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Ask HN: What do you want to see in Debian 10 (“buster”)?

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Re: Ask HN: What do you want to see in Debian 10 (“buster”)?

#71

Post by avar »

hsivonen wrote: post #50

HEADLINE: Repurpose testing as a rolling release positioned for not-just-testing usage DESCRIPTION: There are users who'd like to use a non-corporate community distro but who don't need or want software to be as old as software in Debian stable. The standard answer is "use testing" (e.g. http://ral-arturo.org/2017/05/11/debian-myths.html ), but 1) security support for testing is documented to be slower than for stabl…

    > rename testing to something with a positive
    > connotation that doesn't suggest it's for
    > testing only.
Isn't unstable what you want to use?

The reason it's called "testing" is because it's a branch of Debian that's "in testing for stable". IIRC packages have to be 2 weeks in unstable without bugs before migrating to testing.

So it's explicitly not a bleeding edge release, but a preparation release for the next stable, which is why testing since late-2016 or so hasn't been getting any new major releases, it's been undergoing release prep.

Maybe there should be a sixth branch of Debian between unstable and testing that doesn't slow down the migration of packages bug-free for 2 weeks from unstable around release, but that seems like a lot of maintenance burden to impose on Debian.

Re: Ask HN: What do you want to see in Debian 10 (“buster”)?

#72

Post by based2 »

rahiel wrote: post #68

HEADLINE: enable AppArmor by default DESCRIPTION: AppArmor improves security by limiting the capabilities of programs. Ubuntu has done this years ago [1]. I'd like to see profiles for web browsers enabled by default. I think AppArmor is the right choice of default Mandatory Access Control for Debian because Ubuntu and security focused Debian derivatives like Tails [2] and SubgraphOS [3] have already committed to it.…

https://github.com/subgraph/subgraph_metaproxy

'Metaproxy is not going to work very well with IPv6'

Re: Ask HN: What do you want to see in Debian 10 (“buster”)?

#73

Post by avar »

rahiel wrote: post #57
avar wrote: post #38

HEADLINE: Better support for non-free firmware during installation DESCRIPTION: Long-time Debian user here and free software supporter. One aspect where I don't have any practical choice for free software is my non-free iwlwifi firmware. It's a huge PITA to install Debian like that when you don't have the fallback of a wired network. You provide "non-free" firmware packages, but these don't have the actual firmware!…

Debian already provides images with non-free firmware: https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-in... I use these when installing on laptops.

These don't work for WiFi drivers as I pointed out because they're not actually the firmware, they're packages to download the firmware. That obviously doesn't work if you don't have a network connection.

Re: Ask HN: What do you want to see in Debian 10 (“buster”)?

#74

Post by kebolio »

HEADLINE: easier, simpler package creation and building

DESCRIPTION: on distros like arch, to a lesser extent void and even gentoo, writing package definition files (PKGBUILDs, ebuilds, templates) is relatively straightforward; in contrast, i don't even know where to start with finding, editing and building debian packages. i think they're built from source packages but beyond that i have no clue. i think visibility of documentation could help here, if not more radical changes to be more similar to the arch/gentoo workflow.

Re: Ask HN: What do you want to see in Debian 10 (“buster”)?

#76

Post by kebolio »

based2 wrote: post #72
rahiel wrote: post #68

HEADLINE: enable AppArmor by default DESCRIPTION: AppArmor improves security by limiting the capabilities of programs. Ubuntu has done this years ago [1]. I'd like to see profiles for web browsers enabled by default. I think AppArmor is the right choice of default Mandatory Access Control for Debian because Ubuntu and security focused Debian derivatives like Tails [2] and SubgraphOS [3] have already committed to it.…

https://github.com/subgraph/subgraph_metaproxy 'Metaproxy is not going to work very well with IPv6'

has nothing to do with apparmor.

Re: Ask HN: What do you want to see in Debian 10 (“buster”)?

