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Renaming Iceweasel to Firefox

bugs.debian.org

131–140 of 155 posts

Re: Renaming Iceweasel to Firefox

#131
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with "you can go fix it if you want" is that the barrier to "fixing it" is very high, even with such great things as #debian-mentors. I fully understand the need for all the process and policy but it can be very difficult to get things fixed in Debian without talking to the right people or attending the right conferences.

Agreed, what you can do on first contact, is not always what you would like to do. I didn't mean it's the only and single way to change something in Debian... the subtle of my message was, that complaining outside the project, does not help to anybody, and forms subjective opinions on persons that didn't have them. Today, someone at $work that never did write perl, was complaining on perl and Larry Wall just for laug…

>when Mr Google calls you to speak about _your_ language, when the world is full of mirrors of libraries written by all kind of persons and companies for _you_ language, please, come back, and we have some laughs.

I dunno, I'm pretty sure that this is a form of the "appeal to authority" logical fallacy - i.e. person X has achieved less than person Y, therefore their opinion is invalid. Perl has problems like any language has problems, but sometimes it's the right tool for the job.

I know the kind of person who derides languages for whatever reason - sometimes I am that person. It's fun to bash PHP, C#, Java, Ruby, Perl, Python, even Shakespeare Programming Language [1] but at the end of the day they're a means to an end, not an end to themselves.

Some comments at Linux.conf.au recently made me aware of platform/language shaming. It's not a good thing and I'm working to stop doing it.

1: http://shakespearelang.sourceforge.net/report/shakespeare/

\ VB6 can bugger off

Re: Renaming Iceweasel to Firefox

#132
post #21

Funny, I've been running Debian since 2007. I mainly got hooked on their 'testing' branch since it is just "always up to date". But I always get people looking over my shoulder and asking "what the heck is 'iceweasel'. To which I explain the whole issue of Debian was distributing a patched version of Firefox with their OS back in ~2007 era and Mozilla, for trademark reasons, said you can't modify the browser and stil…

> I mainly got hooked on their 'testing' branch since it is just "always up to date". Note that testing doesn't get the same level of security support as stable : "Compared to stable and unstable, next-stable testing has the worst security update speed. Don't prefer testing if security is a concern." [1]; more details: [2], [3], [4]. [1] https://wiki.debian.org/DebianTesting#Considerations [2] https://wiki.debian.org…

You can slightly speed it up by using apt pinning to get security updates from Debian unstable (but other packages from testing) when available.

https://bugs.debian.org/725934

To speed it up even more you would need to follow the unstable/testing pages on the security tracker and file bugs to get maintainers to do fixes and do NMUs when maintainers are on vacation or missing.

https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/status/release/u... https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/status/release/t...

Re: Renaming Iceweasel to Firefox

#133
post #88

People, This is great news for few of us. But it has been hard to read trough this comments and realize how much ignorance about what Debian is, how it works, what the Debian bug tracker is, what a voluntary-based project is, and to read some assertions and prepotency around in HN If you see ANYTHING wrong with Debian, go fix it, or shut up and go to sell your stuff to another one. Debian is not a startup. Debian is…

> If you see ANYTHING wrong with Debian, go fix it, or shut up and go to sell your stuff to another one. Ok, so Debian is a developers-only distribution? > Feel free to downvote without reasoning why. I didn't bother, but "Please don't bait other users by inviting them to downvote you or announce that you expect to get downvoted." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> Ok, so Debian is a developers-only distribution?

Absolutely not. You can use Debian and help improve Debian without being a developer and even without being very technical.

https://www.debian.org/intro/help

Re: Renaming Iceweasel to Firefox

#134
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After simply using installers in Windows, dealing with conflicting package and library dependencies seems insane. I've been unable to use multiple applications on linux because of this issue whereas that would never happen on Windows where installers just have what they need without getting in each other's business.

So, I had to clean some viruses off a Windows 7 machine for a friend recently. I had to grab about six different bits of anti-malware software to do so. Some of that software came from famous vendors' sites where the downloaded software wasn't even protected by https. No real way to externally validate the item I was about to install on a system which is already known to be compromised. Some of the installers tried t…

Are you sure Microsoft's antivirus wasn't enough?

