New Debian leader seeks more innovation within project (ITWire) [LWN.net]

ITWire has an interview with Lucas Nussbaum, the new Debian Project Leader. "I see Debian as a two-sided project. On one side, there's a technical project aiming at building an Operating System, and doing that rather successfully. And one the other side, there's a political project, that puts Free Software very high on its priority list. This duality is quite unique: there are many successful technical projects that tend to not care very much about the political aspects, as well as some political projects that prefer to ignore the reality checks that we do on a regular basis."

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New Debian leader seeks more innovation within project (ITWire)

Posted Jul 13, 2013 20:55 UTC (Sat) by smoe (guest, #45355) [Link]

The dualism I would express as technical and _social_, not necessarily political, albeit the latter has a political side to it just like Lucas said. We all underrate how important it is to have a network of trust, and this is at the heart of the Debian Community. Debian's social contract works across continents, across politic(al system)s, across educational backgrounds, across ... whatever divides us in so many other ways.

How I interpreted this interview's emphasis of developments - of which Debian offers a lot these days - to strive being among the first to bring new developments to Linux distributions is certainly good for keeping spirits up. It helps maintaining a mindset to be open for change. And Debian is open, open to embrace whoever aims at using the distribution to help disseminating a new Free technology. For various technologies, sciences, for education, health care, ... communities keep growing and melt with Open Source ideas, often already with Debian and always with Debian when the communities want to.

New Debian leader seeks more innovation within project (ITWire)

Posted Jul 14, 2013 12:54 UTC (Sun) by maxiaojun (guest, #91482) [Link] (24 responses)

I really wish that Debian can improve its package management.

Quick questions:

1. Can APT and aptitude be used in same machine?
2. Is aptitude ready for Multiarch now?
3. Is Synaptic still maintained?
4. Why dpkg still recommends dselect and aptitude while doesn't mention APT at all?
5. Is dselect still relevant?
6. Why APT makes hold/unhold feature almost invisible?
7. How many people are aware of apt-mark?
8. Why running apt-mark without arguments do not show hold/unhold commands?
9. Is delta update possible? [1]
10. When something go wrong, can APT be less frightening? Fixing APT issue is really like a black magic.

Reference:
1. http://static.ww7.be/ms_fud_of_the_year/569458-microsoft-...

New Debian leader seeks more innovation within project (ITWire)

Posted Jul 14, 2013 13:42 UTC (Sun) by gevaerts (subscriber, #21521) [Link] (2 responses)

1. Yes. I've never known a time when that wasn't possible
4. dpkg *never* had a Recommends: on dselect and aptitude, and it last mentioned dselect in its package description back in 2005

When did you last actually look at these things?

New Debian leader seeks more innovation within project (ITWire)

Posted Jul 14, 2013 14:20 UTC (Sun) by maxiaojun (guest, #91482) [Link] (1 responses)

Today.

1. "Note that it is bad practice to use aptitude and apt-get interchangeably, as they record changes made by a user separately." -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aptitude_(software)

4. http://sources.debian.net/src/dpkg/1.16.10/src/main.c#L167
"dpkg" without arguments, you see this string.

New Debian leader seeks more innovation within project (ITWire)

Posted Jul 15, 2013 10:10 UTC (Mon) by cortana (subscriber, #24596) [Link]

The statement on Wikipedia is obsolete. aptitude has stored its information about whether a package is installed manually or automatically in apt's database since the feature was introduced in apt many years ago.

New Debian leader seeks more innovation within project (ITWire)

Posted Jul 14, 2013 14:54 UTC (Sun) by peschmae (guest, #32292) [Link] (10 responses)

2. Yes, at least the command line interface works just fine

5. The last time dselect was slightly relevant was over a decade ago, so no.

7. I am, though I would like it to be more visible

9. As part of the debian.net staging infrastructure this has been available for several years and can be found on http://debdelta.debian.net/

10. What do you mean? I usually find it delightfully forthcoming in its feedback.

New Debian leader seeks more innovation within project (ITWire)

Posted Jul 14, 2013 18:15 UTC (Sun) by maxiaojun (guest, #91482) [Link] (6 responses)

2. I thought the same until aptitude asked me to remove half of my packages.

5. I also believe so. But I don't understand why "dpkg" still mentions it. "apt-get" still mentions "dselect-upgrade". A grep of source should reveal more mentions.

7. I noted apt-mark when I once skimmed through the source code of APT.

9. This is interesting.

10. Very common case, installing a deb using dpkg and some dependency is not satisfied. Then "apt-get install -f". The problem is, what to do if "apt-get install -f" doesn't work?

