Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Debian Software Linux

Debian 4.0 'Etch' Released 245

Posted by Zonk from the etch-up-me-harties dept.
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.'"
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Debian 4.0 'Etch' Released More

Debian 4.0 'Etch' Released

Comments Filter:

  • Yay! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Compact Dick ( 518888 ) on Monday April 09, 2007 @12:24AM (#18660283) Homepage
    I still remember my Woody days *sniff*

  • And its not even the 1st... (Score:5, Funny)

    by arlo5724 ( 172574 ) <[jacobw56] [at] [gmail.com]> on Monday April 09, 2007 @12:28AM (#18660295)
    For a second there I thought maybe this was a late April fool's joke...

  • Multipath broken in debian etch! (Score:5, Informative)

    by ljaguar ( 245365 ) on Monday April 09, 2007 @12:28AM (#18660301) Homepage Journal
    etch ships with CONFIG_IP_ROUTE_MULTIPATH_CACHED (experimental) enabled in the kernel. This breaks the multipath route behavior in iproute. As the google search [google.com] shows, it is wreaking havoc with anyone using multipath and dual-wan systems. Those who upgraded this morning to the new stable may be in for a ride. This is a known [debian-adm...ration.org] and documented [launchpad.net] issue but cannot be found in debian's bug tracking system. This issue is not unique to Debian but it should not have passed through the release engineering for the new stable release.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Bitsy Boffin ( 110334 )
      Surely anybody doing anything like that would be rolling thier own kernel anyway? The only time I've used the Debian supplied kernels is when installing, soon as that's done I always compile a fresh one.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        not everyone's got the time and rarely anyone has the need. don't be a gentoo user.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by cxreg ( 44671 )
          not everyone's got the time and rarely anyone has the need. don't be a gentoo user.

          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: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by oddityfds ( 138457 )
            > Any serious Linux user is capable of

            Yeah. Except they always seem to end up disabling initrd for some unknown reason ("initrd is hard, man..." ... not), and then forget to reenable it when they switch back!

            > 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.

          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by rbanffy ( 584143 )
            The problem with rolling out my own kernel is that the more customized the machine gets, the more complicated it is to rebuild it.

            I had used my own kernel fresh from kernel.org for ages, but then I realized it was so much more work than just running the stock kernel - that had all the problems and workarounds documented - in order to be on the bleeding edge (something hard to do with Debian stable, anyway). I just gave up on it. I thought that if there is a package manager, I should use it fully. "linux-ima

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by gmack ( 197796 )
              The problem with using distro kernels is that if your machine is new enough there will be drivers you need that aren't in the distro kernel or won't unnecessarily work properly.

              I've had customers give me servers with not supported or improperly supported network devices and raid controllers.

              My personal PC has a sound controller that's not supported by anything older than 2.6.19.

              It used to be that when I'd do a Linux install I would install my own php, apache, ftpd, mysql etc but over time it's gotten better

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by rbanffy ( 584143 )
                I had a similar problem a couple weeks ago.

                I had one Dell Poweredge 1900 with a SATA RAID controller that was not supported by Debian stable. I simply decided it would be better to install CentOS instead, since it's good enough and the machine was supposed to host a bunch of virtual servers with OpenVZ. The VPSs are all Debian, but I saw it less of a problem to go Red Hat and Yum than it would be to roll our own kernels (and apply security fixes from time to time).

                But I agree. With time, I came to rely more

              • My personal PC has a sound controller that's not supported by anything older than 2.6.19.

                Ubuntu Feisty: Linux sec2lpt7-linux 2.6.20-14-generic #2 SMP Mon Apr 2 20:37:49 UTC 2007 i686 GNU/Linux

                Granted it's a beta release, but I've found that Ubuntu betas are more stable than some distributions' finals.

          • Re:Multipath broken in debian etch! (Score:5, Insightful)

            by daveewart ( 66895 ) on Monday April 09, 2007 @06:35AM (#18661307)

            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: (Score:2)

            by koh ( 124962 )
            Recent Linux adopters (especially Windows-converted ones) do not feel the need to tinker with the kernel. After all, the web says that if you mess up, you won't be able to boot, you should have an emergency livecd ready, etc. And it works NOW anyway. Madness.

