Ian Murdock: Debian "Missing a Big Opportunity" 330
Natester writes "While Debian struggles to get its next release (Etch) out the door, the project's founder, Ian Murdock, has spoken out about politics, the lack of firm leadership, and Ubuntu's meteoric rise in prominence. Murdock believes that Debian is "process run amok" — nobody feels empowered to make decisions, leading to the sluggish rate of progress."
Firm Leadership (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Firm Leadership (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Firm Leadership (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Firm Leadership (Score:5, Insightful)
It's the bikeshed problem: everybody agrees that we want a bikeshed, and that it needs to be painted to keep from rotting, and nobody has a particular color it has to be, but nobody feels empowered to go out and buy paint, in case somebody turns out to be deeply offended by the color choice. Someone needs to take the initiative and pick something, and if anyone turns out to care, they can repaint it later.
Re:Firm Leadership (Score:4, Funny)
MAKE YOUR TIME (Score:2, Funny)
Dazed & Confused (Score:4, Insightful)
While the sheer number of packages in the Debian repository is awesome, you are confusing _choices_ with a lack of focus. Debian's NOT pleasing everyone. They can't.
There will be many out there probably like you who are reassured with a self-contained environment that a Ubuntu provides. They have x number of apps configured a specific way that works okay in many situations but is really poor if more or something different is required.
In my business, I need to have log reports formatted a specific way. Well, there just so happens the log analysis package I use is in ubuntu's "universe." e.g. should work, but it's not an official distro package. Good news, it's quite well supported in debian's main package repo.
This is why ubuntu is kind of like AOL way back in the day or Microsoft server apps for good system administrators. Once you figure it out, you realize the limitations and move on.
When you are ready, Debian's there. Still Free.
Re:Firm Leadership (Score:5, Insightful)
No chance to survive? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Firm Leadership (Score:5, Interesting)
If I were a coder I would be much more likely to volunteer my time to Debian than Ubuntu. I'd rather donate to a fully democratic system than a benevolent dictatorship. And if I'm already coding for a project and they decide that they're going to "empower" someone to ultimately say what goes and what doesn't, I'd be more likely to quit contributing code.
Re:Firm Leadership (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway, I feel that a benevolent dictatorship is actually the prize winner in the dev cycle. Once you get into the "please everyone, get a majority vote" mode of operation you run into endless debate as one side tries to convince the other side of the merits of their idea(s). Now I want a unanimous decision on a jury, but for a distro I want a clear path and direction. The dictatorship forces that path to exist. While I may want the path a different color, so long as it's going the same general direction I am then I'm OK with it.
The direction I'm interested in is a mainstream linux that I can deploy on joe sixpack's computer. I want a linux that is as friendly as OSX, and as compatible with hardware as Windows. I want a distro for the masses, and thus while you are entitled to fork it and tweak it, I think the main tree should be ruled by an authoritarian, rather than a committee.
I also think that the "open market" will decide this for us. Suppliers (donors of code and money) will "sell" to their ideals and buyers will install to their needs.
-nB
Re:Firm Leadership (Score:5, Insightful)
That niche is well supplied by Ubuntu. If you think the space needs competition to keep things fresh, it has it: Linspire and Mandriva.
Debian *doesn't* need to target that niche at all. The existing policy of slow, steady progress and periodic rock-solid server releases produces a distro that's an excellent basis for projects ranging from Ubuntu to Embedded Debian to build from. There are occasionally cases where Debian is a bit slower than it should be (multiarch for example), but that doesn't mean that what Debian is should be thrown away to make an Ubuntu replica.
Re:Firm Leadership (Score:5, Insightful)
What we call "benevolent dictatorship" in a group like this means decisive leadership with power make its decisions stick within the confines of the project. This is a very different thing than a political dictatorship (benevolent or otherwise), because in national politics there are no practical limits to which the power of a dictator is confined.
Philosophically, strong leadership within a voluntary project is consistent with the status of an individual contributor as a rational being. The contributor has the practical option of "voting with his feet", by jumping to a different project. A wise leader who relies upon voluntary contributors keeps the best of them happier contributing than leaving. A true dictatorship is inconsistent with the status of an individual citizen as a rational being, because a citizen cannot vote with his feet. The dictator can choose to make any trivial dissent a matter of life and death, and choose in a completely arbitrary way.
