Re: sarge?

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To: debianuser <debian-user@lists.debian.org>
Date: Sun, 2 May 2004 12:30:04 +1200

On Sun, 02 May 2004 02:38, Carl Fink wrote:
> Of course (and perhaps properly) us "mere" users can't vote. All we can do
> is bitch on mailing lists.
>
> My opinion is that Debian's absurdly slow release schedule is the only
> reason it isn't the leading distro. Now, many developers (who own the
> project) don't *care* whether it's the leading distro, which I understand.
>
> The slow releases are also a great inconvenience to people who *use*
> Debian. In particular, "stable" is so out-of-date as to be unusable on
> current hardware THE MAJORITY OF THE TIME, which is frankly absurd.
>
> Sure, you can compile your own kernel and download from backports.org or
> apt-get.org and roll your own when that doesn't work and ....
>
> The fact is, only maybe .5% even of Linux users are going to go through
> that. Why use a distribution if you are going to make components yourself
> anyway?
>
> I've been tempted to become a Debian developer specifically to propose a
> fixed release schedule: Sarge becomes "frozen" every six months, whatever
> state it's in. Period. Unfortunately my current insane commute is eating
> all my time.
> --
> Carl Fink carl@fink.to
> Jabootu's Minister of Proofreading
> http://www.jabootu.com

From the average moderately dumb user point of view, I think the slow release
schedule definitely slows down Debian adoption, for precisely the reason Carl
said - much new hardware (which includes new peripherals) won't work with
Woody. For example, my digital camera and my scanner. Undoubtedly I could
download and install the latest SANE and gphoto releases, but I've tried that
and run into snags which my limited time / technical knowledge can't solve.
It's just simpler to install Fedora and (shudder) Win98 on spare partitions
and boot into them whenever I need to. Which then leads one to think, if
I'm booting Fedora, why use Debian? <g>
(Because I've got a stable Woody system tuned the way I like it, and Fedora
is missing a couple of apps I like, mostly). I'd like to upgrade to Sarge
Real Soon Now but it would be nice to have a Stable version to make it
worth the effort.

As it happens, tonight I'm going to help a friend who's just bought a new
Windows box and is curious about Linux, we'll repartition his hard drive and
install a Linux on it. If Sarge was 'stable' (with a finished installer)
I'd put that on it, as it is I'll probably give him Knoppix and Fedora to
choose from.

There are quite a lot of distros out there 'built on' Debian, notably
Knoppix. I wonder if Debian is destined to become primarily the 'base
system' for other peoples' more up-to-date, pre-packaged distros? The
only drawback with those distros from a user's point of view is that one is
stuck with the more limited range of apps those distros offer, and installing
extra apps is not always that simple. That's why from my POV a reasonably
up-to-date Stable would be the preferred choice.

cr

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• Previous message: Misty Hinkle: "otherwise"
• In reply to: Carl Fink: "Re: sarge?"
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