Can’t we all just get along?
internetnews.com, Sarge vs. The Hoary Hedgehog?: “Ian Murdoch [sic], Debian’s founding father, does not believe Ubuntu’s popularity bodes well for Debian-based distros. ‘If anything, Ubuntu’s popularity is a net negative for Debian,’ Murdoch told internetnews.com. ‘It’s diverged so far from Sarge that packages built for Ubuntu often don’t work on Sarge. And given the momentum behind Ubuntu, more and more packages are being built like this. The result is a potential compatibility nightmare.’”
Mark, this doesn’t end well. If you want a glimpse of what will happen, take a look at the RPM world, where software developers and ISVs have to build a different RPM for every RPM-based distro (either that, or the ISVs have to choose the one or two most popular RPM-based distros to the exclusion of all others–or perhaps that’s what you have in mind?).
Here’s a suggestion on how we can avert the crisis before it becomes one: Provide a Debian compatibility runtime and development environment for Ubuntu, and make the development environment the default environment. That way, when developers build packages on Ubuntu, they can be installed as-is on Debian as well. Provide a Ubuntu-specific development environment too, so developers can take advantage of Ubuntu-specific features that aren’t in Debian yet, but only use those features when you absolutely must. Everyone wins.
If you’re really interested in joining forces with UserLinux, this would be a great start. I’m sure Bruce would agree. You’d have my interest as well.
Related link: The Debian Delay: Is Sarge MIA? Or Simply a POW of Process?
April 11th, 2005 at 8:49am
I agree that a compatibility runtime is one solution, but you forget one important thing. Debian Legal would go bonkers over that. Debian is regressing and improving simultaneously. Regressing because of the integrist attitude of its honchos who have become nearly fanatical in their blind purism, and improving because of dedicated and extremely competent developers. One major difference between Debian and Ubuntu is that Debian users’ imput is mostly ignored, whereas Ubuntu users are heard and respected.
April 11th, 2005 at 10:38am
It seems to me that Ubuntu is just doing more successfully what Progeny originally tried to do with their linux distribution: provide a version of Debian that is more focused and targeted at end users.
Ubuntu is bringing in users who would never previously have used a Debian-based distribution and that gain seems to offset at least some of the concerns about forking.
I don’t see how having a debian compatible development envrionment (and making that the default) would really work. Wouldn’t that mean Ubuntu, a distribution which releases every 6 months, retaining compatibility with sarge for the next 2-4 years or until the next stable release?
April 11th, 2005 at 4:53pm
internetnews.com, Sarge vs. The Hoary Hedgehog?:
“I understand what the Ubuntu folks are trying to do, and they’re doing lots of good work that will eventually find its way into Debian.” Murdoch said.
April 11th, 2005 at 7:26pm
I don’t know a single user using Debian Stable on the desktop. And everybody I work with uses GNU/Linux on the desktop. The current situation with Debian is that everybody seems to agree to run either the testing or the unstable branch (as I did for years now). So, the only way to get a decent desktop using Debian is to use the constantly changing Debian Unstable which does not provide a security-fixes. Everybody at Debian should have known, that this couldn’t last very long. The desktop projects such as GNOME and KDE are providing all kinds of stuff which should have been there years ago, such as decent automatic mouting of USB-sticks and digital cameras. If you stick with Debian Stable, you’d have to wait for the release _after_ Sarge. So, if Sarge would release this year, that would probable mean you’d be able to use your USB-stick easily on your Debian desktop somewhere around 2009…
April 11th, 2005 at 7:31pm
Sounds like someone doesn’t like loosing control. Where someone see failure another sees opportunity. I predict Ubuntu will become the defacto Debian and Debian will follow Ubuntu’s lead.
April 11th, 2005 at 7:31pm
I don’t know a single user using Debian Stable on the desktop.
I do. I actually have two. One of them is still running potato (ok, so that one’s out of date). I have built a fair number of packages from sarge on woody (not counting the ones that required newer deb tools — those I just build from source and toss in /opt) I like Debian’s stability/consistency and not having to grab 30+ packages the next time libc6 is notched 0.0.0-0.1
April 11th, 2005 at 7:42pm
I’ve been a Debian user since ‘95 when I got fed up with Slackware and RedHat. The learning curve was a bit annoying but dpkg and apt sold me in an instant.
That said, maybe Debian has become irrelevant. Maybe the “market” wants what Debian could offer, but because of the zealotry of a few, it’s shutting itself out of an oppurtunity. It won’t be the first time this has happened in the land of “open source”. You could make a similar arguement for what happened with *BSD. Perhaps Debian isn’t as fit as Ubuntu; hopefully it will survive.
April 11th, 2005 at 7:42pm
Ubuntu provides all the perks linux end users are looking for, including tried and true (and new) software. Other than the fact that they’ve used Debian as a base, if they become a separate entity in the linux world, good for them. We wouldn’t be going there if there wasn’t something worth going to. Debian let themselves down, so don’t cry about losing the ball game now.
April 11th, 2005 at 7:47pm
I’m with you Takis.
Additionally, people who would run Debian Stable I find are more often running a RedHat Enterprise server, or BSD. The world needed Ubuntu, not Debian Stable. People are voting, and Debian has been found wanting. Ubuntu comes on a nice CD, the ISO’s are trivial to find, everything Just Works, and the repositories are lovingly maintained.
-T
April 11th, 2005 at 7:47pm
I miss the days when Debian was stable and up to date out of the box, the competition is so far ahead not will Debian ever catch up.
April 11th, 2005 at 7:47pm
“I like Debian’s stability/consistency”
Indeed, for a server that’s crucial. And that’s why I’m using it for my server. For my desktop, I like to be able to run a recent desktop environment, not some ancient desktop. Debian Potato and Woody both ship with a default 2.2 Linux kernel. Try getting recent hardware running using those kernels (videocards, ADSL-modems, wlan-cards, …). Furthermore, for development, Woody ships with GCC 2.95.4 (which wasn’t a real release) and 3.0 which was -quite logically, being a .zero release- the worst 3.x release available.
I’m sorry, but although I do like Debian for the server a lot, and as I personally ran Debian Unstable for many years, I don’t think I would recommend it to any non-geek users for their desktops. Stable because it’s just _way_ to old and all projects which are included in Stable have released new stable releases which are just an awful lot better. And Unstable and Testing because they change daily. An apt-get upgrade of 1G a week is fine for me, but not for the average desktop-user.
IMHO Ubuntu certainly has its place: being the best free Debian-based distro for the desktop.
April 11th, 2005 at 7:48pm
Before everyone get’s bent out of shape, perhaps it’s possible to resolve this by folding Ubuntu into a slightly more granular Debian distribution model.
How about:
Debian Server / stable / testing / unstable
Debian User / stable / testing / unstable
With both the Server and User versions of stable getting security feeds.
The requirement for rock-solid stability is *usually* most stringent for servers. The server environment is also where the environment is naturally the most stable. Short of security fixes, how often do you have to follow the rapid evolution of Apache to remain a player?
