about debian
Hi i just wanted to know some info on debian my friend at college tells me all about it and he says it all good but what it is i was thinking about using debian (im currenly using mandrake) because it has its own installer which makes it easyer to get things and i head alot of good things about app get. But i heard that debian is pretty hard to install and I just wanted to get the low down details. Well the main reason why I want to use debian is because Yahoo has made an official messenger and as the latest version of gaim is broken its beginning to get me annoyed and with an official version of yahoo my mum will be pleased (im only 16 so it still normal to live at home ;) ). _ Express yourself with cool new emoticons http://www.msn.co.uk/specials/myemo
Usage of Debian Structure Documentation, Social Contract etc
Hello everyone in Debian-land. I'm working on helping the community of people who use SME server, a Redhat Linux based server formerly maintained by Mitel Corp. It used to be called e-smith server before that. Mitel have recently spun off the free version to the existinguser community at contribs.org. There has been a lot of discussion about how to actually create a community or what form it should take with some advocating total anarchy (goodness knows how these people get on in real life!) but I have been pushing fairly hard for some structure and rules (been on committee's etc where things have gone bad and know about the necessity of rules). Anyway, to cut a long story short, someone mentioned the structure that the Debian community uses and I would be very keen to be able to use most of your community'sstructures and rules etc as a base for our own, but don't want to steal it off your web site, instead I'd like to ask your community,if it is OK to use your stuff as a basis for our own organisational structure (with appropriate credits of course). My feeling is why reinvent the wheel when an almost ideal one already exists, not to mention that fact that your community has been around for a long time and is stable, a feat we wish to emulate but we are a very young community at the moment. I have emailed your leader, Martin, who did not see a problem with this but asked me to email the wider Debian community to see if there were anyone who had concerns about this. I welcome your comments. Kindest regardsPeter Cowley
Re: about debian
tristian radford wrote: Hi i just wanted to know some info on debian my friend at college tells me all about it and he says it all good but what it is i was thinking about using debian (im currenly using mandrake) because it has its own installer which makes it easyer to get things and i head alot of good things about app get. But i heard that debian is pretty hard to install and I just wanted to get the low down details. Well the main reason why I want to use debian is because Yahoo has made an official messenger and as the latest version of gaim is broken its beginning to get me annoyed and with an official version of yahoo my mum will be pleased (im only 16 so it still normal to live at home ;) ). Hello Tristian, you can find alot about debian on our website: http://www.debian.org Here are some reasons why you could use debian: - Its entirely community-supported, ie. there's no large company behind it giving out new releases. Rather, its a bunch of friends doing all the release and development stuff. - It is free (in the sense free speech, not free beer) - Its there for 11 different architectures. The 'same' debian that runs on your box will run on the biggest IBM Mainframe (http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/zseries/800linux.html, e.g). So if you can use it on your box, you could -potentially - also operate it on such a mainframe (your bank surely has one or two of those standing around) - There are three versions out there, 'stable', 'testing' and 'unstable' (codenamed 'woody', 'sarge' and 'sid' at the moment). Stable gets security updates, but is frozen otherwise, so most of the applications will be too old for your taste. 'Unstable' gets all the newest software, but it is the developer release, so it breaks often. 'Testing' is mid-way, so its quite usable with mostly recent packages. On the downside, it does not get security updates regularly, but rather you'll have to wait the usual ten days till the new version trickles in from 'unstable. And here are a few reasons why using debian is tricky: - Mandrake has a nice-looking graphical installer that guides you through all the process. Debian's installer is text-based, asks alot more questions, and generally requires you to know more about your computer than Mandrake does. - 'apt-get' (which has also been ported to Mandrake, btw) allows you to install or remove packages. It will automattically satisfy dependencies, and fetch the packages from the net. Since this is so neat, Debian people use it alot, so most of the Debian Installation and Maintenance tools are text-based, commandline tools (not those stylish graphical tools mandrake has). - If you want ot stay up to date (with the testing, or unstable distributions), you'll find that debian fetches a lot of soware from the net. - Some software is free (you are free to use it for anythng you like, you are free to analyse it how it works, to adapt it, and ofc you can share the original or the adapted version with anyone you like), other software is not quite as free. Debian is rather strict about this distinction, and some things that you find in Mandrake (like for example Java), you'll have to get from third parties in debian (since Java is not free). If you want an example of what debian might look like: - Morphix (http://www.morphix.org) is based on debian, but optimised to run off a CD. I think there's a Gamer ISO at http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/morphix/MorphixCombined-Gamer-0.4-1.iso?download - Knoppix (http://www.knoppix.org) is another live-CD distribution largely based on debian And if you like debian, and want to contribute, you can also become a developer and become part of the project. Robert What I do for debian is I maintain a search engine for local webpages
Re: Usage of Debian Structure Documentation, Social Contract etc
To my personal mind, why would anyone choose anything other than Debian or Fedora (or Slackware or Gentoo for the masochists)? Debian is where it's at - DEB packaging is Borderline flawless: http://people.debian.org/~srivasta/talk.html And if you must cow-tow to the RPM masses, pick the biggest community out there - I'm assuming that's RedHat/ Fedora? To my personal mind, the networking effect would surely outweigh just about any other reason. Unless you're a masochist of course... On the other hand if you have (potential) clients, and you wish to win their business, and they use a particular distro, then perhaps it's justified. If you want Debian through a community of service providers, kind of corporate but Free and Community first, then perhaps Bruce Perens' UserLinux subset of Debian is your cup o tea. But it's still Debian! And that's the whole point! Really, Debian makes more sense than anything else on the planet... I mean, where's the logic to use an alternative distribution or go through setting up the whole community again - it's said and done. And with Debian, your own private repository for a small, or large, perhaps temporary or long term, sub project spin off, is an absolute snap - again, the packaging rocks (just put your sources.list line before the standard debian lines. Local mirrors, proxy package caching mirrors, easy verification of package signatures (just coming online), incomparable dependency and other package attributes - I mean seriously, you can do it all! Why waste your time reinventing all those wheels - and then the rest of the organisation and support structure too! It just baffles me... Best regards and good luck though, Zenaan -- * Debian Enterprise: http://debian-enterprise.org/ * Homepage: http://soulsound.net/ * PGP Key: http://soulsound.net/zen.asc * Please respect the confidentiality of this email as sensibly warranted.