            Fortunately, with tools like genkernel et al., they don't need to. Who cares if they use the deadline scheduler instead of CFQ? Who cares if they load dozens of modules that end up returning "no such device"? As long as it runs, and it brings new adopte

          • Any serious Linux user is capable of and knows the value of compiling their own kernel.

            Particularly on Debian, since it makes it so easy.

            apt-get install linux-source-<version> kernel-package
            cd /usr/src
            tar jxf linux-source-<version>-tar.bz2
            cd linux-source-<version>
            make xconfig
            make-kpkg --initrd kernel_image

            The result is an installable .deb package. To make the configuration process quicker, copy your current kernel config from /boot so you can just tweak the items you want to change, rather than starting from scratch. Note that you only need to install kernel-package

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by lintux ( 125434 )
            Actually IIRC you can change your I/O scheduler per-device on the fly via /sys or /proc. And for just the pre-emptive/non-pre-emptive difference, distros probably ship separate server/non-server kernels.

      • Re:Multipath broken in debian etch! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 09, 2007 @04:09AM (#18660883)
        When you start with Linux, you use the stock kernel, because it is easily available and works. When you gain experience, you start to compile your own. When you become a professional sysadmin, you use the stock kernels, because they are easily available and work.
        • Now, why might this be a common behavior pattern?
          You try out a new tool, you do the Dumbest Thing That Could Possibly Work, because you don't know any better.
          You gather some experience, and you try out all of the gizmo features, to strut your stuff.
          Once the 'new' wears off the gizmo features, you relax, and go back to the DTTCPW, because you're bored of the gizmos.
          What's the difference?
          When things go wrong, you know which of those gizmo features to trot out and fix the problem.
          It's all about negotiati

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by cas2000 ( 148703 )
          > When you start with Linux, you use the stock kernel, because it is easily available and works.
          > When you gain experience, you start to compile your own.

          so far, so good. reasonably accurate.

          > When you become a professional sysadmin, you use the stock kernels, because they are easily available and work.

          no, that's when you've become a lazy slob. don't project your faults onto others.

          real professional sysadmins compile a custom kernel that is perfectly suited to the particular server, with exactly
          • As a professional sysadmin, I've only built a custom kernel if there was actually some real gain to be had. Otherwise, it just makes installing updates harder. Anything that makes a box unique is one more thing that can break in a pre-packaged update. In modern hardware there's not much to be gained by paring down the kernel, and vendor kernels I've seen are heavily modularized anyways.

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by fimbulvetr ( 598306 )
            I think you're trolling, you can count the number of servers you admin on one hand, or you're inexperienced. You might say it's because I'm a lazy slob, I might say it's because I have several hundred machines. While groups of them are the same (6 here, 12 there, etc.), it'd be absurd to even consider what you're suggesting - not to mention the insanity a security update could bring.

        • When you start with Linux, you use the stock kernel, because it is easily available and works. When you gain experience, you start to compile your own. When you become a professional sysadmin, you use the stock kernels, because they are easily available and work.

          That is so true. It drives me nuts when a system is "special" and I have to go back and compile a custom kernel for it. I've been trying to standardize back to stock kernels for quite a while now. Definitely less headache when possible. The more

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by misleb ( 129952 )
          No, when you become a professional, you make a custom kernel package and distribute it to all your servers running Debian... preferably through your own custom package repository... because that way it is easily available and it works.

          -matthew

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by misleb ( 129952 )
        If nothing else, initrd has to go!

    • Shoddy rushed release (Score:5, Funny)

      by canadiangoose ( 606308 ) <djgraham@nOSpAm.gmail.com> on Monday April 09, 2007 @12:37AM (#18660339)
      So this is what happens when you rush a Debian release out in less than 2 years, eh?

      Seriously though, this is a rather surprising bug to slip through.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by fo0bar ( 261207 )

      etch ships with CONFIG_IP_ROUTE_MULTIPATH_CACHED (experimental) enabled in the kernel. This breaks the multipath route behavior in iproute. As the google search shows, it is wreaking havoc with anyone using multipath and dual-wan systems. Those who upgraded this morning to the new stable may be in for a ride. This is a known and documented issue but cannot be found in debian's bug tracking system. This issue is not unique to Debian but it should not have passed through the release engineering for the new st

      • Re:Multipath broken in debian etch! (Score:5, Interesting)

        by ljaguar ( 245365 ) on Monday April 09, 2007 @01:26AM (#18660491) Homepage Journal
        i didn't know about it until i updated and things broke.

        as a debian stable user, there's a reasonable expectation that, after 21 months in development, they don't ship a kernel with experimental feature that is known to be broken?

