Re: Debian: abandon ship?
On 2002.06.17 21:26 Rox de Gabba wrote: Well, if you look at it from the practical point of view... screaming and complainting has never done any good... at leat with computer systems it hasn't. Suing... well, have you ever heared of anyone get a penny off M$ for the bilions lost on their system being buggy, rashing and losing data? When was the last time you heard of a suit looking at things from a practical point of view? The entire purpose of the exercise is to give the PHB's and their BoD taskmasters a warm and fuzzy feeling. The service contract is merely a means to that end. The fact that that warm and fuzzy feeling has absolutely no grounding in reality is entirely irrelevant. Ian -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
In muc.lists.debian.user, you wrote: Klaus Imgrund writes: a. complain to and scream at People frequently complain and scream at this mailing list. With far more helpful responses that any you'll get from most commercial operations. -- Grant Edwards grante Yow! This ASEXUAL at PIG really BOILS visi.commy BLOOD... He's so... so... URGENT!! -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
In muc.lists.debian.user, you wrote: What that whole Servicecontract stuff basically boils down to is that the customer wants somebody he can: a. complain to and scream at and While I try to keep the screaming to a minimum, I do sometimes complain (and on a particulary bad day even whine) on mailing lists. People generally explain why my problem is of my own making and explain what I can do to solve the problem. b. sue for damages HA! That's a laugh! Try that with a mailing list Try suing Microsoft next time your business is down because of the security-hole-du-jour in OutlookExlporerInformationExchangeServerWhatever. MS beat the federal government into submission. You don't stand a snowball's chance in hell. -- Grant Edwards grante Yow! It's hard being at an ARTIST!! visi.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
On 18 Jun 2002 15:01:22 - [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Grant Edwards) wrote: In muc.lists.debian.user, you wrote: What that whole Servicecontract stuff basically boils down to is that the customer wants somebody he can: a. complain to and scream at and While I try to keep the screaming to a minimum, I do sometimes complain (and on a particulary bad day even whine) on mailing lists. People generally explain why my problem is of my own making and explain what I can do to solve the problem. b. sue for damages HA! That's a laugh! Not all servicecontracts are being handeled by M$ plus if you got an issue you almost always get something out of it. More important is jobsecurity for whoever is responsible. The bigger the problem the higher up in the corporate foodchain it ends up being discussed. Now if you are resposible for a system you know that. You also know that your boss maybe has some understanding of the issues involved but the higher it goes the less knowledge is there. I want you see tell a CEO of a company: Well Sir we have a little IT problem. There are 3000 people sitting in front of a black screen and our customers can't reach us. Oh, and by the way 50 of our planes are going to crash in about 1 hour. But don't worry - I did send a question about it to the mailinglist. Good luck with your new job in a completly different field then. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
In muc.lists.debian.user, you wrote: I want you see tell a CEO of a company: Well Sir we have a little IT problem. There are 3000 people sitting in front of a black screen and our customers can't reach us. Oh, and by the way 50 of our planes are going to crash in about 1 hour. But don't worry - I did send a question about it to the mailinglist. If your CEO insists on spending money on a service contract, then go ahead and get a service contract. If you're running a server than has to have five nines up-time, then you'd better pay to have somebody guaranteed on-site in 60 minutes from when the phone rings. For what I do (SW development) I invariably get better/quicker results from mailing lists and Usenet than I ever did from commercial support. -- Grant Edwards grante Yow! Where do your SOCKS at go when you lose them in visi.comth' WASHER? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
Think we have a slight misunderstanding here. I don't have a CEO and I don't like servicecontracts. I advise my own customers not to make one with me because it isn't worth the money (talk about shooting yourself in the foot). But this is the way people do think and have to think today - something happens somebody will take the fall for it - you better have your bases covered. I think in this mailinglist you get by far the best advice anywhere and debian is best thing since the invention of stainless beer but that wont change the way business is conducted in the real world. have fun If your CEO insists on spending money on a service contract, then go ahead and get a service contract. If you're running a server than has to have five nines up-time, then you'd better pay to have somebody guaranteed on-site in 60 minutes from when the phone rings. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
If you're running a server than has to have five nines up-time, then you'd better pay to have somebody guaranteed on-site in 60 minutes from when the phone rings. Umm... 5 9's = ~5 min/year, so they had better be there a lot faster than 60 minutes. The way to achieve 5 9's is not via an incident-based service contract. It is to turn over your system to someone who knows what they are doing. Close a contract: achive 5 9's or more, and the consultant gets $200,000; achieve less than 5 9's, and the consultant gets $0. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
In muc.lists.debian.user, you wrote: If you're running a server than has to have five nines up-time, then you'd better pay to have somebody guaranteed on-site in 60 minutes from when the phone rings. Umm... 5 9's = ~5 min/year, so they had better be there a lot faster than 60 minutes. If you're going for 5 9s you'll have plenty of redundancy and hot-swapable everything. You may need a CPU/drive/PS replaced, but it doesn't generally have to be done in 5 minutes. However, you're at a higher risk until all the redundancy is restored. -- Grant Edwards grante Yow! MERYL STREEP is my at obstetrician! visi.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
On 18 Jun 2002, Grant Edwards wrote: In muc.lists.debian.user, you wrote: then go ahead and get a service contract. If you're running a server than has to have five nines up-time, then you'd better pay to have somebody guaranteed on-site in 60 minutes from when the phone rings. And we're down to three nines already. For what I do (SW development) I invariably get better/quicker results from mailing lists and Usenet than I ever did from commercial support. I've worked in some small businesses where the software support contracts were priced up to about 5000.00$US per year. In more than 4.00$US of support I would say I've seen less than 400.00$US of value. This is aside from updates and fixes which I won't attempt to assign a specific value to; but on this Debian is clearly outperforming all the proprietary sources I've used. rob Live the dream. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
On Mon, 2002-06-17 at 02:22, Jeronimo Pellegrini wrote: I think there's also some psychological thing that goes on here. People think that with the help desk, they'll get an answer within a certain time, while nobody guatrantees that they'll get an answer on a mailing list. IMO there's more to it that just psychology. There used to be (still is ??) a saying that you wouldn't get fired for buying MS. Redhat are doing a good job of taking up that position in the Linux world where a support contract acts like a 'get-out-of-jail-free' card since it allows you to pass the buck onto RH if/when things do go wrong. Mailing lists cannot compete with that. Andz -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
On Sunday 16 June 2002 04:40 pm, Ivo Wever wrote: [snip] I think everyone agrees that Debians package and security update systems are better. Red Hats installation procedure is userfriendlier, but that doesn't explain why professionals use it. I question the claim that Red Hat provides better support (average helpdesk personel couldn't have helped me like (the archives of) this list have). I can't judge the system configuration system though. Consequently, I can't think of any reason for using Red Hat other than not knowing Debian (or fellow employees not knowing Debian). Or have I been brainwashed by Debian propaganda already? sincerely by your logic--the mass of users=quality of o.s.--we should all be using the crap that linux enables us to reject. what point are you attempting to make? ben -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
ben wrote: Ivo Wever wrote: [snip] I think everyone agrees that Debians package and security update systems are better. Red Hats installation procedure is userfriendlier, but that doesn't explain why professionals use it. I question the claim that Red Hat provides better support (average helpdesk personel couldn't have helped me like (the archives of) this list have). I can't judge the system configuration system though. Consequently, I can't think of any reason for using Red Hat other than not knowing Debian (or fellow employees not knowing Debian). Or have I been brainwashed by Debian propaganda already? by your logic--the mass of users=quality of o.s.--we should all be using the crap that linux enables us to reject. what point are you attempting to make? I'm not attempting to make any point. I'm trying to understand why so many people choose to use another distro. sincerely, -- Ivo Wever [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
On Monday 17 June 2002 12:27 am, Andrew Fowler wrote: On Mon, 2002-06-17 at 02:22, Jeronimo Pellegrini wrote: I think there's also some psychological thing that goes on here. People think that with the help desk, they'll get an answer within a certain time, while nobody guatrantees that they'll get an answer on a mailing list. IMO there's more to it that just psychology. There used to be (still is ??) a saying that you wouldn't get fired for buying MS. Redhat are doing a good job of taking up that position in the Linux world where a support contract acts like a 'get-out-of-jail-free' card since it allows you to pass the buck onto RH if/when things do go wrong. Mailing lists cannot compete with that. you've got to be new around here. there isn't enough salt in the world to make your hat tasty enough to retract the last sentence above. go directly to jail. do not pass go. do not, under any circumstances, attempt to collect anything at all. bye-bye. ben -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
you've got to be new around here. there isn't enough salt in the world to make your hat tasty enough to retract the last sentence above. go directly to jail. do not pass go. do not, under any circumstances, attempt to collect anything at all. bye-bye. Well, there is a valid point in there. I would never bet my job on a mailing list. I do however bet my job on a cpl of redhat systems, why? Becuase my employer DOES have a support _contract_ with redhat, making me stay hired even if the box keels over. Would i be able to sort a deb system out with the help of the list? Heck yes, been doing unix for a living for some eight years. But i still cant get a _contract_ on deb support from the list, which is what my employer requires for a mission critical server. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
On Monday 17 June 2002 02:26 am, Jan Johansson wrote: you've got to be new around here. there isn't enough salt in the world to make your hat tasty enough to retract the last sentence above. go directly to jail. do not pass go. do not, under any circumstances, attempt to collect anything at all. bye-bye. Well, there is a valid point in there. I would never bet my job on a mailing list. I do however bet my job on a cpl of redhat systems, why? Becuase my employer DOES have a support _contract_ with redhat, making me stay hired even if the box keels over. Would i be able to sort a deb system out with the help of the list? Heck yes, been doing unix for a living for some eight years. But i still cant get a _contract_ on deb support from the list, which is what my employer requires for a mission critical server. so contractual, however inresponsive, support from a lame-ass linux distro means more to you than actually securing the system? ben -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship? - support
hi ya you ( the company ) can get support contracts for any linux flavor one just has to understand what is covered and what is not and what the turn around time is for any incidents and how much the company gets dinged.. - both ml and paid support has its benefits... if there's anything that's bad is to pay for support that you never get and the ml answered it faster and correctly for free.. have fun alvin -- as always ( semi-joke ) let the boss chose what he wants to bet his job on... and try to make it work for him/her -- redhat's support fee of $50K/yr is way way too high for what they provide... :-) On Mon, 17 Jun 2002, Jan Johansson wrote: you've got to be new around here. there isn't enough salt in the world to make your hat tasty enough to retract the last sentence above. go directly to jail. do not pass go. do not, under any circumstances, attempt to collect anything at all. bye-bye. Well, there is a valid point in there. I would never bet my job on a mailing list. I do however bet my job on a cpl of redhat systems, why? Becuase my employer DOES have a support _contract_ with redhat, making me stay hired even if the box keels over. Would i be able to sort a deb system out with the help of the list? Heck yes, been doing unix for a living for some eight years. But i still cant get a _contract_ on deb support from the list, which is what my employer requires for a mission critical server. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: Debian: abandon ship?