Compare that to the desktop environment where it seems that there is daily GUI candy or plugin functionality that we have to compete with Microsoft with — some new piece of hardware like pen drives etc that has to be tweaked to be friendly.
This would also give manufacturers a much simpler target to write drivers for user hardware. If it turns out that you need a driver or some piece of software that runs on both Server and User it could be cross ported easily. In fact, the separation of client / server might simplify that process.
Rather than re-inventing the wheel (yet again), if Ubuntu and User Linux could simply join forces and target Debian / User, everyone would win. (Maybe we’d see a vesion of X.Org before I die of old age ;-)
The rising tide floats all boats etc …
Anyway, that’s my two cents.
eris
April 11th, 2005 at 7:50pm
Better suggestion:
Debian should provide a Ubutnu compatible development environment, and make it the default development environment.
April 11th, 2005 at 7:52pm
Am I missing why pbuilder doesn’t already help this situation. Considering I’ve used it to build Debian packages for unstable on another faster machine (my laptop is slow, my wife’s machine is far faster) and they are perfectly compatible whats wrong with just educating developers?
Worst case, lets have a ‘how to make a developer chroot’ session at Debconf or something. It’s really not that hard to do.
Downside to Debian, truly, is that there won’t be as much dogfood use in the future if this continues. However, Ubuntu can’t easily just keep on pumping out distributions without Debian, it would be much more resource intensive.
April 11th, 2005 at 7:52pm
I would hope that Ubuntu does not resemble Debian, nor would be especially compatible with Sarge.
The last time I installed Sarge, I had a good week or more work just to get it tweaked the way I wanted. Ubuntu took less than a day…
Ubuntu has the apps I want at the versions I want.
But I don’t really see this as a “war”. If someone wants Debian, then great, let them use Debian. But if they want Ubuntu, then let them use Ubuntu. I learned quite early on NOT to mix packages from either. That would be like trying to force a Suse rpm onto Fedora Core system.
April 11th, 2005 at 7:54pm
“Debian Server / stable / testing / unstable
Debian User / stable / testing / unstable”
For a Debian Server distro, the current system is quite OK. For a Debian Desktop distro, well, … in my point of view, Ubuntu *is* Debian Desktop.
April 11th, 2005 at 7:54pm
For me, the real attraction was all the new shinies from Freedesktop.org, plus the convenience of someone else mixing Debian sources for me.
Really, if given a choice, would I choose a.) running an all-Unstable distribution, b.) mixing and matching sources (not as automatic as some like to pretend) or c.) have a distribution where the legwork has already been done, and better than I’ve managed on my own?
If you have to think hard about that one, I’ve got a pair of clown shoes handy…
April 11th, 2005 at 7:55pm
I have also been using Debian for a very very long time now, a little over 8 years. For the past 3 i ran Sid mixed with Experimental. But due to my desire to run GNOME 2.10, I switched to Ubuntu 4 days ago… So far I have not found a singe reason to go back to Sid… Seems to me that it’s time for _Debian Developers_ to wake up and do something about their release strategy, since Debian is clearly slipping further and further down on the list.
April 11th, 2005 at 7:58pm
As a follow on to my previous comment. I think it behooves both the Debian architects and the various user versions of Linux to have a user-centric target to shoot for.
Why?
Because I see a lot of people independently trying to invent a user-centric version from scratch. Let’s see, just pulling a few from memory. Ubuntu, MEPIS, various derivatives of Knoppix / Morphix, pen drive versions, and I could go on.
But I won’t.
If all of those people were targeting at least a fuzzy standard for User Linux (perhaps informally a minimal Ubuntu morph) then we’d all be better off.
For what it’s worth…
eris
April 11th, 2005 at 8:11pm
For someone who has used Debian since 1996 or so
and now maintain numerous linux servers for a large research facility , Debian unstable was the way to go. Debian stable never worked on the cutting edge servers so Ubuntu looks like something we all have been looking for. Hope Debian can learn a lesson or two and push their next version out a wee bit faster or be left in the dust like Linux did to BSD and Unixware …..
April 11th, 2005 at 8:21pm
Be it debian stable, or debian testing I find most people are missing the point. Debian Testing is a rock solid release, debian testing in most circumstances is more stable, and more reliable than most software company’s and distro’s offical releases and it’s only testing! Debian Stable on the other hand is unbreakable and exactly that, the software world should learn from debian’s example on how to release something that is going to be infaluable. Debian, will alway’s hold it’s place, I use it in many places for server’s and nothing ever goes wrong, Ubuntu will have it’s place, but Debian will always be it’s conerstone averting the compatibility problem’s is vital, can this be achieved by other mean’s? suggetions is what we need.
April 11th, 2005 at 8:25pm
Ian — can you elaborate on exactly what packages are broken? Right now packages work flawlessly for me when I mix and match from Sarge, Warty and Hoary. The Ubuntu guys are doing many (most?) things right, and it takes them considerable effort.
Not naming the packages that break makes me uneasy. Perhaps this is all a tempest over a few small buggy packages?
April 11th, 2005 at 8:29pm
More than anything I think this proves that there is a real desire for a Debian-based distribution with reasonably regular releases. Having a “compatibility set” which is used by default will only work for so long if Debian continues releasing every 3 years or so; I just don’t see 6 Ubuntu releases backwards compatible with Sarge working for anyone.
I’m probably one of the few people still running Debian Stable (Woody) on my workstation. Well Debian Stable plus Backports. Quite a lot of Backports actually. (I’ve personally backported something in the order of 300 packages, not to mention various ones pulled in from elsewhere.) It might be more accurately described as “the OS formerly known as Debian Stable”. After three years this backporting is (a) a lot of work, and (b) doesn’t solve all the problems anyway. When I build my next desktop (soon, the current one is 3 year old hardware too) it’s most likely to be Ubuntu. 6-12 monthly releases and support for 1-2 years is highly desirable.
I think your compatibility layer might fly if Debian were somehow able to get to releasing approximately once a year, to minimise the number of “backwards compatible” releases Ubuntu (et al) had to make. But it’s been nearly 10 years since Debian managed to release that frequently — and that’s roughly as long as I’ve been a Debian user.
Ewen
April 11th, 2005 at 8:34pm
Debian Stable on the other hand is unbreakable and exactly that
Hmmm. I wouldn’t say _unbreakable_ :-) I seem to vaguely remember that the 21th of November 2003 the Debian servers of the Debian project itself were hacked.
Mind you, I *am* using Debian Stable myself for my server, because indeed it _is_ really stable. But surely not *unbreakable*.
Furthermore, I do have a problem with one of the concepts of Debian Stable. The usage of older releases indeed prevents the appearing of bugs introduced by the implementation of new features. And yes, the backporting of bugfixes of course increases security considerably. But, what about *large* design-overhauls which increase security? You can’t backport those, can you?
For example, how about the SELinux patches? They aren’t included in Debian Stable yet. Let’s assume that they do increase security considerably, then using a Debian Stable system could be less secure then using the latest Sid?
