiny boxes in stores? I was at babbages a week ago and saw yellow debian boxes on the shelves. With the plastic wrap reflecting light at just the right angle they did indeed shine.
  • Heh, I was wondering when we were in the red myself...
  • As the French have been quoted as saying anything can be seen as a political statement because politics intercets almost anything.

    Yes, broadly speaking

    That being said for example using MS products makes a statement rather implicetly stated that you agree with the procedures that they utilize in development and marketing. Same with patronizing certain stores and the like.

    I'm not so sure about that. It could imply a different statement, like : " I believe that having M$oft tools is more important than figthing M$oft", or even "The way to fight M$oft is not avoid to buy their software". Or a thousand other ones.

    Implicit politic statements are hard to guess. Better ask people to explicit them.

  • There was a small section in the article that said that many of the Debian developers have never met face to face. Whilst this is clearly true, most of them will never have met this way, I thought that before you get accepted as a Debian developer you had to go through a face to face meeting, to exchange public keys and the like. Is this true? Or am I barking up the wrong tree here?

    Well, the procedures have changed a bit since the days of ~100-200 developers; I never met anyone, nor even had my key signed, for the first few years I was in the project. I only met another developer in the flesh 10 months ago (and then a whole bunch of them), at Atlanta Linux Showcase [linuxshowcase.org] last October. Since then, I've met a few more (out in the Bay Area in March). I've still not met most of the developers; pairwise, I doubt any of us has met a majority of project members (although maybe Wichert and a few others who get around a lot have).

    I guess it would be interesting to see a graph of "who's met who" in Debian. I suspect there are two large clusters (Europe and North America) with links between them, and lots of nodes off on their own or in small groups.

  • Yeah, but it is roughly equal to the market cap of Corel.
  • Debian's installer is easy right now. dselect is a pain, but it's not that bad. What makes a graphical installer inherently inherently easier than a text-based one? The text-based one has a greater likelyhood of actually working on a given box, doesn't depend on as much, and can present the same information as a graphical installer. Why do so many people associate pixels with ease of use and characters with arcane command lines?

  • Debian Attention (Score:4)

    by Ramsed ( 89819 ) <Sander.van.Noort@gmail. c o m> on Monday August 07, 2000 @04:06PM (#872505)
    Hopefully this will get Debian/GNU Linux (from now on referred to as Debian) some attention in the "non geek" media. Lately there are all kind of announcements by Linux Companies that they have some kind of aggreement to distribute some nifty software that would never be allowed in Debian non-free. This way, practically no potential Linux User has ever heard of Debian, and they turn to distributions like Red bugfull Hat (is not Linux !) and Suse (they really got lost, 6 CD's full of shareware).

    Don't get me wrong, I've tried most Linux Distributions, and they certainly beet Micro$oft Winblows, but Debian is absolutely the best among them. Sure, the installation doesn't look that smooth, but if you just take the time and read the excellent manual, there should be no problems getting Debian running. And for are your other problems, there's a great community of Debian users and experts out there on the mailing-lists and IRC, who all where Newbies once and want to share their enthousiasm.

    I could go on for ever with the advantages of Debian, so I just list some of them.

    From the user's perspection: Easy upgrades, no problem looking for packages, clear filesystem-structure, nice extra tools like sendmailconfig,......

    Further, the whole Linux community benefits from the efforts of Debian: The Bugtracking system, the promotion of Free (as in speech) Software and all those distributions based on Debian (Corel, Storm).

    Let's hope for the benefit of the Linux Community, this will give Debian a big hop in popularity.

  • GUI need not mean "pixels."

    For example. I'm a GUI-loving wuss. I much prefer a GUI over a command line. But, I dislike gnome and kde and even Xfree for configuration.

    Instead, I prefer linuxconf. It's ncurses-based. (It's gtk-based, too, but I use it in ncurses mode) Editing all those dotfiles by hand is, of course possible and would give me more control, but when I'm in unfamiliar territory, a menu-based configurator helps me learn what functionality is available to me.

    I much prefer the DOS EDIT environment over that of emacs or VI. Because It's intuitive. I use VI because it is much more robust than DOS EDIT. A combination of the two would be a godsend for me.