I once heard Prince Bandar claim that absolute monarchy wasn't really different than democracy, only in a monarchy people "vote out" the government by taking to the streets. While this might be wise for abolute monarchs to bear in mind, it conveniently ignores the fact that the subject of a true monarchy must be willing to risk everthing, his life, the life of his friends and family, in order to act in accordance with his reason or conscience. It sidesteps the question of whether it is necessary or beneficial to make the exercise of individual reason a life or death decision.
In the Debian case, anybody unsatisfied with Debian can join a different Linux distro project. Not only that, they can walk away still in posession of their entire body of contribution, as well as the entire contribution of everybody else. The only things the can't take with them is the community (they'd have to build their own or convince others to move with them) and the name.
The irony here is that the apparent anarchy of the free software paradigm makes it possible to exercise extremely decisive leadership with little or no ethical risk. There is nothing a free software leader can do to a contributor, other than refuse to take his contributions.
The utter inability of a project leader to inflict meaningful harm on a contributor makes elaborate safeguards for the dignity of the individual redundant. That respect is built into the software development paradigm, not the organization.
It's very important not to confuse strong leadership with dictatorship. Leadership is securing the voluntary cooperation of individuals, sometimes to a course of action that the individual does not favor. While leadership might be useful in a dictatorship, the key job skill for a dictator is the infliction of fear.
Ian Murdock to join Sun (Score:5, Informative)
It's being announced today that I'm joining Sun as chief operating
platforms officer, which basically means I'll be in charge of Sun's
operating system strategy, spanning Solaris and Linux. I just posted the
announcement on my blog (http://ianmurdock.com/2007/03/19/joining-sun/),
and it'll likely be making the rounds soon. Just wanted to
make sure you heard the news directly from me and to introduce myself.
First things first: I'm a long time Linux user, developer, and advocate.
I founded Debian in 1993, co-founded a Linux distribution company called
Progeny in 1999, and most recently served as CTO of the new Linux
Foundation, where I was (and still am) chair of the LSB, the Linux
platform interoperability standard. I'm also a long time Sun fan.
As for what I'll be doing: While I'm coming in with some fairly formed
opinions about what Sun/Solaris/OpenSolaris ought to do (peruse my
blog a bit to learn more), I'm also a big believer in listening
before talking, and I have a lot of listening to do in the weeks
to come. So, please, feel free to drop me a line if you have
anything to tell me. And, please, be gentle while I get settled.
Gotta get on a call in a few minutes. In the meantime, I just wanted
to say hello, and to make sure you heard the news directly from me.
Later,
-ian
--
Ian Murdock
http://ianmurdock.com/ [ianmurdock.com]
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Wait a minute.. (Score:4, Funny)
Thanks (Score:2)
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"the wreck that McNeally created" (Score:4, Insightful)
He also correctly identified Microsoft as Sun's up-and-coming competitor years before anyone else got it, and then correctly identified that the level of anti-MSFT rhetoric was causing major problems and cleaned that up, netting Sun a nice $2B in the process. Maybe slow to get on the x86 bandwagon, but he got there, bringing back one of the industry's best system designers in the process. He groomed two successors, one of whom now seems to be the real deal, but in many cases is getting credit for a lot of things McNealy had already set in motion. (And the other one is off perhaps tanking another company -- maybe this is where the "wreckage" came from?)
Sun *is* "selling like it once did." It's the 3rd largest server vendor in the industry. It's the 5th largest x86 server vendor in the industry -- again, something McNealy set in motion.
There's a lot of things he did wrong, but there's a lot more he did right. Sun went from an engineering workstation company to the third company regularly mentioned in the same breath as HP and IBM, two much older and more well-established companies.
This is coming off like a gush about McNealy and Sun, but really, consider it more a rant against calling something a "wreck" when you have no idea what you're talking about. Get picked for the board at GE, then you get to talk about someone else being a "wreck."
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You're joking, right? Solaris is probably the worst "real" Unix out there. Compared to HPUX/AIX (or even Tru64) it's pretty lame.
I don't think HP/UX or AIX comes with graphical installer which tries to mimic Windows or OS X, true? I also don't think they come with any unstable, untested in real world/load binaries.