April 11th, 2005 at 8:37pm
“After three years this backporting is (a) a lot of work, and (b) doesn’t solve all the problems anyway.”
Indeed. And it’s actually circumventing the idea of having old software releases in Stable, “because they’re more secure” and “because the bugs are known”.
April 11th, 2005 at 9:03pm
Debian is interesting from an archeological point of view, in that it is a snapshot of how Linux was in the mid 90s. It’s great that Ian and others still polish it like a treasured antique but it should not be used to hinder the progress of modern, relevant projects.
Debian should fold into Ubuntu-legacy.
April 11th, 2005 at 9:19pm
Debian as a distro is dead. Live with it. Ubuntu is here to stay — they have successfully made a distro that “works” and is “usable.” Debian - a turd in the toilet of defecated^H^H^Hdeprecated distributions.
April 11th, 2005 at 9:25pm
If Ubuntu packages don’t work on Debian, that’s ok. So long as Debian packages work on Ubuntu. That way we still have one standard…Debian.
As much as people like to slam Debian these days, it’s one of the most important distributions out there. It forms the baseline for so many distros (Progeny, Libranet, Ubuntu, UserLinux, and I’m not sure if they’re still following Debian, but Xandros and Linspire both got their start from Debian). Debian should continue to be that: a baseline for more targetted distros. Debian makes a killer desktop and a fantastic server with only minor modifications, so it’s the ideal trunk from which to grow your branch.
April 11th, 2005 at 9:39pm
Right now the community is sending a VERY clear message regarding Debian’s priorities. Sometimes founders need to step back and get some perspective. See XFree86.
April 11th, 2005 at 9:42pm
Why do you use, Movable Type, which is neither open source nor free software?
Please change to a free software alternative.
April 11th, 2005 at 9:45pm
I have to say, I agree with the post about creating Debian User and Debian Server. As a desktop (or non-enterprise server) admin, I guess one wants the following:
* Reasonably up-to-date (within 6 months of current) releases.
* Already tested and fairly much debugged.
* 2-3 years of security updates.
* The ability to stay about 6 months behind the curve by updating, say once a month, and without breaking things.
I use 2 main systems, a Mandrake cooker desktop and a Debian stable server. Both have problems.
Mandrake is great for cutting edge, and it means my bug reports are at least useful, but it is sometimes buggy, especially during updates. Debian stable is so out of date that I have to build some packages from source (eg postgresql) in order to work with incoming data.
What is, however certain is the importance of Debian.
April 11th, 2005 at 9:46pm
Ditch Debian..Just switch to Slackware. Its the Pimptamist.
April 11th, 2005 at 9:47pm
Fedora Core 4 test2
可以参考它的 Release Notes，让人吃惊的是 FC4 里面开始使用 GCC4…不是我不明白，这世界变化快.
RHEL 3 是基于 RedHat 9
April 11th, 2005 at 9:58pm
Debian is the best distro out there right now. People bitch about it because it doesn’t do exactly what they want as soon as they want it to, but then, neither does your bleeding edge distribution. I ran RH/Fedora for two years plus, and I got fed up with its constantly introduced incompatibilities. All of the bleeding edge desktop distributions have problems with compatibility. They don’t work with all the stuff they used to, and no one works with them long enough to get it right. Yes, it is true that debian stable is slow, but who else provides support for 3 years plus on a release? Who else provides it at no charge? No one. No one that is free software at least.
Also, I am sick and tired of hearing about how debian doesn’t listen to users. People are always whining about how their latest closed source proprietary stuff doesn’t work. I used to be one of those idiots. After awhile, I realized that whenever linux crashed, it was the fault of a proprietary driver. I provide unofficial tech support for a lot of linux users that I know, and as soon as I hear the words linux crashed, I tell them to dump the closed source drivers, and every time it has been stable after that. Software freedom isn’t just about ideology, its about quality, which is of crucial importance to end users, though they fail to appreciate this, because closed source drivers fail without leaving a return address to send the flames.
I can certainly understand that people want the newest desktop stuff in a format that changes less fast than Debian testing or unstable on a day to day basis. And things like Mepis and Ubuntu that help people do this are wonderful. However, there is no good reason for incompatibility between Debian testing and one of these psudostable distributions. I can certainly understand that testing might eventually become so out of date as to make it impossible to maintain compatibility, but Sarge isn’t even out yet.
I bet the Ubuntu maintainers that actually do work wouldn’t say Debian “sux.” Debian stable on a fairly slow release cycle (even if not quite this slow) is something that Linux needs and something that we all know someone that has a place for it, even if it might be less glamorous, and even if we don’t use it ourselves. So if you like Ubuntu, great, but please don’t blame the ground that your plant grew from.
Thank you Ian. Thank you Debian development folks.
Ray
April 11th, 2005 at 10:12pm
Open source is about practical and quality software. The reasons for remaining in long stable development cycles and for not accepting code into the distribution that breaks OSS licensing are good and PRACTICAL ones not religious.
Ubuntu should not build software that diverges from the base Debian distribution sof far that the binary packages can’t be shared.
That is not hard to do.
April 11th, 2005 at 10:15pm
This reminds me of the Xfree86 / X.org split. Look who is dominant now. Debian has been behind on releases and dealing with real user needs. Ubuntu is a big step forward.
April 11th, 2005 at 10:16pm
my issue with debian is the sub-glacial release cycle, and thats the only issue I have.
April 11th, 2005 at 10:24pm
I personally began using Debian at the inception of its general availability and happily migrated at that time from the hard-core BSDs. What kept me using “pure” Debian was not only the highest quality possible of its development cycle and applications, but the Social Contract, which made me feel that I belonged to a growing community.
I do not like the heavy-handed way the Social Contract is being changed for, in my opinion, the worst. The Debian Project has been moving ominously to an extremist position. Debian Legal seems to be filling with fanatics. The General Resolution has been referred to as an “Editorial Change.” That’s like calling the abolition of a country’s constitution a “minor textual correction.” If you think that the reason for the delay of Sarge is because it “wasn’t ready” on a technical level, think again. There’s more to it than that. The purists had to “purify” it, out of some sort of paranoiac fear of applications, drivers, and firmware tainted by, resembling, or even hinting at “oh so horrifying” non-GNUish licensing.
Documentation is moving to “non-free.” This is not only ridiculous, but downright stupid. I do not approve, of course, but who am I anyway: a not so humble user and bug-squisher — nothing more. And since users have less and less impact on what the admins at Debian do, it’s time for me to move on. So I simply moved all my machines at home and at work to Ubuntu.