    I much prefer cfdisk and mandrake's partition table editor on install over FDISK. Not because it's pretty and skinned and colorful, but because it has a better interface, and that interface is (somewhat) intuitive. It describes visually what functionality is available to me in a way that is easy to grasp and picture in my head.

    I much prefer GRUB to LILO. (not only for the interface, but it's a very nice touch.)

    I much prefer SFM and MC to the command line when organizing my piles of ranomly downloaded MP3s.

    I prefer MP3C to (cdparanoia $options|$encoder)

    I prefer mutt to mail.

    etc. etc. etc....

    I haven't used Debian's configuration tool. But If I can infer from the comments, it seems that it would benefit from an ncurses-based menu system, or a better-designed one if it is already ncurses-based... to make it easier to use in the console.
  • If you're a "GUI-loving wuss" and you like VI, check out gvim.
  • ironically reminds me of that linux (urban?) legand that some denmark (or other european nationality, i believe) sent linus money to ``buy him a beer'' as they could not physically do it. i suppose this will buy all that hypothetical 'free (as in speech and) beer'...just the same way you 'buy' debian.

    The Last AntiHero

    ...Linux users can wipe that smug smile off their face and go twirl their propeller caps

  • I should have mentioned that I meant the text-based RedHat installer; I can't stand the graphical one either..

  • But, I just sort of have to look at that number and wonder how they manage to keep the all volnteer effort competitive with all the commercial Linux distributions

    They don't and can't keep up with all the commercial Linux distros. Witness their ultra-slow release cycle. Hardcore Deb boosters will say that this is just extreme quality control, but it's also because there aren't enough developers to implement new features fast enough. They could cut corners to keep up with the big distros, but that would negate everything Debian.

  • In case you're too dense (I've been reading Debian-devel for about 9 months, and just figured it out 30 seconds ago :), 'see shy jo' is an anagram for 'joey hess' :).
  • We don't produce those. It's VA, SGI and uhm somebody else. Debian sells NOTHING. We make no profits and only survive off of donations and awards like this.
  • maybe they can finally get some xfree86-4 debs out :P

  • Re:GPLNet - the GNU freedom (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Okay... maybe you have a point. But would you please like to post this somewhere relevant?
    I for one would be really interested to see what kind of discussion comes of this (I would have moderated you up), but if you insist on attaching it to stories that have nothing to do with it, it's just going to get moderated into oblivion.
  • Ah yes, the illustrious Debian fetish.

  • Re:what does the money get used for? (Score:3)

    by Tarnar ( 20289 ) on Monday August 07, 2000 @05:03PM (#872516) Homepage
    *laughs*

    What an uninformed opinion. How would you like to define 'stable'? Do you define it as an official release or as a tried-tested-and-true distribution?

    If you define it as the first, you should be more then happy running frozen or unstable. After all, look at some of what the rest of the world calls 'release' quality software.. Gnome 1.0.0 *laughs* Redhat 5.0 *laughs again*

    Seriously though, Debian has the highest release standards out of any distribution on the market. They don't have shareholders to answer to, they don't worry about making money.. Instead, they focus on meeting their stated goals.

    Ever since I started on Debian a year and a bit ago, I've watched the unstable branch of the package repository break about 3 times. And 2 of those times were just dependencies that I waited a week for other packages to catch up on.

    Anyway, the moral of the story:

    If you need a system that is a fscking ROCK for stability: Get stable. There isn't any other Linux distro on the market that is as tested. Barring that, get FreeBSD.

    If you need a system that will last longer for uptime then your power company, and you want to be on the leading edge of software releases, try unstable.
  • The most anoying thing is that you have to build pine from source but the process is well documented and there are even some non official sources for binary pine debs as well.
  • I suspected that the money would go to something more worthwhile than hiring someone. I posted in great haste -- what I was really trying to say is that given the numbers of people who are working for Debian (for free), $25k doesn't seem like a very big reward, since it doesn't even come close to what a single professional programmer makes.