so contractual, however inresponsive, support from a lame-ass linux distro means more to you than actually securing the system? Nope. Read my last paragraph. A system provider which can not also offer a _legally binding_ support contract is simply not allowed on any production / mission critical servers within our organisation. So it doesnt really matter that i prefer Debian and Slack over RedHat, i still wouldnt be allowed to deploy a deb-system. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
On 2002.06.17 05:26 Jan Johansson wrote: you've got to be new around here. there isn't enough salt in the world to make your hat tasty enough to retract the last sentence above. go directly to jail. do not pass go. do not, under any circumstances, attempt to collect anything at all. bye-bye. Well, there is a valid point in there. I would never bet my job on a mailing list. I do however bet my job on a cpl of redhat systems, why? Becuase my employer DOES have a support _contract_ with redhat, making me stay hired even if the box keels over. Would i be able to sort a deb system out with the help of the list? Heck yes, been doing unix for a living for some eight years. But i still cant get a _contract_ on deb support from the list, which is what my employer requires for a mission critical server. An alternative you may want to look at if you're serious about deploying Debian in a corporate environment is third party support services. Most linux distros, and indeed most free/open source software in general, do not provide their own contractual support. There are, however, several companies out there that do provide SLA contract support as their main business. LinuxCare and Cygnus before they were bought out come to mind. You may want to shop around, see if there are any local companies that might meet your needs as well. Good luck, Ian -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
On Mon, 2002-06-17 at 05:19, Andrew Fowler wrote: On Mon, 2002-06-17 at 11:27, ben wrote: On Monday 17 June 2002 12:27 am, Andrew Fowler wrote: On Mon, 2002-06-17 at 02:22, Jeronimo Pellegrini wrote: [snip] No intention of retracting it. But I will expand: The above was in no-way meant to be a measure or comparison of quality, speed etc. between contractual support and enthusiasts' mailing lists. I'd personally rather go with mailing lists any day BUT the one who's head is for the chop when things go wrong is often not (only) the admin, but the IT boss, and in my experience, they'd all rather have the safety net below them in the form of a support contract from a nice big company that even the board of managers have heard of (e.g. RH) ! You are right. However, it's been my experience that, except for a shining few really good ones, most help desks are mediocre at best. So that safety net usually is an expensive illusion. -- +-+ | Ron Johnson, Jr.Home: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | | Jefferson, LA USA http://ronandheather.dhs.org:81 | | | | Object-oriented programming is an exceptionally bad idea | | which could only have originated in California. | | --Edsger Dijkstra | +-+ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
On Mon, Jun 17, 2002 at 11:44:53AM +0200, Jan Johansson wrote: so contractual, however inresponsive, support from a lame-ass linux distro means more to you than actually securing the system? Nope. Read my last paragraph. A system provider which can not also offer a _legally binding_ support contract is simply not allowed on any production / mission critical servers within our organisation. So it doesnt really matter that i prefer Debian and Slack over RedHat, i still wouldnt be allowed to deploy a deb-system. I understand the existence of such a mind set in management. Goofy attitudes on the part of suits, empty and ohterwise, are part of the real world. Perhaps there is a business opportunity for a third party service organization: Sell official Debian CDs with a fancy label, and privide contract support only with companies who are customers of record for their particular pressings of the Debian CDs. To make the business credible, it would have to charge at least as much for a set of Debian CDs as Microsoft charges for an entry level site license. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Paul E Condon [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
On Mon, Jun 17, 2002 at 11:44:53AM +0200, Jan Johansson wrote: so contractual, however inresponsive, support from a lame-ass linux distro means more to you than actually securing the system? Nope. Read my last paragraph. A system provider which can not also offer a _legally binding_ support contract is simply not allowed on any production / mission critical servers within our organisation. So it doesnt really matter that i prefer Debian and Slack over RedHat, i still wouldnt be allowed to deploy a deb-system. Analogy to life insurance: I know people fully comforatable dying because they have life insurance. By analogy, some managers are fully happy killing a company with high costs, because they have insured themselves through some expensive contracts. Within a year, 1994-1995, I went through Slackware, RedHat, and Debian, when I realized that most of my understanding, most of my power, most of my solutions were coming from the debian-user email-list. Perusing Debian's archives for solutions produces knowledgeable personel. A co-worker of mine arranged an expensive contract with IBM for AIX solutions. He calls IBM to even add a username. Where I work (a government agency), managers have stated that they want a contract, so that should problems become insurmountable, the managers can lay blame with the contractor. Rather than laying a foundation in personnel, they lay a foundation for external blame. This is the culmination of support contracts: effete personel. We should all have taken moral classes as every Japanese must, with its 5 fundamentals, all intertwined, 3 of which I remember, Do the hard thing Endure hardships Persevere in striving In 1993, I remember our paying Sun an exorbitant price, which included letting me see email solutions. Debian's email solutions are far more extensive than Sun's, so I sometimes successfully searched Debian's archives for solutions to what were really Sun problems. I have seen nothing as good as Debian's email lists. No for-profit company can induce users to contribute even 5 percent of what Debian users/developers contribute to their email lists. These email-lists have encyclopedic information, not thin Boolean information of a contract, yes, I bought a contract. HOW MUCH MUST YOU PAY TO GET ARCHIVED SOLUTIONS AT THE LEVEL OF DEBIAN'S? Request such archives as part of your support. You cannot buy the level of information found in Debian's archives! Why seek lesser support? From tradition? Only about once a year do I ask a question on the Debian email-list, because its vast email-list archives and bug-archives retain solutions to my other sought problems. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
Klaus Imgrund wrote: Well, I am an IT - dummy but I did deal with technical service for 15 years. What that whole Servicecontract stuff basically boils down to is that the customer wants somebody he can: a. complain to and scream at and b. sue for damages Try that with a mailing list I understand the incentive / reasoning behind your claims. But have you ever tried to complain/scream/sue one of the Big OS and Software companies with any success? Their EULA makes their company as effective (actually less so) than any email list. -- 21:05:01 up 3 days, 3:19, 1 user, load average: 1.57, 0.98, 0.47 Linux is the future... -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
Klaus Imgrund writes: a. complain to and scream at People frequently complain and scream at this mailing list. b. sue for damages You might want to read the fine print in that service contract. -- John Hasler [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dancing Horse Hill Elmwood, Wisconsin -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
On Thursday 06 June 2002 11:35 am, Ivo Wever wrote: [snippety] But as a distribution, it's head and shoulders above the competition. If the other dists are so terrible that they can't even support the internet connection of a small group of people for three hours a day, then why is anyone using them and using them in a commercial environment at that? Ivo, there is no such thing as One size fits all. For example, Red Hat worked well for me as a server and a desk top environment for a time. My needs have changed. I now have too many services running off of one main computer, and two servers that don't have the RAM needed to install Red Hat. I was forced to leave Red Hat because of the two low RAM servers. And Red Hat's upgrades are too unreliable, and I've been hacked when I've not upgraded. I can't afford to keep an extra non-production box lying around just so I can upgrade it to the latest and greatest RH dist., and then move all the services over to that box, etc. There are many computer professionals and companies who swear by Red Hat. These people have the money to have high memory servers and plenty of extra computers lying around that they can upgrade off line, and once they're upgraded then move all the active services to them. I'm not in that position. So just because some Linux distributions are highly touted and used by very competent people doesn't mean that those distributions will work for everyone. I am very happy with Debian's approach. The provide a stable, reliable operating system that runs on all my servers. Thankfully they upgrade individual packages on a regular basis, and, from what I gather, only do major upgrades (Potato to Woody, etc) every year or two. This is exactly what my non-profit, non-income system needs. The Debian developers have my sincere appreciation. I'll take stable over cutting edge any day. Glen -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
Glen Lee Edwards wrote: Ivo Wever wrote: If the other dists are so terrible that they can't even support the internet connection of a small group of people for three hours a day, then why is anyone using them and using them in a commercial environment at that? Ivo, there is no such thing as One size fits all. [..] I was forced to leave Red Hat because of the two low RAM servers. And Red Hat's upgrades are too unreliable, [..] There are many computer professionals and companies who swear by Red Hat. [..] So just because some Linux distributions are highly touted and used by very competent people doesn't mean that those distributions will work for everyone. I'm sorry, but I still don't get it. I don't see reasons for using Red Hat other than: I'm used to it and others use it too. As far as I can gather, the distinguishing characteristics of distros are the package system, the security update system, the support system, the installation procedure and the system configuration system. I think everyone agrees that Debians package and security update systems are better. Red Hats installation procedure is userfriendlier, but that doesn't explain why professionals use it. I question the claim that Red Hat provides better support (average helpdesk personel couldn't have helped me like (the archives of) this list have). I can't judge the system configuration system though. Consequently, I can't think of any reason for using Red Hat other than not knowing Debian (or fellow employees not knowing Debian). Or have I been brainwashed by Debian propaganda already? sincerely -- Ivo Wever [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
I think everyone agrees that Debians package and security update systems are better. Red Hats installation procedure is userfriendlier, but that doesn't explain why professionals use it. I can think of some reasons... - Even being professionals, they want everything to be detected and configured automatically (and if not automatically, quite quickly and easily), because time == money. They can tell some unexperienced guy to install the system without worrying too much (the only time I tried this with Debian, the guy partitioned the disk exactly as I said. Then put all mount points under / -- which had 80Mb). Of course, after it's configured and running, Debian requires little attention... But then, the same is true for Red Hat (except for the security updates, of course!) - Easy-to-use graphical configuration toole. Instead of managing all possible machines, they can just help the user who asks for help on the phone. (Yes, click here, click there, now type this number) The professional may not have a problem with using vi/emacs/awhtever editor, but the usre who will need to actually have his hands on the keyboard would probably not be able to use them. - Other similar features. Allows me to focus on my work and forget as much as posible about the system internals, etc. Unfortunately, many professionals can't afford to take into consideration if the system is well-organized internally, or if it follows some strict policy, or if it is tested for a long time... They feel ok if it's tested enough, and just wait for the security updates. - Marketing related stuff. It's a big brand, and famous for being easy to use for people who don't want to know a lot about scripts system internals. - The psychological effect of having new versions of their software every 6 months. Even professionals are affected, believe me! Also, (and this is my personal experience), the professional may not care, but there'll be a lot of pressure from the users to get new versions of things... I installed Debian on several boxes where I worked. In the beginning, all was fine (we even had a local mirror, and a repository for our own debs). After a while, some of the users (and those were developers -- really not the clueless type) wanted to move to Red Hat or Conectiva. Easier to manage (so they'd focus more on developing the applications they had to develop) and with newer software (docbook-xml, spamassassin, which needs new Perl, ssh [1], and other packages -- one guy even complained about the version of Apache in potato). I question the claim that Red Hat provides better support (average helpdesk personel couldn't have helped me like (the archives of) this list have). I think there's also some psychological thing that goes on here. People think that with the help desk, they'll get an answer within a certain time, while nobody guatrantees that they'll get an answer on a mailing list. Also, you need to be careful when posting to a mailing list.. You're talking to volunteers who may just not help at all if you forget about etiquette. On the oher hand, help desk people already know that their customers may be quite angry when they call (well, the system isn't working!) Some people will of course prefer support from a mailing list, and all characteristics of Debian. Other just don't (or can't). I can't judge the system configuration system though. Consequently, I can't think of any reason for using Red Hat other than not knowing Debian (or fellow employees not knowing Debian). Well, as I said above, my experience is the opposite... Diversity is good. :-) J. [1] Although the version of ssh v1 in Debian is secure (with lots of patches), it would require other systems that talk to our system to use protocol version 1. And we can't guarantee that the Red Hat sshv1 is secure... But they needed to use it to access our network from home (or from other networks there), where the distro wasn't Debian. So I had to backport the version from Woody -- and keep following the security announces, and compiling it again every now and then. -- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
Jeronimo Pellegrini wrote: ... Windows may be not behave decently at all, but it sells as it is, and it's not only marketing. I can see some of the reasons: 1 - They do invest in their product, but thy'll target the users and do whatever they want.The UI, for example, that most hackers find terrible, works well for most clueless users. Microsoft gives people what they ... as far as I can tell that's not true. it doesn't work well, they cannot do basic stuff even after years of use - they just repeat few tasks they learned (talking about clueless users). I see them completely fooled by windows interface again and again... 2 - Development tools. This is how they built the empire. Don't exepct all developers to be brilliant. Build tools with graphical interfaces and a lot of automated stuff. No complexity -- languages like VB are just perfect for the person who just wants to see their Hello world program working. They won't understand too much about the underlying framework. These people will gradually move to making useful programs (well, if pople use them they're useful) in VB (or ASP, or wahtever). The point is: if you target the *good* developer, you won't sell too much. And if you don't sell a lot of compilers and devel tools, you won't have a lot of applications written for your OS (who's going to write the applications? You, alone?) Ironically, Microsoft has used the power of thousands of developers all over the world to build their Empire. Hm, suddenly Open Source comes to mind. Wow. Subtle. Efficient. People usually don't see this, but it's an absolutely important point. Let the clueless develop. They'll build an empire for you. consider how big the unix-side empire is (I mean the free software mostly), built using mostly vi/cc/make (with little marketing, compared to ms win). while people might be willng to code for windows for the money they don't have to be dragge to unix, in fact volunteers built unix(-like) environment (=linux, gnu and the rest). perhaps the underlying quality of system has something to do with it... Now... See that quality is not necessarily what people want. Maybe ease-of-use is a priority to them. most people are simply too passive to resist what's rammed down their throats. it doesn't have anything to do with properties/features of windows. example - at my job we use win nt workstations to connect to unix servers, therefore middle mouse button is fairly important (to paste selection). however I am probably the only person who has three button mouse, everybody else struggles with emulation, trying to click both buttons at the same time, loosing selection in the process... (they didn't even find that shift-ins pastes just like in the windows programs!) day after day after day... all while worshipping the god of blinking 12:00 not that this matters that much, I basically agree with all your points... erik -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [mostly-OT] apt-get on RH, is it worth anything? (was Re: Debian: abandon ship?)
I use apt-get on my Red Hat servers that need auto updating. I dont trust RH Network. It has broken at least a dozen servers that I know of, none of them are mine of course. You can get a really great implimentation of apt-get for Red Hat at http://www.freshrpms.net. -- Arthur H. Johnson II Catechist, St John Catholic Church, Davison MI USA Debian GNU/Linux Advocate, Window Maker Advocate President, Genesee County Linux Users Group IRC: [EMAIL PROTECTED],#windowmaker IRC: [EMAIL PROTECTED],#debian YIM: arthurjohnson AIM: bytor4232 ICQ: 31770438 On Thu, 6 Jun 2002, Glen Lee Edwards wrote: On Thu 06 Jun 02 15:45, Derrick 'dman' Hudson wrote: On Thu, Jun 06, 2002 at 12:48:15PM -0600, user list wrote: [snip] | The reasons I like [debian] are: | 1. apt-get [snip] | I'll note in passing that the first reason has lost some edge now | that RH 7.3 comes with apt-get and that there are ports to older RH | releases. [snip] Is apt-get on RH 7.3 actually usable? Red Hat isn't likely to seriously support apt-get. They're pushing up2date, which updates your computer for you. It's free for the first computer you sign up for, but there's a fee for additional computers. I tried up2date on one server. It never worked. It sometimes downloaded the files I needed to update, sometimes died during the download, kicking out an error message. Rarely were any of the new packages installed. The install process usually died due to dependency problems. Based on my experience with Red Hat's automated update process, I would never trust it on a production server. Glen -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [mostly-OT] apt-get on RH, is it worth anything? (was Re: Debian: abandon ship?)