Re: Usage of Debian Structure Documentation, Social Contract etc
On Fri, 2004-02-27 at 23:01, Zenaan Harkness wrote: To my personal mind, why would anyone choose anything other than Debian or Fedora (or Slackware or Gentoo for the masochists)? Debian is where it's at - DEB packaging is Borderline flawless: http://people.debian.org/~srivasta/talk.html And if you must cow-tow to the RPM masses, pick the biggest community out there - I'm assuming that's RedHat/ Fedora? Biggest RPM community is what I meant here - given that Debian is the largest community of all of them, it could have been confusing. Although, I don't know of any numbers to back that up... zen
Re: Usage of Debian Structure Documentation, Social Contract etc
On Friday 27 February 2004 13.01, Zenaan Harkness wrote: To my personal mind, why would anyone choose anything other than Debian or Fedora (or Slackware or Gentoo for the masochists)? [...] I guess this was not the question at all. Recent flamewars have shown again and again that there are people who won't work together - so this is one very good reason for software developers not to want to join Debian. Technical decisions can be made in different ways - Debian often choses (rightly, IMHO, but taht's not the issue here) to be conservative (meaning: have a stable KDE 3.1 in testing and wait a bit before adopting KDE 3.2 etc., things like that). So thre's another bunch of reasons for wanting a community that is not Debian. Then, of course, there's installed userbase. Until you have all the SME Server specific things (file locations, config tools, ...) available in Debian, why should a SME SErver admin not wish to continue to develop the distro he's used to? Sure, reinventing the wheel (as you call it - Peter wants exactly to avoid that as far as he sees it is possible) wastes resources. But unlike the corporate world, it could well be that the resources spent on SME server would *not* be spent at all for FOSS development if there was not a SME Server community forming now. Peter: Iam not a Debian Developer myself,. but have chosen Debian because I have been annoyed too much by SuSE and RedHat. Now I stay with Debian because I like how things are done in Debian (well, most of the things). So I guess copying the Debian organisational model is certainly a possibility for you - and I guess you can read a bit in the recent flamewars on the debian-devel mailing list (and others) to learn what the main problems with the current Debian structure are. The complaints I remember hearing most frequently (I am *not* discussing if the complaints have some merits or not): - not transparent: some decisions are taken by some old-timers and not always communicated fast enough to the people affected. - long release cycles: I guess this is something that has its cause not only in the organisational structure, but also in the people that fill the roles. Most people relevant to the release process in Debian have stability as their top goal, and release schedules are unimportant to them. My guess is that when the same organisational model would be used, but with other people, the situation could be different. - package owners: most packages in Debian are owned by one person. When this person neglects the package, quality suffers. Group maintainership etc. are one possible solution to this. Just my €.02 cheers -- vbi -- Windows: the ultimate triumph of marketing over technology. pgp5bsOllfY5b.pgp Description: signature
Re: Usage of Debian Structure Documentation, Social Contract etc
On Fri, Feb 27, 2004 at 02:50:17PM +0100, Adrian von Bidder wrote: - long release cycles: I guess this is something that has its cause not only in the organisational structure, but also in the people that fill the roles. Most people relevant to the release process in Debian have stability as their top goal, and release schedules are unimportant to them. My guess is that when the same organisational model would be used, but with other people, the situation could be different. While I agree with you that other projects should consider whether adopting Debian's organizational structure has an effect on this, I believe that your release schedules are unimportant to them comment above is a mischaracterization. Cheers, -- Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Usage of Debian Structure Documentation, Social Contract etc
On Friday 27 February 2004 15.33, Colin Watson wrote: On Fri, Feb 27, 2004 at 02:50:17PM +0100, Adrian von Bidder wrote: - long release cycles: I guess this is something that has its cause not only in the organisational structure, but also in the people that fill the roles. Most people relevant to the release process in Debian have stability as their top goal, and release schedules are unimportant to them. My guess is that when the same organisational model would be used, but with other people, the situation could be different. While I agree with you that other projects should consider whether adopting Debian's organizational structure has an effect on this, I believe that your release schedules are unimportant to them comment above is a mischaracterization. Probably - what I meant to say was that release schedules are far less important than stability and consistency in the release. I hope nobody is offended. cheers -- vbi -- QOTD: Lack of planning on your part doesn't consitute an emergency on my part. pgpXmODcl7YFC.pgp Description: signature