New Debian leader seeks more innovation within project (ITWire)

Posted Jul 14, 2013 21:34 UTC (Sun) by pboddie (guest, #50784) [Link] (4 responses)

As far as (10) is concerned, I've twice experienced problems with the CLI bindings for the Gtk/Glib libraries in Wheezy which put apt in an unfixable state. The "solution" was to hack the post-removal scripts to not try and delete various "profile" files that either weren't installed to begin with (doubtful) or were removed by those or other packages when trying to complete their own uninstallation.

So, my suggestion is that when things really are messed up, you have to try and persuade the packaging machinery to complete its work and tell apt that it all went well, even if there's a risk that because of a packaging bug something didn't get removed/uninstalled after all.

New Debian leader seeks more innovation within project (ITWire)

Posted Jul 14, 2013 22:28 UTC (Sun) by sorpigal (subscriber, #36106) [Link] (2 responses)

This is why users should avoid sid. I've never had this sort of problem running stable, but with sid and experimental packages mixed in you sometimes have to unscrew it (and file bug reports).

New Debian leader seeks more innovation within project (ITWire)

Posted Jul 15, 2013 17:13 UTC (Mon) by pboddie (guest, #50784) [Link] (1 responses)

This was a straight Wheezy installation after Wheezy became stable, although the installer was unhappy about completing the package installation step and probably triggered this problem. Still, it shouldn't have left the packages in this inconsistent state.

New Debian leader seeks more innovation within project (ITWire)

Posted Jul 16, 2013 12:01 UTC (Tue) by pboddie (guest, #50784) [Link]

Actually, I think I was mistaken, so I take back the remark about Wheezy being stable at that time: I was using an ISO image from just before the proper release (in the order of a few days, though).

New Debian leader seeks more innovation within project (ITWire)

Posted Jul 16, 2013 9:36 UTC (Tue) by peschmae (guest, #32292) [Link]

I've never seen that on a stable release, only in unstable or testing. But I agree that a "apt-get -f --I_have_super_cow_powers_too" that disregards postinst/postremove script errors would come in handy at times.

New Debian leader seeks more innovation within project (ITWire)

Posted Jul 15, 2013 8:39 UTC (Mon) by peschmae (guest, #32292) [Link]

2. It does that sometimes, doesn't mean you have to let it do that though. I guess those problems are more common with multiarch as the package system seems to require the libraries on the different architectures to have exactly the same version number.

7. It's kind of obscure. I guess I still have to set up aliases to do apt-get install; apt-get mark auto and somesuch things in order to actually start using it regularly.

10. I guess if you are using dpkg manually, you are waay out of line in the first place. Of course that is what all the beginners do to begin with. My experience suggests that a new Debian user needs to wreck an installation or two that way until he/she has acquired enough experience to not do this in the future. There sure is room for improvement in the sense of offering further guidance on what to do if apt-get -f install doesn't work, though that may be difficult to get right as it does depend on a lot of more or less known variables.

New Debian leader seeks more innovation within project (ITWire)

Posted Jul 14, 2013 18:20 UTC (Sun) by maxiaojun (guest, #91482) [Link] (2 responses)

BTW, I never understand one design aspect of "dpkg".

When "dpkg" fail to install a package because of unmet dependencies, why should its internal being changed so that a fix is a must? Why shouldn't the system stay unaltered?

New Debian leader seeks more innovation within project (ITWire)

Posted Jul 16, 2013 11:52 UTC (Tue) by mstone_ (subscriber, #66309) [Link] (1 responses)

some dependencies must be met before the package installation can begin, others can be deferred until a later stage. This makes it easier to avoid dependency loops (where packages indirectly depend on each other to be installed before they can be installed) but does raise the possibility that a package that can't be properly installed can leave another in an inconsistent state. Note that this is usually not catastrophic; the big problems arise when someone freaks out and starts hacking things up manually in an effort to force a solution.

New Debian leader seeks more innovation within project (ITWire)

Posted Jul 17, 2013 10:32 UTC (Wed) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link]

>some dependencies must be met before the package installation can begin, others can be deferred until a later stage. This makes it easier to avoid dependency loops

To expand on this: dpkg's principal purpose is more of an internal utility used by packaging tools which handle the dependency resolution. Using dpkg to install packages manually should not be recommended for anyone who doesn't already know how to deal with that, as they're working at a lower than intended level of abstraction.

If you have a .deb which you want to install and have the dependencies checked and resolved for you (assuming they're satisfiable), you would be better off with gdebi. Despite the name, it is not just a Gnome application but also has command-line and KDE interfaces available.

