Debian 4.0 'Etch' Released 245
An anonymous reader writes "Earlier today we discussed the possibility that Debian Etch might be released soon. Well, according to debian.org, it has already happened. Etch has been released: 'The Debian Project is pleased to announce the official release of Debian GNU/Linux version 4.0, codenamed etch, after 21 months of constant development. Debian GNU/Linux is a free operating system which supports a total of eleven processor architectures and includes the KDE, GNOME and Xfce desktop environments. It also features cryptographic software and compatibility with the FHS v2.3 and software developed for version 3.1 of the LSB.'"
Re:Multipath broken in debian etch! (Score:2, Insightful)
Why compete? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Multipath broken in debian etch! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Missing package (Score:2, Insightful)
1: "...the Debian Security Team may come to a point where supporting Mozilla products is no longer feasible and announce the end of security support for Mozilla products."
2: "register_globals
lol?
It takes a skilled, yet very short bussed person to have any thing to do with such garbage.
Re:Multipath broken in debian etch! (Score:2, Insightful)
That's pretty ignorant. Few if any pieces of software have the number of compile time options as the Linux kernel. Even if you module-ize everything you possibly can, there are still many choices you make that you are bound to, such as IO schedulers and pre-empting.
Any serious Linux user is capable of and knows the value of compiling their own kernel.
Re:This release begs the question... (Score:2, Insightful)
<pedant>No, begging the question is assuming the answer. It justs asks the question.</pedant>
Anyway debian provides a wonderful, stable server distro with the best free software out there. If you want stuff like proprietary audio and video codecs, you can probably get or compile them, but it's not the primary goal of debian. You might be better off with something else.
Re:Multipath broken in debian etch! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Too late? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Multipath broken in debian etch! (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason why it slipped through the release engineering for the new stable release is quite simply because no one reported it as a bug.
If someone had reported it, it would have been dealt with and otherwise resolved. Indeed, it may still be resolved in a point release, but it definetly won't be unless you (or someone like you) who experiences the bug files a bug in the bug tracking system (using reportbug or your MUA). Since (as of a few days ago) no one has filed such a bug related in anyway to MULTIPATH_CACHED, it has not been fixed.
Considering the sheer number of people who (supposedly) use testing, none of whom apparently found the bug and/or bothered to report it, it was just not a popular feature to have been tested properly. Like it or not, a critical part of Debian's QA are the users who are using the testing and unstable distributions and reporting bugs. If they don't find it, no one will. (In case you haven't figured it out yet, there's nothing magical about being a Debian Developer in this regard; we're users too, and do the same type of testing.)
Re:So, which version of Ubuntu is this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Too late? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, ''testing'' is usually reasonably current. If not, you can roll your own package or lock the package and install your own stuff over it. A bit of a pain, but that way I had X11 support for my 7600GT well before Debian had it.
I will likely be going to the next ''testing'' in a month or so.
Re:Multipath broken in debian etch! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Multipath broken in debian etch! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Multipath broken in debian etch! (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah. Except they always seem to end up disabling initrd for some unknown reason ("initrd is hard, man..."
> and knows the value of compiling their own kernel.
Yup. 0, to me, except if I do some forms of kernel hacking.
The statment "Everyone serious compiles their own kernel anyway" is just not true.
Instant Success! (Score:3, Insightful)
1. Give users an option to use commercial drivers right off. The new Ubuntu is doing this, but the implementation is still a little rough around the edges, and it's not at all clear that commercial drivers are frequently better than the FOSS ones, which is certainly true for GPU issues.
2. Default to Iceweasel and Icebird. Debian does this already, so they are a leg up. True FOSS is true FOSS, right? And for some dumb reason Ubuntu still defaults to Evolution.
3. Make it even easier to turn on compiz/beryl. Still pretty hard even in feisty, requires xorg.conf editing and such... Lame.
4. Make the default menu look more like windows. You know: "Start" menu, Quicklaunch, App running display (with preview), System Tray, Clock/Calender. Eliminate the top bar that gnome defaults to.
