internetnews.com, Sarge vs. The Hoary Hedgehog?: “Ian Murdoch [sic], Debian’s founding father, does not believe Ubuntu’s popularity bodes well for Debian-based distros. ‘If anything, Ubuntu’s popularity is a net negative for Debian,’ Murdoch told internetnews.com. ‘It’s diverged so far from Sarge that packages built for Ubuntu often don’t work on Sarge. And given the momentum behind Ubuntu, more and more packages are being built like this. The result is a potential compatibility nightmare.'”
Mark, this doesn’t end well. If you want a glimpse of what will happen, take a look at the RPM world, where software developers and ISVs have to build a different RPM for every RPM-based distro (either that, or the ISVs have to choose the one or two most popular RPM-based distros to the exclusion of all others–or perhaps that’s what you have in mind?).
Here’s a suggestion on how we can avert the crisis before it becomes one: Provide a Debian compatibility runtime and development environment for Ubuntu, and make the development environment the default environment. That way, when developers build packages on Ubuntu, they can be installed as-is on Debian as well. Provide a Ubuntu-specific development environment too, so developers can take advantage of Ubuntu-specific features that aren’t in Debian yet, but only use those features when you absolutely must. Everyone wins.
If you’re really interested in joining forces with UserLinux, this would be a great start. I’m sure Bruce would agree. You’d have my interest as well.
Related link: The Debian Delay: Is Sarge MIA? Or Simply a POW of Process?
I agree that a compatibility runtime is one solution, but you forget one important thing. Debian Legal would go bonkers over that. Debian is regressing and improving simultaneously. Regressing because of the integrist attitude of its honchos who have become nearly fanatical in their blind purism, and improving because of dedicated and extremely competent developers. One major difference between Debian and Ubuntu is that Debian users’ imput is mostly ignored, whereas Ubuntu users are heard and respected.
It seems to me that Ubuntu is just doing more successfully what Progeny originally tried to do with their linux distribution: provide a version of Debian that is more focused and targeted at end users.
Ubuntu is bringing in users who would never previously have used a Debian-based distribution and that gain seems to offset at least some of the concerns about forking.
I don’t see how having a debian compatible development envrionment (and making that the default) would really work. Wouldn’t that mean Ubuntu, a distribution which releases every 6 months, retaining compatibility with sarge for the next 2-4 years or until the next stable release?
internetnews.com, Sarge vs. The Hoary Hedgehog?:
“I understand what the Ubuntu folks are trying to do, and they’re doing lots of good work that will eventually find its way into Debian.” Murdoch said.
I don’t know a single user using Debian Stable on the desktop. And everybody I work with uses GNU/Linux on the desktop. The current situation with Debian is that everybody seems to agree to run either the testing or the unstable branch (as I did for years now). So, the only way to get a decent desktop using Debian is to use the constantly changing Debian Unstable which does not provide a security-fixes. Everybody at Debian should have known, that this couldn’t last very long. The desktop projects such as GNOME and KDE are providing all kinds of stuff which should have been there years ago, such as decent automatic mouting of USB-sticks and digital cameras. If you stick with Debian Stable, you’d have to wait for the release _after_ Sarge. So, if Sarge would release this year, that would probable mean you’d be able to use your USB-stick easily on your Debian desktop somewhere around 2009…
Sounds like someone doesn’t like loosing control. Where someone see failure another sees opportunity. I predict Ubuntu will become the defacto Debian and Debian will follow Ubuntu’s lead.
I don’t know a single user using Debian Stable on the desktop.
I do. I actually have two. One of them is still running potato (ok, so that one’s out of date). I have built a fair number of packages from sarge on woody (not counting the ones that required newer deb tools — those I just build from source and toss in /opt) I like Debian’s stability/consistency and not having to grab 30+ packages the next time libc6 is notched 0.0.0-0.1
I’ve been a Debian user since ’95 when I got fed up with Slackware and RedHat. The learning curve was a bit annoying but dpkg and apt sold me in an instant.