    --
  • I know some people who have ran windows without a crash for years does that mean it's 100% bugfree? Often times it takes that new or strange instruction to bring the kernel to it's knees.
  • fast well 386's must have been fast compared to ENIAC cheap to good ol' Bill Gates is larger than your current salary per year good well some people think that Budweiser is good too
  • What does it say about an organization that releases a flagshhip product that has thousands of full time programmers doing supposedly quality work and that still manages to contain various anoying bugs and failures? The size of debian is a good thing. Debian has more packages that are more or less guaranteed to work than any other distribution in the world. Debian cares more about stability, security, reliability, etc than most. Hell even unstable debian is usually more stable than most other distros in final form and definately more stable than others unstable area.

  • Re:Why Debian is So Great... (Score:5)

    by Erbo ( 384 ) <amygalert.gmail@com> on Monday August 07, 2000 @05:52PM (#872523) Homepage Journal
    A few months ago I made the switch from Mandrake 7 to Debian-potato, and in many respects it's been worthwhile. Let me outline some of the things I like about Debian...

    1. The update system that can upgrade every package on the system with just two commands (apt-get update; apt-get upgrade). For busy people that don't have time to pore over every single update notice that comes in the mail or gets posted on the Web, that's worth a black-market price right there.
    2. Related to this, the packaging system in general, and tools like gnome-apt that make it easy to select and download new software.
    3. The ease of installation. I like how, if you've got an Ethernet connection to the Net, you can use just 5 floppies (boot, root, 3 drivers) to get the installation started, and download the rest over the Net. I've set up many systems (including a couple of notebooks) that way.
    4. The general stability of the system. About the only thing in Debian that crashes on me is Netscape (and that's not Debian's fault). For those who complain about it, you know, it's good to see some people sticking to their guns and saying, "We will ship no code before its time."
    5. The sheer variety of software directly available for Debian. (That's one of the reasons why I don't want them removing non-free. If they want to put it on a different server and make me add another line to /etc/apt/sources.list, fine with me, but removing it just for the sake of ideology strikes me as severely short-sighted.)

    Yes, the fact that the main parts of the system are all 100% free is both good and important, but I also like the fact that you can enjoy the benefits of Debian without being forced to become an ideologue. Basically, it's good for it to be Free, but I use it because it's good.

    Eric
    --

  • As a small time financial contributor ( a few buck here and there in cash donations as well as time spent teaching newbies) I can say that IMHO every little bit helps.
  • Although I thought Debian had "non-free" disclaimer somewhere on their package... or has a recent version gone completely "free" (as in speech)?

  • what does the money get used for? (Score:5)

    by oingoboingo ( 179159 ) on Monday August 07, 2000 @03:35PM (#872526)
    do any debian people here know what would (or could) be done with the $25,000? i noticed a few months back sun donated an ultra60...do they use this sort of money to buy extra hardware to help porting efforts? and if so, who's house does it get installed at? or in the true debian spirit, does it just stay in the box it was shipped in and everyone argues about where it will go on IRC for years and the thing never actually gets 'released'?
  • so maybe if Debian FIXED their methods and procedures so that upgrades to stable packages were easy to get without switching distros

    Make sure /etc/apt/sources.lists contains a list of servers and also tell it too use the 'stable' and 'frozen' flavor. After that your done. I wonder about your 'more easy' part; can't find anything more easy then "apt-get distupgrade" myself.

  • Does anyone know... will this affect the developement of Debian's distro of HURD?
  • Been there, done that.

    While I agree that "unstable" is usually "stable enough" for home use or a developer box, it still does not cut it. Try to explain to management "their unstable is actually stable.. ". Also, way too many serious flaws (bash breakage, perl nightmare, there were lots of obvious bugs popping out , etc) have happened during potato development which makes the "unstable" a lousy choice to use in a production environment. In fact, when bash was unistalled in potato, people were saying on debian-devel: "But we told you it was unstable.. "

    On the other hand, while I appreciate the stability of the stable release, 6 months after the release it becomes nearly useless.
    Hardware support is HORRIBLE. Look at slink:
    kernel v 2.0.3x, XFree86 3.3.2, no GNOME, etc.
    It was obsolete by all standards a year ago already. I don't mind installing upgrades on my own box at home but at work I manage hundreds of boxes and prefer to use Redhat because of that (which also has a nifty feature, kickstart, for automated installs). This situation also scares the newbies as hell.

