unsubscribe On Fri, 2006-06-23 at 08:48 -0700, Adrian Nania wrote: > Al, > > Your review is great and I could not agree more. Just a small detail: > Ubuntu default gEDA packages are to old to be of any use. > > Adrian Nania > > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of al davis > Sent: Friday, June 23, 2006 6:45 AM > To: gEDA user mailing list > Subject: Re: gEDA-user: Help request > > On Friday 16 June 2006 16:21, Svenn Are Bjerkem wrote: > > What is it with Ubuntu or Kubuntu that makes you _not_ use Debian > > directly? > > I use Debian directly, but I think I can explain it... > > First, take a look at what Debian offers... There are 3 > variants: "stable", "testing" and "unstable". > > "Stable" is in the opinion of many, too stable for comfort. It has two > important distinguishing characteristics. The first is that it is > reputed to be extremely reliable, making it well suited for servers that > absolutely must work, with a minimum of down time. The second is that > it is a long time between releases, and even when a version is released > it is a year or so behind. With a 2 year release cycle, this means it > is about > 3 years behind when the next major release comes out. I have heard it > called "Debian Fossil". This is ok for a server, usually, but "desktop" > users usually want something more recent. It gets a lot of criticism > for this. Between major updates, the only changes important bug fixes. > Security related bugs are addressed very fast. When there is such a fix > in a new "upstream" release of a package, they won't use the new > release. Instead, they patch the old release to fix the bug. > > On the other extreme is "unstable" which tries to be always current. It > usually includes the most recent "stable" release of most packages. It > usually doesn't go so far as the development snapshots. To do this, it > means daily updates. > Sometimes a single package can be updated several times in a week. > Occasionally it breaks. > > "Testing" is somewhere in between, but much closer to "unstable". > Basically, if a package survives 10 days without serious bug reports in > "unstable", it automatically moves to "testing". There are daily > updates, but they are not as big as in "unstable". When a package is so > volatile to be itself updated daily, these versions do not propagate to > "testing". Occasionally it breaks. > > This set of 3 does not provide what a typical casual desktop user wants, > which is fairly stable, but not so much as to be years behind. > > Debian is a distribution for techies. There are certain aspects of it > that make it appeal to the more technically oriented. > Beginners are often intimidated by this. > > Looking at these two issues, this is where Ubuntu comes in. It provides > a sort-of stable release, with major updates about twice a year, then > holding except for important updates between them. As I understand, > they take a snapshot of Debian (testing or unstable, I am not sure > which), freeze it, and harden a subset of packages that are important to > mainstream desktop users. It is a similar process to Debian stable, but > only on a subset of the packages and a subset of the platforms. This > becomes the "main" part of the distribution. The rest of Debian becomes > the "universe" part of the distribution, without any additional testing. > You need to enable the universe. It is off by default. It is a check > box in the graphic installer. > > The latest version (Dapper) of Ubuntu has a graphic installer and a live > CD. You can run off the CD like Knoppix with a subset of the packages. > Then click the install icon to install on your hard disk if you want. > It is a nice graphic installer, with a few issues that are expected on a > first release. The previous release (Breezy) used the Debian installer. > > There are several variants of Ubuntu, but they are all on an equal > level, with different focuses. There is "kubuntu" which substitutes KDE > for Gnome. There is a server version. There are a few others. > > As I understand, Ubuntu gives the changes back to Debian, which it > respects as sort of a master distribution. Lots of the Debian packages > do have Ubuntu entries in the change logs. > > So, it is a fairly up-to-date, newbie friendly variant of Debian. I > think of it as the Debian variant between stable and testing. > > When you want to move on to Debian (testing or unstable), just change > some info in /etc/apt/sources.list, then "sudo apt-get update" and "sudo > apt-get dist-upgrade". > > Regarding Stuart's comment about a disproportionate share of install > problems on Ubuntu (but not Debian). The difference is that Ubuntu, > being more newbie friendly and being marketed as such, attracts more > newbies who are likely to have trouble by overlooking things that people > who have been around consider obvious. I think it is good that it is > bringing these people into the fold, who would still be on MS-Windows > otherwise. > Most of them who try to use the CD don't realize that Ubuntu packages > for gEDA already exist. You just need to "sudo apt-get install geda". > > I am not trying to convince anyone to use any particular distribution. > I am just conveying what I believe their intent is. > _______________________________________________ > geda-user mailing list > geda-user@moria.seul.org > http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user > _______________________________________________ > geda-user mailing list > geda-user@moria.seul.org > http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user >
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