Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 Set for December

dolson writes sends in a heartening update straight from the Debian project's news page: "The Debian project confirms December 2006 as the date for the next release of its distribution which will be named Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 alias 'etch'. This will be the first official release to include the AMD64 architecture. The distribution will be released synchronously for 11 architectures in total. At this stage, the upcoming release will ship with Linux 2.6.17 as its default kernel. This kernel will be used across all architectures and on the installer. A later version may be selected during a review in October. New features of this release include the GNU Compiler Collection 4.1 as default compiler. X.Org will replace XFree86 as implementation of the X Window System X11. Secure APT will add extra security by easily supporting strong cryptography and digital signatures to validate downloaded packages."

Re:process

[frovingslosh]

Sure. You can get Etch now. It's also called testing, and is very stable. There is also a newer "unstable" version that you can download and use, it is changing almost daily, but overall it is pretty stable in spite of the name. So by the time a version like Etch is officially "released" it is extremely stable, and somewhat out of date. I find that unless you are building mission critical process control systems that need to be extremely bug free, you are better off using the Debian testing version than the official release, particularly if you have newer hardware that you want to be able to use.

Re:Debian running current software?

[frovingslosh]

They are not pushing a volume of changes into the distro all at once. They are just saying that in December, Etch, which you can download and install right now (or better yet, do a "net install") will be called the official Stable release. Sarge, the current stable release will be retired (well past time). Newer versions will become "testing" and "unstable". I've been using Etch, it is pretty nice. But I expect that with it's "release" in December I'll stop using it and move on to the new "testing" version. The official Debian release tends to show it's age too much and the testing version is actually very stable.

Re:Improved install?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it improved a lot since Sarge and we will deliver with an optional GUI installer too. Preview screenshots at: http://osdir.com/Article7765.phtml [osdir.com]

-- stratus

Re:Debian running current software?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi Martin,

I think we're doing this the right way. We haven't changed our testing process. It was just that a lot of teams worked harder than before. Right now we've ~ 200 release critical bugs to solve until the release that won't be now in July, but in December. We're ok with our schedule and it will be stable as Sarge was and released on time. People just mix up stuff, because we failed to ship Woody (before Sarge) in time and in a sane way.

-- stratus

Re:Improved install?

[frovingslosh]

I like the Etch installer, greatly improved over Sarge. You can try it now, just install "testing". Only problem that I had with it was that on a 4 partition system it refused to install Grub to the Linux partition where I wanted it and insisted in putting it in the MBR (clearly no good reason for this, since the older Debian Sarge install it replaced had Grub where I wanted it).

Re:Welcome

[Homology]

gnome has dependencies that would make a pile of poo proud. Really, package maintainers hate gnome.

Re:kernel

[HighOrbit]

i hope they didn't remove drivers from the kernel.... again.

I don't know if you are trolling or not, but I'll bite

As explained in this pdf file about the debian kernel here [vergenet.net], they remove non-free drivers. I understand why they do it, but I could see where it would be annoying if your hardware was effected. Here is a quote from the pdf:

As the kernel is a core part of the Operating System it is in main And thus must comply with the DFSG Because of this, some source files are removed or modified This generally means the removal of drivers that include binary firmware blobs

On a related note, I sometimes get the feeling that they don't spend as much time polishing some of the rough edges off the kernel the way the Redhat people do with kernel patches and backports. But that is probably to be expected since they are (i'm guessing) mostly volunteers and not paid (like I'm sure the redhat engineers are). Regardless, I'm not looking a gift-horse in the mouth and I am thankful for their efforts. I'm a happy debian-stable user and look forward to etch.

Corrected link

[roger6106]

Corrected Nexuiz link [nexuiz.com].

Re:Architectures.

[Anonymous Coward]

When was the last time you checked? I guess that since Sarge, our last release, tons of architectures were ok. We've a new and strict policy for architectures now. AFAIK, mips and mipsel are ready to go as we speak. FYI, i'm not a porter, but if i recall correctly, VAX was never a possibility. More information at: www.debian.org/ports/

-- stratus

Re:Architectures.

[delirium of disorder]

I don't know about VAX, but Debian runs great on MIPS and many other platforms. I installed and used it on several Sgi Indys and X worked fine, as did sound, networking, and all the hardware features I had used under IRIX. Some software was slower (gcc is notorously less optomised for MIPS then the commericial Sgi c compiler MIPS Pro), but more modern software was available. Most Debian packages are available for most architectures.