    Don't get me wrong. My point is that the slow release schedule significantly reduces debian's
    acceptance among the newbies and in orgranizations.

    Anyways, I should probably get a life ..

  • Just to put it in place, that's enough to hire one (very underpaid) programmer full time for a year?

    Compared to how many that work at Red Hat, Caldera, SuSE? (even Hardware companies probably have more people paid to work on Linux, like Abit or VA).

    Congradulations Debian, they earned the award. But, I just sort of have to look at that number and wonder how they manage to keep the all volnteer effort competitive with all the commercial Linux distributions. Anyone have any idea what other forms of income they have? Or how many (if any) people actually develop Debian "full time?"

  • Non-Debian users benefit from the pressure that Debian puts on other distros -- just by existing -- to mind their P's and Q's when it comes to Free software, and for proving that elegant upgrade systems don't have to be glitzy or labyrnthine.

    Hah! Debian 2.2 is STILL not out in stable! It's been almost a year and a half, and they don't publish upgrades to their blessed packages unless it's a big security fix, and it can't break anything, and has to be tested first.

    That's ok with me, except that they take too long between releases, and unless you want to break (!) your package setup, you can't upgrade your samba, apache, etc.., or dpkg/apt-get has a hissy fit. I switched after too many of these kind of problems, so maybe if Debian FIXED their methods and procedures so that upgrades to stable packages were easy to get without switching distros they could get more users, and therefore developers, in their distro.
  • Way to go guys! I'm a proud user of Debian, and I wouldn't change for anything. A good friend of mine is a developer for Debian, and I'd like to take this time to thank him, and all the others for their time, and excellent work. This is what the Linux/Open Source community is all about. It doesn't always take dollar signs to make something worth doing, or even to make it good, it just takes heart. Keep up the good work!!
  • I think that the free question is a good one. Did Debian go completely free, and drop all proprietary software? f so, this makes for a huge advance in the world of free software, showing distro makers that what we all want is a completely free OS AND Software, and that we are loathe to accept any less. The only proprietary software we needed was Netscape, and now we have Mozila. Free our software!

  • There was a small section in the article that said that many of the Debian developers have never met face to face. Whilst this is clearly true, most of them will never have met this way, I thought that before you get accepted as a Debian developer you had to go through a face to face meeting, to exchange public keys and the like. Is this true? Or am I barking up the wrong tree here?

    On a side note, I, and most of friends who use Linux, are big fans of Debian. The one guy loves stability, and gives not a fig for the bleeding edge. Another really goes for the bleeding edge, and always uses the most up-to-date "unstable" releases. A couple of us are such awful sysadmins, that we need something like the Debian package system in order to use Linux without having to reinstall regularly. Lastly, I go for their right and proper focus on free-as-in-freedom.

    This is quite a spread of abilities and desires. Debian meets them all. That's a real trick for a Linux distribution. They've earned the award. Time for a big round of applause...

  • ...thats why I use it.

    I'm using unstable (though it's hardly that) and I update every week to keep on the bleeding edge for the software I use.

    You can't get much fresher unless you watch freshmeat.net every day, pull down the source and build it yourself.

    So, stop your bitching about how out-of-date debian is. It isn't.

  • We?

    How about some of us more fanantical ones.

    Me, I'll use any tool that works. Your choice of software isn't a political statement.
  • Hah! Debian 2.2 is STILL not out in stable! It's been almost a year and a half, and they don't publish upgrades to
    their blessed packages unless it's a big security fix, and it can't break anything, and has to be tested first.

    What really saddens me is That people like mandrake and redhat and such throw Everything into their newest distributions and CALL it stable, and people believe it. Debian 2.2 is as good as stable, it's just being tested, and tested, and tested.

    There's a shirt on copyleft [copyleft.net] that says "Debian: When code matters more than commercials."... That's one of the points of debian. if you go with a distribution like mandrake or redhat or caldera, you know, deep down (or at least, you should), that the only reason that distribution exists is that they want to make some money. That's why there's been the IPO's. Not that there's anything wrong with money, or making it, But i'd rather trust someone who is writing the code for his or her own use rather than his or her own pocketbook. Debian's there because we want to use it. Not because we want to Pay some carpetbagger who thinks linux is the next Big Moneymaker.