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It's sad (Score:5, Interesting)
Bruce
Re:It's sad (Score:4, Interesting)
Sorry for the naivete, but I don't plain understand the rationale behind the DuncTank failure.
I mean, even if I'm a non-paid developer, what's bad in having me collaborating with payed developers if it helps getting the work done? Isn't it a bit like the GSoC? People in GSoC-funded projects should whine and hold back releases because "hey, why is he paid and I am not?" I just don't understand it, but I don't know the exact story behind the Dunc Tank collapse, so I'd like some enlightenment.
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Re:It's sad (Score:4, Interesting)
If I was helping create a distro, and nobody was being paid... Then only a few people got money for doing exactly the same thing as before, exactly the same thing as I'm doing... I'd be upset, then disgusted, then I'd probably quit. (I wouldn't be so immature as to remain and hold back the project, though.) Then I'd either find something else to do with my life, find another distro to help, or make my own.
Yes, there's ego involved... Everyone on a 'team' wants to feel like their at least equal to everyone else. With some people being paid and others not, it draws a very clear 'you're not as valuable' line. This is exactly the reason that many businesses make it a fire-able offense to discuss wages with other employees. And I whole-heartedly agree with that policy.
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Most of us are. It's how you handle your immaturity that defines you. When you can be held accountable for your thoughts, we're ALL going to the chair.
As long as you admit that your reaction isn't about them, but about you, then at least you're n
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While what you say is true, the problems stemming from paying some developers should have been anticipated. If you and I are both working on a project for free, and the organization running that project decide to pay you but not me, what they are essentially saying is "tyke, you're contribution is not as important as drinkypoo's". T
Re:It's sad (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it was anticipated. I don't think the full fury of their immature response was, however. I don't think they believed that people would put their effort into making a project succeed, then turn around and put it into making it fail by deliberately holding it back.
I think that while their contributions may be highly valuable and are in any case appreciated, the people who would do such things should be removed from the project. Their actions prove that they are interested more in their own reputation than in actually making the project succeed. If their efforts in some other place can assist the project, then so be it, but I think that keeping them around where they can enjoy further self-aggrandizement is only rewarding bad behavior, which encourages more bad behavior. When my little parrot squawks at me over and over again, fit to burst my eardrums (what bird experts typically refer to as "inappropriate vocalization") I don't yell at her; that just gives her attention. I cover her cage with a sheet, and wait for her to calm down. Perhaps the same response is appropriate in this situation.
I'd say that our continuous tendency to reward bad behavior is the biggest problem in the world today.
It IS saying that. In so many words! And as a contributor to the Debian project, these people have to decide what is more important; their own ego, or the Debian project. If they feel the former is true, then rather than deliberately holding Debian back, they need to go somewhere where they will receive the appreciation they feel they so richly deserve. Because there should never be room for someone whose ego is larger than the project.
Because let's face it, I might HAVE a greater contribution to make than you do, and there is only so much money to be shared. So I might get that money, and you might not. My contribution might BE more valuable than yours is. Does that mean yours is not valuable? Of course not. Does it mean that YOU are not valuable? By the same logic, it cannot mean that. It can only mean that I am more critical to the project than you are, and thus it is worth it to pay me to be sure of retaining me. In this world we all have to accept that we are not at the pinnacle of every scale, not least because many are contradictory. Even if I were the most badass programmer to ever have lived (which I clearly am not, but bear with me) I would probably not be the best person on the planet. There's only so much of each of us to go around, if you are spread thin then you never reach much of a height in any category.
It sounds to me like some of these people are good programmers, but not very good people.
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Maybe they did? If some of my colleagues where I work got a big payraise and I did not, despite me performing just as well or maybe even better than them, of course I am going to be immature and petulant. Such are the traits of humanity and I am sure most other would feel the same way. Every manager at every company could tell you that. Money re
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That people could have expressed their views and then moved on is given. That some people did not is no shock. Dunc tank, while not a bad idea, was poorly executed, and I'
Re:It's sad (Score:5, Insightful)
The lack of social skills is a really sad aspect in our community. I suspect it is at the root of your comment. Some geeks take a long time to mature (and some never do ;-). You had your shot as DPL, and the recent voting for SPI director suggests there is still room for improvement. Claiming that we should never meet seems defeatist to me. Meeting together and working on our social skills looks like a better choice to me. If we start out by recognizing we need to practice our social skills, we can improve.