5. Have four potentially different wall papers for each desktop. The first distro to do this is ahead of the Linux Pack.
6. Include some really good foss games. You know, games with 3d sound and video, and online multiplayer. Urban Terror is free (as in beer). Use that one, till a better full FOSS alternative comes along. Hell ioquake3 with the original quake 3 demo files would be better than what most distros ship with.
7. Have Iceweasel, Icebird, Pidjin, Tomboy Notes, and Open Office Writer automatically in the quick launch.
8. Make it REALLY EASY to get EVERY CODEC.
9. Install Wine, and while you're at it, fix wine so that you can easily create a launcher on the desktop to any windows app, running under wine, that runs like intended right off the bat.
10. Have a gorgeous theme by default. For some reason the Ubuntu crowd is obsessed with shit brown. This is the part that is easiest to beat Ubuntu on.
Do this, and Debian will be THE distro for everyone, and easily supplant Ubuntu, Windows, and Mac OS X.
Do it not, and remain the odd arcane distro that only a few back room IT nerds use while half assed FOSS OSes (that duplicate each other's efforts, and rarely work that well out of the box) continually lag behind the corporate behemoths that have already got themselves pre installed on 90% of sold computers as it is (Windows/Mac).
I mean, or just stay private and personal, and to hell with saving the world, which seems like the current Linux mantra.
rhY
No, it's because a catastrophically bad system (Score:1, Insightful)
The problem is that Debian doesn't more or less automatically read these bug reports. The mentality is that "if it's not reported to debian, it's not a bug". This eases the burden of being a package maintainer, but it certainly doesn't help Debian or the users.
What is needed, is cooperation of bug-reporting cross-distro, at least for bugs that are not distro-specific. Do we really need dozens of bug-reports for the same bug?
And to clarify: This is not Debian-specific.
Re:Multipath broken in debian etch! (Score:5, Insightful)
Any serious Linux user is capable of and knows the value of compiling their own kernel.
Which includes knowing when it is not necessary to do so. Unless you have extremely strange hardware, or very esoteric requirements for the system, the packaged kernels are absolutely fine. Building your own gains very little over the packaged kernels in these circumstances, either in performance or convenience; it will probably actually make life more complicated, as you will need to keep your kernel up-to-date manually, rather than just using the newer packaged kernel for your distro.
Re:Debian - still alive? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Instant Success! (Score:4, Insightful)
[Debian] could instantly surpass Ubuntu by pretty much adding all the stuff Ubuntu does (it's all FOSS anyway, right?),
It is not. Many of Ubuntu's changes involve installing non-free software by default. Debian will never do this. You may feel that this will consign the distribution to obscurity until the end of time; go right ahead, it won't change anything, because Debian is about freedom (and technical superiority) and not market share.
but making these small changes:
1. Give users an option to use commercial drivers right off. The new Ubuntu is doing this, but the implementation is still a little rough around the edges, and it's not at all clear that commercial drivers are frequently better than the FOSS ones, which is certainly true for GPU issues.
What is a commercial driver? There are plenty of commercial drivers that are already in Debian main. It is only non-free drivers that are relegated to the, um, non-free section; they will never be installed by default, because to do so would be to go against everything that the Debian project stands for [debian.org].
2. Default to Iceweasel and Icebird. Debian does this already, so they are a leg up. True FOSS is true FOSS, right? And for some dumb reason Ubuntu still defaults to Evolution.
In fact the default apps are Epiphany/Evolution if you use GNOME and Konqueror/Kmail if you use KDE. As it should be--these apps are designed to work as a part of their respective desktop environments, rather than in spite of them, like Firefox/Thunderbird.
3. Make it even easier to turn on compiz/beryl. Still pretty hard even in feisty, requires xorg.conf editing and such... Lame.
As for the software, compiz is packaged for Debian, like any other piece of software. Beryl is not because of the upstream developers' rather... cavaliere attitude towards licensing an copyright. It's a sucky situation, but without a radical overhaul of the US legal system this is not going to change. More details at http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=3 88701 [debian.org].
As for editing xorg.conf... once composite is readt to be enabled by default, it will be enabled by default and every distribution will be able to use it by default. This will be up to the xorg developers themselves, since it is they who are in the best position to make this decision. Until then, Debian should not make invasive changes such as enabling optional and experimental features of core system software such as xorg.
