Debian turns ten

[Posted August 16, 2003 by corbet]

From:		Martin Michlmayr - Debian Project Leader <leader@debian.org>
To:		debian-devel-announce@lists.debian.org
Subject:		Happy Birthday
Date:		Sat, 16 Aug 2003 23:54:04 +1000
Cc:		Ian Murdock <imurdock@progeny.com>

I'm sure some will find this announcement of the "Debian Linux
Release" interesting...

  Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.development
  From: imurdock@shell.portal.com (Ian A Murdock)
  Subject: New release under development; suggestions requested
  Message-ID: <CBusDD.MIK@unix.portal.com>
  Sender: news@unix.portal.com
  Nntp-Posting-Host: jobe.unix.portal.com
  Organization: Portal Communications Company -- 408/973-9111 (voice) 408/973-8091 (data)
  Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1993 13:05:37 GMT
  Lines: 86

  Fellow Linuxers,

  This is just to announce the imminent completion of a brand-new Linux release,
  which I'm calling the Debian Linux Release.  This is a release that I have put
  together basically from scratch; in other words, I didn't simply make some
  changes to SLS and call it a new release.  I was inspired to put together this
  release after running SLS and generally being dissatisfied with much of it,
  and after much altering of SLS I decided that it would be easier to start
  from scratch.  The base system is now virtually complete (though I'm still
  looking around to make sure that I grabbed the most recent sources for
  everything), and I'd like to get some feedback before I add the "fancy" stuff.

  Please note that this release is not yet completed and may not be for several
  more weeks; however, I thought I'd post now to perhaps draw a few people out
  of the woodwork.  Specifically, I'm looking for:

          1) someone who will eventually be willing to allow me to upload the
                  release to their anonymous ftp-site.  Please contact me.
                  Be warned that it will be rather large :)

          2) comments, suggestions, advice, etc. from the Linux community.  This
                  is your chance to suggest specific packages, series, or
                  anything you'd like to see part of the final release.

  Don't assume that because a package is in SLS that it will necessarily be
  included in the Debian release!  Things like ls and cat are a given, but if
  there's anything that's in SLS that you couldn't live without please let me
  know!

  I'd also like suggestions for specific features for the release.  For example,
  a friend of mine here suggested that undesired packages should be selected
  BEFORE the installation procedure begins so the installer doesn't have to
  babysit the installation.  Suggestions along that line are also welcomed.

  What will make this release better than SLS?  This:

          1) Debian will be sleeker and slimmer.  No more multiple binaries and
                  manpages.
          2) Debian will contain the most up-to-date of everything.  The system
                  will be easy to keep up-to-date with a 'upgrading' script in
                  the base system which will allow complete integration of
                  upgrade packages.
          3) Debian will contain a installation procedure that doesn't need to
                  be babysat; simply install the basedisk, copy the distribution
                  disks to the harddrive, answer some question about what
                  packages you want or don't want installed, and let the machine
                  install the release while you do more interesting things.
          4) Debian will contain a system setup procedure that will attempt to
                  setup and configure everything from fstab to Xconfig.
          5) Debian will contain a menu system that WORKS... menu-driven
                  package installation and upgrading utility, menu-driven
                  system setup, menu-driven help system, and menu-driven
                  system administration.
          6) Debian will make Linux easier for users who don't have access to the
                  Internet.  Currently, users are stuck with whatever comes with
                  SLS.  Non-Internet users will have the option of receiving
                  periodic upgrade packages to apply to their system.  They will
                  also have the option of selecting from a huge library of
                  additional packages that will not be included in the base
                  system.  This library will contain packages like the S3
                  X-server, nethack and Seyon; basically packages that you and I
                  can ftp but non-netters cannot access.
          7) Debian will be extensively documented (more than just a few
                  READMEs).
          8) As I put together Debian, I am keeping a meticulous record of
                  where I got everything.  This will allow the end-user to
                  not only know where to get the source, but whether or not
                  the most recent version is a part of Debian.  This record
                  will help to keep the Debian release as up-to-date as possible. 
          9) Lots more, but I'll detail later...

  Anyway, I'll provide more specifics in a week or so after I receive enough
  replies.

  Please, all replies by mail.  I'll post a followup.  If you wish to discuss
  this in the newsgroup, please don't turn it into a flamewar. :)

  Until later,

  Ian
  --
  Ian Murdock                             Internet: imurdock@shell.portal.com
  The Linux Warehouse

  Please mail me for more information on the status of the Debian Linux Release.