Times have changed. The old joke about no one on the internet knowing you are a dog still applies. But our respect is still based upon skills and knowledge. We just need to augment our view of what a person accomplishes to contain a social aspect too. The process may not be pain free. If we must deal with expulsion requests [debian.org] or a myriad of flamefests, then so be it. The Debian core values remain intact. We need to learn how to scale to larger numbers without diluting them.
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I very much disagree with the premise behind these statements. You seem to be ignoring the very existence of Asperger's Syndrome. From The Geek Syndrome [thegeeksyndrome.com]:
The problem with Debian (Score:5, Funny)
Just keep Yoko out! (Score:3, Funny)
IDNRTA (Score:2, Insightful)
Ubuntu is trying to be a Windows killer. And it could be. Wine is "good enough" with the right settings for 90% of what most people want to do coming from a Windows world. Drivers exist. No, they're not FOSS, and I understand why people want FOSS ones, but....
Why doesn't Ubuntu seal the deal?
With beryl, good drivers, and built in FOSS apps that beat MS at every turn (Firefox > IE, Beryl > Aero, Thunderbird > Outlook, and VLC > WMP), it seem
Win98 menu (Score:2)
You mean, having a "Start" menu that spans over 3 columns, filled with sub-folders that have only 1 single application and are cryptically named after some taiwaneese constructor ?
Sorry, but I prefere much more the "Office / Games / Internet / Graphics /
Re:IDNRTA (Score:4, Insightful)
Feisty could win the OS wars decisively, but given the over all FOSS community attitude towards ordinary people....
Um, if this attitude was such an obstacle, then Ubuntu wouldn't exist in the first place. If anything, Ubuntu is proof that there is a significant portion of the FOSS community that wants to bring FOSS to "ordinary people". Sure there are people who don't, and they're running Slackware.
So given that, I must have completely missed the part where you specified what it is that is preventing Ubuntu from winning the OS wars decisively. You say it's comes preconfigured in a way superior to Windows. Personally I think Ubuntu, and Linux in general, has a ways to go before it's really an "ordinary people" as in "Windows replacement for everyone" kind of OS. I think they're a long way from winning the OS wars decisively or otherwise. But it is getting there, by leaps and bounds. You seem to think it's even farther along this path than I do, poised and ready to claim victory, so I'm again left wondering what it is you think is holding Ubuntu back.
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It's called Linspire. It still doesn't run over half the printers or wireless NICs out there. You'd have to sell the box too, and people interested in that sort of thing will buy a Mac.
> Oh yeah, and it's open source, so anybody who doesn't like part of it can fix it themselves.
Way to know your market.
Re:IDNRTA (Score:4, Insightful)
Thunderbird Outlook and in some cases, *nothing* = Outlook for calendaring, contact management, etc. When Linux has a drop-in replacement for Outlook that connects to Exchange Servers and can handle PSTs, they'll have the killer app needed to crush Office. Until then, it'll be no sale. Believe me, programmers would probably love to switch but they still need to get email at work from the Exchange Server.
And no, solutions that require interdiction with Exchange administration do not count. Drop-in replacement is exactly that, just your Windows domain username and password.
-BA
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Thunderbird Outlook and in some cases, *nothing*
I agree that Thunderbird+Lightning doesn't even come near Outlook. The people who keep claiming it have obviously never used Outlook.
Outlook for calendaring, contact management, etc.
Evolution. Though, they really need to fix it's pathetic IMAP support (crashes fairly regularly while using IMAP, POP3 support is solid). It's been my client for over three years now. Mainly I connect to a few POP3 servers and the Scalix server at work.
When Linux has a drop-in replacement for Outlook that connects to Exchange Servers and can handle PSTs, they'll have the killer app needed to crush Office.
Sure. That will happen the same day that OpenOffice supports MS Office formats 100%. That is, never. Exchange and th
Re:IDNRTA (Score:4, Interesting)
rant:
Thunderbird > Outlook? Seriously? Outlook is one of the very, very few apps that Microsoft got somewhat right. As opposed to Thunderbird, it can be used to share calendards, contacts and stuff easily. Thunderbird is just an E-Mail app. Outlook isn't.