Re: Renaming Iceweasel to Firefox

#135
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ok, so Debian is a developers-only distribution? This might not be a bad characterization of where it sits now. If you want a hand-holding "user-friendly" (and I use the term advisedly, based on the common, flawed conception of what a "user" is), create one based on Debian, leveraging the Debian tools and packages and processes to make an Ubuntu or Mint or something else. Debian isn't a meta-distribution. It is a d…

For a plug of my friend Thanatermesis' great Debian-based distribution, which recognizes the distro and free-software ethos is not always fully conducive to a positive user experience at the forefront... http://www.elivecd.org/ - The latest release is always based on Debian Stable and is currently under active development. The whole system is changed in (mostly subtle) ways to make it more attractive to a new Linux u…

Hmm, the website says "Elive is not made for newbies".

Re: Renaming Iceweasel to Firefox

#136
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not familiar with whatever bug tracker they use, but shouldn't this be the default such that a user doesn't have to make this mental note?

Perhaps I'm being unfair —because I know how the sausage is made— but if it looks like it's generated by Perl (clunky late-90s design, obvious interactive parts, filter, logins, etc) it probably scales like a squirrel carrying watermelons. (One at a time is okay.) Debian should definitely do more to stop this from happening but this isn't the first time a HN link to a clunky old webapp has taken it down.

The bug tracker has basically one maintainer who is quite busy with other stuff. This is the case for a lot of Debian infrastructure unfortunately. Unfortunately maintaining services isn't a particularly well-staffed job, especially for older services.

Re: Renaming Iceweasel to Firefox

#137
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ok, so Debian is a developers-only distribution? For all practical purposes, I'd say yes. GNU/Linux as a PC operating system for non-programmers is a lost cause. Sure, some organizations make it work, but it probably requires a lot of technical support; they'd probably be better off using Android tablets and/or Chromebooks if they need something less expensive than a Windows PC, let alone a Mac. And when non-progra…

> GNU/Linux as a PC operating system for non-programmers is a lost cause. Engineering workstations. Lots of them.

In the 90s maybe? Even CATIA doesn't officially support UNIX anymore.

Re: Renaming Iceweasel to Firefox

#138
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a plug of my friend Thanatermesis' great Debian-based distribution, which recognizes the distro and free-software ethos is not always fully conducive to a positive user experience at the forefront... http://www.elivecd.org/ - The latest release is always based on Debian Stable and is currently under active development. The whole system is changed in (mostly subtle) ways to make it more attractive to a new Linux u…

Hmm, the website says "Elive is not made for newbies".

The website says a lot of things, he's probably right, but as a newbie IMHO your first task is to compile enlightenment, and in elive that's already done for you...

Re: Renaming Iceweasel to Firefox

#139
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, I had to clean some viruses off a Windows 7 machine for a friend recently. I had to grab about six different bits of anti-malware software to do so. Some of that software came from famous vendors' sites where the downloaded software wasn't even protected by https. No real way to externally validate the item I was about to install on a system which is already known to be compromised. Some of the installers tried t…

Are you sure Microsoft's antivirus wasn't enough?

The (main) virus came through a user brainfart clicking on something she shouldn't have, so it got to install directly with admin privs. Amongst other things, it managed to block the MS AV from running properly and hijacked the DNS, which I had to manually reset. I can't recall how MS AV was blocked, sorry. Once it was all cleaned up I left it with MS AV active, though.

I'm not all that experienced in cleaning windows machines these days, but I do remember that each of the tools I ran cleared out something beyond just 'tracking cookies' - and each of them got something that the others didn't.

I certainly feel for mere mortals that have to do this sort of stuff on their own, given that the anti-malware websites frequently have the same garish in-your-face appearance and crappy download sites as malware-supply websites do.

Re: Renaming Iceweasel to Firefox

#140

I don't understand why Debian has anything to do with Firefox. Why does the operating system have any say on what applications get released and how often? Isn't this the whole point of using free, open source software? To be able to choose your own components? Why do we need Debian bundling Firefox?

Debian isn't an operating system. Linux an operating system and is a small part of the Debian distribution.
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