On Sat, Jun 08, 2002 at 09:26:54AM -0400, Arthur H. Johnson II wrote: | | I use apt-get on my Red Hat servers that need auto updating. How much memory do they have? How long does an 'apt-get anything' take to run, compared to debian with equivalent hardware? (not including any network latency, just the reading package lists part) | I dont trust RH Network. It has broken at least a dozen servers | that I know of, none of them are mine of course. Last time I tried up2date it was less that worthless. (admittedly that was about 2 years ago) It had almost no packages it could update, and didn't work half of the time (or more). | You can get a really great implimentation of apt-get for Red Hat at | http://www.freshrpms.net. See my first post in this mini-thread. That's where I got apt from, and it was worthless on the box I had available to me. -D -- The truly righteous man attains life, but he who pursues evil goes to his death. Proverbs 11:19 GnuPG key : http://dman.ddts.net/~dman/public_key.gpg pgpP2kGCkJkW9.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [mostly-OT] apt-get on RH, is it worth anything? (was Re: Debian: abandon ship?)
On Thu 06 Jun 02 15:45, Derrick 'dman' Hudson wrote: On Thu, Jun 06, 2002 at 12:48:15PM -0600, user list wrote: [snip] | The reasons I like [debian] are: | 1. apt-get [snip] | I'll note in passing that the first reason has lost some edge now | that RH 7.3 comes with apt-get and that there are ports to older RH | releases. [snip] Is apt-get on RH 7.3 actually usable? Red Hat isn't likely to seriously support apt-get. They're pushing up2date, which updates your computer for you. It's free for the first computer you sign up for, but there's a fee for additional computers. I tried up2date on one server. It never worked. It sometimes downloaded the files I needed to update, sometimes died during the download, kicking out an error message. Rarely were any of the new packages installed. The install process usually died due to dependency problems. Based on my experience with Red Hat's automated update process, I would never trust it on a production server. Glen -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
Tom Cook [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On 0, Brian Nelson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I would define a major change to be something like the jump to gcc-3.1 or a libc6 version change, ie. something the affects nearly everything in the archive. I wouldn't consider a library that affects 3 or 4 other packages a major change. Why not just have point releases work in a similar manner to the testing-stable procedure, but on a smaller scale? For example, a new testing pool based on the stable pool (called proposed-updates or whatever) could be opened for a month or so, during which updates and new packages could be uploaded. After a month it could be frozen, and then for the next 2 months bugs could be worked out. If something like the upgrade to libsensors2 broke too many things, it could be backed out. Then, after 3 months (theoretically, of course), a point release with newer packages could be available. How will that be better and suffer from less release schedule problems than testing? As soon as the proposed-updates pool is opened, every developer will want his/her package in there, because it is, of course, important. Then testing will become neglected, and every new package will just go into proposed-updates, which then doesn't get released because we're waiting on bug fixes, and security infrastructure... what's the difference? Basically, there would be two package development trees: unstable/testing and stable/stable-updates. Unstable/testing would be for development for the next major Debian release (as in woody, potato, slink...) with stuff compiled with gcc-3.1, etc. Stable/stable-updates would be analogous to the rX releases, as in 2.2r5, but with more changes than we currently see. It would be similar to the potato + unofficial updates (2.4 kernel, XF4.1, etc.) situation we have now, but with those updates actually being supported. There's no reason testing would be neglected. It would contain the latest software and would be the most interesting distribution for a developer. The stable-updates basically be back-ports of testing packages, when they could be back-ported. Over time, the stable tree would become stale and harder to update as it would become harder to add updates without too much breakage. According to my original proposal, stable-updates would only be unfrozen for one month out of every three, so every package couldn't be added there all the time. Developers would be encouraged to show some restrain and not make huge updates to packages in stable-updates. Furthermore, if packages in stable-updates were too buggy for release, they would simply be removed by the release manager and the currently stable version would remain unchanged. The security infrastructure would never have to change because no new arches would be added to a point release. Since a major stable release would never be made without an adequate security infrastructure already in place, this is a non-issue. -- Brian Nelson [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
On Thu, Jun 06, 2002 at 02:07:12PM +0100, Karl E. Jorgensen wrote: On Thu, Jun 06, 2002 at 11:24:27AM +0200, Ivo Wever wrote (slightly reformatted): Sam wrote: And here's a third - http://www.vicnet.net.au/~rpds/ There are 50 elderly/disabled people in the state of Victoria in Australia who get their Internet access through a Debian box. All are members of the Rural Peninsula Disability Support group - they are provided computers and pay $11 Australian a month for three hours access per day. This is the kind of charitable project which can *never* afford costly server hardware or software - were it not for the Debian project, we would not be able to run something like this, I'm sorry, but this argument isn't valid as a defense for Debian in particular. You could use any other linux distro for this server; I'm certain you could find a similar project somewhere in the world where someone uses Redhat or Suse or ... True. But Sam uses Debian. He (apparantly) chose to. Lots of other people have chosen Debian over the other alternatives. The reasons for his choice are not necessarily related to elderly people. It could be freedom, stability, ease of maintenance, performance, price, openess, the nice logo or whatever... We have a P133 with two one-gig drives as our server. My experiences with Red Hat have not exactly filled me with confidence. Slackware would have been okay but upgrading even a single package takes a lot of time - which I, as a father of two (including a teenage daughter) - and a full-time job don't really have. I have to administer this box remotely on a 56k line (which is all that I can afford). Debian has done an admirable job for us for nearly three years now. Frankly I am appalled by someone trying to use an emotional argument, involving elderly disabled people, to support Debian. Using an emotional argument is not necessarily a bad thing (elderly people or not). Debian *is* different, *because* of the emotions built into the social contract. After all, freedom can very much be considered emotional... I'm sorry if I gave the impression that I was trying to bring emotion into the discussion - I was merely stating facts. No matter what motivation the developers have, at the ground level there are some very human, true stories. I guess we should rethink Debian if it turned out some neo-nazi group used our software on their servers? Of course not. And I'm not willing to rethink Debian even when elderly people use it. Quite often these old folk thank me and the other volunteers who help at the project - and a lot of the credit, frankly, belongs elsewhere. I just thought it was an appropriate thread to pass along some of the credit to those whom it is really due. Sam -- Sam Varghese http://www.gnubies.com A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing. pgpEvkbieH1PB.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [mostly-OT] apt-get on RH, is it worth anything? (was Re: Debian: abandon ship?)
On Thu, 6 Jun 2002 23:55:31 -0500 Glen Lee Edwards [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Is apt-get on RH 7.3 actually usable? Red Hat isn't likely to seriously support apt-get. They're pushing up2date, which updates your computer for you. It's free for the first computer you sign up for, but there's a fee for additional computers. One reason I left Red Hat for Debian. I tried up2date on one server. It never worked. It sometimes downloaded the files I needed to update, sometimes died during the download, kicking out an error message. Rarely were any of the new packages installed. The install process usually died due to dependency problems. Yet another reason. Based on my experience with Red Hat's automated update process, I would never trust it on a production server. You've very adequately summed up the key reasons for my replacing all my Red Hat installations (both personal and professional) with Debian. -- Jamin W. Collins -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
On Fri, Jun 07, 2002 at 12:12:11AM +0200, Ivo Wever wrote: That doesn't explain why other dists are used in production environments. It doesn't explain why RedHat has such a huge market share. Or am I really overestimating the capabilities of the majority of the admins? Probably. More significant though, is marketing. Most of us here agree that Windows isn't the best OS around, but it's got the largest userbase because of marketing and because it's what comes preinstalled on most PCs. Is it much of a stretch to assume that Red Hat is the most-used Linux distro because of marketing and being the most-often-preinstalled distro on PCs that come with Linux? (Not an anti-RH flame, although I personally don't care for any rpm-based distro I've encountered, just a reminder that, in the modern world, marketing seems to be a more powerful force than technical merit.) -- When we reduce our own liberties to stop terrorism, the terrorists have already won. - reverius Innocence is no protection when governments go bad. - Tom Swiss -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
On Fri, Jun 07, 2002 at 11:18:01AM -0500, Dave Sherohman wrote: Probably. More significant though, is marketing. Most of us here agree that Windows isn't the best OS around, but it's got the largest userbase because of marketing and because it's what comes preinstalled on most PCs. Marketing here means a *lot*, doesn't it? Is it much of a stretch to assume that Red Hat is the most-used Linux distro because of marketing and being the most-often-preinstalled distro on PCs that come with Linux? I'd like to say marketing shouldn't be seen as just advertisement, advocacy, and that sort of thing. Just a few comments about Windows and Red Hat (and all other companies who manage to make money today). *** See that I'm not a big fan of any of them. I'm just saying that this is what they do to gain market share -- and it seems to work quite well. *** Windows may be not behave decently at all, but it sells as it is, and it's not only marketing. I can see some of the reasons: 1 - They do invest in their product, but thy'll target the users and do whatever they want.The UI, for example, that most hackers find terrible, works well for most clueless users. Microsoft gives people what they want, and will really not care about what people do not want. They didn't have to worry about security until now, for example, because their users did not complain about that (I know lots of banks that absolutely trust Microsoft products). They get statistics from their Help Desk, see what they may have missed, ask users about their products, and then do what they want. If you do what the user wants, you make it more likely that he'll stick with your product. Nothing new here -- just standard business procedure. They've just been absolutely competent in that. 2 - Development tools. This is how they built the empire. Don't exepct all developers to be brilliant. Build tools with graphical interfaces and a lot of automated stuff. No complexity -- languages like VB are just perfect for the person who just wants to see their Hello world program working. They won't understand too much about the underlying framework. These people will gradually move to making useful programs (well, if pople use them they're useful) in VB (or ASP, or wahtever). The point is: if you target the *good* developer, you won't sell too much. And if you don't sell a lot of compilers and devel tools, you won't have a lot of applications written for your OS (who's going to write the applications? You, alone?) Ironically, Microsoft has used the power of thousands of developers all over the world to build their Empire. Hm, suddenly Open Source comes to mind. Wow. Subtle. Efficient. People usually don't see this, but it's an absolutely important point. Let the clueless develop. They'll build an empire for you. Now... See that quality is not necessarily what people want. Maybe ease-of-use is a priority to them. That does not mean Microsoft isn't investing in quality. They need this so they won't get lost in a bunch of crappy and unmaintainable code. That's why they built NT -- which runs on a microkernel written by Dave Cutler (this means a lot, trust me). The win32 system on top of it may be crappy, but the kernel's gotten absolutely better. Did yo unotice that from NT to XP, Windows got gradually more stable? My bet is: they're gradually replacing crappy code with new code. I'd guess that quite soon, stability will not be an advantage of BSD or Linux over Windows. Red Hat does something similar to #1. They are obviously better than Microsoft, but still: they'll give what their users want. They'll give them graphical config tools, for example. They may not need to give their users perfect packages... Just goo denough so they won't complain too much. And one more thing they give to their users is a periodic release. New software, new versions of software... A reason for people to upgrade -- and also to be compatible with all their friends, who did upgrade already. You see... It all has to do with quality x quantity. Want lots of people to ue your product? Well, give up quality. Not pnly because you won't be able to ship quality products quick, but also because your users may show you than they're not interested in your concept of quality. What they call quality is something that workd (most of the time) and is easy to use, and has new things every now and they, so I can satisfy that little impulse inside me that makes me look for new things. I do believe, however, that it is possible to have something that does have some quality, and that lots of people will use. I didn't see MacOS/X, but it seems to be (although proprietary) something to look at. Get something that has quality and make it interesting for people. (Remember Corel, Stormix, etc?) Just thought I'd share this with you guys. :-) J. -- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
Oleg [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Wednesday 05 June 2002 01:57 pm, Jeronimo Pellegrini wrote: How does FreeBSD manage to stay reasonably secure and stable, yet modern (compared to Potato)? I think it's because they don't have a zero-bugs release policy like Debian. The base system is stable. The stuff in the ports tree is not, from my experience. I once decided to install gdm on a FreeBSD box... There were *lots* of broken dependencies in the ports tree, and I had to vgrep the missing dependencies in the compile logs. :-/ I'm not advocating FreeBSD. In fact, I tried it a couple of times, ran it for a week or two and hated it for a variety of reasons. Debian is the only OS/Distribution that I ever liked (which is no surprise, of course) I just wanted to say that maybe changes to stable should be more incremental. E.g., once it's determined that KDE2 is secure and stable, why not add it? We all know that the situation with KDE was easily remedied by adding extra lines to sources.list, but not with other great programs that never made it into Potato. Why should users risk remote root if all they want is some desktop software? I agree. I think stable should be able to get more fixes and updates than just security fixes. It's well known that much of the software in stable is quite buggy and years behind the upstream source (Mozilla M18, for example) but cannot be fixed until a security hole is found in that software. I think regular points releases, every month or two, containing new software and updates to older software, would be great. No major changes would be permitted of course, but there's no reason most desktop software couldn't be updated in stable. If other users believe that their software shouldn't be updated unless absolutely necessary, then it should be possible to only upgrade packages that have security advisories. -- Brian Nelson [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