#77

Post by hsivonen »

avar wrote: post #71
hsivonen wrote: post #50

HEADLINE: Repurpose testing as a rolling release positioned for not-just-testing usage DESCRIPTION: There are users who'd like to use a non-corporate community distro but who don't need or want software to be as old as software in Debian stable. The standard answer is "use testing" (e.g. http://ral-arturo.org/2017/05/11/debian-myths.html ), but 1) security support for testing is documented to be slower than for stabl…

> rename testing to something with a positive > connotation that doesn't suggest it's for > testing only. Isn't unstable what you want to use? The reason it's called "testing" is because it's a branch of Debian that's "in testing for stable". IIRC packages have to be 2 weeks in unstable without bugs before migrating to testing. So it's explicitly not a bleeding edge release, but a preparation release for the next sta…

At the very least "unstable" has a name with a negative connotation. It has the air of it being the user's fault if you use it and stuff breaks.

I don't know what the practical breakage situation is, so I don't know if renaming and repositioning unstable would make more sense than doing it with testing.

My point is that it would be good for non-expert end users who like Debian's community image and who want security​ support to have a Debian release channel that provides fresher software with security support than stable.

Re: Ask HN: What do you want to see in Debian 10 (“buster”)?

#78

Post by yaantc »

HEADLINE: Smarter handling of icons files during updates

DESCRIPTION: This is a nitpick/wishlist item really. I started using Stretch while in testing, and noticed that most updates would download rather large sets of icons (few MBs). They look like archive files of icons, and I guess that if any change happens the whole set is downloaded again. This wasn't the case in Jessie.

When on a slow Internet link, it can definitely slow down upgrades. It would only be noticeable for Testing/Unstable, as otherwise these sets of icons would not change much. But when regularly updating testing, often these icons sets were a significant part of the downloaded data.

It could be nice to make updating those icons optional, for people behind slow links. Alternatively, handling them as a versioned list (text, easy to diff efficiently) + independent files could make their update more efficient than compressed archive files.

Again, just a nitpick/wishlist item. It's just that I haven't chased down what this comes from (I guess for GUI package management like synaptic? TBC) and don't know where this could be reported. You just gave me the opportunity ;)

DISTRIBUTION: Testing/Unstable (any version with frequent changes)

Re: Ask HN: What do you want to see in Debian 10 (“buster”)?

#79

Post by keithpeter »

lamby wrote: post #55
keithpeter wrote: post #36

- HEADLINE: Continue to provide a mechanism for offline installation of a large selection of the repository. - DESCRIPTION: Debian is the only distribution that I know of that provides .iso images from which you can install the operating system and subsequently install a wide range of (libre) software. In addition, Debian provides update .isos. These affordances make installing and maintaining a desktop computer with…

> without an Internet connection, or with a slow and expensive connection Could you elaborate more on your particular use-case? Would be interested if there were also compromise solutions such as smarter binary diffs, etc.

my use case could be just walking down the hill with my laptop to the arts centre with the fast wifi.

However, having installed a fairly full Debian desktop from DVD1/2 offline it struck me that Debian is the only distribution that could support someone with (say) a desktop PC in a location with dial-up or no Internet or only mobile internet. I imagine a single large .iso image (the BD perhaps?) included on 'El Paquete'[1] and dd'ed to a USB key for installation or DVDs/USB key mailed in the post.

A Debian equivalent to drpm packages would be a really nice idea. I'm glad you said 'also'!

[1] https://www.fastcompany.com/3048163/in-cuba-an-underground-n...

Re: Ask HN: What do you want to see in Debian 10 (“buster”)?

#80

Post by esjeon »

- HEADLINE: Easier DEB repository creation.

- DESCRIPTION: Creating a custom remote/local/CD/DVD repo or a partial mirror is simply a nightmare, mainly because package management internals are poorly documented. There are many tools developed to just solve this problem, but most of them aren't actively maintained. Aptly seems like the best right now, but is way much complicated and inflexible.

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