Re-distributing Debian
Dear Sir/Madam, We are about to start developing some software which will run on Linux. The product which we sell to our customers will include the hardware, os (Linux) and our software all pre-installed and ready to go. Any support would be handled by us. If we were to install the parts of Debian Linux that we required for our product what would the licensing issues be if any. i.e. would we have to by a copy of Debian Linux for each unit we ship? Regards Robin Imrie /-\ | Robin Imrie | | Software Engineer | | Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | \-/ This e-mail, and any attachment, is confidential to us. We apologise if you have received it in error and would be grateful if you would delete it from your system. If you have any concerns about this email please notify the sender. SysMedia Ltd, Gatwick House, Peeks Brook Lane, Horley, Surrey, RH6 9ST, UK Tel: +44 (0) 1293 814200 Fax: +44 (0) 1293 814300 web: www.sysmedia.com Registered Number: 3570597 ---
Re: Re-distributing Debian
Robin Imrie dijo [Fri, Feb 27, 2004 at 04:15:20PM -]: Dear Sir/Madam, We are about to start developing some software which will run on Linux. The product which we sell to our customers will include the hardware, os (Linux) and our software all pre-installed and ready to go. Any support would be handled by us. If we were to install the parts of Debian Linux that we required for our product what would the licensing issues be if any. i.e. would we have to by a copy of Debian Linux for each unit we ship? Hello, At Debian, we work to create a completeley free distribution. You might want to take a look at our Social Contract and Free Software Guidelines [1]. Basically, if you use Debian, you are free to create a custom subdistribution, you are not even required to credit us for that. You will find many useful links in our Wiki page on 'Custom Debian distributions'. Greetings, [1] http://www.debian.org/social_contract.html [2] http://wiki.debian.net/index.cgi?CustomDebian -- Gunnar Wolf - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - (+52-55)5630-9700 ext. 1366 PGP key 1024D/8BB527AF 2001-10-23 Fingerprint: 0C79 D2D1 2C4E 9CE4 5973 F800 D80E F35A 8BB5 27AF
Re: Usage of Debian Structure Documentation, Social Contract etc
Hi Zenaan Thanks for your email. We will have to look at the underlying distro we use, eventually, but at this point in time we have a much bigger task and that is getting our community organised - that in itself is the primary challenge. There has been talk of what to do about the base distro, use Fedora, or Debian, but either way, it is likely to be a big change and that will be tackled further down the track. Cheers Pete - Original Message - From: Zenaan Harkness [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Peter Cowley [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: debian-project@lists.debian.org Sent: Saturday, February 28, 2004 1:01 AM Subject: Re: Usage of Debian Structure Documentation, Social Contract etc To my personal mind, why would anyone choose anything other than Debian or Fedora (or Slackware or Gentoo for the masochists)? Debian is where it's at - DEB packaging is Borderline flawless: http://people.debian.org/~srivasta/talk.html And if you must cow-tow to the RPM masses, pick the biggest community out there - I'm assuming that's RedHat/ Fedora? To my personal mind, the networking effect would surely outweigh just about any other reason. Unless you're a masochist of course... On the other hand if you have (potential) clients, and you wish to win their business, and they use a particular distro, then perhaps it's justified. If you want Debian through a community of service providers, kind of corporate but Free and Community first, then perhaps Bruce Perens' UserLinux subset of Debian is your cup o tea. But it's still Debian! And that's the whole point! Really, Debian makes more sense than anything else on the planet... I mean, where's the logic to use an alternative distribution or go through setting up the whole community again - it's said and done. And with Debian, your own private repository for a small, or large, perhaps temporary or long term, sub project spin off, is an absolute snap - again, the packaging rocks (just put your sources.list line before the standard debian lines. Local mirrors, proxy package caching mirrors, easy verification of package signatures (just coming online), incomparable dependency and other package attributes - I mean seriously, you can do it all! Why waste your time reinventing all those wheels - and then the rest of the organisation and support structure too! It just baffles me... Best regards and good luck though, Zenaan -- * Debian Enterprise: http://debian-enterprise.org/ * Homepage: http://soulsound.net/ * PGP Key: http://soulsound.net/zen.asc * Please respect the confidentiality of this email as sensibly warranted.