On Wed, 05 Jun 2002, Manoj Srivastava wrote: So my motivation for working on free software (it pleases me, and provides me with a stable box I can use) is condescending? I am glad that your motivation is to create a stable box you can use ... because so I can participate in this effort too. What I see here is that a lot of people's mind is not on ease becuase of Woody not yet being released ...yes, I have to confess that I am also waiting ... but I think that it is worth it ... I come from windows, changed to Linux via Red Hat,then changed to SuSE ... and now ended up with Debian ... The Debian distro is the best piece of work I have seen and used ... and it makes so much fun to work with ... ... but what makes Debian so special is the way it is built, composed and developed ... I am running at the moment potato 2.2r5 ... somone before said that it is not up to date (old fashioned) ... but it is stable ... something credible and steady ... I do not want to spend my money every 6 month on a so called new distro only to have the latest version of kde (give me 60 bucks and you get in our brand new distro Version 100.28 kde 8.0 ... I tell you you need it ... maybe it is crashing 40% of the time - but it is brandnew - you cannot have all at the same time) ... For me it is very important to use and run a system that is trusted by the developer's own quality scale and not a system designed by the profit of a marketing management team ... first-class quality needs more time than fast shots but it stands and continue a longer time ... Am I now obligated to you for using my labour? Am I now to profess a desire to please you just because you use software that I built, even when the goal was never to please end users, but to get a nice software for me and my collaborators? I think you are right ... if the aim of development is the quality of a product and not the selling (the profit of people that are selling a bunch of lies that so called users want to buy) ... i can identify myself with this distro ... Oliver -- ... don't touch the bang-bang fruit -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
On Wed, 5 Jun 2002, Manoj Srivastava wrote: Thank you. It is messages like this that make me continue to put in the time and effort for Debian. Well here's another one. I've been using Debian for a long time on all the systems where the choice has been mine. Sure it is sometimes frustrating when releases seem slow in coming but the rewards have been great. In my usage nothing has come close to Debian for stability and ease of maintanance for multiple systems. I have benefitted from the voluntary efforts of many who do what I am either unwilling or unable to do. I cut my teeth on a much earlier Slackware and as enjoyable as it was it doesn't hold a candle to what Debian provides by way of package management and dependancy handling. Timely security updates when the release becomes 'stable' have also been a blessing. There are many things I rarely need to think about thus freeing me to do the things I really want to do. You provide a quality product and you provide it for free. I for one hope Debian continues as I have no desire do use the other Linux alternatives. I'm finished gushing and going back to lurking. God bless, Terry. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
On Wed, 05 Jun 2002, Manoj Srivastava wrote: So my motivation for working on free software (it pleases me, and provides me with a stable box I can use) is condescending? I am glad that your motivation is to create a stable box you can use ... because so I can participate in this effort too. What I see here is that a lot of people's mind is not on ease becuase of Woody not yet being released ...yes, I have to confess that I am also waiting ... but I think that it is worth it ... I come from windows, changed to Linux via Red Hat,then changed to SuSE ... and now ended up with Debian ... The Debian distro is the best piece of work I have seen and used ... and it makes so much fun to work with ... ... but what makes Debian so special is the way it is built, composed and developed ... I am running at the moment potato 2.2r5 ... somone before said that it is not up to date (old fashioned) ... but it is stable ... something credible and steady ... I do not want to spend my money every 6 month on a so called new distro only to have the latest version of kde (give me 60 bucks and you get in our brand new distro Version 100.28 kde 8.0 ... I tell you you need it ... maybe it is crashing 40% of the time - but it is brandnew - you cannot have all at the same time) ... For me it is very important to use and run a system that is trusted by the developer's own quality scale and not a system designed by the profit of a marketing management team ... first-class quality needs more time than fast shots but it stands and continue a longer time ... Am I now obligated to you for using my labour? Am I now to profess a desire to please you just because you use software that I built, even when the goal was never to please end users, but to get a nice software for me and my collaborators? I think you are right ... if the aim of development is the quality of a product and not the selling (the profit of people that are selling a bunch of lies that so called users want to buy) ... i can identify myself with this distro ... Oliver -- ... don't touch the bang-bang fruit -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship
Someone wrote: perhaps Debian is no longer useful to most of us. Two years ago I set up a small network of Debian machines for graduate students and faculty members in my department. There are six machines in the network and a lot of people depend on them. This effort cost my university exactly nothing. Since then, these machines have *never* failed us. There was a point a couple of months ago when I had a desperate email message from a group of grad students saying that every single non-Debian machine in the lab (Mac, Windows) was broken, and unusable to one degree or another. But the Debian machines have never let us down. They have never crashed, and they require virtually no maintenance. One of them runs woody; the rest run potato. I'll probably upgrade all of them to woody over the summer. However, this will be mostly for my own satisfaction and amusement, since for their users it just doesn't matter which version they run. The machines just do what needs to be done, day after day, even though, as physical objects, they come from the bottom of the heap---cheap antiques, most of them. The graduate students and faculty members who use these machines day in day out couldn't give a flying fuck, for the most part, whether they run `stable', `testing', or `unstable'. They don't know, and they have no reason to care, and they will never post to this list. They have no reason to, because things just work. From this perspective, the idea that Debian might no longer be useful seems just bonkers. Jim -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
On Wed, Jun 05, 2002 at 10:23:56PM -0700, Terry wrote: On Wed, 5 Jun 2002, Manoj Srivastava wrote: Thank you. It is messages like this that make me continue to put in the time and effort for Debian. Well here's another one. And here's a third - http://www.vicnet.net.au/~rpds/ There are 50 elderly/disabled people in the state of Victoria in Australia who get their Internet access through a Debian box. All are members of the Rural Peninsula Disability Support group - they are provided computers and pay $11 Australian a month for three hours access per day. This is the kind of charitable project which can *never* afford costly server hardware or software - were it not for the Debian project, we would not be able to run something like this, which means many of these folk would never have access to email or the web. And that's about their only means of access to the world as many of them are disabled and house-bound. Thank you for providing free, quality software which is easy to maintain. Sam -- Sam Varghese http://www.gnubies.com The chief virtue that language can have is clearness, and nothing detracts from it so much as the use of unfamiliar words. pgpFUqYCfhr6W.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
If the people in effective control of Debian's direction no longer have this ability, then perhaps Debian is no longer useful to most of us. Debian is no longer useful to us when they no longer put out a product that we can use. That is hardly the case. To save the Debian Attack Team the effort of a search, I'll admit immediately that (like most Debian users) I've contributed nothing to Debian except good intentions and trivial amounts of money. Debian does not need me. And I need a stable release with the 2.4 kernel. Nick Jacobs Nick, the 2.4 kernel is available for you to apt-get upgrade any time you wish. Or you can do like I did - build it yourself to the specifications of your box. If you think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, I suggest you try it. I've been there. I would much rather go with a group of developers who err on the cautious side than those who err on the reckless side. Debian provides a setup you can rely on. They don't need to change their philosophy. I personally prefer the 2.4 kernel with the ext3 file system. Even the kernel developers admit that this is in the experimental stage. So far it's working great for me. But to expect the Debian developers to put it in Woody and publicly state that it is reliable and secure is a real stretch. I would rather go with developers who are cautious in their approach but give me the option of taking chances as I think I can safely do so, than to go with developers who put out new and poorly tested software, essentially require that I test it for them on production servers. Glen -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
Sam wrote: And here's a third - http://www.vicnet.net.au/~rpds/ There are 50 elderly/disabled people in the state of Victoria in Australia who get their Internet access through a Debian box. All are members of the Rural Peninsula Disability Support group - they are provided computers and pay $11 Australian a month for three hours access per day. This is the kind of charitable project which can *never* afford costly server hardware or software - were it not for the Debian project, we would not be able to run something like this, I'm sorry, but this argument isn't valid as a defense for Debian in particular. You could use any other linux distro for this server; I'm certain you could find a similar project somewhere in the world where someone uses Redhat or Suse or ... Frankly I am appalled by someone trying to use an emotional argument, involving elderly disabled people, to support Debian. I guess we should rethink Debian if it turned out some neo-nazi group used our software on their servers? sincerely Ivo Wever [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
I'm not advocating FreeBSD. In fact, I tried it a couple of times, ran it for a week or two and hated it for a variety of reasons. Debian is the only OS/Distribution that I ever liked (which is no surprise, of course) I just wanted to say that maybe changes to stable should be more incremental. Yes, I agree... E.g., once it's determined that KDE2 is secure and stable, why not add it? Well, because the packaging could have serious problems... And because the version to be added to stable was not tested with the other packages in stable, so we don't know if it'd work. Maybe that could be remedied if the notion of proposed-updates was changed... But the developers are already discussing a lot of changes. I'd wait until Woody is released before duggesting any new ideas... J. -- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
Hi, On Wed, 5 Jun 2002, Sean 'Shaleh' Perry wrote: Debian is run by a few hundred programmers who do this for fun. Not profit. Because we do this for fun we choose where to spend our time. For some people the mips architecture and the required hacking is fun. Others are constrained by the hardware available to them (some of our developers had m68k only access). This one point, why Debian is different to other distris, it is not as i386-centered. In giving up its multiplatform support, it would loose one of its most attractive and fascinating aspects. Cutting back to ia32 (x86) would help, but the cost is not worth it. Besides, Debian is one of the few dists out there supporting anything other than Sun and ia32. Without m68k I would possibly never have discovered Debian. Removing those arches would leave out many of our users and potential users. This is true for me, my productive system is not intel-compatible. Maybe this means we lose some users to Red Hat (or SuSE or whoever) and their 6 month cd releases. Everyone has to use what works for them. At the last meeting of the Linux Workshop Cologne, we had more Debian than other users, although some people from this list claim Debian to be delayed. Seemingly there are more important things than just being up-to-date with the latest software packages. Regards, Kerstin -- Dr. Kerstin Hoef-Emden Gyrhofstr. 15 Universität zu Köln 50931 Köln Botanisches InstitutGermany -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
On Thu, Jun 06, 2002 at 11:24:27AM +0200, Ivo Wever wrote: Sam wrote: There are 50 elderly/disabled people in the state of Victoria in Australia who get their Internet access through a Debian box. All are members of the Rural Peninsula Disability Support group - they are provided computers and pay $11 Australian a month for three hours access per day. This is the kind of charitable project which can *never* afford costly server hardware or software - were it not for the Debian project, we would not be able to run something like this, [...] Frankly I am appalled by someone trying to use an emotional argument, involving elderly disabled people, to support Debian. I guess we should rethink Debian if it turned out some neo-nazi group used our software on their servers? I think this discussion is getting *well* out of hand. (There's nothing wrong with success stories, even if Debian wasn't the only way they could have been achieved ...) -- Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
Ivo Wever [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Completely unrelated to the current topic, could you lobby your email vendor to support RFC2822 already? Tell them to read 3.6.4 and fix it already. Eudora's broken references headers have been annoying the crap out of me for years, and they've had over a year since the standard was released to fix it. And they've had plenty of complaints before that. Since you actually use this misbegotten piece of excrement, maybe you'll have more pull with them. -- Alan Shutko [EMAIL PROTECTED] - In a variety of flavors! Everyone talks about apathy, but no one does anything about it. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
On Thu, Jun 06, 2002 at 11:24:27AM +0200, Ivo Wever wrote (slightly reformatted): Sam wrote: And here's a third - http://www.vicnet.net.au/~rpds/ There are 50 elderly/disabled people in the state of Victoria in Australia who get their Internet access through a Debian box. All are members of the Rural Peninsula Disability Support group - they are provided computers and pay $11 Australian a month for three hours access per day. This is the kind of charitable project which can *never* afford costly server hardware or software - were it not for the Debian project, we would not be able to run something like this, I'm sorry, but this argument isn't valid as a defense for Debian in particular. You could use any other linux distro for this server; I'm certain you could find a similar project somewhere in the world where someone uses Redhat or Suse or ... True. But Sam uses Debian. He (apparantly) chose to. Lots of other people have chosen Debian over the other alternatives. The reasons for his choice are not necessarily related to elderly people. It could be freedom, stability, ease of maintenance, performance, price, openess, the nice logo or whatever... Frankly I am appalled by someone trying to use an emotional argument, involving elderly disabled people, to support Debian. Using an emotional argument is not necessarily a bad thing (elderly people or not). Debian *is* different, *because* of the emotions built into the social contract. After all, freedom can very much be considered emotional... I guess we should rethink Debian if it turned out some neo-nazi group used our software on their servers? Of course not. And I'm not willing to rethink Debian even when elderly people use it. -- Karl E. Jørgensen [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.karl.jorgensen.com I'm currently out trying to find myself. If I should get back before I return, please keep me here. pgpy6BTPPmKXp.pgp Description: PGP signature
RE: Debian: abandon ship?
