Re: amd64 into mainstream
I have been following this thread with great interest. I have been a Debian
desktop user for about four years - one of my systems is dual boot and the
other is not - it is Debian only. I have run sid for most of this time,
because the "stable" build(s) would generally not support at least part of
the hardware in my systems. I have not been running on amd64 for about
eight months, six in 32 bit mode, one in gcc3.4 mode, and one in
debian-pure64 mode. Please do not take this harshly, I am very appreciative
of the work the packagers and porters do, but amd64 is not yet useable as
my main system - there are packages that I need/want that I cannot make
work. The lack of KDE forced me from the gcc3.4 branch, and the lack of
MythTV, xorg, and other packages keeps me from being completely successful
with the debian-pure64 installation. One of my sons uses a laptop with
Sarge/testing, but he only upgrades at about four month intervals because
of the amount of work required to restore his computer to full operation
after an upgrade, and his lack of confidence in his ability to do this.
Running Woody is not an option for him - there are too many features on the
laptop that are not supported in a release that is older than the
hardware. My point - Debian has a lot of excellent qualities, but you can
only be completely happy with it as a desktop solution of your hardware is
at least slightly out-of-date. Server hardware generally lags the desktops,
so this may be lesser problem in that environment.
I am sorry to have run on so long, but I feel that this thread has touched
on some very important points. Two year release cycles cannot work in a
desktop environment.
>>
>> But from my prospective, I don't realy care about that one way or
>> another. I just want a usable desktop that supports my amd64 or 32bit
>> x86 platform that
>> just works. And in that perspective, debian is being hurt by the long
>> release dates and I don't know the solution to it.
>>
>> Newer is not always better, but incremental improvment is worth using if
>> it
>> makes your life easier. Just my 2C worth and I reserver the right to be
>> wrong.
>
> Well debian-pure64 sarge installed flawlessly on my adm64, and the
> kde3.4 packages installed perfectly too. Seemed perfectly good for a
> desktop for me. Perhaps ubuntu is easier on a laptop, but for just a
> desktop, there was nothing that didn't work with debian for me. It may
> not be official but it sure works.
>
> Len Sorensen
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