    That's ok with me, except that they take too long between releases, and unless you want to break (!) your package
    setup, you can't upgrade your samba, apache, etc.., or dpkg/apt-get has a hissy fit.

    Ahem:

    # cd /etc/apt
    # cat sources.list | sed 's/stable/woody/g' > sources.list
    # apt-get update
    # apt-get dist-upgrade

    That's never broken *MY* Packages before. That's one of the most common debian misconceptions. 'stable'/'unstable' have more definitions than just non-dangerous/dangerous. one of the meanings of 'stable' is "not changing" versus "constantly changing" for unstable. When debian releases a STABLE distribution, it means it's been tested, proven, and works beautifully, even if it's not CuttingEdge(TM!)... Many times "This is reliable, And well tested." is WAY more important than "This is the newest thing out there!" Think about it. which would YOU really want on an important server?

    I'll stand by my debian, thank you.

  • Or else I have some swamp land in Florida I wish to sell you. Really shiny boxes mean nothing about a stable product look at windows and their "quality software". So much for shiny boxes.
  • They may have a slow release cycle but it doesn't really matter when the latest ``unstable'' version is pretty stable anyway. I have a machine at work whose Debian I upgrade regularly, and it works really well. There was a time before the first potato test cycle where I had to fix some package installation scripts manually, or sometimes I would just put it on hold and try again a week later and then it would work just fine...! (The Debian package management system is completely excellent! Great work, peoples!)
  • if you are even just decent enough at your job that things aren't falling apart, you should be getting at least 2-3 times that. if you are good, more like 4-5 times.

    maybe you don't have a lot of experience at 19, but if you can do the job you should be getting a real salary. but then, if you're happy with 21k i'm sure your "state-spanning" morgage broker employer is happy to pay you that.

    - isaac =)
  • Most hardware support is in the kernel anyway and the 2.2 kernels are supported by stable, just compile from source. Also 2.4 kernels are supported for the new upcoming 2.2 based stable.

    If you really need it, you can get it.

    Acceptance for newbies and so on is what "Debian based distributions" are for.
  • "non-free" stuff is stuff that we are allowed to distribute, but does not fall under our Free Software Guidelines.
    Just a note:
    Some of the stuff in non-free is less free than others. For instance, I believe the Aladdin version of Ghostscript (gs-aladdin) is not legal to put on a CD that you sell. Stuff like this is why non-free doesn't show up on CDs generally (though I imagine there's only a handful of packages that have this problem).
    --
  • $25,000... hm. I get paid much more than that for much less difficult work, and I consider myself slightly underpaid.

    I mean, I'm happy for Debian and all, but I think that $25k is a little short for an award of this calibur.

    --

  • Yeah, I was there for the keynote, but there's not much that can help my memory. Thanks for knowing what I meant!


    -------

  • The update system that can upgrade every package on the system with just two commands (apt-get update; apt-get upgrade). For busy people that don't have time to pore over every single update notice that comes in the mail or gets posted on the Web, that's worth a black-market price right there.

    AutoRPM [kaybee.org] offers similar functionality for RPM based systems like Red Hat. You can for example use the AutoRPM to check the updated packages daily from the Red Hat ftp site (or from mirror sites). AutoRPM can then update the packages automagically.

  • i've been using debian/gnu for 3 years.

    every time i pop that rescue.bin in and get that friendly boot message, i can't help but get 9 inches of pure USDA Homegrown Woodrow.

    and just what the hell does see shy joe mean, anyway??!!
  • Most new good programs don't have *BSD ports. Take a look at sun's jvm for instince. You want official java support don't look to *BSD.

  • Re:Free? (Score:1)

    by vagn ( 2168 )
    > Software that breaks the US export control
    > laws goes into the non-US archive.

    Um, no. It is in non-US so that it will continue
    to be software that DOES NOT BREAK US export
    control laws. Debian is 100% legal in the US.
  • Actually, that sounds like what RMS said at Linux World Expo last year [rediff.com].

    "It's like giving the 'Han Solo Award' to the 'Rebel Fleet' itself!"

  • Would be nice if some of that $ was used on making a good graphical installer for debian.