4. Make the default menu look more like windows. You know: "Start" menu, Quicklaunch, App running display (with preview), System Tray, Clock/Calender. Eliminate the top bar that gnome defaults to.
Maybe they should just install XPDE by default? Or just give up and tell people to install Windows in the first place?
This annoys me a great deal actually. Every distro apart from Debian seems to think that it is necessary to change the default layout of their desktop environments so much that they become unrecognisable to inexperienced users. This makes it impossible to write distribution-neutral instructions on how to do anything in GNOME, KDE, etc. Grr!
6. Include some really good foss games. You know, games with 3d sound and video, and online multiplayer. Urban Terror is free (as in beer). Use that one, till a better full FOSS alternative comes along. Hell ioquake3 with the original quake 3 demo files would be better than what most distros ship with.
The games you mention are non-free. As I said above, if you want them installed by default then you are using the wrong distro. Try Ubuntu instead.
8. Make it REALLY EASY to get EVERY CODEC.
It is already very easy to obtain every codec that Debian is able to distribute. They are probably even ins
Re:Multipath broken in debian etch! (Score:4, Insightful)
If you're supporting a few hundred servers then any differences between the systems need to be kept to a minimum.
Re:Multipath broken in debian etch! (Score:3, Insightful)
That's sad, really. (Score:2, Insightful)
See, Debian not only welcomes child distributions, it thrives on them.
http://www.debian.org/misc/children-distros [debian.org]
At some point in time, I would encourage consideration of Debian's slogan, "The Universal Operating System".
Debian has been and always will be an operating system that equally (as in equity) targets all applications; that's why child distributions are necessary, and why Debian Unstable is so damned important. Child distributions are required to pull the Debian project in a productive direction. Debian Unstable is required to tie the required functionality of child distributions together and, in turn, propagate the benefits to all parties involved.
It doesn't make sense to take a piece of software to any sort of bleeding-edge when it will be deployed world-wide on Debian servers [google.com] and Debian routers [google.com]. Furthermore, the fact that a child-distribution [ubuntu.com] is already working to "sex up the desktop" is evidence that Debian need not take initiative in such a direction; it's already involved.
Re:Why use this over ubuntu? (Score:3, Insightful)
Ubuntu - Makes most of the initial choices for the user..
Debian - manual configuration of a lot of items..
Ubuntu - a bit better at auto-configuration of hardware.
Debian - Etch 20,400+ Packages in the official repository
Ubuntu - Fiesty I think it's around 6000 Packages but can't find a stat anywhere to confirm exact munber.
Debian 13 hardware Architectures i386, x86-64, PowerPC, 68k, SPARC, DEC Alpha, ARM, MIPS, HPPA, S390, IA-64, AMD64, Intel EM64T
Ubuntu 3 Hardware Architectures i386, AMD64, PowerPC,
I've used child distros in the past an always ran into problems. I would then switch to the parent distros to get away from the problems.. So I use Debian rather than one of it's numerous children to prevent a repeat of my previous experiences. http://www.debian.org/misc/children-distros [debian.org]
Re:Multipath broken in debian etch! (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you not understand? Exhaustive testing is done by YOU! and me, and the original poster who seems to have accomplished the epitome of bad administration. It's our job to try and break the betas, alphas and RCs. It's our fault if the final release doesn't work with our exotic setup. It's amazing how the concept of Linux escapes some people. Linux is us. Us is Linux. IOW: We have seen the enemy, and he is us.
It's labeled experimental for a reason. That means don't use it in production because it may change and if it is not currently broken, it probably will be later.
No, it means that the code looks good, everything seems reasonable, but we were unable to account for anything more than 99.9% of things. If you think you're outside of 2+ standard devations, please be cautious when trying this option. If your machine isn't anything funky, you'll be just fine.
And frankly I am tired of seeing the argument of "better than windows". Well, whoop de fucking shit. Windows 2000 is by all reports a better operating system than Vista (in terms of doing what you want it to do) but I wouldn't use either to operate a nuclear power plant. Besides, the EULA forbits it. Explicitly.
Guess I struck a chord. I'll leave Windows out of this, then.