Debian dated? [was: Re: Announcement from www.kubuntu.de]

[paul cooke]

On Tuesday 11 April 2006 15:25, Derek Broughton wrote:
> Michael M. wrote:
> > Daniel Carrera wrote:
> >> Debian is a distro that tries to support all (free) packages more or
> >> less equally. This has some benefits and drawbacks. On the one hand,
> >> Debian has a gazillion supported packages, and it supports 12
> >> architectures. On the other, Debian is usually dated and less newbie
> >> friendly.
> >
> > I don't understand where the perception that Debian is dated comes from,
> > unless you're referring exclusively to the stable branch.
>
> Of course that's where the perception comes from.  Considering _any_
> distro's testing/unstable branch is silly.  There's a good reason why they
> aren't "stable".
>
> > Comparing Debian's stable branch with most other distros isn't really
> > apples-to-apples because stable is geared toward mission-critical uses.
> >   The type of home users who are choosing between or trying out distros
> > like Ubuntu, (open)SuSE, Gentoo, Fedora, etc., are not going to be
> > running Debian stable.
>
> That, of course, is the point.  otoh, they can run the latest Ubuntu stable
> and be (sometimes) years ahead of the current Debian stable.  One of the
> problems with Debian's long release cycle is that it becomes a
> self-fulfilling prophecy.

witness Sarge... 3.1rc1 was out a whole year before 3.1 was officially 
released...

> The longer you go between releases, the harder 
> it is to integrate the new release.  Ubuntu's stable releases should be
> just as valid for mission-critical uses as Debian's, and upgrading breezy
> to dapper should be less stressful than upgrading Sarge to Etch.

currently Sarge to Etch can be a lottery depending on the state of Etch...  I 
would never do an upgrade shortly after a major change in Gnome or KDE... I'd 
let others find the pitfalls first. The only correct time to upgrade from 
Sarge to Etch would be when Etch becomes the Stable release. Then everything 
should upgrade smoothly as the actual upgrade will have been tested. However, 
those using backports will have fun...

I had major breakage in Etch after an update last week with the system being 
completely unbootable. It would fall over mid boot complaining that hda was 
missing...

I gave up on it and installed Dapper flight 6 instead...

> --
> derek