That said, maybe Debian has become irrelevant. Maybe the “market” wants what Debian could offer, but because of the zealotry of a few, it’s shutting itself out of an oppurtunity. It won’t be the first time this has happened in the land of “open source”. You could make a similar arguement for what happened with *BSD. Perhaps Debian isn’t as fit as Ubuntu; hopefully it will survive.
Ubuntu provides all the perks linux end users are looking for, including tried and true (and new) software. Other than the fact that they’ve used Debian as a base, if they become a separate entity in the linux world, good for them. We wouldn’t be going there if there wasn’t something worth going to. Debian let themselves down, so don’t cry about losing the ball game now.
I’m with you Takis.
Additionally, people who would run Debian Stable I find are more often running a RedHat Enterprise server, or BSD. The world needed Ubuntu, not Debian Stable. People are voting, and Debian has been found wanting. Ubuntu comes on a nice CD, the ISO’s are trivial to find, everything Just Works, and the repositories are lovingly maintained.
-T
I miss the days when Debian was stable and up to date out of the box, the competition is so far ahead not will Debian ever catch up.
“I like Debian’s stability/consistency”
Indeed, for a server that’s crucial. And that’s why I’m using it for my server. For my desktop, I like to be able to run a recent desktop environment, not some ancient desktop. Debian Potato and Woody both ship with a default 2.2 Linux kernel. Try getting recent hardware running using those kernels (videocards, ADSL-modems, wlan-cards, …). Furthermore, for development, Woody ships with GCC 2.95.4 (which wasn’t a real release) and 3.0 which was -quite logically, being a .zero release- the worst 3.x release available.
I’m sorry, but although I do like Debian for the server a lot, and as I personally ran Debian Unstable for many years, I don’t think I would recommend it to any non-geek users for their desktops. Stable because it’s just _way_ to old and all projects which are included in Stable have released new stable releases which are just an awful lot better. And Unstable and Testing because they change daily. An apt-get upgrade of 1G a week is fine for me, but not for the average desktop-user.
IMHO Ubuntu certainly has its place: being the best free Debian-based distro for the desktop.
Before everyone get’s bent out of shape, perhaps it’s possible to resolve this by folding Ubuntu into a slightly more granular Debian distribution model.
How about:
Debian Server / stable / testing / unstable
Debian User / stable / testing / unstable
With both the Server and User versions of stable getting security feeds.
The requirement for rock-solid stability is *usually* most stringent for servers. The server environment is also where the environment is naturally the most stable. Short of security fixes, how often do you have to follow the rapid evolution of Apache to remain a player?
Compare that to the desktop environment where it seems that there is daily GUI candy or plugin functionality that we have to compete with Microsoft with — some new piece of hardware like pen drives etc that has to be tweaked to be friendly.
This would also give manufacturers a much simpler target to write drivers for user hardware. If it turns out that you need a driver or some piece of software that runs on both Server and User it could be cross ported easily. In fact, the separation of client / server might simplify that process.
Rather than re-inventing the wheel (yet again), if Ubuntu and User Linux could simply join forces and target Debian / User, everyone would win. (Maybe we’d see a vesion of X.Org before I die of old age ;-)
The rising tide floats all boats etc …
Anyway, that’s my two cents.
eris
Better suggestion:
Debian should provide a Ubutnu compatible development environment, and make it the default development environment.
Am I missing why pbuilder doesn’t already help this situation. Considering I’ve used it to build Debian packages for unstable on another faster machine (my laptop is slow, my wife’s machine is far faster) and they are perfectly compatible whats wrong with just educating developers?
Worst case, lets have a ‘how to make a developer chroot’ session at Debconf or something. It’s really not that hard to do.
Downside to Debian, truly, is that there won’t be as much dogfood use in the future if this continues. However, Ubuntu can’t easily just keep on pumping out distributions without Debian, it would be much more resource intensive.
I would hope that Ubuntu does not resemble Debian, nor would be especially compatible with Sarge.
The last time I installed Sarge, I had a good week or more work just to get it tweaked the way I wanted. Ubuntu took less than a day…
Ubuntu has the apps I want at the versions I want.