On Wed, 5 Jun 2002, Sean 'Shaleh' Perry wrote: At the last meeting of the Linux Workshop Cologne, we had more Debian than other users, although some people from this list claim Debian to be delayed. Seemingly there are more important things than just being up-to-date with the latest software packages. Regards, Kerstin I agree also that there are more important things besides having the latest and greatest. Debian Stable is what I use today and it has yet to fail me. I can wait for the next release of (Woody) Stable because when it is released I will have no doubt that it will work. Debians reputation of being rock solid is what I want and how I found it to be great. Try using a half baked distro that's released with annoying problems like I have had with RH and MDK because they are trying to beat each other on the Desktop or by some marketing race. I'll trust DB for my real work over the others any day. The DB developers, etc, I am certain are doing their best to get things right. DB separates itself from others by adhering to good standards. Its that reason why I believe there is a delay because they are taking the time to do it right the first time. It won't be perfect but it will be solid for sure. Todd -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
On Thu, 2002-06-06 at 05:37, Colin Watson wrote: On Thu, Jun 06, 2002 at 11:24:27AM +0200, Ivo Wever wrote: involving elderly disabled people, to support Debian. I guess we should rethink Debian if it turned out some neo-nazi group used our software on their servers? Godwin's Law; end of thread please? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
Ivo Wever writes: Sam wrote: And here's a third - http://www.vicnet.net.au/~rpds/ There are 50 elderly/disabled people in the state of Victoria in Australia who get their Internet access through a Debian box. All are members of the Rural I'm sorry, but this argument isn't valid as a defense for Debian in particular. You could use any other linux distro for this server; I'm certain you could Ivo, you're totally missing the point here. You can *not* use any Linux distro on any server. Red Hat, Mandrake, and Suse won't install on two of my servers, which have 16 Meg ram. Debian installed and configured with no problems. Red Hat is an absolute nightmare to administer. I have 4+ years experience with Red Hat, so don't tell me I'm wrong. When as a newbie I went with Red Hat I gave up my personal life. I spent all my free time babysitting the Red Hat servers. Debian has easily installed on my servers, package upgrades are a snap - I'm not constantly fighting the dependency problem! -big smile- The only real weakness that Debian has is that it doesn't have Red Hat's marketing. But as a distribution, it's head and shoulders above the competition. And God bless those elderly folks who now have Internet access because of Debian! Glen -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship
On Wed, Jun 05, 2002 at 11:06:17PM -0700, Jim McCloskey wrote: The graduate students and faculty members who use these machines day in day out couldn't give a flying fuck, for the most part, whether they run `stable', `testing', or `unstable'. They don't know, and they have no reason to care, and they will never post to this list. They have no reason to, because things just work. Working is good. Having relatively current software is, for some of us, important. I gather your audience doesn't need, say, GCC 3 or KDE2 or a current Mozilla? -- Carl Fink [EMAIL PROTECTED] I-Con's Science and Technology Programming http://www.iconsf.org/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
you wrote: Colin Watson wrote: Ivo Wever wrote: involving elderly disabled people, to support Debian. I guess we should rethink Debian if it turned out some neo-nazi group used our software on their servers? Godwin's Law; end of thread please? Oh sorry about that, I should have written 'a militant nationalistic group that wants to kill their political enemies'. sincerely, Ivo Wever [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
Glen wrote: Ivo, you're totally missing the point here. Yes, you are right. I shouldn't have let my personal crusade against arguments from emotion enter this thread. [snippety] But as a distribution, it's head and shoulders above the competition. If the other dists are so terrible that they can't even support the internet connection of a small group of people for three hours a day, then why is anyone using them and using them in a commercial environment at that? sincerely Ivo Wever [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
Brian Nelson [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I agree. I think stable should be able to get more fixes and updates than just security fixes. It's well known that much of the software in stable is quite buggy and years behind the upstream source (Mozilla M18, for example) but cannot be fixed until a security hole is found in that software. I think regular points releases, every month or two, containing new software and updates to older software, would be great. No major changes would be permitted of course, but there's no reason most desktop software couldn't be updated in stable. This came up on debian-devel not too long ago. Someone proposed a point release to woody that would have gcc-3.1, GNOME 2.0, new KDE, and no major changes to the distribution -- even though this would require recompiling everything with a relatively untested compiler, and presenting a relatively untested desktop environment to new users. Sure, it's good PR to have a release with ooh-new-and-shiny components, but it's less clear that it'll actually *work*, which should be the point. (There's also the problem that each of the developers has their own personal pet packages that they'd really like to make the point release, but it can't happen for everyone's packages, and someone needs to make the decision. Hypothetically, to pick one of my packages, there could be a new lm-sensors release. I say, it's important because it supports 17 new temperature sensor chips! But, it includes libsensors2, which replaces libsensors1 and affects three or four other packages; is it a major change or not?) -- David Maze [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://people.debian.org/~dmaze/ Theoretical politics is interesting. Politicking should be illegal. -- Abra Mitchell -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
Em Qui, 2002-06-06 às 13:35, Ivo Wever escreveu: Glen wrote: Ivo, you're totally missing the point here. Yes, you are right. I shouldn't have let my personal crusade against arguments from emotion enter this thread. [snippety] But as a distribution, it's head and shoulders above the competition. If the other dists are so terrible that they can't even support the internet connection of a small group of people for three hours a day, then why is anyone using them and using them in a commercial environment at that? Because a dummy can install them (many so called sysadms comming from M$world are in fact dummies). Most other distros are absolutely not suited for servers and even much less for remote management, but they are PnP for the domestic user (and the dummy pseudo sysadm) Michel. sincerely Ivo Wever [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
On Thu, 06 Jun 2002 18:35:28 +0200 Ivo Wever [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Glen wrote: [snippety] But as a distribution, it's head and shoulders above the competition. If the other dists are so terrible that they can't even support the internet connection of a small group of people for three hours a day, then why is anyone using them and using them in a commercial environment at that? Again, I think you missed the point of this his post. It has to do with ease of maintainence and support of his hardware. Debian appears to (in the original author's opinion) be one of the few (if only) distribution that adequately fit the needs of the project. -- Jamin W. Collins -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
After all the postings that I've read... What I can advice all to do is: Lets give a route to this abandoned ship! Lets stop the talking and start with some action... I don't beleive we can gather every Debian user and ask for his or her opinion... If we send the image of a desorganized distro, how does anyone expects it to be usefull?! Everybody is acting like Debian is having serious financial problems like the guys at the Telecom area. We are not here to judge the use of Debian, but yes to develop it and make it THE best GNU/LINUX distribution, and all of us do it for fun, and not for profit. We do it because it makes us feel good! If you feel uncomfortable with that... its your problem! Find something else to do! If their isn't anybody willing to guide this ship... I propose we find that person. Lets work with what we got! And stop the talking! regards Francisco -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
On Thu, Jun 06, 2002 at 12:51:04PM -0400, David Z Maze wrote: This came up on debian-devel not too long ago. Someone proposed a point release to woody that would have gcc-3.1, GNOME 2.0, new KDE, and no major changes to the distribution -- even though this would require recompiling everything with a relatively untested compiler, and presenting a relatively untested desktop environment to new users. Sure, it's good PR to have a release with ooh-new-and-shiny components, but it's less clear that it'll actually *work*, which should be the point. Not only good PR... I'd say it's also useful. Using potato, we had problems using docbook XML (we had to backport the packages from unstable), to compile an ICQ jabber transport (needs gcc 3.*), and some other problems that I do not recollect immediately. But I do understand that there are packaging problems involved, of course! I don't think that blindly adding things to stable would work, and selecting what to add may require time and attention from developers... But I do think there must exist some solution to this. J. -- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
On Thu, 6 Jun 2002, Ivo Wever wrote: If the other dists are so terrible that they can't even support the internet connection of a small group of people for three hours a day, then why is anyone using them and using them in a commercial environment at that? Fwiw, as well as a Debian developer, I am a RHCE, and I really lie Mandrae. I even still hae slackware running under vmware. As far as I'm concerned a win for one of the other distributins is not a loss for Debian. It's all Linux so it's all good. I believe the main reason is marketing. It's getting ridiculously easy to find a Linux distribution. Last weekend I was going shopping and there in my lcal supermarkets two-shelf computer section with the 1001 crappy windows shareware programs CDs and the latest shoot-e-ups was a Redhat 7.2 box. In a supermarket! As some whose first introduction to Linux many moons ago was downloading 40 floppies worth of slackware this just knocked me out. Debian can never compete with this but that's alright. Let the newbies get their feet wet and we will be their second Linux distro. -- Jaldhar H. Vyas [EMAIL PROTECTED] It's a girl! See the pictures - http://www.braincells.com/shailaja/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
Hi, I just thought I'd add my $.02, or what ever is the appropriate monetary conversion, in this inevitable discussion. First, I am a user. I write in fortran by choice, c and c++, in the past when I was teaching, by necessity. I am not a systems programmer so my contribution to Debian would, at best, be an application or two. Currently, I use Debian everywhere except on my Beowulf for reasons I will get to. I'm writing because I like Debian a lot, I think it has been a remarkable accomplishment, and I worry about its future general utility for me. The reasons I like it are: 1. apt-get 2. The remarkable support on this and other lists 3. The file organization 4. Its historic stability I'll note in passing that the first reason has lost some edge now that RH 7.3 comes with apt-get and that there are ports to older RH releases. The reason I worry is currency. I am not really concerned about the roughly 5 week delay since May 1, but the nearly two year cycle between potato and woody. I'm sure all developers are not only thinking about this but trying to address this. Indeed, it may be that the infrastructure put in place will address this wait. I have read some but not all of the messages in this thread and, boy, there are some strong emotions. I hope that over time some of the users comments and suggestions will be taken seriously. Some developers have pointed out that woody is essentially released. For my home computer this is true. However, if the security is not ready then, for professional uses, where one sits behind a firewall and is required to keep up with security, it will soon not be a viable choice. I say soon because I am assuming, possibly incorrectly, that all security issues have been addressed up to, say, May 1. This puts all of us about a month behind. This is OK but not great. As time goes on, I will have to change. What is even more problematic is that Woody is not itself up to date with XF86. I have no choice but to move to 4.2 because my graphics card is not supported in 4.1 . I have tried to use some debian packages from Columbia University, but these have several broken pieces wrt the debian gnome packages. I have compiled 4.2 from source and this works pretty well, although it leads to problems with Star Office. I continue to tinker to get the system working well enough. That is not what I do for a living. I'm supposed to do science. I'm not trying to be a scold. I'm relating what it means to be a pretty loyal Debian user at this point. I am also assuming that the Developer Community actually wants Debian used everywhere, so, even though some of the responses could have been on the 'Developer Knows Best' show, I think they will take the user messages seriously. The Developer Community will have to decide whether the delay was an infrastructure issue or whether this cycle is indemic to a distribution with so many packages and so many architectures. If the former is true (as I ardently hope) then this message is so much hot air. If not, then, unless you want an ever-shrinking user base, you will have to make some hard choices. It is true and noteworthy that there are so many architectures supported by Debian. I sense an either-or mind set about this. Either all of the architectures are released at the same time or you scrap them. Why not have different release dates for different architectures? As it stands, an architecture with a miniscule user base holds up everyone else. Anthony Towns has already bitten the bullet and thrown out a number of packages from woody because they were not ready. Why not take a similarly pragmatic approach on architectures. Another way to deal with this problem is to decide that there some crucial packages (like, for instance XFree86) that have to be up to date in stable. That is, you actually update stable to keep people from walking away because their hardware isn't supported. That way you could take you time on some big development issues and still keep a relatively well-served user community. As I said above, if infrastructure was the problem, and the succeeding releases are 6-8 months apart, you can throw these suggestions in the garbage. If is isn't then if something like these two suggestions is not implemented you could, at the least and of necessity, lose many workplace i86 machines. Art Edwards On Thu, Jun 06, 2002 at 02:15:34PM +0200, Kerstin Hoef-Emden wrote: Hi, On Wed, 5 Jun 2002, Sean 'Shaleh' Perry wrote: Debian is run by a few hundred programmers who do this for fun. Not profit. Because we do this for fun we choose where to spend our time. For some people the mips architecture and the required hacking is fun. Others are constrained by the hardware available to them (some of our developers had m68k only access). This one point, why Debian is different to other distris, it is not as i386-centered. In giving up its multiplatform support, it would loose one of its most attractive and
[mostly-OT] apt-get on RH, is it worth anything? (was Re: Debian: abandon ship?)