    IMHO debian is a kickass distribution, the only thing holding it back is the lack of a good graphical installer like RedHat or Mandrake has.

  • Acronyms are abbreviations that can be said as a word.

    Hmmm, personally I do say "immhoe" and "eye-anal" - what does everyone else do?
    The funny thing about communicating via text is that pronunciation becomes very non-standard. Do people say "ay-pee-tee" or "apt"? Interesting.

  • That's the way most programs that aren't totally comercial in nature usually get created in the linux world. Without doing it for the sake of doing it there would e previous little around.
  • Hey why don't we make a rule that ACs can't get FP if it ISN'T even a F...... post?
  • Well, can you buy $25,000 worth of shiny boxes, then? Shiny boxes just kick ass.
  • What an award for the crapiest distro?... Doen't even come close to Debian...
  • >I am not here to flame up a distro-based >religious war, but I really wonder how being >late all the time can be considered as >an "elegant" trait ?

    Haven't you ever heard the phrase "fashionably late"? Well, that's how Debian is. Late, but always classy and elegant.
  • I'll Delurk to answer this because I resisted trying Debian for the same reasons, and now I wish I had tried it sooner.

    I too was very concerned when I considered ordering Debian CD's and found the "most recent version" to be horribly out of date. The truth is, though, the latest stable release isn't even what most people use.

    So, when I was finally fed up with Mandrake, I RTFM'd and installed the frozen (almost released) potato version. It worked just peachy, no problem. Then I upgraded to the "unstable" woody. Still no problem. So with Debian I now have a system with newer software than most distros, and it's more stable than RedHat and Mandrake were for me.

    As for installation, obviously you can't grab new potato or woody CD's from LinuxMall or whatever (and the few places I found that sold potato snapshot CD's were relatively expensive (at least for me, I'm poor)).

    I had no trouble installing over the net, though. (And I recommend using apt-get instead of dselect; it's much quicker to just install whatever you want, whenever you want, instead of browsing through the huge list of packages in one sitting.)

    Anyway, now that I'm using Debian I could never go back to another distro. The package management does indeed kick ass. It puts rpm to shame. Suddenly decide you want LyX installed? Forget putting a CD in or opening up your browser and fumbling around with rpm's and trying to get all the dependencies installed in the right order; just "apt-get install lyx" and LyX with all its dependencies are automatically downloaded and installed for you. Upgrading packages with new versions, and in fact upgrading the entire system to a new version, is just as easy.

    (Disclaimer: I'm not a Debian developer or anything, and I'm _not_ one of those people who thinks Debian is all elite and everything else is for wussies. I'm just very happy with it myself, and explaining why, especially since you're resisting trying it for the same reasons I did.)
  • I don't, but I'm sure bringing up Linux at the local pub is a surefire way to be left standing by yourself.
  • And how is that different than bringing up MacOS or Windows at a local pub?
    --
  • IMHO = In My Humble Opinion
    IANAL = I Am Not A Laywer

  • Re:Why Debian is So Great... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Check out the compact directory under the floppies directories. You can do it on many systems with only 2 floppies (rescue+root) assuming you don't need any extra drivers, and with 3 on many other systems (rescue+root+drivers)... Only some more obscure setups require the 3 disk driver set rather than the 1 disk compact driver set.

    See the compact directory [debian.org] for the disks.

  • About the .sig, Id the next release being called chicago? see shy joe--Say it fast and it sounds like Chicago. Neat!!!

  • Re:Free? (Score:5)

    by danpat ( 119101 ) on Monday August 07, 2000 @03:48PM (#872565) Homepage

    It seems that there are a few people still in the dark about how Debian's distribution fits together.

    We have 2 archives, and each has 3 sections. There is 1 official section in each archive. The two archives are the "regular/low fat/most of the stuff" archive, and the "non-US/don't mind me/watch out for the helicopters" archive. Software that breaks the US export control laws goes into the non-US archive.

    Inside each archive are 3 sections, called "main", "contrib" and "non-free". The only part of the archive that we "officially" support is the "main" section. Every piece of software in the "main" section is compliant with the Debian Free Software Guidelines [debian.org]. This software is all GPL, MPL, BSD, [insert favourite free licence here] stuff. The "contrib" section stuff *would* be in the "main" section, except that it for some reason relies on something from the "non-free" section. "non-free" stuff is stuff that we are allowed to distribute, but does not fall under our Free Software Guidelines.