But I don’t really see this as a “war”. If someone wants Debian, then great, let them use Debian. But if they want Ubuntu, then let them use Ubuntu. I learned quite early on NOT to mix packages from either. That would be like trying to force a Suse rpm onto Fedora Core system.
“Debian Server / stable / testing / unstable
Debian User / stable / testing / unstable”
For a Debian Server distro, the current system is quite OK. For a Debian Desktop distro, well, … in my point of view, Ubuntu *is* Debian Desktop.
For me, the real attraction was all the new shinies from Freedesktop.org, plus the convenience of someone else mixing Debian sources for me.
Really, if given a choice, would I choose a.) running an all-Unstable distribution, b.) mixing and matching sources (not as automatic as some like to pretend) or c.) have a distribution where the legwork has already been done, and better than I’ve managed on my own?
If you have to think hard about that one, I’ve got a pair of clown shoes handy…
I have also been using Debian for a very very long time now, a little over 8 years. For the past 3 i ran Sid mixed with Experimental. But due to my desire to run GNOME 2.10, I switched to Ubuntu 4 days ago… So far I have not found a singe reason to go back to Sid… Seems to me that it’s time for _Debian Developers_ to wake up and do something about their release strategy, since Debian is clearly slipping further and further down on the list.
As a follow on to my previous comment. I think it behooves both the Debian architects and the various user versions of Linux to have a user-centric target to shoot for.
Why?
Because I see a lot of people independently trying to invent a user-centric version from scratch. Let’s see, just pulling a few from memory. Ubuntu, MEPIS, various derivatives of Knoppix / Morphix, pen drive versions, and I could go on.
But I won’t.
If all of those people were targeting at least a fuzzy standard for User Linux (perhaps informally a minimal Ubuntu morph) then we’d all be better off.
For what it’s worth…
eris
For someone who has used Debian since 1996 or so
and now maintain numerous linux servers for a large research facility , Debian unstable was the way to go. Debian stable never worked on the cutting edge servers so Ubuntu looks like something we all have been looking for. Hope Debian can learn a lesson or two and push their next version out a wee bit faster or be left in the dust like Linux did to BSD and Unixware …..
Be it debian stable, or debian testing I find most people are missing the point. Debian Testing is a rock solid release, debian testing in most circumstances is more stable, and more reliable than most software company’s and distro’s offical releases and it’s only testing! Debian Stable on the other hand is unbreakable and exactly that, the software world should learn from debian’s example on how to release something that is going to be infaluable. Debian, will alway’s hold it’s place, I use it in many places for server’s and nothing ever goes wrong, Ubuntu will have it’s place, but Debian will always be it’s conerstone averting the compatibility problem’s is vital, can this be achieved by other mean’s? suggetions is what we need.
Ian — can you elaborate on exactly what packages are broken? Right now packages work flawlessly for me when I mix and match from Sarge, Warty and Hoary. The Ubuntu guys are doing many (most?) things right, and it takes them considerable effort.
Not naming the packages that break makes me uneasy. Perhaps this is all a tempest over a few small buggy packages?
More than anything I think this proves that there is a real desire for a Debian-based distribution with reasonably regular releases. Having a “compatibility set” which is used by default will only work for so long if Debian continues releasing every 3 years or so; I just don’t see 6 Ubuntu releases backwards compatible with Sarge working for anyone.
I’m probably one of the few people still running Debian Stable (Woody) on my workstation. Well Debian Stable plus Backports. Quite a lot of Backports actually. (I’ve personally backported something in the order of 300 packages, not to mention various ones pulled in from elsewhere.) It might be more accurately described as “the OS formerly known as Debian Stable”. After three years this backporting is (a) a lot of work, and (b) doesn’t solve all the problems anyway. When I build my next desktop (soon, the current one is 3 year old hardware too) it’s most likely to be Ubuntu. 6-12 monthly releases and support for 1-2 years is highly desirable.
I think your compatibility layer might fly if Debian were somehow able to get to releasing approximately once a year, to minimise the number of “backwards compatible” releases Ubuntu (et al) had to make. But it’s been nearly 10 years since Debian managed to release that frequently — and that’s roughly as long as I’ve been a Debian user.
