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Debian GNU/Linux 5.0: Flexible and (Almost) Free (Datamation)

[Posted February 19, 2009 by cook]

Bruce Byfield takes a look at Debian GNU/Linux 5.0. "You can count on two things for every Debian release: It will be later than expected, and it will be suitable for every possible level of expertise. Debian 5.0 is no exception. Arriving almost five months later than originally scheduled, Debian 5.0 is not the most cutting-edge GNU/Linux distribution, but, like earlier releases, it is unparalleled for flexibility."

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Posted Feb 20, 2009 0:30 UTC (Fri) by alecs1 (guest, #46699) [Link]

On a short look, the article seems to be wrong at least in one aspect. Debian Stable is Stable _after_ a freeze on the packages in Testing. Packages don't start flowing again in Stable after the freeze ends, they should only get security updates.
The good thing, unlike in many half hour reviews of distributions, he seems to have actually spent some time at least with the installer. An easy read for people not very familiar with Linux.

Debian GNU/Linux 5.0: Flexible and (Almost) Free (Datamation)

Posted Feb 20, 2009 11:08 UTC (Fri) by ballombe (subscriber, #9523) [Link]

I suppose I should read this article as a praise to Lenny, but it is laden with inexactitude and prejudice that make it quite painful to read.

To point only one: the claim that "Debian developers voted against removing proprietary firmware for drivers from the free sections of its repositories" does not bear any resemblance to what has actually been voted upon, and then it implies that not having the non-free and contrib sections of the repository activated by default is an unofficial policy of the project, while actually, officialy, non-free is not part of Debian.