Re: Where is Debian going?
On Wed, 2002-07-10 at 20:58, Thatcher Ulrich wrote:
> Maybe what I'm reaching for is that Debian needs "marketing names",
> which really ought to be numbers, for minimum confusion. Red Hat has
> their 6.0, 6.1, 7.0; Windows has their 3.1, 95, 98, 2000, XP; Mac has
> their 9.1, X, 10.2. All the Red Hat distros I used before starting w/
> Debian had cute South Park names, but as a user I didn't have to
> remember which was which.
I'm still a bit new in Debian (6-8 months or so) but it seems to me that
Debian has marketing names.
2.x = potato - currently stable
3.x = woody - currently testing
?.x = sid - currently unstable
Maybe I can illustrate using Mandrake as an example. They have their
releases (8.0, 8.1... etc) and they also have the Mandrake Cooker, which
is hot-off-the-presses, cutting edge stuff. Debian has releases (slink
(?), potato (2.2), woody (3.0)), but in addition has pre-releases as
testing and unstable. Maybe a better wording would be Debian Beta and
Debian Untested. Unstable might just be partially stable, but it is not
verified. Beta stuff is testing, and not yet ready to be added into a
group of totally stable stuff.
I think where Debian loses new users is with the new terminology, but I
think it seems to be pretty accurate in the whole scheme of things. Not
only do you have stable releases or snapshots in time, but you also have
a pool of usable software that might not be for mission critical
applications (don't use MS VM for a life support system). The best of
both worlds, and Toy Story names too! As far as the distribution code
names go, I don't think I could pronounce the last Mandrake code name
(or was it RedHat, I don't remember).
To answer the question posed in the subject, I will tell you Debian
_whatever_ is not leaving my machines.
Jeremy
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