Ewen
Debian Stable on the other hand is unbreakable and exactly that
Hmmm. I wouldn’t say _unbreakable_ :-) I seem to vaguely remember that the 21th of November 2003 the Debian servers of the Debian project itself were hacked.
Mind you, I *am* using Debian Stable myself for my server, because indeed it _is_ really stable. But surely not *unbreakable*.
Furthermore, I do have a problem with one of the concepts of Debian Stable. The usage of older releases indeed prevents the appearing of bugs introduced by the implementation of new features. And yes, the backporting of bugfixes of course increases security considerably. But, what about *large* design-overhauls which increase security? You can’t backport those, can you?
For example, how about the SELinux patches? They aren’t included in Debian Stable yet. Let’s assume that they do increase security considerably, then using a Debian Stable system could be less secure then using the latest Sid?
“After three years this backporting is (a) a lot of work, and (b) doesn’t solve all the problems anyway.”
Indeed. And it’s actually circumventing the idea of having old software releases in Stable, “because they’re more secure” and “because the bugs are known”.
Debian is interesting from an archeological point of view, in that it is a snapshot of how Linux was in the mid 90s. It’s great that Ian and others still polish it like a treasured antique but it should not be used to hinder the progress of modern, relevant projects.
Debian should fold into Ubuntu-legacy.
Debian as a distro is dead. Live with it. Ubuntu is here to stay — they have successfully made a distro that “works” and is “usable.” Debian – a turd in the toilet of defecated^H^H^Hdeprecated distributions.
If Ubuntu packages don’t work on Debian, that’s ok. So long as Debian packages work on Ubuntu. That way we still have one standard…Debian.
As much as people like to slam Debian these days, it’s one of the most important distributions out there. It forms the baseline for so many distros (Progeny, Libranet, Ubuntu, UserLinux, and I’m not sure if they’re still following Debian, but Xandros and Linspire both got their start from Debian). Debian should continue to be that: a baseline for more targetted distros. Debian makes a killer desktop and a fantastic server with only minor modifications, so it’s the ideal trunk from which to grow your branch.
Right now the community is sending a VERY clear message regarding Debian’s priorities. Sometimes founders need to step back and get some perspective. See XFree86.
Why do you use, Movable Type, which is neither open source nor free software?
Please change to a free software alternative.
I have to say, I agree with the post about creating Debian User and Debian Server. As a desktop (or non-enterprise server) admin, I guess one wants the following:
* Reasonably up-to-date (within 6 months of current) releases.
* Already tested and fairly much debugged.
* 2-3 years of security updates.
* The ability to stay about 6 months behind the curve by updating, say once a month, and without breaking things.
I use 2 main systems, a Mandrake cooker desktop and a Debian stable server. Both have problems.
Mandrake is great for cutting edge, and it means my bug reports are at least useful, but it is sometimes buggy, especially during updates. Debian stable is so out of date that I have to build some packages from source (eg postgresql) in order to work with incoming data.
What is, however certain is the importance of Debian.
Ditch Debian..Just switch to Slackware. Its the Pimptamist.
Debian is the best distro out there right now. People bitch about it because it doesn’t do exactly what they want as soon as they want it to, but then, neither does your bleeding edge distribution. I ran RH/Fedora for two years plus, and I got fed up with its constantly introduced incompatibilities. All of the bleeding edge desktop distributions have problems with compatibility. They don’t work with all the stuff they used to, and no one works with them long enough to get it right. Yes, it is true that debian stable is slow, but who else provides support for 3 years plus on a release? Who else provides it at no charge? No one. No one that is free software at least.
Also, I am sick and tired of hearing about how debian doesn’t listen to users. People are always whining about how their latest closed source proprietary stuff doesn’t work. I used to be one of those idiots. After awhile, I realized that whenever linux crashed, it was the fault of a proprietary driver. I provide unofficial tech support for a lot of linux users that I know, and as soon as I hear the words linux crashed, I tell them to dump the closed source drivers, and every time it has been stable after that. Software freedom isn’t just about ideology, its about quality, which is of crucial importance to end users, though they fail to appreciate this, because closed source drivers fail without leaving a return address to send the flames.