Now, just because something moves to “non-free” does not mean that it will be unavailable to users. But there’s more to it than that. Some of this tendency will cause a necessity for compiling and module addition by users who wish to have a workable Linux installation, with necessary drivers for their hardware, etc. That’s OK for experienced - very experienced- users, but not for someone relatively new to Linux use. We are not there yet, but if the inquisitional purification of Debian continues, Debian will be left in the dust. Or perhaps it will remain as a sort of “control” in an experiment called “linux”…
Now don’t get me wrong. I am sure that Debian will catch itself before it’s too late. It always does, and the fact remains that it is still the “Big Daddy” of all the Debian-based distros, Debian-based live Cd’s, and Ubuntu itself, which is more or less a fork of Debian., albeit closely tied through shared developers, etc…, but in the meantime (and you all know just how mean time can be), I’ll be tripping elsewhere. Progeny Debian is also an alternative to “pure” Debian…
April 11th, 2005 at 10:41pm
I’ve always had respect for Debian but it’s time to move on. It’s not enough to be technically superior. If that were all it took, I’d be running one of the BSDs. I finally gave up on FreeBSD as a desktop because of Java and Flash.
I never was able to use Debian satisfactorily because I could never get it to boot, even on conservative hardware. (I may not be an old linux hand but it’s been my desktop OS since ‘98 when you still had to futz around to get a modem and sound card working.)
Ubuntu works pretty well out of the box and has fairly current versions of the software I want to run on my desktop. It’s my distro of choice now and I’ve tried several, RH 5.x, 6.x, 7.x, 8, 9 and enterprise workstation; Suse 6.x, 7.0, 9.x; a few Mandrakes; Slackware (and Vector) plus Debian a few times. The fact is, the Ubuntu people got it right. I can stick with the basics and have a conservative system or add more repositories and get the extra bells and whistles I’ve come to expect.
I don’t believe Ubuntu should try too hard to maintain compatibility with Sarge. Sarge has been around for a long time. It’s like complaining they are no longer compatible with Red Hat 6.0. It may be true but it’s not relevant.
A F(r)iend
April 11th, 2005 at 11:07pm
I’ve often thought that there is a simple fix for the bulk of Debian’s problems. Look at how long Sarge has been in testing… who else would test an OS for that long before releasing it? When Debian releases a stable version, it really MEANS something. Heck, in my experience Sarge is at least as stable as releases from other distros.
…which brings me to my solution: rename unstable to Debian Testing, testing to Debian Desktop, and stable to Debian Server. I feel that these names more accurately reflect the intended audience and relative stability of each.
See, the problem is that no-one wants to use a ‘testing’ or ‘unstable’ distro. Change the names, give ‘Debian Desktop’ regular security updates, and I’ll wager most of Debian’s release problems fade away.
April 11th, 2005 at 11:09pm
Bah.
Let me see if I understand correctly:
“Wah! Ubuntu is making progress and delivering a *useful* Debian-based distro with current and up-to-date packages, which don’t play nice with our ancient environment that we update every 4th leap year.”
“Please! Rather than force us to actually produce a distro containing relatively recent packages (ie: anything written after 1350 AD), we’d prefer that you require your developers to use our stone knives and bearskins.”
That just about sum it up?
Thought so.
April 11th, 2005 at 11:31pm
I think perhaps some here are losing perspective. Ubuntu is far from being the most dominant of “Debian-based” distributions. There is also Knoppix, Mepis, Kanotix, Xandros, etc., etc. At present, a program written for any one of these distros will work in most of the others. There is already some splintering and incompatibility between these distros and they are very annoying.
Maintaining compatibility with Debian will at least probably mean that it will work for all these other distros.
April 11th, 2005 at 11:33pm
What about Autopackage? http://autopackage.org
April 11th, 2005 at 11:34pm
My Linux experience goes back to the slackware early 90’s versions, and Unix back to BSD 4.1 on a Vax 11/750…
After all these years, I’m simply tired of all the tweaks it takes to get a reasonable environment going (I refuse to answer the “what it the frequency of your monitor?” question any more). Ubuntu delivers on its promise to “Just Work”, and many folks seem really happy about that. I’m glad I switched to Ubuntu from Debian.
Perhaps it’s a good wake-up call? I see two things that need to happen in the Linux community: 1) installs and tweaks of all distros would do well to learn from Ubuntu’s example .. 2) there are way TOO MANY distros… there needs to be some consolidation - consider those outside of Linux looking in (and thinking of giving it a try). What do those prospective users see? Chaos. The folks at Microsoft must be chuckling to themselves on a daily basis about that…
April 11th, 2005 at 11:35pm
As I see it Ubuntu’s relationship with Debian is it’s biggest strength.
I don’t know were all this debian-hate is coming from, but it’s realy pathetic.
What Ubuntu does is take the top-notch work that Debian developers have done and built a polished default desktop configuration on it.
If Ubuntu drifts to far away from Debian then they will loose this benifit and will be forced to do all the developement on the OS themselves and not be able to create such a polished default install.
What it needs is Debian working on the OS itself and Ubuntu taking that base and configuring and updating select packages for end users that don’t have the time, desire, or the skills to do it themselves into a proper desktop.
As far as Debian being out of date. Just use Sid or Sarge.
You know that Sid ships with 2.6.11 kernels right? How out of date is that? Installing Java and Flash is the exact same in Debian as it is in Ubuntu…
How can Debian be so far out of date, but Ubuntu not, when Ubuntu uses 90+% packages from Debian?
Ubuntu needs Debian to do the grunt work, while Debian needs Ubuntu to create a polished default install for a Desktop.
All this Debian vs Ubuntu crap is in your guy’s heads. It never was a conflict, there is no contest or Debian developers being pissed off, or any hatred or rivalry.
This is not a fork, this is not a them vs us, or a XFree vs X.org. It’s not like this.
Debian was specificly created to be a universal, generic operating system. It’s maintains a high degree of division between Free and non-Free specificly so that people like Ubuntu can use it without having to f*k around with licenses or weed out illegal or otherwise restricted software.
It’s like arguing Pontiac vs Chevy cars, when they are both owned by GM and both sell the same cars with different configurations and body panels.
What this guy is saying is that Debian and Ubuntu need to keep a high amount of compatability so that YOU AS A END USER can have the benifits of having software that works across the board.
There is no point in diverging to far because you would end up with each other needlessly duplicating the same work and wasting resources that can otherwise be used to stabilise and improve the operating systems.
April 11th, 2005 at 11:53pm
Debian has outmaneuved itself by sticking to far too old software. Sarge is several years outdated when it will be released.
I wish debian (and various other projects) could have a “core-release” with apps being more ‘floating’ on top. The core-release would consist of the installer, kernel, main libraries, main system utilities, and compiler environment(s).
It would be far less work to prepare a new distribution, and one could be released every year. The _software_ (end user applications) on top could just have tags with which core-releases they were compatible and what their dependencies were.
I stopped using Debian around 2000 or something, as the stable releases were totally outdated. Couldn’t even use it for servers, as newer versions of everything were required by customers.
April 12th, 2005 at 12:01am
Most of the comments here seem to think that Ubuntu is a rival of Debian. There is a rivalry in attracting users, obviously, but Ubuntu can’t supplant Debian. It’s still built on top of Debian unstable, while most of Ubuntu’s development’s going to high level stuff that relates directly to the user (like Synaptic). Debian is, and will be for the foreseeable future, the base upon which Ubuntu depends. It needs to continue for Ubuntu to continue.
