Re: "I do consider Ubuntu to be Debian" , Ian Murdock

["Michael M." <mcubed@slashmail.org>]

On Mon, 2007-03-26 at 16:42 -0400, Michael Pobega wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 26, 2007 at 11:35:02AM -0700, Michael M. wrote:
> > 
> > Call it what you want:  schedule, timeline, target, whatever.  The point
> > is that the Debian Project doesn't value it enough to stick to it.  I
> > doubt there's a large software project in existance that hasn't missed
> > its targets sometimes -- Ubuntu, Fedora, openSuSE all have had release
> > delays in recent memory, and then there's Windows Vista.  But Debian is
> > fairly unique in being so cavalier about it.
> > 
> 
> Now this is unfair. You're complaining that the Debian developers
> don't release things on time, but think about what the stable branch
> is used for; Servers, (some) home computers, and some mission critical
> data centers (I am not 100% sure on this, but doesn't NASA use Debian?
> I remember reading something about it, or the likes of it)

It may surprise you to learn that I am not NASA.  :-)

> If Debian worried about sticking to a schedule rather than worrying
> about the stability of the product, you'd hear about a few more
> missing astronauts and a couple of billion dollars gone from (I'm
> going on a limb here) some bank data centers. Obviously this is all
> worst case scenario, but it's what Debian is primarily made for.

Which begs the question, "Is Debian made for me?"

> Most of the PR Debian gets is negative, and that's because no one
> truly understands the Debian project; (Note: I'm not a dev, but I'll
> use "We" as in "We the Debian people") We don't care about release
> dates, we don't care about the newest versions of software, we care
> about rock hard stability. Even the testing branch of Debian is known
> to be pretty stable, for the most part. And even if you wanted the
> things most "Desktop" distros offer, you could apt-pin from unstable.
> With enough wits about how Debian works you can get any install of
> Debian to feel to the end user exactly like an up to date Ubuntu,
> Mandriva, or Fedora install. 

Negative compared to?:  "Microsoft is evil," "Apple values style over
substance," "Gentoo is imploding," "FreeBSD is dead," "Mandriva betrayed
its users," "Ubuntu is Debian made stupid," "Fedora ignores its
community in favor of Red Hat's priorities," etc.  Everybody has their
critics.

What has made Debian a great fit for me over the past months is its
beefed up efforts to make testing a more viable option for users (for
example, by providing security updates for testing).  I started using
Etch some months ago, perhaps close to a year ago, pulling in just a few
packages from unstable, and it has been a great fit for me.  Until the
past few months, when it has increasingly come to seem stale to me.
It's only natural, then, for me to question whether *I* really fit in
with your definition of "We the Debian people."

> Release dates aside, Debian also has the largest repository for
> software. And like Gentoo, Debian is (For the most part) a rolling
> release distribution, you never really have to upgrade to a new
> release. You could stay testing, or unstable, instead of sticking with
> "Sarge" or "Etch". Debian is about choice, and it gives you the power
> to use your operating system however you want. Whether you want to
> install a mission critical server, or beef up your system ala Gentoo
> (Using apt-get source) you could do it.
> 
> Sorry about the rant, but I have to defend Debian. It has become my
> love in the past few months, I only wish I started using Debian
> earlier (Damned Windows).

You don't have to defend Debian, at least not to me.  Just don't try to
pretend that it is the perfect solution for everyone.  The things you
are suggesting are routinely and actively discouraged on this list --
apt-pinning, mixing branches.  Yes you *can* do it, but be prepared to
face the chorus of "you should be sticking to stable" when you ask for
help with something that's not working.  Likewise, you could make Debian
similar to Gentoo if you wanted to, but that's not really how Debian is
designed to work.  If you wanted to make it into a source-based distro,
wouldn't it be better just to use a source-based distro in the first
place?  Debian is amongst the most flexible distros around, but it can't
be stretched beyond all reason into something it's not (not without a
great deal of difficulty, requiring a great deal of skill and
knowledge).  That's why there are so many distros based off Debian,
directly (Ubuntu, DSL, Kantonix, etc.) or indirectly (Mepis, Linspire,
etc.).  If Debian could easily be made into what these distros offer,
there'd be no need for them -- everyone would just use Debian to do what
these various distros do.  It's unreasonable and unrealistic to expect
that everyone is able to do this.

Ubuntu Feisty, currently in beta, has some software that hasn't even
made it to Debian experimental yet, never mind unstable.  That alone
makes Ubuntu a more attractive option for some users, to say nothing of
other factors like regular, predictable releases, or hardware detection
that works better for some.  It doesn't mean we should all switch to
Ubuntu; neither does it mean that Debian is a better option for all
users of Ubuntu.  As similar as the underpinnings of both distros are,
they each have different priorities and excel at different tasks.  It's
up to users to decide which is a better fit for them -- there's no right
answer for everyone.  Yet for some reason, people here persist in
attacking Ubuntu as misguided or as "Debian done wrong" or some such.


-- 
Michael M. ++ Portland, OR ++ USA
"No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions
of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to
dream." --S. Jackson