On Thu, Jun 06, 2002 at 12:48:15PM -0600, user list wrote: [snip] | The reasons I like [debian] are: | 1. apt-get [snip] | I'll note in passing that the first reason has lost some edge now that | RH 7.3 comes with apt-get and that there are ports to older RH releases. [snip] Is apt-get on RH 7.3 actually usable? Not very long ago I had requirements for using a RH box, so I installed the apt-for-rpm rpm from http://freshrpms.net/apt/. The system was a P90 with 96MB RAM and 10GB disk. apt was absolutely worthless on that system for two reasons 1) RH 7.2 repositories had very few packages (that I needed) 2) The porters royally screwed up. 3) it's as out-dated as potato To expand on #2 -- I have a 486SX with 8MB RAM and 230MB hdd at home. It is running debian, and apt (both potato's and woody's) works just fine amidst the thrashing. The thrashing is wholly expected on such hardware. Since the RH 7.2 repositories were lacking I tried the rawhide ones. A good idea, right? Kinda like trying woody or sid when potato doesn't cut it. On that machine with 96MB RAM (a 1200% increase compared to the debian box!) apt-get dies with an out-of-memory error. The problem was that apt-for-rpm was trying to mmap() the Packages file and it couldn't. Why is that such a big deal? I couldn't do anything with apt if the rawhide repository was in my sources.list. #3 isn't such a big deal, but after being used to woody's apt, with Preferences and all, seeing that potato's apt is the best thing to hit RH since sliced bread ... well, you know what I mean. Debian still maintains a strong edge over RH even in the apt arena. Oh, BTW, I just checked the RH 7.3 package list on redhat.com, and apt isn't mentioned anywhere. -D -- If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. James 1:5-6 GnuPG key : http://dman.ddts.net/~dman/public_key.gpg pgpCqmmMV1dwk.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
David Z Maze [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Brian Nelson [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I agree. I think stable should be able to get more fixes and updates than just security fixes. It's well known that much of the software in stable is quite buggy and years behind the upstream source (Mozilla M18, for example) but cannot be fixed until a security hole is found in that software. I think regular points releases, every month or two, containing new software and updates to older software, would be great. No major changes would be permitted of course, but there's no reason most desktop software couldn't be updated in stable. This came up on debian-devel not too long ago. Someone proposed a point release to woody that would have gcc-3.1, GNOME 2.0, new KDE, and no major changes to the distribution -- even though this would require recompiling everything with a relatively untested compiler, and presenting a relatively untested desktop environment to new users. Sure, it's good PR to have a release with ooh-new-and-shiny components, but it's less clear that it'll actually *work*, which should be the point. I saw that post, but I didn't think it was well thought-out. (There's also the problem that each of the developers has their own personal pet packages that they'd really like to make the point release, but it can't happen for everyone's packages, and someone needs to make the decision. Hypothetically, to pick one of my packages, there could be a new lm-sensors release. I say, it's important because it supports 17 new temperature sensor chips! But, it includes libsensors2, which replaces libsensors1 and affects three or four other packages; is it a major change or not?) I would define a major change to be something like the jump to gcc-3.1 or a libc6 version change, ie. something the affects nearly everything in the archive. I wouldn't consider a library that affects 3 or 4 other packages a major change. Why not just have point releases work in a similar manner to the testing-stable procedure, but on a smaller scale? For example, a new testing pool based on the stable pool (called proposed-updates or whatever) could be opened for a month or so, during which updates and new packages could be uploaded. After a month it could be frozen, and then for the next 2 months bugs could be worked out. If something like the upgrade to libsensors2 broke too many things, it could be backed out. Then, after 3 months (theoretically, of course), a point release with newer packages could be available. -- Brian Nelson [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
you wrote: Ivo Wever wrote: If the other dists are so terrible that they can't even support the internet connection of a small group of people for three hours a day, then why is anyone using them and using them in a commercial environment at that? [Personal story about liking several dists] Debian can never compete with this but that's alright. Let the newbies get their feet wet and we will be their second Linux distro. That doesn't explain why other dists are used in production environments. It doesn't explain why RedHat has such a huge market share. Or am I really overestimating the capabilities of the majority of the admins? sincerely, Ivo Wever [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: Debian: abandon ship?
Em Qua, 2002-06-05 às 18:41, Brooks R. Robinson escreveu: | Uh huh. And get cracked tomorrow because security updates are *not* | being made for woody at this time. There is a list of approximately a | dozen *known* security problems with woody that will be dealt with | *later*. Updates are not propogating from sid to woody at all right | now, even for security reasons. Woody is probably at its most insecure | point in the development process right now. | | Do not Just do an apt-get dist upgrade and get it over with unless you | have no reason to care about security or are willing to do security | investigations and fixes on your own. It was not my intention to lead users astray, my intention was to enlighten people to the fact that testing is, for the most part, not going to change. The security fixes are flowing into sid. It's not a big trick to get notice from security-announce and grab a few pacakges from sid in the mean time. I'll grant that it's not as easy, but doable. Farewell, Brooks Hi- At a bare * minimum * there should be some policy to * advise * and * guide * Woody users to do what you propose above. I've never seen that...No clear * guidance *. And _please_ don't flame me with the usual: well, it's your responsibility, etc, etc, Debian is not for everyone, etc. etc, blah, blah. But this is what happens when developers only see things from their standpoint. I mean this in the sense that they're more security savvy than the usual user. BTW, I would like to say here that I'm not trashing developers - no way. But how many are really proficient in security matters? Personally, I've known developers who are lax in security issues...Let alone common users... Henry [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
On 0, Brian Nelson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: David Z Maze [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: [snip] (There's also the problem that each of the developers has their own personal pet packages that they'd really like to make the point release, but it can't happen for everyone's packages, and someone needs to make the decision. Hypothetically, to pick one of my packages, there could be a new lm-sensors release. I say, it's important because it supports 17 new temperature sensor chips! But, it includes libsensors2, which replaces libsensors1 and affects three or four other packages; is it a major change or not?) I would define a major change to be something like the jump to gcc-3.1 or a libc6 version change, ie. something the affects nearly everything in the archive. I wouldn't consider a library that affects 3 or 4 other packages a major change. Why not just have point releases work in a similar manner to the testing-stable procedure, but on a smaller scale? For example, a new testing pool based on the stable pool (called proposed-updates or whatever) could be opened for a month or so, during which updates and new packages could be uploaded. After a month it could be frozen, and then for the next 2 months bugs could be worked out. If something like the upgrade to libsensors2 broke too many things, it could be backed out. Then, after 3 months (theoretically, of course), a point release with newer packages could be available. How will that be better and suffer from less release schedule problems than testing? As soon as the proposed-updates pool is opened, every developer will want his/her package in there, because it is, of course, important. Then testing will become neglected, and every new package will just go into proposed-updates, which then doesn't get released because we're waiting on bug fixes, and security infrastructure... what's the difference? Tom -- Tom Cook Information Technology Services, The University of Adelaide A child of five could understand this. Fetch me a child of five. - Groucho Marx Get my GPG public key: https://pinky.its.adelaide.edu.au/~tkcook/tom.cook-at-adelaide.edu.au pgpfhpi66qTBp.pgp Description: PGP signature
RE: Debian: abandon ship?
| With hindsight, it's clear that trying to | support too many architectures was a mistake. | Of course, everybody makes mistakes. It is truly | said that he who never made a mistake, never | made anything. Is it a mistake to try and reach every insert target here everywhere? If so, then the Christian Church and the Girl Scouts are making mistakes as well. | If the people in effective control of Debian's | direction no longer have this ability, then | perhaps Debian is no longer useful to most | of us. So let's just scrap the Debian project as a whole and go back to being drones for Microsoft. | To save the Debian Attack Team the effort | of a search, I'll admit immediately that | (like most Debian users) I've contributed | nothing to Debian except good intentions | and trivial amounts of money. Debian does | not need me. And I need a stable release | with the 2.4 kernel. I posted this rant on -devel a while ago (and had rebuttal), but I'll post it here as well. It's been modified slightly, but the point still remains. soap box I think a point needs to be made. The first article in the Debian Weekly News for May 15th has Woody in Freeze. From what I have gathered from lurking on the -devel list is that it's security infrastructure that's holding it up. Let's think logically for just a moment. 1. Woody is frozen. 2. It is unlikely that any new packages are going in, assumption based upon point 1. 3. Security is not in place to handle Woody. 4. A security issue would more than likely be a release critical bug. 5. Security bugs are, in my experience, very quickly remedied. 6. Contrary to point 2, a security/release critical bug fixed package would make it's way into Woody quickly. 7. We can ignore point 2 from a security standpoint by making use of point 6. My conclusion is that Woody is effectively released already. A large number of people have been running on Woody for quite some time. It's as stable as it's going to get. Just do an apt-get dist upgrade and get it over with already. /soap box Farewell, Brooks -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
On Wed, Jun 05, 2002 at 04:41:20AM -0700, Nick Jacobs wrote: A few days ago, David Wright posted a message to this list, questioning the wisdom of Debian's decision to target 11 architectures. He pointed out (with supporting references) that this decision has contributed to a long delay in releasing Woody; of course, other people have said this before. The main result was that a small number of Debian insiders posted abusive comments in response to David's perfectly reasonable message. (The thread, in case you missed it, has the subject This post is not off-topic.) With hindsight, it's clear that trying to support too many architectures was a mistake. It's not really at all clear that this was where the mistake lay. I think the mistake was in not getting the infrastructure upgrades underway sooner; I support this claim by pointing out that virtually everything else in Debian deals with large numbers of architectures very cleanly and with little delay. The security team mentioned some time ago that supporting woody was going to be difficult, but unfortunately nobody did enough about it early on. I hope you don't find this comment abusive. It's worth remembering that many developers are feeling under quite a lot of pressure right now, because a large percentage of the more vocal users sometimes seem to be engaging in a trash-the-developers campaign with regard to the woody release, and many of us have already put in just about as much work as we possibly can to make it go smoothly; that's bound to make some feathers a little ruffled. -- Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
At 2002-06-05T11:41:20Z, Nick Jacobs [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: But what separates the doers from the wannabes is the ability to admit a mistake, change direction, and move on. So, who made a mistake? The maintainers who've stated that they *will* treat all platforms equally simply do *not* see their decision as a mistake. It's not a matter of admitting it and moving on. In their opinion, which I happen to agree with, there is nothing to admit. -- Kirk Strauser The Strauser Group - http://www.strausergroup.com/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
With hindsight, it's clear that trying to support too many architectures was a mistake. Of course, everybody makes mistakes. It is truly said that he who never made a mistake, never made anything. But what separates the doers from the wannabes is the ability to admit a mistake, change direction, and move on. If the people in effective control of Debian's direction no longer have this ability, then perhaps Debian is no longer useful to most of us. To save the Debian Attack Team the effort of a search, I'll admit immediately that (like most Debian users) I've contributed nothing to Debian except good intentions and trivial amounts of money. Debian does not need me. And I need a stable release with the 2.4 kernel. Debian is run by a few hundred programmers who do this for fun. Not profit. Because we do this for fun we choose where to spend our time. For some people the mips architecture and the required hacking is fun. Others are constrained by the hardware available to them (some of our developers had m68k only access). Debian will never make it to perfect 6 month release cycles. To use Debian you must acclimate to apt-get and the we release every day credo. Although we call it unstable what we really mean is changing. If you choose to not update then you have a fairly stable box. I wish there was more we could do, but there isn't. Especially now that most of us are not being paid for Debian work anymore. Cutting back to ia32 (x86) would help, but the cost is not worth it. Besides, Debian is one of the few dists out there supporting anything other than Sun and ia32. Removing those arches would leave out many of our users and potential users. The answers are not so cut and dried. Maybe this means we lose some users to Red Hat (or SuSE or whoever) and their 6 month cd releases. Everyone has to use what works for them. As for your last comment about contributing a good user contributes two simple things: * they use our software, like it, and tell others Every linux dist is fighting the marketing of Red Hat. This is witnessed by UnitedLinux and by many other people's work. Voicing the virtues of Debian helping us work through our problems is a great help. Criticism is good as long as it is constructive. That some of our people abused the earlier poster is disappointing. However there are more than 600 of us and we do act with our own free will. * bug reports Without knowing that something is broke for the way you use it we can not fix it. Debian lives and dies with its bug tracker. This is more important than money or even hardware. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
On Wednesday 05 June 2002 09:25 am, Brooks R. Robinson wrote: 1. Woody is frozen. 2. It is unlikely that any new packages are going in, assumption based upon point 1. 3. Security is not in place to handle Woody. 4. A security issue would more than likely be a release critical bug. 5. Security bugs are, in my experience, very quickly remedied. 6. Contrary to point 2, a security/release critical bug fixed package would make it's way into Woody quickly. 7. We can ignore point 2 from a security standpoint by making use of point How does FreeBSD manage to stay reasonably secure and stable, yet modern (compared to Potato)? Oleg -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
On 2002.06.05 09:32 Colin Watson wrote: I hope you don't find this comment abusive. It's worth remembering that many developers are feeling under quite a lot of pressure right now, because a large percentage of the more vocal users sometimes seem to be engaging in a trash-the-developers campaign with regard to the woody release, and many of us have already put in just about as much work as we possibly can to make it go smoothly; that's bound to make some feathers a little ruffled. Speaking only for myself, it was the condescending tone adopted by one of the developers (don't remember the fellow's name; he was the one ranting about about his $250,00/hr fee) more than the actual content that I found offensive. While stating that you don't give a rip about the users may be intelectually honest, one should not be surprised when such statements endanger userbase loyalty. Ian -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
On Wed, Jun 05, 2002 at 08:25:22AM -0500, Brooks R. Robinson wrote: Are you really named Brooks Robinson or is that a nom du net? [snip] | not need me. And I need a stable release | with the 2.4 kernel. [another snip] My conclusion is that Woody is effectively released already. So, Woody changed to a 2.4 kernel? At last report it was still using 2.2x. -- Carl Fink [EMAIL PROTECTED] Manager, Dueling Modems Computer Forum http://dm.net -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