The appeal of Ubuntu rises from Debian failing to do what Ubuntu does so well - providing regular and frequent releases and an immediately usable operating system (in other words, considering operating systems, you should install Hoary over Woody right now). But as projects, Ubuntu just does the higher-level part of what Debian does, and so can’t replace it.
In conclusion, Ubuntu rocks. But Debian doesn’t “sux”.
April 12th, 2005 at 1:12am
Another user suggested debian should rename its branches to “debian server”, “debian desktop” and “debian unstable”. This would be good, except I find for my usage stable is too out of date even to run a server optimally. I need more recent versions of postgresql (a product that’s been plaguing debian for some time - remeber being stuck for so long with postgresql 6.5 on potatoe?) and I need more recent versions of python. If I have to recompile those things it reduces the point of having a distribution manage those things. I’m going to build a replacement for my main and web server this weekend and am contemplating switching away from debian stable for these reasons. But I’m not sure what to go to - I’ve tested fedora on the desktop and it doesn’t appeal to me for niggly reasons. And Ubuntu hasn’t been around for long enough that I feel confident with it, although I’ve been very very heppy with it as my desktop OS this last month since I installed it at home.
April 12th, 2005 at 2:10am
Desktop users have a whole bunch of possibilities to feed them. There is no need to use their demands to drive distributions like debian who are much more than x86 desktop.
And it gets ridiculous to think of ubuntu as a basis of debian — x86 only is a very narrow world…
cb
April 12th, 2005 at 2:16am
I run sparc and powerpc and know that Debian has community. I don’t know about Ubuntu. One thing I have learned is that a bunch of sticks is easier to break than a few. Debian is the root anyone who thinks otherwise is just fooling themselves. I support Ian and his views. I would like to think that Ubuntu can play fairly. Doing harm is not what the community is all about. You know when Apple wanted to use dpkg for Darwin the community of Debian users said they were not to happy with it and Apple backed off. I hope Ubuntu can be as humble as Apple was. I hope the developers will work with Debian as the root. And not flee but join in as I know they already do much. I know we all could have a distro but let us work together on the base and follow a guide even if we don’t like the plan understand Debian has maturity in many archs and in more than just linux. I choose Debian’s guidelines.
April 12th, 2005 at 2:23am
Debian Stable is not acceptable on servers either as kernel 2.2 lacks the stateful firewall. Many other newer tools and programs don’t work either.
April 12th, 2005 at 2:35am
“Can’t we all just get along?”
yes! but debian is losing the desktop. get over it.
April 12th, 2005 at 2:56am
“There is no need to use their demands to drive distributions like debian who are much more than x86 desktop.
And it gets ridiculous to think of ubuntu as a basis of debian — x86 only is a very narrow world…”
You’re absolutely right. Who cares if the software is five years old, if you’re running it on ten-year-old hardware.
Debian should just drop support for x86 and PPC (plenty of distributions have that space covered already) and focus on the Amiga and 68k Macintosh users that are their core constituency.
(And if you don’t think that’s their core constituency, ask yourself why sarge has been held up to fix the production pipeline for these architectures.)
April 12th, 2005 at 4:01am
I find Stable pretty useless on servers - just as on the desktop, there is too much truly ancient software in it, software that in some cases is no longer supported upstream.
A while ago I upgraded a server to Sarge to oversome these problems - I was forever backporting Sarge packages to Woody - thinking Debian had in place security updates.
I’ve since discovered Sarge is pretty hopless on servers too: I connect over a VPN (using OpenVPN), and I find the maintainers for OpenVPN and Shorewall regularly make changes incompatible with previous versions and so I run the risk of undesired visits to the sites I administer because of a broken VPN or a broken firewall.
We are not amused.
April 12th, 2005 at 4:10am
> I bet the Ubuntu maintainers that actually do work wouldn’t say Debian “sux.”
Considering that the Ubuntu maintainers are (mostly) DDs too, I’d say the major reason they’re with Ubuntu is that they think Debian sux.
April 12th, 2005 at 4:18am
> Sarge has been in testing… who else would test an OS for that long before releasing it?
Sarge has been _called_ testing (or vice versa) for a long time, but it’s not yet being tested in any formal sense. That doesn’t happen until package-freeze, when new releases of KDE, Gnome, shorewall etc are banned and only bug-fixes permitted.
Whether that will happen this year or next I’ll not hazard a guess.
April 12th, 2005 at 4:23am
> Maintaining compatibility with Debian will at least probably mean that it will work for all these other distros
Which Debian?
Maintaining compatibility with anything older than Sid is insane; even trying to keep back with Sarge prohibits the use of newer packages - Ubuntu had Gnome 2.8 while Debian/Sarge was still pondering 2.6.
April 12th, 2005 at 4:28am
Clearly this isn’t the beginning of the end for debian, but maybe the leadership needs to ask themselves why this topic has generated so much strong and vehement discussion both here, on slashdot, and on a number of other forums. There is an old saying: “where there is smome, there is fire.” Something is wrong and needs to be fixed. The signs point to this being both a governance (ie leaders not reflecting the will of the people) and a a structural issue (cf user/desktop vs server debian proposal above).
April 12th, 2005 at 5:20am
Can’t we all just get along?
There is an interesting read on Ian Murdock’s Weblog: Can’t we all just get along? It talks about the differences between Debian and Ubuntu, the latter being a derivative of the first. Although I can understand Ian’s problem, I do not share his views.
…
April 12th, 2005 at 5:26am
Why not fix the Debian-developers instead, by making them less arrogant pricks?
Ubuntu just works and does not smell like 1990, something that can’t be said about Debanal.
April 12th, 2005 at 5:37am
Maybe a better way to have Debian “everywhere” is to stop trying to release anything after Sarge.
There can be some great distros for specifical targets (from ordinary users to geologists, from musicians to enterprise admins), ALL Debian-based, with software of great quality, an enourmous community, etc.
Just divide Debian branches in “stable packages”, “testing packages” and “experimental packages” (a fusion of present unstable and experimental repositories). Packages, not versions of Debian!
April 12th, 2005 at 5:38am
Ian: A compatiblity layer is the LAST THING you want. A compatibility layer means you’re not compatible, and it’s that incompatibility what you want to kill, not workaround it and leave it there.
The One True Fix ™ would be to join debian and ubuntu developers. Debian developers could comaintain packages in ubuntu and viceversa. Ubuntu should be a sort of “debian desktop distro” - with different FSG maybe, it DOES NOT have sense to provide a desktop distro which has a non-free driver out of the installer. Debian and Ubuntu need to agree in that
April 12th, 2005 at 6:58am
Looking at the comments: good Lord.
Are Ubuntu users the new Gentoo users?
April 12th, 2005 at 7:20am
Ubuntu users *are* the new Gentoo users. OMG-everything-binary (but-don’t-make-me-fight-dependency-hell I-didn’t-have-to-think-on-Windows) is the new OMG-everything-from-scratch (but-not-actually-from-scratch because-that’s-really-hard).