New Debian leader seeks more innovation within project (ITWire)

Posted Jul 14, 2013 15:11 UTC (Sun) by thumperward (guest, #34368) [Link] (2 responses)

Is it the case that anyone has not yet identified "maxiaojun" as a deliberate troll account, the purpose of which is to derail threads as quickly and deeply as possible into eternal flame wars?

New Debian leader seeks more innovation within project (ITWire)

Posted Jul 14, 2013 16:14 UTC (Sun) by pboddie (guest, #50784) [Link]

I don't think we need to go to "full troll alert" here, given that the individual concerned did post a link to their work on GitHub and presumably has a body of work behind them:

https://github.com/maxiaojun

Some of their interjections certainly can be regarded as tangential, but if there are some good questions raised that are not already obvious to everyone, I think it's good to hear what the answers are so that we all learn something from them.

New Debian leader seeks more innovation within project (ITWire)

Posted Jul 14, 2013 18:27 UTC (Sun) by maxiaojun (guest, #91482) [Link]

Dear guest, where are you from? Your homepage seems down and shows a router login page.

New Debian leader seeks more innovation within project (ITWire)

Posted Jul 15, 2013 16:25 UTC (Mon) by guillemj (subscriber, #49706) [Link] (2 responses)

> I really wish that Debian can improve its package management.

There's always many things to improve and fix, but I think we've been making continuous progress, although several of the questions below would have been better formulated as either bug reports or queries to the respective development teams. Several questions have already been covered, I'll try to address them anyway in case they have only been partially addressed.

> Quick questions:
> 1. Can APT and aptitude be used in same machine?

Yes, although there's metadata tracked by aptitude not visible to apt (or dpkg), which might make the latter perform unexpected actions, for example "Forbid version". Work is ongoing or will be to unify those states lower in the stack.

> 2. Is aptitude ready for Multiarch now?

Yes, although aptitude's resolver is in general too eager to propose solutions that remove packages instead of holding them, this affects not only multiarch-enabled systems though. I think there's work going on trying to address this.

> 3. Is Synaptic still maintained?

Yes, <http://ftp-master.metadata.debian.org/changelogs/main/s/s...>.

> 4. Why dpkg still recommends dselect and aptitude while doesn't mention APT at all?

No one filed a bug report for this before, and we didn't stop to think about it. I've fixed it now locally in my git tree anyway, will be included in dpkg 1.17.0.

> 5. Is dselect still relevant?

It's still maintained, and it still has its very loyal user base. It should probably not be used by new users, before it has received a UI facelift (but optional to not enrage current users).

> 6. Why APT makes hold/unhold feature almost invisible?

I don't think I understand the question, is this a documentation or implementation complaint?

> 7. How many people are aware of apt-mark?

If people are not aware of it, then it might be worth documenting it more prominently, for example in apt's package description, and referenced from apt's man pages, please file a bug report.

> 8. Why running apt-mark without arguments do not show hold/unhold commands?

File bug report?

> 9. Is delta update possible? [1]

Yes, as pointed out before, although it's on dpkg TODO to try to integrate it more tightly lower in the stack.

> 10. When something go wrong, can APT be less frightening? Fixing APT issue is really like a black magic.

In general, users should not need to fix stuff, of course there's packaging or upstream bugs, but those should usually be dealt with by reinstalling or upgrading to a fixed version, and usually never by needing to mess around with any of the package managers databases. So users would ideally file bugs to get packages fixed. Sometimes that might take too long or whatever, and that's one of the reasons dpkg is designed to allow the admin to fix up its internal state manually with common UNIX tools, but that has the danger that the user can easily mess up the system, more so from ill advised recipes coming from forums and similar...

New Debian leader seeks more innovation within project (ITWire)

Posted Jul 23, 2013 12:28 UTC (Tue) by ersi (guest, #64521) [Link] (1 responses)

Thank you Guillem, for your thoughtful response and for your past as well as present work.

I'll take a look at filing an issue with regards to apt-marks usage text.