VLC > WMP? For some values of VLC, that is correct. But the userinterface is better on WMP. How on earth do you get a slider in fullscreen mode on VLC?
And your statemend about open source is just plain wrong. I can't see my mom "fixing" the freaking lameness that is "cut and paste" in gnome. It's simply broken, it doesn't work. When it does work, you have to try pasting in three different ways! Open Source doesn't mean anybody can fix. It means that the knowledgeable *may* fix stuff that they find annoying. Even then, it might not go upstream so other users can benefit from it.
I'm an ubuntu-only user, so I think I am semi-qualified to know what I'm talking about. I dig linux. I've been digging linux since '93. I've had windows too periodically, but linux usage far outweighs windows usage.
Linux sucks, unless you're somewhat skilled. Take the Gnome copy-paste dysfunction for example. When copying in the terminal, *sometimes* it picks up what I've marked with my cursor, so that I can just press shift-insert. Sometimes it doesn't. WTF? WHY NOT?. Oh well, then I have to right-click to make it put the text on the clipboard. So... now I've got the text on the clipboard, everything should be fine and dandy, right? NO! I still can't use shift-insert in a sane way. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't and I have to rightclick *again* to paste! WTFISTHAT? I've switched to Kubuntu not long ago, and thank god... The copy and paste functionality appears to actually WORK AT ALL. It works pretty good. The even better part is that you can predict if it works or not. With gnome you just can't.
How do you suppose I fix that? It's open source isn't it? Then I should be able to fix that easily!
To all the proponents of Linux On The Desktop:
1. Please stop flounting linux as totally superior. Be realistic. It sucks in many ways, but it sucks in other ways than Windows
2. Make sure that you point out that learning linux isn't as easy as windows. Really. Do it. Please.
3. Make sure you've pointed out 2.
4. Accept that Linux is a Tool, just like Windows. Every tool has its good and bad sides. Windows has a (mostly) coherent user experience, linux has not. Windows has (inflexible) wizards, Linux has extreme flexibility (at the cost of complexity). You can't have it all. EVER.
You can mod me down now. Just had to get that out. Should be incoherent enough to make it hard to read
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I use VLC under OS X, and I get the slider by simply moving the mouse. It sort of just appears, then fades away when you're done with it. It's probably the same under Linux, although I mostly just use Kaffeine.
The main thing you missed was this: software, software, software. There is no tax software under Linux, no accounting software, and on and on. People argue about the OS, updates, installs, and other irrelevant crap. But no one in the real wo
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Apparently you are confused by the traditional copy/paste X11 method, which still exists
Re:Debian's Easy 3D Desktop (Score:2)
Works beautifully on the graphics chips listed.
KDE has some minor issues, but the whole 3D desktop and animated windows works perfectly.
Like other posts, I don't see the huge technical advantage Ubuntu has. I see Mark Shuttleworth spending money giving ubuntu more visibility.
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Unfortunately, I believe the war is over, to risk a cliche. I think the best we can do now is just chip slowly away at MS's structure by recommending a linux switch to people who complain about MS or by putting linux on our own computers. Perhaps more people should start foundations where they give out computers for free by taking an older computer that someone wants to get rid of and puttin
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I don't think that's true. Out-of-the-box, WMP doesn't play everything. Same problem with OS X's Quicktime Player: it doesn't play everything. (And it won't go to full-screen mode out of the box, either.)
On Windows and Mac I always have to install VLC to get a media player that "just works." On Ubuntu good media players are already there, and, yes, I have to install the codecs.
So what's the difference? I love the myth
The no RC bug ideal... (Score:4, Interesting)
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The problem with Debian RCs is that it has more than 15.000 packages and except for the "base system", all of them are equally important. So a RC bug in a crappy package that has 3 users is just as important as a RC in firefox/iceweasel, which lots of people use. It's stupid, but it's the way debian works.
Yeah, 'When It's Ready' (Score:2, Insightful)
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Slowness (Score:5, Insightful)
On a point of pedantry, also you cannot have a meteoric rise. Meteors fall!