Hooray for fashion.
Now, anyhow, someone above said:
“Sounds like someone doesn’t like loosing control. Where someone see failure another sees opportunity. I predict Ubuntu will become the defacto Debian and Debian will follow Ubuntu’s lead.”
Losing control isn’t a problem, except that Ubuntu itself relies on Debian to provide a lot of *documentation* for the underlying system. Want something organized more authoritatively than an incomplete FAQ or posts on a phpBB? You’ll be heading back to Debian.org to find out what Ubuntu built on.
If the two projects don’t find a way to complement each other, Ubuntu will fall out of sync with the resource that makes their platform seem saner than RPM-land, and Debian will… well, miss out on all the cool stuff Ubuntu is doing, which means even less movement in the famously conservative Debian tree. Recognizing the issue is the first step to doing something about it, there’s no reason to call it a holy war.
April 12th, 2005 at 7:42am
Debian -was- a good distribution. The release schedule is not practical in an environment that moves as quickly as the open source world. There are very real differences in kernels and libc that make it important to keep up.
If Debian is interested in staying relevant it might be a good idea to commit to a more regular release schedule and adhere to it religiously. The OpenBSD developers have managed to combine regular releases with rock-solid stability without any problem. That’s why I moved by old Debian systems to OpenBSD.
April 12th, 2005 at 8:25am
When I first started using linux (1993) and throughout the early/mid 90’s, I tried EVERY distro that was around, to see which one I wanted to use. All the people I found using it for workstations were using redhat, so I gave it a good go with that. I tried and tried to put up with the frustration of yet another broken rpm from somebody who wrote a piece of software, and packaged it too specifically for their system. After about 6 months, I was left with the decision to either just compile everything from source, or switch distros again. Haven’t used anything but debian since. The package management is the best in the linux industry (let’s be frank, if you’re thinking “but what about gentoo?!” - that’s not a package, it’s a source tarball. But yes, I like emerge, too… It reminds me of what I like about FreeBSD :), and never, not once have I had to deal with a package someone else put out not working for some silly reason.
Yes, debian’s an awesome starting point. Yes, they’re slower on releases than [insert the slowest thing you can think of here]. No, it’s not a good idea to start making debs that don’t work with debian. Yes, it’s snobbery on some level, but at the same time - how would you like to find this great program that does EXACTLY what you need to do, and even better it’s got a deb to install it from(!) - …as long as you’re using Ubuntu, not Debian.
If Ubuntu goes off and makes their own package filename extension (I mean as simple as mv *.deb *.udeb, I’m not talking about making a new package format), then frankly I couldn’t care less…Anyone with the will to care that they’re deb’s, and use them if they want that version of something would already have installed the required packages to allow them to work. Heck, I’m pretty certain I can see a way to even make it apt-able, so it wouldn’t require more than adding an apt-source to install anything. I’m fully in support of the compatibility runtime idea…debian would be debian, and ubuntu would be ubuntu, and if you wanted to cross pollenate, you’d first install the appropriate runtime. I don’t think it’s appropriate for Debian to suggest that Ubuntu use the debian runtime by default, though I don’t think that’s what Ian was talking about. But a compatibility package on both sides of the fence, that’s tied via dependancies/equivs when it’s built to the packages from the other side of the fence. Apt for something, it fetches the compatibility requirement. If you want to make sure you don’t mess things up you need at debian’s level, apt-pin them.
April 12th, 2005 at 8:49am
I’m running SuSE (after giving Debian the flick years ago, and when I feel like booting up Linux) and was rather impressed by the last Ubuntu, but it seems to me that using the file extension of .deb for packages is not future-proof. I mean, there are *mdk.rpms and *.rpms, and probably others that I just can’t think of.
Why not use *.pkg as the file extension so that it, at least, appears more portable (even if it isn’t necessarily so). If everybody is used to seeing something as logical as *.pkg for a Linux package, then a) they might begin to expect ALL files with that extension to be portable and get very mad when –insert evil forked distro here– decides to be naughty, and b) perhaps even begin to subconsciously see *.pkg as THE Linux package format, and start to say: “why does this distro use these multitudinous *.rpm files - these *.pkg files seem more cross-platform, I might find a disto that uses these *.pkg packages.”
Of course, I’m rambling, and probably won’t switch to Linux on the desktop until the horrific excuses for GUI file managers are put on a diet, but the change to *.pkg just seems so logical. You’d be silly not to pass up an opportunity to lock in a file extension like this and make it a standard (or else, usurp it if some crappy FOSS project uses it).
Just imagine *.pkg being the new *.zip!
April 12th, 2005 at 8:49am
“here are way TOO MANY distros… there needs to be some consolidation”…hey, you’re right! I’m gonna start a new *consolidated* distro.
April 12th, 2005 at 8:53am
Joe: “here are way TOO MANY distros… there needs to be some consolidation”…hey, you’re right! I’m gonna start a new *consolidated* distro.”
Man, stop making me laugh so much :-) If only the well-intentioned masses could hold themselves back and stop creating their own distros which inevitably are abandoned after realising the *true* amount of work involved, the world would be a better place!
April 12th, 2005 at 9:29am
“I wish debian (and various other projects) could have a “core-release” with apps being more ‘floating’ on top. The core-release would consist of the installer, kernel, main libraries, main system utilities, and compiler environment(s).”
This is the approach that FreeBSD has used with great success for years. The core freezes, packages/ports continue to evolve and stay current. Linux distros need to learn from this.
April 12th, 2005 at 9:43am
Why not just change to Windows as a desktop. It Actually works, it’s not that expensive and all fun stuff is there. I have wasted 2 days getting xmms to work in latest Ubuntu… and I’m still mad! There is no packet hassle or anything like this in the Real Desktop Systems.
The reason I like Linux is that it keeps Redmond at work. If there is an (un-)narural enemy like Linux then everybody Wins in the end. Ubuntu is a corporation and it clearly shows that charity is just a charity: it keeps people thinking about the developing third-world systems. Commercially based Linux distros like Ubuntu are a real match for MS in the near future.
Debian coders are being payed for developing Ubuntu. I don’t think Ubuntu is ever going to go too far from it’s roots. It wouldn’t be wise for the system and certainly not for the business.
What ever happens the competition is going to be more even when money is in the picture. Only pirates live free.
April 12th, 2005 at 9:57am
When I first switched from RedHat to Debian 6 or 7 years ago, I loved it! I still remember my delight after my first apt-get install downloaded a whole slew of dependancies for me and installed them.
However, in recent years I’ve become more and more disillusioned with debian - I picked debian because it gave me an easy way to get the most up-to-date packages… But more and more often it was taking *years* for new software to make it into even debian unstable. I don’t want to have to wait forever to get the latest version of Gnome, or the X.org X server. From the outside this looks like a sign of a distribution in bad shape, buried in red tape.
I switched to Ubuntu lately and I haven’t looked back.