    The official Debian cd images that come out with each distribution contain the regular/main, regular/contrib, non-US/main and non-US/contrib stuff, along with all the source. Of course, often to use much of the contrib stuff, you need to grab non-free stuff (many packages however only partly rely on non-free stuff, such as driver modules, this still gets them into contrib, but you can use them without non-free).

  • Re:And?? (Score:5)

    by joey ( 315 ) <joey@kitenet.net> on Monday August 07, 2000 @03:52PM (#872572) Homepage
    There are, I would guesstimate, 5 or possibly 10 people working full time on Debian. I'm one of them since VA has hired me and a couple of other people to work on Debian.

    But the money won't go to hiring someone to work on Debian. We'll probably use it to build up our infrastructure -- we can always use more disk space.

    But, I just sort of have to look at that number and wonder how they manage to keep the all volnteer effort competitive with all the commercial Linux distributions

    That's really quite simple. It's the same way the linux community as a whole manages to be competative with big compainies like Microsoft. We have a lot of people, and their odd hours here and there add up. And the people who work on it really care, are often at the top of their fields, and do things right.
    --
  • I work for Mandrakesoft, and contrary to what one could expect, we are actually happy to have a good concurence: It helps us make our own distribution more usable. Sure we are working on becomming a "number one", but we want to achieve this goal by beeing the best, and not by seeing other Linux distros die.

    And debian has a particular role: it is a concience of the whole Linux industry. Glad to see them getting this award - keep on with the good work!

  • It sounds like you are going to get your troll ass sued! And just in case you a stupid enough to think this could work, think about this, you are collecting fees on a "anonymous distributed system" so where does the money go, cause that is where the lawyers will follow (if you really can hide the money I'm sure you'll find a far more worthwhile job in organised crime). I think we all know that RMS believes strongly in the use of copyright to prevent EXACTLY what you want to do and I'm sure he will still have enough friends in the world to pay more lawyers than you can handle.

  • "official" is just a word after all (Score:5)

    by Saltheart ( 32740 ) on Monday August 07, 2000 @05:28PM (#872580)
    The fact that you consider potato to be "late" reflects a general misunderstanding of the distribution. On this campus we use debian for probably 90% of all our mission critical production linux boxes (www, mail, samba, routers, firewalls, you-name-it) some of which have been running potato since october of last year, and running it well. Just because the debian guys refuse to put their "official" stamp on a release until it has passed rigorous testing doesn't mean you can't use it before its "official".

    Your reasons for not using debian are quite flimsy. You can have just as much cutting edge stuff with debian that you can in any other distro. (I do realize that there are some applications where the authors do not support debian so it takes a week or two for a package manager to make .deb available) It runs beautifully on my Compaq laptop with the latest eye candy available, and we even have some debian woody boxes that are running the latest 2.4-test kernel. Furthermore, I would rather have quality control than cutting edge on my mission critical servers any day. And the package management system is excellent. Maintenance and upgrades on these boxes is a breeze!

    And with strong desktop distro's like corel and storm (which is better by far) your arguments become impotent. Personally, I would rather fight than switch.

  • Tee hee.

    To give a serious answer to a not-so-serious question, yes. They do get a good lot in donations every year, and as far as I can tell they are spending it wisely. If I were them, I'd keep this award in an interest-bearing account for some future emergency. For example, we have some legal challenges for free software in the future that could effect Debian and the rest of the free software movement.

    Having been there, I can tell you that if people on Debian argue, it's because they care deeply about it.

    What stable release? I've run "unstable" for over a year now, and it's been more stable than other released distributions I could name, and just as up-to-date. Debian is addressing the release frequency, however.

    Thanks

    Bruce

  • OK, here's an idea that struck me as people debate on this story the worth of time, the worth of programmers, the greatness or lameness of various distros ... (esp. b/c someone raised the issue of buying Linus a long-distance beer)

    BUY THEM FOOD.

