Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 released [LWN.net]

Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 released

Posted Jun 7, 2005 15:22 UTC (Tue) by kena (subscriber, #2735)
In reply to: Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 released by MLKahnt
Parent article: Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 released

I'd love to say Etch will beat Longhorn... but I don't think so. Longhorn's ship date continues to slip, but let's face it: Debian has the longest time between releases of most *any* active project -- open or closed -- that I know.

That being said, Yay! Truth be told, I'm happier that Sid will now become "testing" than that Sarge will be "stable:" I've been using Sarge -- yes, even on my servers -- since '03.

Now the real questions:
1) Will 64-bit x-86 be well supported? (It wasn't that hot two months ago.)
2) Will there be pruning of the platforms?

It'll be very, very interesting to see where Debian is five years from now...

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Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 released

Posted Jun 7, 2005 16:41 UTC (Tue) by jonth (subscriber, #4008) [Link]

Sid will not become testing. The new names are:

stable=sarge (was woody)
testing=etch (was sarge)
unstable=sid (was sid)

To be honest, I've never understood why this is like this. I always thought the point of named releases was that they moved from unstable->stable, but they remained the same. Whatever.

Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 released

Posted Jun 7, 2005 17:23 UTC (Tue) by jstAusr (guest, #27224) [Link]

Because Sid can break your toys! You wouldn't want Sid in a testing or stable release would you?

Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 released

Posted Jun 7, 2005 18:03 UTC (Tue) by jeroen (subscriber, #12372) [Link]

As far as I understand it, when Etch is created it will be the same as sarge, not the same as sid. Then the normal testing ftp scripts start running, just like before the freeze, and all not buggy packages from sid will enter etch. So sarge moves to stable, and a new testing (etch) is created. Sid keeps being unstable. The names reflect that.

Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 released

Posted Jun 8, 2005 6:39 UTC (Wed) by gjheydon (guest, #4209) [Link]

basically because Sid is a little unstable.

About the next Debian release.

Posted Jun 7, 2005 23:12 UTC (Tue) by ender (subscriber, #13629) [Link]

It is easy now to say that we will try to not make happen this again. Sarge release took too much time and energy for almost all of us. It has even 'forced' several developers to resign from Debian (their own position, because nobody forces someone to enter or resign from Debian). We will try to release again in 12-18 months, a reliable timeframe. This release has put apart a lot of modern software (KDE 3.4, xorg 6.8.2 the first ones in my memory) for stabilizing the release.

What you refer to by '64-bit x86' I guess that is the AMD architecture called amd64. IA64 (from Intel) was supported back in woody. The architecture will release in a few days, because it was not included in mainstream Debian. Just after the release of sarge, the ftpmasters will merge the amd64 tree into the main archive, and the amd64 architecture will be definitely another one.

About the pruning of platforms, I suppose that you refer to the 'Vancouver proposal' by the Debian Release Team. I suppose that yes, the number of architectures able to cause release problems will be at least cut in half. Only i386, ia64, amd64, arm, and any other 'modern' architecture. The remaining ones will be 'second class citizens' (SCC) and will have parallel releases, but not hard-related to the normal one. Search in Google by 'vancouver proposal' for the complete mail.

I hope that it helps. Best regards.