        I don't mean this is an experimental feature that breaks sometimes. This feature is just clearly documented to be broken. As in it doesn't work.

        I only found out about the stuff that I posted because I updated this morning and all hell broke loose.

        I know I should have tested it on a test machine before bringing it into production. (or maybe waited a bit) But this is a small machine in an informal setting. I don't have a test machine. But I do have 20+ users with slow internet. and it's really not asking for too much to expect a thing so blatant.

        • Re:Multipath broken in debian etch! (Score:5, Insightful)

          by cymen ( 8178 ) <cymenvig.gmail@com> on Monday April 09, 2007 @02:32AM (#18660651) Homepage
          If you have no test system and the machine is providing service to users then do not upgrade to .0 releases. It's simple common sense. Maybe you had some overwhelming need to get this release that goes against the need to keep service reliable but you didn't mention it so I'll assume not. Let other people do the testing of that .0 release to find all the bugs and huge gotchas that are basically inevitable.

          • Re:Multipath broken in debian etch! (Score:4, Informative)

            by ljaguar ( 245365 ) on Monday April 09, 2007 @04:17AM (#18660895) Homepage Journal
            you say that as if debian .0 releases are just any old .0 releases.

            debian testing release is one of the most popular distribution in its own right.

            this isn't exactly some hacked up job released after big push to meet deadline. this went through months of release engineering and countless beta-testers.

            debian stable release (the snapshot of etch as of today) do not get updates or bugfixes. etch 4.0 will not see any updates to gnome or kernel or gaim or anything. debian stable only gets security bugfixes. (if the bug is just a bug without security implications, it does not get fixed.)

            don't you think this puts on an extra burden of not enabling (once again, known to be nonfunctional) experimental kernel option?

            yes, testing before live production is good practice. yes, patience before upgrading is a virtue. but only because debian fucks up sometimes. if debian doesn't fuck up ever, patience is not a virtue. and i'm saying that debian fucked up.
            • WTF?? It's a .0 release. This means there have been MAJOR (Repeat: MAJOR) changes. Despite having been in RC Status for some time, bugs WILL still leak through, and the initial wave of upgrades will certainly be hit by a few. Check the mailing list for every single debian release. Shit happens.

              If you think the debian release team owes you a favor, good luck.

              p.s. debian stable can get fixes outside of security, but only for high priority bugs dealing with data loss and the like.

              p.p.s. you speak of "experimen

        • Re:Multipath broken in debian etch! (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Macka ( 9388 ) on Monday April 09, 2007 @04:08AM (#18660877)

          I know I should have tested it on a test machine before bringing it into production. (or maybe waited a bit) But this is a small machine in an informal setting. I don't have a test machine. But I do have 20+ users with slow internet. and it's really not asking for too much to expect a thing so blatant.
          Man, that's pretty reckless, and you know it. Did you even take a backup first? As for not having a test machine, with Xen and VMware are your disposal these days there's no real excuse for not installing it elsewhere, and at least taking a few days to give it the once over before going near a real server. The truth is that you rushed in without proper forethought and planning and you got burned.

    • Re:Multipath broken in debian etch! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by dondelelcaro ( 81997 ) <don@donarmstrong.com> on Monday April 09, 2007 @02:51AM (#18660693) Homepage Journal

      This is a known and documented issue but cannot be found in debian's bug tracking system. This issue is not unique to Debian but it should not have passed through the release engineering for the new stable release.

      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: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )
      Huh? Who uses distro-supplied kernels anyways, except for the initial installation?

  • This release begs the question... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by bogaboga ( 793279 ) on Monday April 09, 2007 @12:29AM (#18660303)
    The question is: -

    Will I be able to have Debian perfectly handle [all] my basic multimedia requirements well by default? I would like to play Yahoo, CNN, ABC, BBC andd FOX video and audio by default. Let a slashdotter inform a soul.