I can certainly understand that people want the newest desktop stuff in a format that changes less fast than Debian testing or unstable on a day to day basis. And things like Mepis and Ubuntu that help people do this are wonderful. However, there is no good reason for incompatibility between Debian testing and one of these psudostable distributions. I can certainly understand that testing might eventually become so out of date as to make it impossible to maintain compatibility, but Sarge isn’t even out yet.
I bet the Ubuntu maintainers that actually do work wouldn’t say Debian “sux.” Debian stable on a fairly slow release cycle (even if not quite this slow) is something that Linux needs and something that we all know someone that has a place for it, even if it might be less glamorous, and even if we don’t use it ourselves. So if you like Ubuntu, great, but please don’t blame the ground that your plant grew from.
Thank you Ian. Thank you Debian development folks.
Ray
Open source is about practical and quality software. The reasons for remaining in long stable development cycles and for not accepting code into the distribution that breaks OSS licensing are good and PRACTICAL ones not religious.
Ubuntu should not build software that diverges from the base Debian distribution sof far that the binary packages can’t be shared.
That is not hard to do.
This reminds me of the Xfree86 / X.org split. Look who is dominant now. Debian has been behind on releases and dealing with real user needs. Ubuntu is a big step forward.
my issue with debian is the sub-glacial release cycle, and thats the only issue I have.
I personally began using Debian at the inception of its general availability and happily migrated at that time from the hard-core BSDs. What kept me using “pure” Debian was not only the highest quality possible of its development cycle and applications, but the Social Contract, which made me feel that I belonged to a growing community.
I do not like the heavy-handed way the Social Contract is being changed for, in my opinion, the worst. The Debian Project has been moving ominously to an extremist position. Debian Legal seems to be filling with fanatics. The General Resolution has been referred to as an “Editorial Change.” That’s like calling the abolition of a country’s constitution a “minor textual correction.” If you think that the reason for the delay of Sarge is because it “wasn’t ready” on a technical level, think again. There’s more to it than that. The purists had to “purify” it, out of some sort of paranoiac fear of applications, drivers, and firmware tainted by, resembling, or even hinting at “oh so horrifying” non-GNUish licensing.
Documentation is moving to “non-free.” This is not only ridiculous, but downright stupid. I do not approve, of course, but who am I anyway: a not so humble user and bug-squisher — nothing more. And since users have less and less impact on what the admins at Debian do, it’s time for me to move on. So I simply moved all my machines at home and at work to Ubuntu.
Now, just because something moves to “non-free” does not mean that it will be unavailable to users. But there’s more to it than that. Some of this tendency will cause a necessity for compiling and module addition by users who wish to have a workable Linux installation, with necessary drivers for their hardware, etc. That’s OK for experienced – very experienced- users, but not for someone relatively new to Linux use. We are not there yet, but if the inquisitional purification of Debian continues, Debian will be left in the dust. Or perhaps it will remain as a sort of “control” in an experiment called “linux”…
Now don’t get me wrong. I am sure that Debian will catch itself before it’s too late. It always does, and the fact remains that it is still the “Big Daddy” of all the Debian-based distros, Debian-based live Cd’s, and Ubuntu itself, which is more or less a fork of Debian., albeit closely tied through shared developers, etc…, but in the meantime (and you all know just how mean time can be), I’ll be tripping elsewhere. Progeny Debian is also an alternative to “pure” Debian…
I’ve always had respect for Debian but it’s time to move on. It’s not enough to be technically superior. If that were all it took, I’d be running one of the BSDs. I finally gave up on FreeBSD as a desktop because of Java and Flash.
I never was able to use Debian satisfactorily because I could never get it to boot, even on conservative hardware. (I may not be an old linux hand but it’s been my desktop OS since ’98 when you still had to futz around to get a modem and sound card working.)