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I believe that's a reference to a 'rising star', not a real meteor. It's supposed to be clever. I always liked these from school:
http://www.personal.psu.edu/wxk116/vocab.html [psu.edu]
Different markets (Score:5, Insightful)
Definitely. I've been using Debian for over a decade, but what I'm seeing now is that Debian and Ubuntu are cooperatively focusing on two different markets. They aren't really duplicating effort, because they seem to be sharing packages and patches back and forth, and even users can setup hybrid systems if desired. But what they are doing is aiming for two different things.
For the moment, Debian seems to be producing a more stable distribution with server packages kept up-to-date and good attention to security fixes. Ubuntu seems to be producing a more user friendly distribution with simpler installation, ease of use, and more up-to-date desktop packages.
I see this as being beneficial so far. Any software developed for one of them can be ported to the other, and so having two separate organizations developing two different lines for two different purposes can make progress and quality better on the whole.
Debian has it's place (Score:2, Informative)
When Did NetCraft Confirm This? (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Another post mentions a concatenation of problems. I agree with this post.
2. Ubuntu is not a good server distro!
Stable and well-tested older packages are a strength of Debian. Yes there is a large class of sysadmins that like keeping odd hours running buggier systems. They generally burnout or learn how valuable stable is. To address the rather immature "needs newer packages" complaints, may I refer you to http://www.backports.org/dokuwiki/doku.php [backports.org]
3. Depth of Knowledge
There are still, many excellent Debian sysadmins out there that share and certainly have brought my skills up to a higher level. I don't see the same depth in Ubuntu forums.
4. Ubuntu Money
Mark's bringing money to the table, he gets to call the shots. That's well and good because the honeymoon is on right now. What happens when the honeymoon is over? Debian doesn't look organized compared to a guy calling the shots with his bankroll. It's an apples-and-oranges comparison.
5. Etch
I'm running etch right now on my desktop and in testing. It was ubuntu-release quality months ago.
Ditch Stable (Score:2, Insightful)
Debian Weekly News says it all (Score:3, Funny)
It is *called* 'weekly' news yet, in most cases, it comes out monthly.
Seems pretty inevitable... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Debian is dead (Score:5, Insightful)
the debian that can be installed in 40 minutes is not the true debian.
i used to have a debian Tshirt that said "it's what your mom would use if it was 20 times eaiser."
i think that the debian group will always be needed to do the heavy lifting and the ubuntus of the world will add specifictiy and compatibility.
Re:Debian is dead (Score:4, Insightful)
Ubuntu is pretty sweet for the desktop, but there's too much desktop-y stuff involved in it. Without doing some research, I wouldn't even know how to do an Ubuntu install completely free from any window manager whatsoever. With Debian, however, there's nothing I don't want installed by default. I only have to deal with a GUI if I want to. And since I don't want to, installing my window manager is as simple as "apt-get install screen". Done. Hurrah!
Anyway, the whole idea that Debian is somehow this painfully difficult distro is just absurd and I don't know why people buy into that. It might be more difficult than normal to get a fully operational desktop and window manager with all the trimming going than something like Ubuntu where it's all pretty much built into the installer by default, but in every other aspect, you can't get much easier and straightforward than debian. I've been using it since about 1999 and I keep playing with other distros every couple of years to see if I can be swayed away (and other than Ubuntu for pure-desktop systems), I don't see any compelling reason to stray from Debian. And even then... only to a Debian-extension like Ubuntu...
Choose the server option. (Score:3, Informative)
Boot the install CD and choose "Install a LAMP server" at the menu.
Other than that it's almost identical to Debian. And it doesn't get any easier than Debian.
Re:Choose the server option. (Score:4, Insightful)
And that's exactly why Debian is better than Ubuntu in most scenarios (although Ubuntu may still be better for most users). Someone is asking how to install Ubuntu without GUI and the answer is to install it with a full webserver stack. Some people have more specific needs than 'Desktop' or 'LAMP server' and in all of these cases Ubuntu has no added value, worse yet, it looses out on lower stability and having to deinstall stuff as a first step right after the installation.
Apart from that, it's way more fun to actually decide for yourself which packages to use. If i wanted the software to take as much as possible decicions for me I'd be using Microsoft stuff, they are way better at deciding what's good for their customers.