    • Re:This release begs the question... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Doctor Crumb ( 737936 ) on Monday April 09, 2007 @12:41AM (#18660345) Homepage
      Short answer: no. Long answer: not until those sites release their content in a format that can be legally distributed by debian. "Free Software" does not only refer to the price.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by MrDomino ( 799876 )
      By default, no. You'll have to install some extra packages from the non-free repository to play non-free media. However, all your multimedia requirements are just an apt-get install away; flash 9 (which fixes lots of long-standing Linux flash issues), mp3, win32 codecs, etc... I've been using it on my laptop for a while, and it's been pretty solid; I've got no complaints yet.

      • Might take some searching: (Score:4, Informative)

        by Kadin2048 ( 468275 ) <slashdot...kadin@@@xoxy...net> on Monday April 09, 2007 @01:14AM (#18660443) Homepage Journal
        Just to follow up, by "non free repository," you'll need something outside the normal Debian repo system -- probably Penguin Liberation Front, certainly nothing U.S.-based -- in order to get that software. (Although I think the Debian/Ubuntu PLF mirrors are down at the moment.)

        In addition to Flash (patent issues) and the Win32 codecs (patents), you'll also need libdvdcss2 (DMCA) if you want to play DVDs, and you might as well get LAME if it's not in there by default (god knows -- probably patents).

        Putting
        deb http://www.debian-multimedia.org/ [debian-multimedia.org] stable main
        into your sources.list ought to work, but I'm not sure how actively that repo is maintained (it still lists sarge as the stable tree). The VideoLAN people likewise just have instructions for Sarge but hopefully that'll change soon.

        • Re:Might take some searching: (Score:5, Informative)

          by Novus ( 182265 ) on Monday April 09, 2007 @04:35AM (#18660945)
          I am not a lawyer, but I have read the applicable law reasonably carefully, and I'm familiar with the cases mentioned here.

          Redistributing the Flash player is less a patent problem than side effects of a restrictive licence [adobe.com]. For example, openSUSE goes out of its way to install browsers compatible with its bundled Flash player; Novell apparently has a deal with Adobe to allow redistribution of acroread and flash-player. Debian seems to circumvent this problem by having the package installer download Flash straight from Adobe. Nice and legal either way (assuming Adobe isn't violating a patent somewhere or something like that, which I doubt).

          libdvdcss2 is trickier. Using Finland as an example of an EU country (applicable law [finlex.fi]), the situation seems to be that you are allowed to circumvent CSS to watch a movie, but I'm not lawyer enough to tell whether CSS qualifies for legal protection (that depends on whether it's an effective copy protection mechanism, I think) and whether the law requiring the copyright holder/distributor to provide a circumvention device, if necessary, is applicable. You'd also be very hard pushed to argue substantial non-circumventing use, making redistribution quite risky. In conclusion, I think libdvdcss2 users in Finland are safe, but redistributors may have a harder time. Other EU countries should be similar, as most of this legislation originates with the EU.

          The win32 binary codecs are, in part at least, straightforward copyright infringment (unlicensed derivative works), but haven't been subject to any legal action I've heard of. Some of the codecs developed from scratch (e.g. some MPEG variants) seem to need patent licences in some areas; this is the primary cause of problems with MP3 (openSUSE circumvents this by using Real's Helix engine for MP3 decoding, which is licensed).

          In conclusion, the situation is a mess and if you want to be safe, stick to what the major corps tell you is OK. If it isn't, they take the heat.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Knuckles ( 8964 )
          Although I think the Debian/Ubuntu PLF mirrors are down at the moment

          This may help: http://medibuntu.sos-sts.com/ [sos-sts.com]

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Kjella ( 173770 )
        Flash 9 is just to apt-get from non-free. As for multimedia, I use debian-multimedia as the source, but it still doesn't seem to play embedded WMV (I just get a gray box), I've understood there's some plug-ins to fix it for Firefox but not for Opera...

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by MadMidnightBomber ( 894759 )

      <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:This release begs the question... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Professor_UNIX ( 867045 ) on Monday April 09, 2007 @06:30AM (#18661269)

      Will I be able to have Debian perfectly handle [all] my basic multimedia requirements well by default? I would like to play Yahoo, CNN, ABC, BBC andd FOX video and audio by default.
      No, but it's not really the fault of the Debian (or any GNU/Linux distribution) maintainers. Many of these sites are defective by design and only work properly with Windows... sometimes only with a certain version of a Windows web browser: Internet Explorer 6. As a MacOS X user it's a *little* less painful to get a lot of these sites to work in Firefox or Safari in order ot get streaming video to work, but by no means does everything run smooth. The situation is even worse with Linux in regards to how poorly these sites choose to support that platform.