Ubuntu works pretty well out of the box and has fairly current versions of the software I want to run on my desktop. It’s my distro of choice now and I’ve tried several, RH 5.x, 6.x, 7.x, 8, 9 and enterprise workstation; Suse 6.x, 7.0, 9.x; a few Mandrakes; Slackware (and Vector) plus Debian a few times. The fact is, the Ubuntu people got it right. I can stick with the basics and have a conservative system or add more repositories and get the extra bells and whistles I’ve come to expect.
I don’t believe Ubuntu should try too hard to maintain compatibility with Sarge. Sarge has been around for a long time. It’s like complaining they are no longer compatible with Red Hat 6.0. It may be true but it’s not relevant.
A F(r)iend
I’ve often thought that there is a simple fix for the bulk of Debian’s problems. Look at how long Sarge has been in testing… who else would test an OS for that long before releasing it? When Debian releases a stable version, it really MEANS something. Heck, in my experience Sarge is at least as stable as releases from other distros.
…which brings me to my solution: rename unstable to Debian Testing, testing to Debian Desktop, and stable to Debian Server. I feel that these names more accurately reflect the intended audience and relative stability of each.
See, the problem is that no-one wants to use a ‘testing’ or ‘unstable’ distro. Change the names, give ‘Debian Desktop’ regular security updates, and I’ll wager most of Debian’s release problems fade away.
Bah.
Let me see if I understand correctly:
“Wah! Ubuntu is making progress and delivering a *useful* Debian-based distro with current and up-to-date packages, which don’t play nice with our ancient environment that we update every 4th leap year.”
“Please! Rather than force us to actually produce a distro containing relatively recent packages (ie: anything written after 1350 AD), we’d prefer that you require your developers to use our stone knives and bearskins.”
That just about sum it up?
Thought so.
I think perhaps some here are losing perspective. Ubuntu is far from being the most dominant of “Debian-based” distributions. There is also Knoppix, Mepis, Kanotix, Xandros, etc., etc. At present, a program written for any one of these distros will work in most of the others. There is already some splintering and incompatibility between these distros and they are very annoying.
Maintaining compatibility with Debian will at least probably mean that it will work for all these other distros.
What about Autopackage? http://autopackage.org
My Linux experience goes back to the slackware early 90’s versions, and Unix back to BSD 4.1 on a Vax 11/750…
After all these years, I’m simply tired of all the tweaks it takes to get a reasonable environment going (I refuse to answer the “what it the frequency of your monitor?” question any more). Ubuntu delivers on its promise to “Just Work”, and many folks seem really happy about that. I’m glad I switched to Ubuntu from Debian.
Perhaps it’s a good wake-up call? I see two things that need to happen in the Linux community: 1) installs and tweaks of all distros would do well to learn from Ubuntu’s example .. 2) there are way TOO MANY distros… there needs to be some consolidation – consider those outside of Linux looking in (and thinking of giving it a try). What do those prospective users see? Chaos. The folks at Microsoft must be chuckling to themselves on a daily basis about that…
As I see it Ubuntu’s relationship with Debian is it’s biggest strength.
I don’t know were all this debian-hate is coming from, but it’s realy pathetic.
What Ubuntu does is take the top-notch work that Debian developers have done and built a polished default desktop configuration on it.
If Ubuntu drifts to far away from Debian then they will loose this benifit and will be forced to do all the developement on the OS themselves and not be able to create such a polished default install.
What it needs is Debian working on the OS itself and Ubuntu taking that base and configuring and updating select packages for end users that don’t have the time, desire, or the skills to do it themselves into a proper desktop.
As far as Debian being out of date. Just use Sid or Sarge.
You know that Sid ships with 2.6.11 kernels right? How out of date is that? Installing Java and Flash is the exact same in Debian as it is in Ubuntu…
How can Debian be so far out of date, but Ubuntu not, when Ubuntu uses 90+% packages from Debian?
Ubuntu needs Debian to do the grunt work, while Debian needs Ubuntu to create a polished default install for a Desktop.