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You do realize that "LAMP server" is just -one- option?
"Someone is asking how to install Ubuntu without GUI and the answer is to install it with a full webserver stack."
No.
The answer is to boot the install CD and choose between a few easy to understand options, where one option will give you a ready to use Ubuntu LAMP server.
I've got a prette decen test server here, running VMWare, with CentOS, Fedora, Trustix Secure Linux and Ubuntu Server, and right now, Ubu
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There are people who missed your point, yes Slackware can be installed in 40 mins and can be used as end user friendly Linux too but it would be missing a lot. If I installed Slackware today, I would let it boot and start configuring my own kernel based on my own needs searchi
Re:Debian is dead (Score:5, Insightful)
Debian was NEVER supposed to be "difficult to use". This is something that has happened with the time - other distros became desktop-oriented and debian kept being power user-oriented.
It just happened, but that doesn't means that you shouldn't be able to install debian in 20 minutes. From the Debian social contract [debian.org]
4. Our priorities are our users and free software: We will be guided by the needs of our users and the free software community. We will place their interests first in our priorities. We will support the needs of our users for operation in many different kinds of computing environments.
Debian users are asking for an easy to install/use, desktop oriented distro. The Debian project is just not providing such thing, so they go and choose other distros that actually listen to them, like ubuntu.
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What stops them? Apt-get became like standard on OS X thanks to Fink project for example.
What about the current Debian lovers who does love the true open source/free/stable OS? Give them up for digg.com friendly ubuntu wannabe distro? What happened to philosophy? What are the chances if there are Intel running Macs all over the place
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Again, you or any debian contributor are not allowed to define what debian users should and how debian should be.
4. Our priorities are our users and free software: We will be guided by the needs of our users and the free software community. We will place their interests first in our priorities. We will support the needs of our users f
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Yes, I am not a Debian user, I am just an ex Slackware user who hated the "No 24 bit/1024x768 displaying windows wannabe installer" whining of weekly distro switcher people while I enjoyed my stable, real Linux OS. Thanks to Slackware I figured the logic of Unix and the purpose of
After years giving
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Do I not count?
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Not more than any other average Debian user.
Re:Debian is dead (Score:5, Insightful)
Additionally, I wonder how much cash is being burnt to keep Ubuntu cracking along. Perhaps it is not sustainable? Debian is, I would say. It has proven itself.
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Good point. Shuttleworth is not doing Ubuntu so he can bleed money for all eternity, he wants to make money at some point. So far that hasn't happened (pretty sure), and if it continues not to happen for a few more years, I wouldn't be at all surprised if he moved on to another project. This isn't a criticism of Shuttleworth, I would probably move
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For Example: Most distros don't ask you during the installtion process what MTA you want to install. Most Desktop Users don't care, and may not even know what an MTA [wikipedia.org] is. Debian will ask you if you want Exim, Sendmail, Postfix and a few others I can't recall. Does this make i
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i think that the debian group will always be needed to do the heavy lifting and the ubuntus of the world will add specifictiy and compatibility.
Also, it seems that Ubuntu's success it largely based on the fact that it has a narrower focus than Debian. Ubuntu is largely going after the desktop, and also general server stuff. Because of this focus, they can refine a smaller number of packages for each release, which might give it a small increase in cohesion and such. This is good and bad. It also means
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BUT...by the same token, since it's a desktop distro, there's hardly ANY "server-y" apps installed. YOU get to pick what server stuff you want installed. And the GUI comes in handy for this. Just hit Synaptic, pick your packages, and you're done.
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This is, I think, the most inexplicable issue with Ubuntu. There are two different install CDs. One is the LiveCD. The other is the alternate install CD. Their contents are largely identical, yet the LiveCD is the only full LiveCD environment, and the other CD is needed to do custom installs (you can
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Maybe the Debian installer has improved in the few years since I last used it, but I remember it was extremely user-hostile. It was asking me about things like the names of my ethernet, audio and disk controller chipsets (you know, stuff that every computer user should know off the top of his head). On the othe
Debian Stable not dead in my server room (Score:5, Insightful)
That's all I care about. Is it stable? Yes. Is it secure? Yes. Does it perform a function I need? Yes. Then deploy.
