[Gllug] Debian

[Mike Brodbelt]

On Mon, 2003-10-20 at 13:29, itsbruce at uklinux.net wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 20, 2003 at 01:14:13PM +0100, Peter Childs wrote:

> > 	From what I've seen Debian has a good plan but slow speed
> > development. Where as Redhat, Suse, etc have fast development but no plan.
> 
> This is a gross over-simplification.  If you want to be up-to-date with
> Debian, just use the testing or unstable versions.

To be fair, testing isn't exactly up to date. Mozilla in testing is
still version 1.0, and the package went in in June 2002 - that makes
what is probably one of the more heavily used applications 16 months out
of date in testing. And don't even mention XFree - 4.3 was released over
8 months ago, and still isn't even in *unstable*.

And a personal favourite of mine:-

cyrus-imapd:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 1.5.19-14
  Version Table:
     1.5.19-14 0
        500 ftp://ftp.uk.debian.org sid/main Packages

The tarballs of 1.5.19 from the Project Cyrus homepage date from
December *1998*. They are almost *5 years* out of date. The Cyrus
developers don't want them shipped any more.

Don't get me wrong, I think Debian is great - I've switched all my
servers to it, and I'm running unstable on my desktop. Some packages are
very up to date in unstable, and Woody makes a damn good server system.
However, there's a good argument that parts of the base Debian system
are so old it's unusable in places, and third party or roll your own
packages become essential.

XFree is what I feel is the worst - the XFree86 project aren't exactly
quick off the mark with releases, and have conspicuously failed to
separate driver releases from the main server. So, if J. Random User
buys a machine, and is unlucky, he may have to wait several months for
an XFree release which supports his card, followed by another year or so
until the support for said card gets into Debian. This is not a good
philosophy for attracting new users, regardless of their technical
competence. I'm more than capable of checking out XFree CVS, building
and installing it. That doesn't mean I want to - it turns simple system
maintenance into a godawful nightmare.

> My priority is running my systems effectively, not engaging in useless
> wars.

Yes - here, Debian is without a doubt better than all alternatives, IMO.

>   That kind of time-wasting verbiage is all too common from newbies
> who want to gain approval and those who have nothing better to do.  The
> rest of us simply get on with it, which does more to promote Free
> Software than any amount of posturing.
> 
> > 	Currently Mac are running circles around OpenSource.
> 
> They are doing no such thing.  Most of the applications running on OSX
> *are* open source.  Even the core OS is partly based on FreeBSD.  The
> rest of it is proprietary and as opaque as ever.  Macs are still a niche
> market and likely to remain so.

I'm for ever at a loss about why Apple gets so much credit. Their OS
gets so past it that they're desperate for something new, so they nick
BSD, get lots of GNU stuff running, then add a thin layer of
proprietary, patent riddled technology to the mix, flog it, asking for
more cash for every minor version upgrade, and proclaim to the world
what wonderful Open Source contributors they are. Even Microsoft don't
have that kind of gall. What do they give back - Darwin (useless unless
you're running a Mac, in which case you paid for it anyway), Rendezvous
(arguably better, but I don't see it used much) and their streaming
server (great if you pay them for QuickTime). Very noble of them....

Mike.


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