      The only thing I'm happy about is that most of these sites are migrating to using streaming video using a Flash-based player like YouTube does so they just use normal HTTP for the transfer mechanism and are simple to get working through a firewall. In the bad old days I had to worry about shit like RealVideo proxies, Quicktime, RTSP, PNA, Windows MMS, etc. While they're probably more efficient, they require your firewall to have a specialized application proxy and it's just an extra pain in the ass if they break the protocol in a new version. The sites that aren't using a Flash player are just streaming Quicktime/Windows Media over HTTP as well so it has the same effect. The main pain-in-the-ass site I experience is with CNN and FoxNews.

  • Too late? (Score:3, Informative)

    by ezh ( 707373 ) on Monday April 09, 2007 @12:45AM (#18660357)

    Debian has turned into a political zoo of OSS dinosaurs, who are too big and too ancient. They spend lots of time arguing over political issues and raise barrier too high for hew developers.

    During Debian Project Leader (DPL) election campaign candidates were almost in unison looking up to Ubuntu as an example on how to attract new users and developers. With Etch out and new DPL in Debian's goal can be summarized in one phrase: "Let's catch up with Ubuntu"

    How Debian's brand new DPL wants to do this [debian.org]:

    • rework website
    • rework bugtracking system
    • sex up the desktop, and
    • encourage optional desktop releases every 6 months...
    I wonder how they are going to do it... Especially the last bit :-)

    • Why compete? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by rolfwind ( 528248 ) on Monday April 09, 2007 @12:49AM (#18660371)
      I think this new Debian release is good news for Ubuntu which relies on it, so their next release can be on the 4.0 foundation.... but why would Debian want to compete with Ubuntu? They both have different goals in mind. I love Ubuntu to death, but with the 6 month release cycle, it feels like it's always advancing, but also not as stable as something that I would want to use on a server.

    • Re:Too late? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by cymen ( 8178 ) <cymenvig.gmail@com> on Monday April 09, 2007 @02:38AM (#18660667) Homepage
      You know I spent a couple of years bitching about how slow Debian is to upgrade. Now I say let them be slow. They serve some market and plenty of other distributions serve those that want more up to date systems. Why change Debian? Slow releases are a core feature.

      • Re:Too late? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Monday April 09, 2007 @03:31AM (#18660783)
        You know I spent a couple of years bitching about how slow Debian is to upgrade. Now I say let them be slow. They serve some market and plenty of other distributions serve those that want more up to date systems. Why change Debian? Slow releases are a core feature.

        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: (Score:3, Informative)

          by swillden ( 191260 ) *

          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.

          And ''unstable'' is even more current than testing, and not unstable in the common sense of the word. The biggest annoyance I have with unstable is that my periodic upgrades are bigger than with testing, but I have a fast network connection, so I don't care that much. I've been using unstable as my primary work/play platform for about four years now, and the only time it's given me trouble was during a bit of XFree86 upgrade weirdness that lasted about a day.

          Even better, if you're using unstable, it's

    • Instant Success! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by crhylove ( 205956 )
      They could instantly surpass Ubuntu by pretty much adding all the stuff Ubuntu does (it's all FOSS anyway, right?), 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.

      2. Default to Iceweasel and Icebird. Debian does this already, so they are a

      • Re:Instant Success! (Score:4, Insightful)

        by cortana ( 588495 ) <sam@robots.orRASPg.uk minus berry> on Monday April 09, 2007 @09:14AM (#18662547) Homepage

        [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

    • I've witnessed attempts by various individuals to fundamentally alter the goals of Debian. Most common is trying to make Debian a more "desktop-oriented" distribution. Good attempts turn out as separate distributions [google.com]. Honestly, that's how it should stay.

      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
  • *looks around innocently*

  • Next testing is "Lenny" (Score:5, Informative)

    by cyber_rigger ( 527103 ) on Monday April 09, 2007 @12:59AM (#18660405) Homepage Journal

    Debian's next testing version will be code named "Lenny" (from the movie Toy Story).

    http://times.debian.net/1034-Release-update:-Etch+ 1-=-Lenny,-Call-for-Testing,-Time-shift [debian.net]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by MsGeek ( 162936 )
      My question: when are they going to call a Debian release "Wheeze" after the penguin toy? Oh. Wait. I know.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by marcello_dl ( 667940 )
      So, in my usual way to celebrate a debian release let me say:

      when will Lenny be out?
      • According to the release-announcement in less than two years, but they will first evaluate all the feedback they get for the etch-cycle before making real plans.