New Debian leader seeks more innovation within project (ITWire)

Posted Aug 17, 2013 21:51 UTC (Sat) by ersi (guest, #64521) [Link]

I forgot to update on this, but this issue have already been reported on the bugtracker and is available at issue #709597

New Debian leader seeks more innovation within project (ITWire)

Posted Jul 16, 2013 0:47 UTC (Tue) by The_Barbarian (guest, #48152) [Link] (3 responses)

1. Can APT and aptitude be used in same machine?
yes

2. Is aptitude ready for Multiarch now?
yes

3. Is Synaptic still maintained?
dunno

4. Why dpkg still recommends dselect and aptitude while doesn't mention APT at all?
reasons

5. Is dselect still relevant?
no

6. Why APT makes hold/unhold feature almost invisible?
it doesn't IMO

7. How many people are aware of apt-mark?
12,736

8. Why running apt-mark without arguments do not show hold/unhold commands?
dunno, never heard of apt-mark till just now

9. Is delta update possible? [1]
dunno. why are talking about some kind of MS FUD?

10. When something go wrong, can APT be less frightening? Fixing APT issue is really like a black magic.
It isn't frightening, IMO

*warning: some answers may not be accurate, or useful. do not read answers while driving or operating heavy machinery. use only as directed.

New Debian leader seeks more innovation within project (ITWire)

Posted Jul 17, 2013 18:23 UTC (Wed) by riksu (guest, #91915) [Link] (2 responses)

I hope at this functionality will merged to apt or aptitude.

From source machine
dpkg --get-selections > list.txt

To target machine
dpkg --set-selections < list.txt
apt-get dselect-upgrade

This is quite handy when you upgrade hardware and need same software than older machine.

New Debian leader seeks more innovation within project (ITWire)

Posted Jul 17, 2013 18:32 UTC (Wed) by The_Barbarian (guest, #48152) [Link] (1 responses)

It seems like it is fine in dpkg, right were it is. I don't see that anything would be gained by moving it up the stack.

New Debian leader seeks more innovation within project (ITWire)

Posted Jul 18, 2013 9:48 UTC (Thu) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link]

In dpkg there's no way to record which packages were installed automatically, so you can't accurately represent the current state of that packaging system without additional shenanigans.

New Debian leader seeks more innovation within project (ITWire)

Posted Jul 14, 2013 21:39 UTC (Sun) by heijo (guest, #88363) [Link] (2 responses)

The problem of Debian is that they are doing a lot of the hard work, while Ubuntu takes all the praise.

They should probably fix that by adopting everything from Ubuntu except the money-grubbing antifeatures like unity-shopping-lens and Ubuntu One, and the NIH syndrome effects like lack of systemd and then marketing themselves as a better, user-respecting and trustable version of Ubuntu.

New Debian leader seeks more innovation within project (ITWire)

Posted Jul 14, 2013 22:32 UTC (Sun) by sorpigal (subscriber, #36106) [Link]

Is there any reason that the main project has to change to accommodate this kind of effort? What you suggest sounds like a project for a Debian-based distribution run by people who want to promote credit to Debian.

New Debian leader seeks more innovation within project (ITWire)

Posted Jul 15, 2013 8:20 UTC (Mon) by ovitters (guest, #27950) [Link]

Why is that a problem of Debian? The way they release things makes this possible. If they want to get attribution, they should just market themselves a bit more, e.g. adding phrases like:
"We make Ubuntu possible"
or something.

With free software the freedom to take things and adapt it should be valued. It is one of the key things Debian looks for. Obviously people should give proper credit and work together. But Ubuntu being succesful is IMO a good thing if you release things the way Debian does.

New Debian leader seeks more innovation within project (ITWire)

Posted Jul 16, 2013 12:16 UTC (Tue) by glaesera (guest, #91429) [Link]

Officially the rolling testing-branch of Debian is not intended for productive use. It used to be quite workable though. There was a proposal to drastically reduce the freeze-time before the next release. I think this would make sense, because the freeze is really critical: very few updates come in and the whole thing is not considered to be stable yet either. This probably makes people leave, heading towards competing distributions if it lasts too long.
But there should not be too much pressure put on maintainers to fix problems very quickly or virtually in no time at all in testing, because really nobody wants to be under that kind of pressure, I suppose. Maybe positive ideas come up, how people can be motivated to put more priority on a close-to-stable testing-branch, instead of blocking other uploads and the like.

New Debian leader seeks more innovation within project (ITWire)

Posted Jul 19, 2013 15:38 UTC (Fri) by asherringham (guest, #33251) [Link]

A while back, Lars Wirzenius and Russ Allbery put some thoughts in writing about the Debian release process and ways to improve it. One improvement touching upon something Lucas mentioned in the article, the long long freeze that can happen in Testing before a release goes out. Lars and Russ had some very interesting ideas worth discussing.

Debian development and release: always releasable (essay)
http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2013/05/msg00523.html

I'd love to see action on some of these fronts. Geting th fruits of so much effort out to people in a more timely manner might help with innovation, as well as keeping the distribution fresher.

Cheers, Alastair