On Fri, Jul 26, 2002 at 06:57:47PM +0100, Martin Garton wrote:
> On 26 Jul 2002, David wrote:
> > Anyone used Debian 3.0 yet? I've never used Debian before, but looking
> > at the package list for Woody, it doesn't seem like it's very up to date
> > at all (KDE 2.2, Gnome 1.4 etc.). Any opinions?
>
> I downloaded it (all 7 .isos!) but haven't tried it yet. In fact I have
> never used debian before either, but I now have a spare PC ready and
> waiting. I would also appreciate any opinions about it.
Debian's stable releases are always basically out of date. However, they
also are generally the most stable releases of all the dists[0] - there
is never the .0 == . "uh oh" or "barely out of beta" accusations with
debian stable releases.
This is mainly because with debian, the freeze cycle is long. Woody was
particularly bad (debian 3.0) because the freeze happened, bug fixing
parties were held for a long time to get the Release Critical bug total
way down (was up at 400+ IIRC, but I think they got it down to under
100). Everything was ready for a May 1st release, and then they
discovered/decided that the current system for distributing security
patches wasn't any good any more/had problems, so it's either been
hacked, or it's been rewriten.
Therefore, pretty much all of the software there hasn't changed since
May, and the freeze was actually well in advance of that. Some things
have got through, but you'll note you're still on XFree 4.1 [1] and
Mozilla 0.99rc (or it might be 0.96 - I can't remember).
Debian never releases on planned dates, it always releases 'when it's
ready'. There is no pressure to meet deadlines, but there is much
pressure 'to get it right'. Obviously this sacrifices the inclusion of
very recent versions.
The Debian system has a heirarchy of distributions. New versions of
packages go into 'unstable' (otherwise known as Sid[2]). Once they've
had no Release Critical bugs filed against them for 6 weeks they will
drop into 'testing' (which used to be 'Woody' and is now 'Sarge'). Once
a while, the contents of testing are frozen, and major bug fixing
parties are held to eliminate 'important' (and some other type too)
bugs. Eventually, those packages will be declared as 'stable' and a
release made.
Therefore the best thing to do if you want recent packages is to track
'testing'[3]. That way you will have a pretty stable system, as no
package gets into testing without surviving being in 'unstable' for 6
weeks with no Release Critical (or 'Important' IIRC) bugs being filed
against it.
The latest version of apt (which was released with 'woody') supports
'pinning'. This is where you can declare that you want certain packages
to come from another distribution, and the system will take care of
dependancies. So you can set up a pin to pull Gnome 2 from 'unstable' (I've
not checked, but I imagine it's there), whilst the rest of your system is
actually tracking 'testing'.
As you can see, the Debian distribution is actually fairly substantial
and as you have seen, stable releases are generally out of date. Most
people that use 'stable' use it on servers where the latest versions are
not required. Obviously on a desktop or workstation they are far more
desirable, hence why such users track 'testing' instead.
Matthew
[0] I've not ever actually tested this, nor seen any real stats
actually, it's just mainly reputation AFAICT.
[1] Not many people realise, but the XFree team only ever test software
on x86. Debian is actually the official testing body for testing all the
ports of XFree to the other architectures. Therefore, because Debian now
supports 12 architectures, the Debian XFree package maintainer gets
XFree working on all 12 architectures, squashes bugs, and then starts
work on the next version. As you can imagine, XFree 4.0 was available
for Debian about 6 months after Red Hat started including it. But then
again, Debian is on version 3. Red Hat is on 7.3 now?
[2] All Debian versions are named after Toy Story characters. However,
because Sid was evil and kept blowing stuff up, Sid is *always* the
unstable distribution. Sid also usefully stands for "Still in
Development".
[3] The Debian Apt system that manages packages 'tracks' a distribution.
Thus any updated packages in that distribution will be made available to
you. You can track either by name (eg 'woody', 'sid', 'sarge') or by
catagory (eg 'testing', 'stable'). The only packages that are made
available to 'stable' trackers are security updates.
--Matthew Sackman Nottingham England
BOFH Excuse Board: manager in the cable duct -------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.lug.org.uk http://www.linuxportal.co.uk http://www.linuxjob.co.uk http://www.linuxshop.co.uk --------------------------------------------------------------------
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