April 12th, 2005 at 10:59am
I currently run 3 Linux distros on my laptop, Ubuntu Hoary, RHEL4 (CentOS), and Debian Sarge. I have messed with a lot of Distros, and these three are here to stay on my laptop for a while (I like to test and tinker). Having said that, yes, I agree that Ubuntu Hoary is quite a bit more polished than Debian Sarge (which I am using as I write this).
I think the Debian developers should concentrate their work. By that I mean, perhaps instead of ‘Stable’, ‘Testing’ and ‘Unstable’, they should only have two branches such as ‘Server’ and ‘Workstation’. On the ‘Server’ side, get things up to speed (so to speak) so that it is roughly equivalent to RHEL4 (ie: 2.6 kernel, Xorg, etc). On the ‘Workstation’ side of things, go ‘bleeding edge’. This, I believe, would put Debian on the top of Distrowatch dot com! :)
April 12th, 2005 at 11:33am
Dave, I was thinking the same thing!
Here’s to reading post after post about how everything else in the world sucks.
April 12th, 2005 at 11:44am
You know, this really wouldn’t be a problem if the Linux community could get its act straight in regards to package management. There needs to be base set of API’s that package managers use that can be configured on a distro by distro basis… something like “getuserapplocation()” that would return “/usr/bin” on some distro’s, “/usr/local/bin” on others, etc…
Of course this is only part of the problem. You can also build a set of API’s for runlevel management, desktop menu management, etc.. Then all the package management apps can build on those tools to provide truly patform independant package management no matter what distro. The package manager can always find the locations for it’s files and always find the mechanism to configure them properly.
Yeah, I know, it’s a simplistic view of the situation, but it would be a good start.
April 12th, 2005 at 1:12pm
“This is the approach that FreeBSD has used with great success for years. The core freezes, packages/ports continue to evolve and stay current. Linux distros need to learn from this.”
I have heard this suggestion before. Seems like the obvious solution. Is there some technical reason why Debian doesn’t do this? Certainly seems like it would solve a lot of problems. There’s nothing all that inherently weird about a 3-year release cycle, as long as you can get up-to-date applications.
April 12th, 2005 at 1:36pm
What you want already exists. It is called “The Linux Registry” or “Registery”.
http://freshmeat.net/projects/reg/
April 12th, 2005 at 6:48pm
I tried out Debain Sarge on my home desktop. Everything worked great except the reliable unmounting/mounting of any external USB device. So, I patiently waited for Ubuntu Hoary to arrive and within 2 hours, I had my SSH/Samba home file-server set up which also acts as an MP3 player for my stereo unit. I chose Kubuntu in particular. I would recommend any Debian-based distro…which one you choose depends on your needs.
April 12th, 2005 at 9:42pm
I was using FreeBSD 4.9 when I added a Debian machine to my collection, and I have been very happy with it. Now I have moved the FreeBSD machine over to Debian.
It seems to me that the dividing line is really dial-up vs broadband. Personally, I wouldn’t bother downloading any ISOs, being on broadband. If I were stuck on dial-up, I would want to get ISO’s somewhere, download them at work, at a friend’s house, local computer shop, whatever.
In my mind, ISOs are for dial-up, and netinstalls are for broadband. What bugs me about installing Debian is not having a choice of JFS or XFS or ReiserFS, although I have been able to get around that by moving partitions around - so it’s not so much of a problem - you only have to set up your partitions once after having compiled a new kernel, and you are good to go. I have been using the Gentoo install CD of all things to boot from, mount different partitions, move them around and recreate the filesystems I want. Has worked very well so far. I can install on ext3 and then change things around later.
I have been very happy with Debian, all you have to really do is remember to upgrade your system every now and then. Install what you need, when you need it, keep it up to date often, and look for 3rd party websites with .deb files when you can’t find them on the debian repository itself.
I go out of may way to find netinstalls - FreeBSD has a good one, looks like Dragonfly BSD also is getting better, and Debian is very easy to install and keep upgraded over the net. If I had to deal with dial-up, however, I would probably be taking a completely different approach to things.
April 13th, 2005 at 4:14am
I have started migrating my systems to ubuntu. I’m sad to leave debian but there are two issues compelling me to make the move. Both are critical for me. One is amd64 support, and the other is the lack of security updates for sarge. Keeping servers on woody is just not an option for me anymore.
I can live with sarge being a bit behind the cutting edge, but security updates are more important to me than either being on the cutting edge or stability. I would happily trade the nth degree of stability for good security updates.
April 13th, 2005 at 6:11am
I really like the philosophy of debian but I left debian a few years ago because the packages were so out-of-date even the ones in unstable. I converted to gentoo because it gave me the flexibility of debian albeit with a downside of recompiling everything on an update.
instead of providing a debian compatibility layer, drop the current unstable on the floor, and make the new unstable the current Ubuntu and work from there.
At the same time, try to understand why the fork happened and try to bring the two groups back into alignment.
April 13th, 2005 at 6:32am
I really don’t get the whole Ubuntu thing. It seems trendy and overrated, and I dislike having to tweak it in order to get what I consider a recognizable Linux filesystem, complete with su, etc. As a home Linux user whose background is not technical, I find that at this point, I can get more out of Sarge than I can from any other distro. I realize that may be because of my limitations– but I’m a human being, and I’m always gonna have limitations.
Compatability is a good thing, but is it essential? Since most users of U and D get their software packages from their respective repositories, I don’t see that as nearly as annoying as having to hunt down a different RPM for each distro. I think that Debian and Ubuntu will both remain vital as Linux continues to grow.
April 13th, 2005 at 6:34am
damn, the answer is _really_ simple :
Componentized Linux is _really_ close. Is has been said before:
1 ) make a stable core that is released at a convenient pace. Update it in the currecnt Debian stable manner.
2 ) start compiling all the apps starting from that core. This part shuld be called dynamic or something like that. All new updates are based on the core.
3 ) Ubuntu starts from this core.
4 ) All inovations can be brought back to Debian.
This has been said maqny times, but I felt the need to repeat it once more.
Maybe Branden Robinson will read this and he will gather some other influential DDs to support this idea.
Periodic releases were a hot promise in every candiate’s platform.
All Debian developers are aware of the problem, but communication barriers always arise.
April 13th, 2005 at 6:51am
Perhaps you’re thinking about this the wrong way? If a developer wants a package to work on Debian & Ubuntu, then they shouldn’t be building on Ubuntu in the first place. They should be building on Debian. Debian IS the base Ubuntu builds upon, and if you want to support both, you should be building on Debian.
So perhaps the question should be: Do packages built for Sarge work on Ubuntu Hoary (their latest stable release)? In most cases, the answer to this is yes. In some cases, there are library issues. And guess what? Most of the time it’s because there is in fact a newer version of a library in Sarge than exists in the stable version of Ubuntu, and in particular an ABI has been broken along the way.
Is this an issue? Yes. And until Sarge actually totally freezes (I think it’s actually happened now) and gets out the door, it’s going to keep happening. But it’s Ubuntu’s problem, NOT Debian’s. And the way they can fix that, is by creating a update repository that actually ports these newer version of such packages to Ubuntu. In most cases, it’s simply taking the Debian package and rebuilding it under Ubuntu.