Nick == Nick Jacobs [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Nick A few days ago, David Wright posted a message to this list, Nick questioning the wisdom of Debian's decision to target 11 Nick architectures. He pointed out (with supporting references) that Nick this decision has contributed to a long delay in releasing Nick Woody; of course, other people have said this before. Well, this is only partially true. All architectuures for Woody are ready. They are not delaying the release. What is not ready is the ability to support security for woody and potato for even the architectures that we have now -- not with the increased number of packlages that the security team has to support. So, woody can't be released even now, wqith the arches that potato supports. Nick The main result was that a small number of Debian insiders Nick posted abusive comments in response to David's perfectly Nick reasonable message. (The thread, in case you missed it, has the Nick subject This post is not off-topic.) This is a foul canar. His reasonable questions received a reasonable resaponse: Debian has no release schedules, and that the goals of the project are not to maximize popularity. When you start making demands of the developers, the standard response was again given; that the developers have no obligation to meet demands on how they must spend their time volunteering. Abuse? I would characterize demands as abuseive, myself. Nick With hindsight, it's clear that trying to support too many Nick architectures was a mistake. Of course, everybody makes Nick mistakes. It is truly said that he who never made a mistake, Nick never made anything. I beg to differ. The arches are ready. The developers who work on these architectures as a labour of love can't just be reassigned. Porting packages uncovers flaws that makes packages less buggy on all architectures. Of course, when it comes down to the brass tacks, if such a difference of opinion exists, the people who do the work get to decide which side is right. Nick But what separates the doers from the wannabes is the ability Nick to admit a mistake, change direction, and move on. I see. A bunch of people that have put together a distribution of Linux, one that is fairly succesful, are the wannabees, and bystanders critisizing the effor t are the doers. I would think that actually getting out there and putting together one of the top 5 distributions would classify debian as one of the doers, but hey, what do I know. Nick If the people in effective control of Debian's direction no Nick longer have this ability, then perhaps Debian is no longer Nick useful to most of us. We are a pretty egalitarian bunch. If there was a wide spread dissonance with this decision, it would not have happened. And whther Debian is useful or not is a decision every one has to make on their own. It is still useful for me. manoj -- One does not thank logic. Sarek, Journey to Babel, stardate 3842.4 Manoj Srivastava [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/ 1024R/C7261095 print CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05 CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E 1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
On Wed, Jun 05, 2002 at 04:41:20AM -0700, Nick Jacobs wrote: The main result was that a small number of Debian insiders posted abusive comments in response to David's perfectly reasonable message. Maybe I've just been around the 'net too long and been too hardened by it, but I haven't seen anything (from either side) that I would call abusive. But what separates the doers from the wannabes is the ability to admit a mistake, change direction, and move on. As was mentioned here yesterday, dropping all the new architectures would not significantly affect the release timing, as the security team would still be unable to support both potato and a 6-arch woody without the infrastucture improvements which are underway and, when complete, will allow them to support an 11-arch woody. If the real problem is simply one of having too many archs, then it is that potato has too many, not that woody does. -- When we reduce our own liberties to stop terrorism, the terrorists have already won. - reverius Innocence is no protection when governments go bad. - Tom Swiss -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
Em Qua, 2002-06-05 às 08:41, Nick Jacobs escreveu: A few days ago, David Wright posted a message to this list, questioning the wisdom of Debian's decision to target 11 architectures. He pointed out (with supporting references) that this decision has contributed to a long delay in releasing Woody; of course, other people have said this before. The main result was that a small number of Debian insiders posted abusive comments in response to David's perfectly reasonable message. (The thread, in case you missed it, has the subject This post is not off-topic.) With hindsight, it's clear that trying to support too many architectures was a mistake. Of course, everybody makes mistakes. It is truly said that he who never made a mistake, never made anything. But what separates the doers from the wannabes is the ability to admit a mistake, change direction, and move on. If the people in effective control of Debian's direction no longer have this ability, then perhaps Debian is no longer useful to most of us. To save the Debian Attack Team the effort of a search, I'll admit immediately that (like most Debian users) I've contributed nothing to Debian except good intentions and trivial amounts of money. Debian does not need me. And I need a stable release with the 2.4 kernel. You have 2 stable releases which are up-to-date: woody and sid They are perfectly stable, but the distribution is changing just like the RedHat distribution is changing every few weeks, the only difference is that they call it stable even when if it is broken, while debian is called unstable even when every thing works fine. Michel. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
On Wed, Jun 05, 2002 at 08:02:02AM -0400, Ian D. Stewart wrote: On 2002.06.05 09:32 Colin Watson wrote: I hope you don't find this comment abusive. It's worth remembering that many developers are feeling under quite a lot of pressure right now, because a large percentage of the more vocal users sometimes seem to be engaging in a trash-the-developers campaign with regard to the woody release, and many of us have already put in just about as much work as we possibly can to make it go smoothly; that's bound to make some feathers a little ruffled. Speaking only for myself, it was the condescending tone adopted by one of the developers (don't remember the fellow's name; he was the one ranting about about his $250,00/hr fee) more than the actual content that I found offensive. While stating that you don't give a rip about the users may be intelectually honest, one should not be surprised when such statements endanger userbase loyalty. I think (again speaking only for myself) that what Manoj was trying to say is that he doesn't feel obligated to users, especially when they're demanding things of him. That's not quite the same as saying that he doesn't give a rip about them, from my reading, although the distinction might be subtle in the heat of an argument. In all my dealings as a bug submitter with Manoj, he has been consistently polite, knowledgeable, and helpful. I might have chosen different wording, but it *is* true that if I felt obligated to every user as a developer then I would barely have time to sleep and eat. That certainly doesn't mean that I don't listen to users, especially when their feedback helps software I maintain. -- Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
On Wednesday 05 June 2002 09:37 am, Sean 'Shaleh' Perry wrote: Debian is run by a few hundred programmers who do this for fun. Not profit. Because we do this for fun we choose where to spend our time. For some people the mips architecture and the required hacking is fun. Others are constrained by the hardware available to them (some of our developers had m68k only access). Debian will never make it to perfect 6 month release cycles. To use Debian you must acclimate to apt-get and the we release every day credo. Although we call it unstable what we really mean is changing. If you choose to not update then you have a fairly stable box. I wish there was more we could do, but there isn't. Especially now that most of us are not being paid for Debian work anymore. Cutting back to ia32 (x86) would help, but the cost is not worth it. Besides, Debian is one of the few dists out there supporting anything other than Sun and ia32. Removing those arches would leave out many of our users and potential users. The answers are not so cut and dried. I certainly appreciate the multiple architecture support of Debian. I have it installed on a powerpc, m68k, and x86 box. I initially installed it on my m68k box, since Debian was the only distribution that supported it. I made the switch to my other boxes because I liked the consistency of one distribution and hated the dependency mess of rpm. I have advocated Debian to others in my work place and will continue to do so. John Schmidt [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
On Wed, Jun 05, 2002 at 12:30:39PM -0400, Carl Fink wrote: On Wed, Jun 05, 2002 at 08:25:22AM -0500, Brooks R. Robinson wrote: [snip] | not need me. And I need a stable release | with the 2.4 kernel. [another snip] My conclusion is that Woody is effectively released already. So, Woody changed to a 2.4 kernel? At last report it was still using 2.2x. 2.2 is the default on i386, but 2.4 is available as an option (both for the installation system and afterwards). -- Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
Carl Fink [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: So, Woody changed to a 2.4 kernel? At last report it was still using 2.2x. Woody has 2.4 kernels, just defaults to a 2.2 kernel. -- Alan Shutko [EMAIL PROTECTED] - In a variety of flavors! Got a dictionary? I want to know the meaning of life. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
On 05 Jun 2002, Carl Fink wrote: On Wed, Jun 05, 2002 at 08:25:22AM -0500, Brooks R. Robinson wrote: Are you really named Brooks Robinson or is that a nom du net? [snip] | not need me. And I need a stable release | with the 2.4 kernel. [another snip] My conclusion is that Woody is effectively released already. So, Woody changed to a 2.4 kernel? At last report it was still using 2.2x. -- Carl Fink [EMAIL PROTECTED] Manager, Dueling Modems Computer Forum http://dm.net Surely you can use any kernel you like. I've been using 2.4.18 since it came out and will upgrade to 2.4.19 as soon as it's released. AC -- Anthony Campbell - running Linux GNU/Debian (Windows-free zone) For electronic books on the Assassins and on homeopathy, skeptical essays, and over 170 book reviews, go to: http://www.acampbell.org.uk/ Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. [Carl Sagan] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
Oleg == Oleg [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Oleg How does FreeBSD manage to stay reasonably secure and stable, Oleg yet modern (compared to Potato)? Perhaps number of packages has something to do with this? How does testing compare to freebsd in terms of security and stability? (I do not use freebsd, so I honestly do not know). manoj -- When we jumped into Sicily, the units became separated, and I couldn't find anyone. Eventually I stumbled across two colonels, a major, three captains, two lieutenants, and one rifleman, and we secured the bridge. Never in the history of war have so few been led by so many. General James Gavin Manoj Srivastava [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/ 1024R/C7261095 print CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05 CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E 1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
Ian == Ian D Stewart [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Ian Speaking only for myself, it was the condescending tone adopted Ian by one of the developers (don't remember the fellow's name; he Ian was the one ranting about about his $250,00/hr fee) more than Ian the actual content that I found offensive. While stating that Ian you don't give a rip about the users may be intelectually Ian honest, one should not be surprised when such statements Ian endanger userbase loyalty. That would be me. To bring in the context that you have elided, this is exactly what I said: Manoj Telling me how to spend my time comes with the obligation of Manoj helping me pay my mortgage. My posted rates are $250 an hour. You have a strange definition of condescending. Are you, then, opposed to this sentiment? Can we call on you and tell you how to spend your time? manoj -- Interesting survey in the current Journal of Abnormal Psychology: New York City has a higher percentage of people you shouldn't make any sudden moves around than any other city in the world. David Letterman Manoj Srivastava [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/ 1024R/C7261095 print CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05 CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E 1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
Oleg writes: How does FreeBSD manage to stay reasonably secure and stable, yet modern (compared to Potato)? Mostly by being much, much smaller. -- John Hasler [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dancing Horse Hill Elmwood, Wisconsin -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
How does FreeBSD manage to stay reasonably secure and stable, yet modern (compared to Potato)? I think it's because they don't have a zero-bugs release policy like Debian. The base system is stable. The stuff in the ports tree is not, from my experience. I once decided to install gdm on a FreeBSD box... There were *lots* of broken dependencies in the ports tree, and I had to vgrep the missing dependencies in the compile logs. :-/ Besides that, Debian is an automated configuration paradise if conpared to FreeBSD. Anyway, if you manage to get over the problems you'll have to get it working, you'll find that *after* it's installed and configured, it's a very stable and powerful system. But -- they don't think twice before adding things to the ports tree. Just because it's -STABLE, that doesn't mean there can't be new software added to it. And actually, the FreeBSD -STABLE is a CVS branch! What they do periodically is to ship snapshots of it. (And of course, the snapshots are carefully prepared). J. -- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
It's not really at all clear that this was where the mistake lay. I never thought I would be advocating more management, but here goes... Debian, as another poster pointed out, has grown from ~50 to ~2000 developers. And those developers, being geeks rather than suits, respond to problems by working harder on their jobs (as I believe Collin pointed out), rather than by strategic re-alignments. Other engineer-centered organizations (HP and Boeing are famous examples) have run into this problem before. Now as Manoj has pointed out many times, Debian is not a corporation and has no way to force developers to work on a certain project. But Debian as an organization does have some pretense to becoming a widely adopted, enterprise-class distribution -- I think this was made clear by the debate during the last DPL elections and by the candidate who won -- and doing that requires a degree of responsiveness to the needs of its real (as opposed to ideal) users. I haven't experienced first-hand the styles of the previous and current RMs, but at least looking from the outside, it would seem that the current RM has been much more effective (aside from failing to take into account the security infrastructure problems) than the previous one in driving woody to release. This would seem to indicate that management can make a difference. What about increasing the management overhead for Debian? Instead of just having DPL and RM, the RM could be given some minions, there could be PMs for different areas, etc. They would make tactical and strategic decisions regarding releases, and advertise needs as they arise. There, the idea is out there; wail away at it. By the way, the frustrating thing for me personally about the release process hasn't been the long delay in making woody stable. I have never even used stable. The frustrating thing for me has been how the freezes and concentration of effort on getting woody stable has kept unstable from moving forward with the bleeding edge. For me, a faster stable cycle could actually be bad, since it could mean more freezes. This may well be a minority position, but, in the interest of Debian getting to know the needs of its customers (a phrase calculated to annoy Manoj :-), what are the percentage users of potato, woody, and sid? I assume this could be estimated from average daily activity for each archive. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
On Wed, Jun 05, 2002 at 12:49:54PM -0500, Manoj Srivastava wrote: Oleg == Oleg [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Oleg How does FreeBSD manage to stay reasonably secure and stable, Oleg yet modern (compared to Potato)? Perhaps number of packages has something to do with this? How does testing compare to freebsd in terms of security and stability? (I do not use freebsd, so I honestly do not know). Similar order of magnitude in terms of number of packages, if you count the FreeBSD ports system. However, I don't think FreeBSD take their ports into account when it comes to making releases in quite the same way we take optional and extra packages into account. FreeBSD certainly has a very good reputation in terms of security and stability; I'd ask the FreeBSD committer sitting behind me, but he'd probably be biased. :-) -- Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