    That's right. Imagine a sort of pizza-and-beer account that you could contribute to, the way that people can / could buy Theo of OpenBSD pizza.

    if you like a certain distro, you can give them some virtual calories by sending them some money online.

    for instance:

    welcome to the hungry programmers food page:

    I want to give [check one]
    o $5
    o $10
    o $15
    o $300,000

    to the [check one]
    o debian project
    o FSF contributors
    o both the debian project and FSF contributors

    [check one]
    o pizza fund
    o beer fund

    And the music industry would have to jump on board, too, of course;)

    Amazon, do you want to redeem yourself?! host the payments, and match them ;)

    timothy

  • Actually it can be (Score:3)

    by sips ( 212702 ) on Monday August 07, 2000 @05:36PM (#872585) Homepage
    As the French have been quoted as saying anything can be seen as a political statement because politics intercets almost anything.
    That being said for example using MS products makes a statement rather implicetly stated that you agree with the procedures that they utilize in development and marketing. Same with patronizing certain stores and the like.
    No one is immune. I will support microsoft no longer in my life.
    They are moving towards a world where software is no longer my own and I have to upgrade a several thousand dollar computer every week. Thank you but no.

  • Is being late considered as "elegance" ? (Score:4)

    by Taco Cowboy ( 5327 ) on Monday August 07, 2000 @03:55PM (#872587) Journal


    You said:

    "Congratulations to the Debian crew for this.
    Non-Debian users benefit from the pressure
    that Debian puts on other distros -- just by
    existing -- to mind their P's and Q's when
    it comes to Free software, and for proving
    that elegant upgrade systems don't have to
    be glitzy or labyrnthine."

    I am not here to flame up a distro-based religious war, but I really wonder how being late all the time can be considered as an "elegant" trait ?

    I mean, Debian is famous (notorious) for its lateness. Its "official" version almost always lag behind, compare with others.

    True, being fast doesn't mean sharp, but Debian's lateness is something else altogether.

    I mean, look at the "potato" release - or should I say, has yet to be released - other distros are carrying newer version of the utilities and kernel code already, in their RELEASE, OFFICIAL versions.

    True, Debian does put a lot of effort into its Ps and Qs, but Ps and Qs alone is not _everything_. Sometimes a user needs some advance feature offered by a newer version of a certain utilities, and because of Debian's insistence on getting EVERYTHING in line, most of the time the utilities in Debian distros are of older version, and the user who needs the new feature ain't gonna get it.

    That is why sometimes I am forced to use distros other than Debian.

    But anyway, congratulation to Debian, the Debian folks have worked hard to earn the prize, despite the too often lateness for Debian releases.

  • As has been mentioned by a previous post, you can always get the latest and greatest things through the unstable version.

    Sure I have been waiting sense March for potato to be released as stable, but I am willing to wait the extra amount of time because I know that it takes that extra time to make sure that the distribution is in fact what they claim it to be, ie stable. When you rely on the bleeding edge technology you can get cut really badly, and the rigorous testing that Debian does to make sure that there are no show stopping bugs when they release their next stable product.

    I agree that some of the other distros carry newer code in their official release versions already. Will I use those distros? No, because I understand that it takes a lot of time to go through a proper QA cycle. From what I have been able to tell only Debian takes the time and effert to do that.

    Their "lateness" is considered elegant because they are willing to wait to make sure that their product is of the highest quality.

    I use Debian because I do not need the bleeding edge technology. I need something that works, well. I enjoy the ability to type apt-get update, and apt-get dist-upgrade and know that I can trust that which I am getting is not going to break on me.

  • Re:what does the money get used for? (Score:5)

    by Cerb ( 10299 ) on Monday August 07, 2000 @03:58PM (#872596) Homepage
    It pays for CDs if we must buy them for shows. It pay for appearances at shows. Sometimes it pays for bandwidth and hardware upgrades to our poor bloated FTP arhivers. :) Note, most CDs are donated to us. That ultra 60 is being used to further porting efforts. The sparcs that have actually been recieved by developers have gone to the most active sparc porters from what I've seen. There are 3 sparc boxes that we don't physically have. They are maintained by kachina and run an autobuilder to recompile all of the i386 debs that are uploaded. Any more questions?

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