-- 
Martin Michlmayr
leader@debian.org

(Log in to post comments)

Debian turns ten

Posted Aug 16, 2003 16:36 UTC (Sat) by tjc (guest, #137) [Link]

3) Debian will contain a installation procedure that doesn't need to be babysat; [snip]

Something went wrong along the way. I don't mind the boot floppies text-mode installer (I know some people do), but I find it very inconvenient having configuration questions all mixed in with installation. I've started installs and gone to lunch, then come back an hour later and find the installer waiting for me to answer some really obscure configuration question. Selecting the option that asks the fewest number of questions helps some, but it would be nice if the installer asked all the configuration questions up front before it starts chewing on the hard drive.

Debian turns ten

Posted Aug 16, 2003 21:49 UTC (Sat) by erich (guest, #7127) [Link]

You can a) select the amount of questions you will be asked b) a lot of questions can be answered at the beginning of the installation (that is what the pre-configure scripts are for)
But before you have downloaded the packages these questions are not known; so it's (mostly, there are some package where this doesn't work yet) downloading, configuring, installing.

Debian turns ten

Posted Aug 16, 2003 22:16 UTC (Sat) by neilbrown (subscriber, #359) [Link]

But it doesn't need to be this way.

All the dependancies are in the Pacakges file. Why not put the questions
there as well? I doubt it would double the size, and it would mean

a) all the questions can be asked at the very beginning
b) questions get to be well structured and not ad-hoc.

I guess the "what do you want to do about this config file that you
seem to have changed" question would have to be dealt with differently,
but I suspect that could be delayed until afterwards.
"BTW, you had some config files that both you and the maintainer changed.
We have left yours in-place for now, but you might like to run
dpkg-resolve-config-differences
to sort out any issues"

Debian turns ten

Posted Aug 17, 2003 1:53 UTC (Sun) by tjc (guest, #137) [Link]

a) all the questions can be asked at the very beginning
b) questions get to be well structured and not ad-hoc.

c) answers to questions can be stored in a temp file so that if the installation aborts for some reason the user doesn't have to answer them all over again.

Debian turns ten

Posted Aug 18, 2003 23:15 UTC (Mon) by Peter (guest, #1127) [Link]

I guess the "what do you want to do about this config file that you seem to have changed" question would have to be dealt with differently, but I suspect that could be delayed until afterwards.

Well, as to that, I think an upcoming dpkg feature in the "this took way too long for someone to think of and implement" category will be 3-way merging of config changes. Not hard to do with diff and patch, maybe they'll even use the 'wiggle' tool by, what's-his-name, I forget the author now... (:

... but either way it should eliminate most of the above questions. At least on my installations - usually I changed a config file in some trivial way that would be easy to merge.

Debian turns ten

Posted Aug 17, 2003 0:16 UTC (Sun) by mdekkers (guest, #85) [Link]

2) Debian will contain the most up-to-date of everything

Something went wrong along the way here as well. As much as I like debian, some of the stuff is simply ancient, and the reasons the maintainers give for keepiing it ancient is simply silly for 99.9% of the users. They really lost the plot on this one.

Debian turns ten

Posted Aug 17, 2003 0:56 UTC (Sun) by njhurst (guest, #6022) [Link]

Are you talking about stable, testing or unstable? As a general rule, with 'unstable' I have found that the software is available in debian before I even know it exists. That is, I find out about a new program to do, say, computer algebra, and sure enough! the latest version is already available in debian.

Could you give some examples of programs which aren't available in debian yet please? (That way I can address the shortcoming :)

Debian turns ten

Posted Aug 17, 2003 1:57 UTC (Sun) by tjc (guest, #137) [Link]

As a general rule, with 'unstable' I have found that the software is available in debian before I even know it exists.

I agree. The only current exception that I can think of is XFree86, but I guess there have been some issues running 4.3 with Debian.