On Wed, Jun 05, 2002 at 11:18:29AM -0700, David Wright wrote: in the interest of Debian getting to know the needs of its customers (a phrase calculated to annoy Manoj :-), what are the percentage users of potato, woody, and sid? I assume this could be estimated from average daily activity for each archive. I doubt that this would be a useful metric, given that people tracking less-stable versions are likely to be updating more frequently. (I'll periodically apt-get upgrade my testing/unstable systems just to see what's new, but I only touch apt on my stable boxes when a security update is announced.) -- When we reduce our own liberties to stop terrorism, the terrorists have already won. - reverius Innocence is no protection when governments go bad. - Tom Swiss -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
On Wed, Jun 05, 2002 at 08:25:22AM -0500, Brooks R. Robinson wrote: My conclusion is that Woody is effectively released already. A large number of people have been running on Woody for quite some time. It's as stable as it's going to get. Just do an apt-get dist upgrade and get it over with already. Uh huh. And get cracked tomorrow because security updates are *not* being made for woody at this time. There is a list of approximately a dozen *known* security problems with woody that will be dealt with *later*. Updates are not propogating from sid to woody at all right now, even for security reasons. Woody is probably at its most insecure point in the development process right now. Do not Just do an apt-get dist upgrade and get it over with unless you have no reason to care about security or are willing to do security investigations and fixes on your own. noah -- ___ | Web: http://web.morgul.net/~frodo/ | PGP Public Key: http://web.morgul.net/~frodo/mail.html pgpXzsfEYI1sS.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
On Wed, 5 Jun 2002 13:47:27 -0500 Dave Sherohman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Jun 05, 2002 at 11:18:29AM -0700, David Wright wrote: in the interest of Debian getting to know the needs of its customers (a phrase calculated to annoy Manoj :-), what are the percentage users of potato, woody, and sid? I assume this could be estimated from average daily activity for each archive. I doubt that this would be a useful metric, given that people tracking less-stable versions are likely to be updating more frequently. (I'll periodically apt-get upgrade my testing/unstable systems just to see what's new, but I only touch apt on my stable boxes when a security update is announced.) Beyond that it would fail to account for users of local mirrors. I for one have 18 systems in my household that update off one central internal mirror. In addition, my mirror pulls for stable, testing, and unstable for both i386 and PPC. So, now tell me, how many systems I have are running which releases. -- Jamin W. Collins -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
On Wed, Jun 05, 2002 at 11:30:12AM -0500, Manoj Srivastava wrote: Well, this is only partially true. All architectuures for Woody are ready. They are not delaying the release. What is not ready is the ability to support security for woody and potato for even the architectures that we have now -- not with the increased number of packlages that the security team has to support. The 11 architecures *are* what's holding up the release. The whole reason the security team needs the new build infrastructure is that it's not a reasonable expectation for them to be able to manually build updated packages for all 11 architectures in a timely fashion. With pototo, we were able to release because we didn't require such a large-scale automated build process for the security team since we supported fewer architectures. noah -- ___ | Web: http://web.morgul.net/~frodo/ | PGP Public Key: http://web.morgul.net/~frodo/mail.html pgpgpKWqcYGG9.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
On Wed, Jun 05, 2002 at 12:47:17PM -0500, Manoj Srivastava wrote: Ian == Ian D Stewart [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Ian Speaking only for myself, it was the condescending tone adopted Ian by one of the developers (don't remember the fellow's name; he Ian was the one ranting about about his $250,00/hr fee) more than Ian the actual content that I found offensive. While stating that Ian you don't give a rip about the users may be intelectually Ian honest, one should not be surprised when such statements Ian endanger userbase loyalty. That would be me. To bring in the context that you have elided, this is exactly what I said: Manoj Telling me how to spend my time comes with the obligation of Manoj helping me pay my mortgage. My posted rates are $250 an hour. You have a strange definition of condescending. Are you, then, opposed to this sentiment? Can we call on you and tell you how to spend your time? manoj He didn't say he was opposed to the sentiment. He was saying that by stating the obvious, you were talking down to the other person. Granted, in an exchange in which both parties think the other side isn't seeing plain logic, it's a fuzzy line between making yourself crystal clear and condescension. --Pete -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
On 2002.06.05 13:47 Manoj Srivastava wrote: Ian == Ian D Stewart [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Ian Speaking only for myself, it was the condescending tone adopted Ian by one of the developers (don't remember the fellow's name; he Ian was the one ranting about about his $250,00/hr fee) more than Ian the actual content that I found offensive. While stating that Ian you don't give a rip about the users may be intelectually Ian honest, one should not be surprised when such statements Ian endanger userbase loyalty. That would be me. To bring in the context that you have elided, this is exactly what I said: Manoj Telling me how to spend my time comes with the obligation of Manoj helping me pay my mortgage. My posted rates are $250 an hour. No, this is what was said: What you are missing is even a modicum of understanding of the motivation for the people who put in the effort and do the work for Debian -- I certainly do not do this (working 20 hours a week, over and above the 50-60 I do for work, and trying to keep the house and lawn in shape, etc (I also happen to run an active DD campaign, but well)) for the unwashed masses. Do you know what motivates the developers? Developers most certainly do _not_ live to serve. As far as I have been aware, the majority of people working for free software work because it pleases their muse (or scratches their own particular itch). The user base helps by helping make the software better; in return for getting to use it. Anyone can participate -- by helping with bug reports and fizxes, patches, etc; and even getting a say in how debian works by committing themselves to Debian; no one tells any other volunteer how to spend their time. All that is needed is essentially Show us the code (or help us improve it). People are not excluded because we are the holiest of the holy and outsiders are dirt. There is no core Debian team. And users certainly are not in control; and popularity has never been a Debian goal. The ``community participation'' does have limitations. Telling me how to spend my time comes with the obligation of helping me pay my mortgage. My posted rates are $250 an hour. Anyone telling me how to spend my time has to pony up the moolah. And yes, I do find it condescending. Particularly the reference to 'unwashed masses' and the general attitude of 'I have done this thing because it pleases me. You should be content that I allow you to benefit from my labor.' You have a strange definition of condescending. So it would seem. However, based on previous postings to the list, I am not alone in my unusual definitions. Are you, then, opposed to this sentiment? Can we call on you and tell you how to spend your time? I don't recall anyone telling you to do anything. One gentleman raised a complaint regarding the release schedule of Woody. Apparently, you interpreted this as a direct order. But to answer your question, there are several projects I have an interest in. I have even started writing code for eventual contribution to one of them. You, or anybody else for that matter, are perfectly welcome to provide feedback regarding any of those projects. Indeed most actively encourage user feedback. If the feedback is in reference to an aspect I have in interest in or responsibility for, I will take it into consideration. If I feel it is inappropriate, for what ever reason, I will let you know. And I will not accuse you of telling me what to do. Regards, Ian -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
Noah == Noah Meyerhans [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Noah The 11 architecures *are* what's holding up the release. The Noah whole reason the security team needs the new build Noah infrastructure is that it's not a reasonable expectation for Noah them to be able to manually build updated packages for all 11 Noah architectures in a timely fashion. With pototo, we were able Noah to release because we didn't require such a large-scale Noah automated build process for the security team since we Noah supported fewer architectures. I shall get my knuckles rapped for releasing information out of debian-private, but the security team expressed an inability to simultaneously support potato and woody (just confirmed this on IRC, talking with a security team member), and especially given the explosion of packages for woody. Indeed, the security team indicated that potato support would have to be dropped summarily when woody was released _unless_ changes were made (or a decision would have to be made to only support some arches, but not all, even from the mainstream ones). This was obviously unacceptable. manoj -- Acting is not very hard. The most important things are to be able to laugh and cry. If I have to cry, I think of my sex life. And if I have to laugh, well, I think of my sex life. Glenda Jackson Manoj Srivastava [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/ 1024R/C7261095 print CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05 CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E 1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
On Wed, Jun 05, 2002 at 02:47:59PM -0500, Manoj Srivastava wrote: Indeed, the security team indicated that potato support would have to be dropped summarily when woody was released _unless_ changes were made (or a decision would have to be made to only support some arches, but not all, even from the mainstream ones). This was obviously unacceptable. Obviously unacceptable? It's how stuff has been done in the past. How long was it after potato's release that we dropped support for slink? IIRC it was little more than a month. noah -- ___ | Web: http://web.morgul.net/~frodo/ | PGP Public Key: http://web.morgul.net/~frodo/mail.html pgpVYUSpqqnSv.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
On Wed, Jun 05, 2002 at 06:43:57PM +0100, Anthony Campbell wrote: Surely you can use any kernel you like. I've been using 2.4.18 since it came out and will upgrade to 2.4.19 as soon as it's released. I'm using 2.4.18 myself, but that isn't relevant to the original poster's request for a stable distribution using (meaning something like coming with) a 2.4.x kernel. -- Carl Fink [EMAIL PROTECTED] Manager, Dueling Modems Computer Forum http://dm.net -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
John == John Schmidt [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: John I certainly appreciate the multiple architecture support of Debian. I John have it installed on a powerpc, m68k, and x86 box. I initially John installed it on my m68k box, since Debian was the only distribution John that supported it. I made the switch to my other boxes because I liked John the consistency of one distribution and hated the dependency mess of John rpm. I have advocated Debian to others in my work place and will John continue to do so. Thank you. It is messages like this that make me continue to put in the time and effort for Debian. manoj ps: the reson I moniotr this high volume list, while most of the developers no longer bother, is to help with question about my packages. It is hard to maintain motivation, most of the time, were it not for posts like this one. -- The only difference in the game of love over the last few thousand years is that they've changed trumps from clubs to diamonds. The Indianapolis Star Manoj Srivastava [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/ 1024R/C7261095 print CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05 CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E 1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
Ian == Ian D Stewart [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Ian But to answer your question, there are several projects I have Ian an interest in. I have even started writing code for eventual Ian contribution to one of them. You, or anybody else for that Ian matter, are perfectly welcome to provide feedback regarding any Ian of those projects. Indeed most actively encourage user Ian feedback. If the feedback is in reference to an aspect I have Ian in interest in or responsibility for, I will take it into Ian consideration. If I feel it is inappropriate, for what ever Ian reason, I will let you know. And I will not accuse you of Ian telling me what to do. Constructive doalogue is one thing. Telling us we made a mistake, and we better own up, and that debian has started to, umm, suck, does not strike me as constructive. As to my responses to feedback, look at the responses I make to people filing bugs on my packages. That is feed back. manoj -- When the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to treat everything as if it were a nail. Abraham Maslow Manoj Srivastava [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/ 1024R/C7261095 print CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05 CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E 1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
David == David Wright [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: It's not really at all clear that this was where the mistake lay. David I never thought I would be advocating more management, but here goes... David Debian, as another poster pointed out, has grown from ~50 to David ~2000 developers. And those developers, being geeks rather David than suits, respond to problems by working harder on their David jobs (as I believe Collin pointed out), rather than by David strategic re-alignments. Other engineer-centered organizations David (HP and Boeing are famous examples) have run into this problem David before. Do you have any data for this, or are you just making things up? The new pool system is not a reorg? The buildd and rbuilder? the automated BTS tracking tools? Do you actually know what is being done internally to deal with the issues? David I haven't experienced first-hand the styles of the previous David and current RMs, but at least looking from the outside, it David would seem that the current RM has been much more effective David (aside from failing to take into account the security David infrastructure problems) than the previous one in driving David woody to release. This would seem to indicate that management David can make a difference. Perhaps the new pools and testing mechanism has something to do with this, hmm? David What about increasing the management overhead for Debian? David Instead of just having DPL and RM, the RM could be given some David minions, there could be PMs for different areas, etc. They David would make tactical and strategic decisions regarding David releases, and advertise needs as they arise. We have the boot floppy team, the debian web pages team, the perl team, java people, the policy group, the debian cd people, the new maintainer people, the press release folks, the security team, the admin folks, the list masters, the ftp archive folks, the project secretary, the .. All with team leaders and delegates of the DPL. Have you even looked before you start coming in firing off proposals without even knowing what the problems are? David There, the idea is out there; wail away at it. Yes. Random ideas, fired off with no concept of problem details, no idea of the culture, and no work done researching anything. Guess how much this is worth? manoj -- Instead of whining to the net about it, why don't you talk to the news admins at Berkeley? If they won't trash sci.skeptic there, pass around a petition. Threaten to set their dog on fire. Whatever. If nothing works, you can, as a last resort, unsubscribe. Dave Mack, [EMAIL PROTECTED], responds to a flame in news.groups Manoj Srivastava [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/ 1024R/C7261095 print CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05 CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E 1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian: abandon ship?
I doubt that this would be a useful metric, given that people tracking less-stable versions are likely to be updating more frequently. It is possible to count unique IPs, rather than bytes. Another poster pointed out the problem of local archives, but there is no reason to assume that stable users are more or less likely to use local arhives that unstable users, so that shouldn't skew the ratios. Yes, even this would not be a perfect measure. But I bet it would be quite good. And it would be possible to quantify how good by doing a bootstrap. I for one would be interested in the total number of unique IPs that accessed each official archive in the last, say, 3 months. (If someone will send me the logs, I'll compile the statistics myself -- but I imagine that would raise privacy concerns.) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