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Isn't it the same deal with Debian stable?
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apache2: 2.0.54-5sarge1
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Truth to tell, I don't really notice that much difference between running Debian testing and Ubuntu. At least no-one at my house is longing for the days when we ran Ubuntu.
So I am curious, what fabulous things am I missing? Or maybe the fact I am a fairly experience
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What would be good, however, is if Ubuntu and Debian could co-ordinate their releases better. I see absolutely no reason why Ubuntu LTS (Long Term Support) shouldn't be based off or synced to Debian stable, other than the fact that Debian and Ubuntu don't co-ordinate their releases. If Debian could make regular release
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Because Ubuntu's installer hung up my machine every time I tried to run it and Debian didn't (neither did FC4 but who wants that?). I really wanted a decent apt-get implementation and went straight to Ubuntu. After about 4 tries at install, I tossed the Ubuntu install CD in my stack of useless CDs (yes I did verify the CD was good) and downloaded the Debian net install CD. It installed quickly and cleanly and it has even passed the wif
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And frankly, I don't really need the bootable CD to boot up and waste my time and memory. Just dump the packages to harddrive as fast as possible, let me reboot, upgrade and r
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At the novice and novice+ Linux user level, I think that most
Re:Debian is dead (Score:5, Insightful)
Ubuntu is to Debian what Fedora is to Red Hat. It moves fast with the best new versions. It has all the bugs in the best new versions and deprecates old interfaces and configurations with that same speed.
Here's what I want from a server: It should be rock solid with an absolute minimum of bugs. It should run with essentially no attention for several years. Routine security updates should should be prompt and complete but require little or no operator attention. In particular, no routine update should result in an old configuration file becoming incompatible. Barring exceptional circumstances, it should run itself without my attention.
And when it does finally come time to upgrade to the next major release there should be a minimum negative impact on the server's existing configuration. If a piece of software drops a feature I'm using then it shouldn't automatically upgrade to the next version. Instead, the old version should remain available with security updates for a good long while.
Debian delivers on this. Ubuntu, as fine a system as it is, does not.
Re:Debian is dead (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Debian's problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Debian's problem (Score:5, Insightful)
I never understood this argument. I don't consider myself an expert in the various Linux distributions, especially not Debian. However, I settled on Debian for the exact opposite reason. I wanted, for my home computer, a bleeding-edge system that I wouldn't have to re-install ever because a "newer version" was released.
So I switched to Debian unstable, got packages almost as fast as in Gentoo and other bleeding-edge distros, and since then, never bothered re-installing anything from scratch. I just let my system evolve. Sometime this leads to broken bits, but I don't mind much, fixes are generally released fast enough for my tastes.
So... if you want a rock-solid server OS, get Debian stable. If you want a bleeding-edge, configurable OS, get Debian unstable, and you have testing inbetween for a more mainstream-type distro. I'm not saying that everybody should use Debian only (I myself use other distros quite often) -- just that the "out of date" argument is really getting old.
Re:Debian's problem (Score:5, Informative)
The politics of the Debian development is sad to hear. It's always bad news. It's a shame because Debian is still a great distro. Even with all the internal conflicts, it's still my favorite distro.
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The King is dead, long live FreeBSD
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Honestly, I'm more productive with Debian than I am with other Linuxes (at least with Deb as a server). I don't want to have to go through the testing cycle every couple months to upgrade. I've got stuff to do, and babysitting a constant upgrade cycle is not one of them. Debian's policy of not changing software versions inside stable means I know that APIs will remain stable and fixed until I do a full upgrade, which is a good thing for me.
I like that Debian is slow to update things. My job is not t
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Um Debian does not hide their idealism, they are quite up front. http://www.us.debian.org/intro/free [debian.org]
If you are saying there is no place in the enterprise for these ideals, You haven't look around enough.
There are many of us who not only believe in these ideas but support them exclusively.
You are free to use
Re:Ubuntu no better than Debian (Score:4, Informative)
It isn't, though.
PAM in Testing was broken for months, and X in testing was broken for a while after the changeover to X.org. That's what led me to give up on Debian [ath0.com]: 'stable' was too out-of-date, 'testing' was too unstable. By cherry-picking from 'testing', Ubuntu seems to be able to find a happy medium.