I’ve not seen many commercial packages that actually ship .deb’s. I know that Win4Lin does, and I see upstream packages that have .deb’s on their web pages, but they’re all built on Debian. Once again, if anything, Ubuntu is the one with the problem here.
The real issue IMO is that Debian is taking way too long to get a stable release out the door. I’m not accusing anyone here, as everyone knows it’s a fact, and arguing over the specifics will only waste time that could be spent on doing stuff to get Sarge out the door. Sure we need to analyse what went wrong, but lets get Sarge out the door first. And Ubuntu is trying, where it can, to help in that regard, by paying the wages of developers, to work on the same projects that many are Debian Developers for.
Enough for now.. Sheesh, I need my own blog to rant about this sort of stuff. *grin*
April 13th, 2005 at 10:03am
Debian has brought this on itself. Two major reasons Ubuntu is so popular are that the installer sucks less and releases happen more often than ice ages.
April 13th, 2005 at 10:09am
Folks, use what you want to use, and forget about this Debian vs. Ubuntu crap. The whole point was about freedom right? The Purist can mull over every bit in Debian they want, and the Pragmatic can use Ubuntu. There’s a choice! Awesome. Everybody is going to have their reason to use this or that. Forget about having to merge this or that, forget about Microsoft. Use what you want to use, and perfect it the way you see fit. That’s the whole point! Forget about the whining, the complaints, the opinions - do your own thing and to h@ll with the rest.
April 14th, 2005 at 12:13am
I tried hoary but switched back to sarge, didn’t see any particular advantages other than the read ahead which make sysinit much faster. However, that is lots of things not as well tested as debian(mostly server packages).
I would say ubuntu is a very good desktop system but I don’t need that. I run XP which is still far superior in terms of hardware support. Under XP, I have colinux with sarge as my “server”. I also have some headless servers which can’t be benefited from ubuntu.
BTW, it seems that security updates of debian sid is almost in sync with woody(which then would flow to sarge) so I wonder why people keep on saying as if sid/sarge don’t have it.
Also many packages(in debian) in ubuntu is under “universe” which is not supported(or have security update).
ubuntu has many “uh” factors to compete with say Windows but it is not as versatile as debian. I can see this in their forum too, 95% is geared towards desktop users(like KNOPPIX) and most of the server oriented questions have no responses, sharp contrast with debian.
April 14th, 2005 at 6:36am
I used Debian Sid for about half a year, after I switched to Ubuntu. Debian Sid broke a bit too much for my liking (even as a desktop system). I’m using Ubuntu since the Warty release, upgraded to Hoary, and I can’t see a reason to switch back to Debian.
Please note that I appreciate the efforts of the Debian team, and their fantastic tools (dpkg, apt, …). I remember that there was news that Sarge would be released in September, to which I was pretty excited. But we’re 7 months further now, and Sarge is still not released. This gives the impression that things won’t get started. People contribute a lot to the unstable and testing distributions, but making a release won’t happen.
I can see the problem with Debian and Ubuntu diverging. I for one, would love to keep using Debian’s packages on Ubuntu. But the Debian project should also get it stuff together. Time is running out. Make a release, consider a new release strategy for the future.
Ubuntu is a good distribution, but it also gets a lot of momentum because it is the answer Debian desktop users have been waiting for. People have been frustrated at Debian’s slow releases for a long time. Ubuntu gives them an up-to-date, nice-looking, “just working” desktop system, with Debian’s power under the hood.
We maintain a student’s GNU/Linux server, and were planning to switch to Debian for a while now. We used Slackware, and wanted a system that was more maintainable. We used to say, we’ll wait for the Sarge release. That would make things easier. And we would have a more up-to-date system, since our users we’re asking for software such as Subversion.
But since Sarge was still not released, we eventually decided to use a Ubuntu server install. It provides up-to-date software, which is still stable enough for our use. I must say we are all very content with this switch.
I read about other people using Ubuntu as a server system. If this becomes more common, where will Debian be in a few years? Now we are all confident that Debian still has it’s use as a server system. But if the project still fails to release for some time, the situation could suddenly change. Desktop users are more demanding, but servers users can get frustrated as well.
All in all, I want to express my gratitude to the Debian hackers. They have done a great job (and still are). But it is time to be more concrete now if we want the project to still have a future.
April 15th, 2005 at 12:12am
I agree with the basic idea of changing names for Debian stable, testing etc. Enterprise & Desktop are my suggestions as these would focus developers more on what they were aiming for.
And I believe both sides (U & D) could make some changes to help all. Is it so hard for the Ubuntu team to have their packages compatible with Debian?
And for their part, is it so difficult for the Debian developers to release more often? Surely a shorter cycle along with a smaller jump in package versions is possible, even with the number of architectures Debian supports.
And on that, perhaps there’s a way for different groups to handle different architectures, meaning a smaller team for each architecture & one that can move more quickly.
Or maybe a separate team for stable/Enterprise & testing/Desktop, with two separate Debian distro’s that work together when it makes sense & agree on basic stuff in order to remain compatible.
I think it would be very sad if .deb distributions went the way of .rpm distro’s & all the incompatibilities they have.
April 15th, 2005 at 9:10pm
just a comment on the Ubuntu installer “sucking less”. It is the new Debian installer.
The development of this installer has been one of the principal delays in Sarge. If more people had been willing to give a little time to help by trying the installer and giving the developers feedback, _etch_ would be out by now.
October 26th, 2006 at 8:09pm
[…] Bereits im Frühjahr 2005 hat Debian’s geistiger Vater Ian Murdock in seinem Blog angemahnt dass Paketsystem von Debian und seinen Töchtern kompatibel zu halten, damit es nicht zu einem Fork kommt und man die gleichen Probleme wie bei RPM basierten Distributionen bekommt. Ian’s Ubuntu vs. Debian Betrachtungen gewinnen heute unter dem zunehmenden Erfolg von Ubuntu mMn. immer mehr Bedeutung. Seine Mahnung “we all win if and only if Ubuntu remains a good son” scheint aber von Mark Shuttleworth ungehört zu bleiben. Heute.de berichtete jüngst über “das beste Linux, das es je gab” und meint damit das für den Dezember angekündigte Debian GNU/Linux 4 mit dem Codenamen “Etch”. Martin “Joey” Schulze gibt im Inverview die Bedenken vieler Debian-Entwickler wieder: “Normalerweise freuen wir uns, wenn sich andere Projekte Debian als Basis aussuchen”, erläutert Schulze. “Ein bisschen anders” sei das bei Ubuntu, der Linux-Distribution, die Mark Shuttleworth gegründet hat, südafrikanischer Millionär und erster Weltraumtourist. Ubuntus Popularität gehe mehr und mehr auf Debians Kosten: “Seine Firma hat Debian-Entwickler eingestellt und zieht einiges an Entwicklungszeit und Anwenderschaft von Debian ab.” […]
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