  • Should I upgrade my new server? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ZakuSage ( 874456 ) on Monday April 09, 2007 @12:59AM (#18660407)
    I just put it together and installed Sarge yesterday, and I'd rather keep things running stable on it after all that work. Does Etch have any showstopping bugs that would stop a 'apt-get dist-upgrade'? Will it fuck up my apache, proftpd, sshd, or smb servers? Anything I should really know before letting some 600 or so packages change?

    • Re:Should I upgrade my new server? (Score:4, Informative)

      by fo0bar ( 261207 ) on Monday April 09, 2007 @01:12AM (#18660439)

      Does Etch have any showstopping bugs that would stop a 'apt-get dist-upgrade'? Will it fuck up my apache, proftpd, sshd, or smb servers? Anything I should really know before letting some 600 or so packages change?

      Yes, read the release notes [debian.org] for the answers to those questions. (and much much more! act today!)
    • There's currently a dodgy bug where udev assigns devices different names than the install system, sometimes causing the system to not boot. It's easily fixable by editing your fstab, but can recur; you might want to hold off on upgrading if you're using strange drivers for your disks.

  • Missing package (Score:5, Funny)

    by Bob54321 ( 911744 ) on Monday April 09, 2007 @01:02AM (#18660409)
    Doesn't even include firefox...

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by hondamankev ( 1000186 )
      These guys are going to analtate themselves into oblivion. I know this is flamebait, but who takes a distro seriously with such jems such as;

      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 ... is now finally deprecated on Debian systems"

      lol?

      It takes a skilled, yet very short bussed person to have any thing to do with such garbage.

      • 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."

        You do know that Mozilla does not support old releases (this includes security fixes)? Debian has two choices: backport security fixes themselves or stop support (for that version) entirely.

        2: "register_globals ... is now finally deprecated on Debian systems"

        What the hell is so funny in these quotes? I don't get it...

        • I'm assuming the "register_globals" referred to is an old default setting for PHP, long known to be a major security hole. Turning it (along with magic quotes) off is one of the first things I do when setting up PHP on a new system. It's a bit two-faced for them claiming that they may not support Mozilla due to security concerns, while simultaneously saying that they're only just changing a default behaviour nefarious for security flaws.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by cortana ( 588495 )
            Perhaps you should actually read the release notes [debian.org], which the original poster abridged for the purposes of trolling.

            For many years, turning on the register_globals settings in PHP has been known to be insecure and dangerous, and this option has defaulted to off for some time now. This configuration is now finally deprecated on Debian systems as too dangerous. The same applies to flaws in safe_mode and open_basedir, which have also been unmaintained for some time.

            Starting with this release, the Debian securi

      • The *only* serious distro (Score:5, Funny)

        by alienmole ( 15522 ) on Monday April 09, 2007 @03:29AM (#18660779)
        I'll see your flamebait and raise you...

        Who takes a distro seriously
        Oh please, does anyone other than script kiddies take any distro *other* than Debian seriously?
        Let's see:
        • There's Gentoo for the script kiddie/ricer set
        • RedHat for the clueless corporate types who're lost if they can't use a purchase order to obtain it
        • Fedora for the lost souls who haven't yet figured out that it's never going to recover from RedHat's abandonment
        • Suse is a German distro owned by Novell -- see RedHat
        • Ubuntu is an ancient African word, meaning "I can't configure Debian" (as someone's sig once said)
        • Lots of other small distros with funny names that won't be around in two years time
        OK, Slackware is great for hobbyists, I'll give you that.

        So anwyay, which are the distros we're supposed to be taking seriously? Besides Debian?
      • If register_globals refers to the PHP configuration directive, then yes, I'm pretty much glad that it's deprecated (and I hate Debian myself).

