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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”)?

#101

Post by jlgaddis »

TekMol wrote: post #43

HEADLINE: Support for more wifi hardware. DESCRIPTION: The #1 reason why I don't use Debian on the desktop is missing wifi support during installation. I wish Debian could write and include free wifi drivers for all recent laptops. DISTRIBUTION: Debian 8 on the server. Mint Mate on the Desktop. ROLE/AFFILIATION: Founder and CEO of a tech startup.

Drivers exist in the kernel already. The issue is the proprietary firmware that these devices require. Debian can't do much more about that, complain to the manufacturers.

See this other thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14579821

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

#102

Post by detaro »

humanrebar wrote: post #70
RVuRnvbM2e wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with a git repo for each package is that not every maintainer uses git.. I realise that integration could be better, but most of these things do already exist: CI: https://ci.debian.net/ Tool for reporting bugs: reportbug (CLI) / reportbug-ng (GUI). This is also the way to submit patches. Inspect debian source packages: apt-get source

> ...not every maintainer uses git. I can't think of a valid reason for people to avoid learning git. Is there one?

"Avoid learning" and "not using (for this particular job)" are different things.

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

#103

Post by hsivonen »

jlgaddis wrote: post #92
hsivonen wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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​…

Have you actually tried unstable? Granted, I haven't used it for a few years now (the only Debian boxes I have today are servers running stable), but "unstable" was actually quite reliable. Yes, it did break occasionally (mostly just minor issues with package dependencies) but those were usually easy fixes and "unstable" was actually quite usable as an everyday, desktop Linux. If you haven't tried it, give it a shot.…

No, I haven't used unstable myself.

But "have you spent the time evaluating it?" is beside the point. My point is that it would be positive to have a Debian release channel with fresh software with 1) explicit security support and 2) naming with positive connotations so that fewer people who don't need to use out-of-date "stable" used "stable" because it is the Debian release channel with the most positive-connotation name.

Asking each user individually to go against the framing of negative-connotation naming ("testing", "unstable") to get empirical data of what the actual level of breakage is wasteful. If "unstable" works so well, it shouldn't be called "unstable". Calling it "unstable" but telling people it's the solution to whatever is wrong with "stable" is a set-up for a blame-the-user excuse if something goes wrong.

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

#104

Post by stephenr »

JdeBP wrote: post #40
preek wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm running Debian boxes 100% of the time on VirtualBox since 4 years. I run macOS, but only as a host, I spend about 95% of my time within Debian boxes. Never had a problem that Debian didn't run 'out of the box' within VirtualBox. Wouldn't even know what that entails.

One thing that it entails is that the kernels available in Debian 8 backports are not compatible with the VirtualBox guest tools for Debian 8 that are published by Oracle. So one has to make the choice on Debian 8 between a kernel that supports version 2 control groups and having VirtualBox device drivers for things like the display.

Isn't that a problem for the VirtualBox team to solve - effectively, supporting newer kernels?

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

#105

Post by avar »

joeyh wrote: post #86
avar wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No, those do contain the firmware. https://anonscm.debian.org/cgit/kernel/firmware-nonfree.git

I see that I mixed up two of my laptops in my example. You're right, but my general feature request still stands.

Yes the iwlwifi firmware in particular is shipped on the nonfree firmware CD image. But the firmware my other laptop isn't. With the stretch rc5 non-free image mounted:

    $ dpkg -c firmware/firmware-iwlwifi_20161130-3_all.deb|grep -c ucode
    46
But instead of providing the b43 firmware there's only a network installer to fetch it:

    $ ls firmware/*b43*
    firmware/firmware-b43-installer_019-3_all.deb
    firmware/firmware-b43legacy-installer_019-3_all.deb
Looking over the packages more closely now it seems only the b43 package[1] uses this approach (although there might be more firmware that's not included at all).

1. https://wiki.debian.org/bcm43xx#b43_and_b43legacy

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

#106

Post by falcolas »

pwdisswordfish wrote: post #89

HEADLINE: Easier way to create local packages DESCRIPTION: My first distro was Debian. Then, for a while, I used Arch. But it kept irritating me with its total disregard for backwards-compatibility (symlinking /usr/bin/python to python3), coarse-grained packages (want to install QEMU PPC without pulling in every other architecture as well? too bad!), lack of debug packages (good luck rebuilding WebKit just to get sta…

I will +1 this. I generally end up copying a bunch of the required control files from another project and using a higher level script which creates the deb for me via black magic. I would love to understand the process more, but the depth of knowledge required to grok the process from end-to-end is well beyond the time I can commit to it.

On a related note, the way that repos can only be secured as a whole (and require each package to effectively be present when creating the signature) makes adding a single authenticated package to an existing repo much harder than it needs to be.

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

#107

Post by Ianp5a »

HEADLINE: Installer easy option to separate OS / and /home partitions.

DESCRIPTION: It is often recommended to separate the OS partition from the users data partition containing /home. This should be available as an easy option for non IT users. If 1 partition exists, a recommended split MB size is is default. If 2 partitions exist, they are checked for OS files and home files, so the user sees which one will be overwritten. This is convenient and a safety net for most users, and a lifeline for non IT people who may not know the recommendation, or how to proceed.

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

#108

Post by Twisell »

hsivonen wrote: post #103
jlgaddis wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you actually tried unstable? Granted, I haven't used it for a few years now (the only Debian boxes I have today are servers running stable), but "unstable" was actually quite reliable. Yes, it did break occasionally (mostly just minor issues with package dependencies) but those were usually easy fixes and "unstable" was actually quite usable as an everyday, desktop Linux. If you haven't tried it, give it a shot.…

No, I haven't used unstable myself. But "have you spent the time evaluating it?" is beside the point. My point is that it would be positive to have a Debian release channel with fresh software with 1) explicit security support and 2) naming with positive connotations so that fewer people who don't need to use out-of-date "stable" used "stable" because it is the Debian release channel with the most positive-connotatio…

But what is wrong with stable in the first place ?

What you are asking is basically to switch to a rolling cycle with guaranteed support. This is a huge change and also don't account for the fact that many people choose Debian stable specifically because of it's non-rolling cycle...

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

#109

Post by zsj »

jopsen wrote: post #39

HEADLINE: Lower barrier for contributors DESCRIPTION: Have a git repo for each package with a simple issue tracker, like GitHub/gitlab, a flow for accepting pull-requests and automated CI. Also move away from message boards and IRC to more user friendly tools. Currently, it's too hard to report bugs, inspect debian source packages, propose fixes, etc. The overhead to making a simple contribution is too high. Note: th…

As for PR workflow, it will be hopefully. There's a discussion[1] to replace the Alioth[2] with Pagure[3], which has a similar workflow with Github. Maybe the Pagure is not the final decision, but it will be a modern platform that's easy for contributors.

[1] https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/724986/90728a14d7a85770/

[2] https://alioth.debian.org/

[3] https://pagure.io/

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

#110

Post by falcolas »

raverbashing wrote: post #45
kofejnik wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Switching to default Py3 is a breaking change Not only breaking, but also completely unnecessary

Python 2.7 being EOL at a future date means switching to Python 3 is needed

Perhaps then a better solution is just to remove the `/usr/bin/python` symlink, and make scripts be explicit in their dependency list.

It would be a small change (that could be automated) in packages, and removes any confusion about what /usr/bin/python means.

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