All this Debian vs Ubuntu crap is in your guy’s heads. It never was a conflict, there is no contest or Debian developers being pissed off, or any hatred or rivalry.
This is not a fork, this is not a them vs us, or a XFree vs X.org. It’s not like this.
Debian was specificly created to be a universal, generic operating system. It’s maintains a high degree of division between Free and non-Free specificly so that people like Ubuntu can use it without having to f*k around with licenses or weed out illegal or otherwise restricted software.
It’s like arguing Pontiac vs Chevy cars, when they are both owned by GM and both sell the same cars with different configurations and body panels.
What this guy is saying is that Debian and Ubuntu need to keep a high amount of compatability so that YOU AS A END USER can have the benifits of having software that works across the board.
There is no point in diverging to far because you would end up with each other needlessly duplicating the same work and wasting resources that can otherwise be used to stabilise and improve the operating systems.
Debian has outmaneuved itself by sticking to far too old software. Sarge is several years outdated when it will be released.
I wish debian (and various other projects) could have a “core-release” with apps being more ‘floating’ on top. The core-release would consist of the installer, kernel, main libraries, main system utilities, and compiler environment(s).
It would be far less work to prepare a new distribution, and one could be released every year. The _software_ (end user applications) on top could just have tags with which core-releases they were compatible and what their dependencies were.
I stopped using Debian around 2000 or something, as the stable releases were totally outdated. Couldn’t even use it for servers, as newer versions of everything were required by customers.
Most of the comments here seem to think that Ubuntu is a rival of Debian. There is a rivalry in attracting users, obviously, but Ubuntu can’t supplant Debian. It’s still built on top of Debian unstable, while most of Ubuntu’s development’s going to high level stuff that relates directly to the user (like Synaptic). Debian is, and will be for the foreseeable future, the base upon which Ubuntu depends. It needs to continue for Ubuntu to continue.
The appeal of Ubuntu rises from Debian failing to do what Ubuntu does so well – providing regular and frequent releases and an immediately usable operating system (in other words, considering operating systems, you should install Hoary over Woody right now). But as projects, Ubuntu just does the higher-level part of what Debian does, and so can’t replace it.
In conclusion, Ubuntu rocks. But Debian doesn’t “sux”.
Another user suggested debian should rename its branches to “debian server”, “debian desktop” and “debian unstable”. This would be good, except I find for my usage stable is too out of date even to run a server optimally. I need more recent versions of postgresql (a product that’s been plaguing debian for some time – remeber being stuck for so long with postgresql 6.5 on potatoe?) and I need more recent versions of python. If I have to recompile those things it reduces the point of having a distribution manage those things. I’m going to build a replacement for my main and web server this weekend and am contemplating switching away from debian stable for these reasons. But I’m not sure what to go to – I’ve tested fedora on the desktop and it doesn’t appeal to me for niggly reasons. And Ubuntu hasn’t been around for long enough that I feel confident with it, although I’ve been very very heppy with it as my desktop OS this last month since I installed it at home.
Desktop users have a whole bunch of possibilities to feed them. There is no need to use their demands to drive distributions like debian who are much more than x86 desktop.
And it gets ridiculous to think of ubuntu as a basis of debian — x86 only is a very narrow world…
cb
I run sparc and powerpc and know that Debian has community. I don’t know about Ubuntu. One thing I have learned is that a bunch of sticks is easier to break than a few. Debian is the root anyone who thinks otherwise is just fooling themselves. I support Ian and his views. I would like to think that Ubuntu can play fairly. Doing harm is not what the community is all about. You know when Apple wanted to use dpkg for Darwin the community of Debian users said they were not to happy with it and Apple backed off. I hope Ubuntu can be as humble as Apple was. I hope the developers will work with Debian as the root. And not flee but join in as I know they already do much. I know we all could have a distro but let us work together on the base and follow a guide even if we don’t like the plan understand Debian has maturity in many archs and in more than just linux. I choose Debian’s guidelines.
Debian Stable is not acceptable on servers either as kernel 2.2 lacks the stateful firewall. Many other newer tools and programs don’t work either.