I also run Debian on PA-RISC for my shell server. [no-ip.org] Add an account for yourself and do a few apt-cache searches to see which packages are available. All the major desktop and server packages are there (various apache mods, firefox, gaim, amule, etc). I found Debian to provide more modern software then HP-UX or BSD for PA-RISC. Even most of the somewhat obscure Debain provided applications are available. I run Debian and Ubuntu on x86, OpenBSD and Solaris on SPARC64 (Solaris is better for SMP systems), IRIX and Debian on MIPS (IRIX is better for newer Sgis like the Octane2), and HP-UX and Debian on PA-RISC. Overall I've found Debian to be the most portable complete Operating Environment. I have not used NetBSD that much so I am not aware of it's current state. It has a reputation for portability, but seams to lag behind in terms of real world testing (many of the ports apparently consist of cross compiling code), and also doesn't seem to have as many packages as Debian. Overall it just looks less up to date then Debian or OpenBSD.

Re:Improved install?

[creepynut]

Could that be because the installer is the same? :)

Re:Preview Release

[creepynut]

Hey sorry if I came off as flamebait.

I'm an avid Ubuntu user, and I've been using it since Warty Warthhog. It's been my primary OS on my notebook since a bit into the Preview releases of Dapper Drake.

I love Ubuntu, and while I used to recommend Fedora Core, Ubuntu is all I recommend these days. However, I'm simply acknowledging the hard work the Debian team does. They're both great distros, but Debian lacks the Desktop polish I like in Ubuntu. Little things, like a splash screen and the community support is second to none.

I also know that Ubuntu contributes back to the community, and it does to a great job on hardware support, hence the "Ubuntu Hardware Database." My laptop has never run Linux so well since Dapper Drake was installed.

Ubuntu gets two thumbs up from me, and my post was 100% NOT flamebait.

Re:process

[JackieBrown]

I find unstable more stable than testing. The fixes hit there first without the 10 day delay to enter testing. Most errors can be avoided by reading when you type apt-get dist-upgrade. If it says remove something you need say no.

Re:process

[A.K.A_Magnet]

"Stable" is a reference to the packages. Debian stable means you won't get 20 new packages or packages updates every week (and that's optimistic, on testing or unstable, you get that much on a daily basis). You only get security updates. It has nothing to do with software stability, except that the process makes the software in Debian stable .. well very stable! For example, Ubuntu is Debian testing made stable: they get a snapshot of Debian testing every 6 monthes, they fix some of the bugs (critical, hindering normal usage), and then they freeze it (the only updates are security updates, just like with Debian Stable; to be fair, Ubuntu's work isn't that simple, the main part of their work is to make the distribution the way they want with a top-down approach, ie they want some feature or something to look different and they do it). The difference is that Ubuntu's stability process is very weak compared to Debian's, but certainly good enough for most desktop users. That's what "stable" means in the "Debian Stable" sense (that's the same meaning in a "stable" API, ie an API that won't change anytime soon), and it's needed on production systems (you don't want daily updates that can break everything). Great for desktops, mandatory for servers. Debian Sid (to be Etch) is primarily meant for Debian developers.

Re:Will this include biarch support?

[Rizzer]

Multiarch is currently under development, see http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2006/20/ [debian.org].
If I understand correctly, it will not be ready for etch (4.0), but the following stable release seems likely to have it.

Re:process

[Respect_my_Authority]

Just use backports.org. It has up-to-date packages ported from Testing and compiled for Stable. Including PHP5.

http://backports.org/ [backports.org]

Re:Welcome

[baadger]

An "emerge -pve gnome" shows a total source code download of 592,129 kB atm (For a Gnome 2.14.2/Xorg 7 environment)
An "emerge -pve kde" shows a total source code download of 541,705 kB atm (For a KDE 3.5.2/Xorg 7 environment).

There are fewer packages for KDE in the Gentoo portage tree but thats because it's much more monolithic, there is however a modular set of packages for KDE. Either way the downoad size is almost the same, and i'd say their just as bad as one another to maintain.

I haven't run into many GTK apps that require Gnome libraries except maybe libgnomeui (provides additional widgets I think), which is small.

So quit trolling and think up something better than "make a poo proud" next time.