Debian turns ten

Posted Aug 17, 2003 3:26 UTC (Sun) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

The xfree maintainers are focusing on the testing distribution at the moment because of some kinda feature/package freeze is coming up. 4.2 is what 'testing' uses so their not concerned with 4.3 at the moment.

xfree86 is always a pain for Debian because it has to work on 12 hardware architectures and the xfree86 folks only aim to get it working on i386. Maintaining the xfree86 package is as much a programming task as it is a packaging task, they work hard :)

Ciaran O'Riordan

Debian turns ten

Posted Aug 17, 2003 17:39 UTC (Sun) by josh_stern (guest, #4868) [Link]

Me too (use uptodate Debian unstable). I suspect what the
poster above means about reasons not relevant to 99.9% of
users is, when one delves into the question of why the
next stable release is taking so long, issues like 'the
boot disks for the m68k distribution aren't ready yet'
or something along those lines. One could argue that
the good of the many would be better optimized by allowing
the release schedule for the different hardware platforms
to become staggered when necessary to accomodate timely
releases containing broadly desired updates to core system
components.

Debian turns ten

Posted Aug 18, 2003 23:29 UTC (Mon) by Peter (guest, #1127) [Link]

One could argue that the good of the many would be better optimized by allowing the release schedule for the different hardware platforms to become staggered when necessary

Consider that Debian is the only major Linux distribution where non-i386 architectures are considered first-class citizens (excluding single-arch distros like YDL) and it seems they intend to keep it that way. By treating portability bugs as release-critical, they force maintainers not to sweep them under the rug, and thereby make it possible to maintain a single archive most of which works out-of-the-box on 12 architectures.

Think of Debian as the equivalent of an ADA-compliant Linux distribution. Sure, maybe 99% of people have little need for ramps as an alternative to stairs, but the Debian policy is "nevertheless, we will provide ramps, and we refuse to just build a building first, let it operate with stairs only for awhile, and add the ramps later when it's convenient".

Debian turns ten

Posted Aug 19, 2003 5:04 UTC (Tue) by josh_stern (guest, #4868) [Link]

Bad analogy...

Using m68K-based (old) computer = choice.
Confined to wheelchair = non-choice

% of Linux community using m68k = miniscule
% of public with ambulatory disability = more than miniscule

One rev back from latest software on linux m68k = small hobby problem
Unable to access essential public facilities = big life problem

One can always ride any purported inequality issue like a
hobby horse. Suppose someone claims that all releases should
be held until every package is fully internationalized in, say,
the 50 most popular languages. Why is your m68k position more
legitimate than that one?

Debian turns ten

Posted Aug 18, 2003 9:14 UTC (Mon) by pontus (subscriber, #3701) [Link]

It's nice to have updated packages, but when an unstable upgrade erases your mozilla bookmarks, or makes your system unbootable, you regret running 'unstable'. The only assistance you will get from e.g. the #debian irc channel is, "tough luck, but you're running unstable". This is from my own experience.

Debian turns ten

Posted Aug 18, 2003 19:16 UTC (Mon) by josh_stern (guest, #4868) [Link]

That's all theoretically true, and makes a good case for why
it would benefit users to have Debian Stable and Testing more
uptodate. In practice, I haven't experienced any major problems
with using the unstable repository over the last 2 years
(note: my apt configuration files direct the program to use the
more stable versions as the first resort). But or course
I wouldn't run unstable on a server or production system.

Debian turns ten

Posted Aug 19, 2003 12:07 UTC (Tue) by hazelsct (guest, #3659) [Link]

Agreed completely. Take GNOME 2 for example, its first release was before the Debian Woody release. So why didn't Debian Woody use GNOME 2? Because it was not stable, and is still not stable!

Gnumeric and Abiword are not ready for GNOME 2, with Galeon and Epiphany not ready there's no stable web browser, gnome-pilot has broken conduits and crashes frequently, the new Glib is messing everybody up... It's all getting there, but XD2 notwithstanding, not ready for prime time the way GNOME 1.4 is now and has been since not long before Woody's release.

And this is just GNOME; I could name a bunch of related packages with similar issues but the post would be too long -- stuff is just out of sync way too often (upgrading A breaks B in a subtle way, then upgrading B makes A and C's colors screwy, etc.). For this reason, I run all of my user workstations at work on Debian stable, and have home machines on unstable and testing -- and file bugs every day on the home machines!

Debian's focus on making infrequent high-quality releases of stuff that works well together is making my users happy and productive people (and me too!), more productive than if the ground shifted unpredictably under their feet every four months as with some other distros. And when Sarge is ready (probably during the testing cycle), I will upgrade the work machines and users too.

Debian turns ten

Posted Aug 17, 2003 4:22 UTC (Sun) by wLan (guest, #14100) [Link]

A celebration party was held in taipei on Aug. 16, 2003.
http://wiki.debian.org.tw/DebianBirthdayParty