        For years now it's been practially deprecated in PHP code and it's already disabled in many other default installations, it's only good (and regular procedure) that Debian followed suit.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by wouterke ( 653865 )
          Just for clarity: Debian hasn't enabled register_globals in its default configuration since ages, either. The comment you refer to relates to security updates for PHP. Basically, it says "if you use register_globals anyway, you're on your own; we don't support that"

  • Is it 1997 or 2007 ? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Muki ( 1083243 ) on Monday April 09, 2007 @01:23AM (#18660485) Homepage
    As I was recovering from a spring flu, I was bored enough and decided to upgrade from sarge to etch on my trusty old 600Mhz 256MB Compaq Deskpro. For the most part it went smooth and nice, but what amazes me is why the X stuff is still somewhat awkward. Hardware is certainly not bleeding edge. Maybe I'm just without a clue after a decade of professional multiplatform unix administration, but it sure beats me why X stuff still needs to be this clumsy - we're in year 2007, aren't we - ? Recently I installed two Dell 2900's at work and with Fedora FC6 it was surely as smooth as ever could be. Now someone jumps in and tells that 'Debian is not intended to be easy'. OK, but how is this intended to boost anyone's productivity to battle with stuff that was perhaps ok back in the early 90's ? Debian is such a stable (pun intended) and rock-solid platform to run servers on, I sure like it, but I'd like to see some minor refinements in getting wheels to roll. Used to run sarge at work, used to set up sarge systems for friends small businesses and home use, but have since then moved on to Fedora due to these unnecessary issues. Beat the living daylight out of me but I just don't feel like attacking the xorg.conf or XF....conf with vi anymore "cool" these days. Especially on very common hardware. Other than that, thanks for the debian folks for the release !

    • Re:Is it 1997 or 2007 ? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Jussi K. Kojootti ( 646145 ) on Monday April 09, 2007 @02:59AM (#18660721)

      For the most part it went smooth and nice, but what amazes me is why the X stuff is still somewhat awkward. Hardware is certainly not bleeding edge
      apt is pretty magical, but expecting a dist-upgrade to upgrade your hardware is a bit much.

    • Re:Is it 1997 or 2007 ? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by krmt ( 91422 ) <therefrmhere@@@yahoo...com> on Monday April 09, 2007 @09:00AM (#18662389) Homepage
      We know it's a pain, and it's a major goal for the next release. The Debian X Strike Force burned the entire release cycle moving first from XFree86 to Xorg, and then from the monolithic Xorg to modular Xorg. By the time it all that was finished, about a year and a half had passed and there was a few months to polish things up for the release. During this time, essentially an entirely new team was built up (only one person from the team that worked on XFree86 in Sarge is still an active member) and there was huge changes as the entire codebase was repackaged for 7.0 and we moved from a private SVN repo to git.debian.org, which was no small feat while we did our best to keep the updates coming at a good pace.

      So expect to see some improvements to this stuff in the next year or so. A lot of work is happening at X.org to improve autoconfiguration, and Debian is moving to help develop it and deliver it to the users. Lenny is going to be really exciting from this point of view.

  • Upgrade (Score:4, Informative)

    by Craig Ringer ( 302899 ) on Monday April 09, 2007 @03:26AM (#18660767) Homepage Journal
    The upgrade seems smooth enough, though it's rougher than woody -> sarge was for me. Then again, I'm running much more complex systems now.

    - squid may break if you use it for transparent proxying. It wants the "transparent" option after the listern directive(s) now to enable transproxying, but never used to.

    - the xlibs upgrade does not go well if it can't remove everything in certain directories. In particular, having the jedit package installed screws this up badly. I had to do some manual fixing to get this working.

    - Make really, really sure you have enough room in /var/backups when you upgrade slapd, or it'll require some hand fixing and a db4.2_recover.

    - You'll probably want to use the maintainer's CUPS config, then re-configure it to your specs. The CUPS config has changed a lot and is not really compatible.

    - cyrus delivery socket permissions may need resetting if you use cyrus & postfix.

    Overall, though, for a system as complex as my servers, the process was largely fuss free.
  • So, I guess Easter is a good time for a resurrection. :)
  • Not trying to be incendiary, but I've never used debian itself, only derivatives.

    I was wondering if any fans could give me any reasons why to run this over say any of the ubuntu clan?

    Or is it simply the case that debian + polish = ubuntu?

    Again, I'm asking actually hoping that someone will pull a Torvalds and say something like "it doesn't presume its users are idiots", which would actually tweak my interest.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by brufar ( 926802 )
      Debian - Gives the user control to choose what they want to use, more packages more options..
      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

Slashdot Top Deals

Whoever dies with the most toys wins.

Close