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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”)?

#241

Post by icebraining »

simias wrote: post #176
avar wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I always run "testing" because every time I try to run "stable" on the desktop I always end up with an outdated package that limits me one way or an other. A missing driver, missing functionality etc... On the other hand "unstable" is way too unstable when you need a reliable environment in my experience. Packages breaking randomly etc... Completely expected of course, but I can't take that bet on a work computer for…

On the other hand "unstable" is way too unstable when you need a reliable environment in my experience. Packages breaking randomly etc... Completely expected of course, but I can't take that bet on a work computer for instance.

That's not my experience at all. Which packages have you had breaking randomly?

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

#242

Post by bkor »

pirocks wrote: post #193
rahimnathwani wrote: post #139

HEADLINE: Easy way to use multiple screens with different DPI DESCRIPTION: Many laptops (e.g. Macbook Pro) come with retina screens, but most of us use 'regular' monitors. Even after setting org.gnome.desktop.interface scaling-factor and playing with xrandr, it can be difficult or impossible to get a single external non-retina display set up in the right position and without one screen containing tiny text (or huge t…

I to have this issue on my laptop. Gnome​ is the worst offender but definitely not the only. I've found that changing the font size in mate to around 6 to 8 does help.

GNOME supports different dpi per screen just fine under Wayland and 3.24 or newer. The dpi support isn't done yet, they're further improving it so hopefully 3.26 and 3.28 will work better (fractional scaling).

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

#243

Post by vbernat »

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…

Creating your own packages with Debian tools is easier now than ever. Unfortunately, the documentation may be lagging a bit and will also focus of making state-of-the-art packages.

Last year, I have written some examples on how to do simple packages while still leveraging Debian tools: https://vincent.bernat.im/en/blog/2016-pragmatic-debian-pack...

Also, automatic package generation for many languages already providing package management (Python, Ruby, Java, Go, ...) is already a reality but you have a different tool for each. The topic comes back regularly but until now, we don't have a generic tool for that. The last attempt was debdry but it isn't maintained anymore.

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

#245

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

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…

> Have a git repo for each package

Bad idea, because you don't want to lock all of Debian into one technology. Suppose Debian had similarly had one cvs repo for each package 20 years ago. Progress happens when people have the opportunity to independently build and test out different solutions without first having to convince the world that theirs is the best.

> with a simple issue tracker

Dunno what you mean by "simple", but there is an issue tracker for all the packages that's as simple to use as it gets, you don't even need to create an account!?

> Also move away from message boards and IRC to more user friendly tools.

I haven't seen message boards used by Debian!? As for IRC, what would you consider a more user friendly tool?

> Currently, it's too hard to report bugs

So, running reportbug on your machine is too hard?!

> inspect debian source packages

So, running apt-get source on your machine is too hard?!

> propose fixes

See bugtracker above?

> many open source projects has old infrastructure

What is wrong with old infrastructure?

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

#246

Post by omginternets »

bigon wrote: post #208
omginternets wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not both? In the docker world, it would be a huge improvement.

The problem is that the docker policy is RHEL/Fedora centric and is not upstreamed in the refpolicy AFAIK

We're touching on the limits of my understanding. Could you please elaborate?

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

#247

Post by Twirrim »

rlpb wrote: post #217
miclill wrote: post #147

- HEADLINE: Not start services by default - DESCRIPTION: If I installed e.g. postgresql I would prefer it not starting automatically by default. I would rather like a message: If you want x to start on boot, type 'update-rc.d enable x' - DISTRIBUTION: (Optional) [stable] - ROLE/AFFILIATION: (software dev, mostly web)

You can configure this behaviour today. Search for "policy-rc.d". IMHO, it's a bug in configuration management tools that they do not arrange this by default.

deb/dpkg/apt is the only one I've seen which does this. All other distributions go for install only.

Starting on install is more intuitive for people new to linux, but it's bad as an overall practice.

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

#248

Post by rahiel »

amorphid wrote: post #191

HEADLINE: list apt package dependencies DESCRIPTION: something like 'apt-get deps ' returning a list of all deps for a package. This would be super duper when trying to install a standalone package file on a system where the deps aren't already present.

For local .deb files you can run 'less' on it. This shows the package contents and a line 'Depends:' with the package's dependencies.

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

#249

Post by amorphid »

bigon wrote: post #204
amorphid wrote: post #192

HEADLINE: Create local copy of remote repos DESCRIPTION: Personally I'd like something like 'apt-get update --local' which pulled down a remote copy of every repo. That's be super handy for something like a build machine, and it'd reduce the need to install & maintain an Aptly repo.

Did you look at apt-cacher-ng or the other similar tools?

I'm not sure. I've never used apt-cacher-ng, and it's not in Debian. It'd be more accurate to say I'd like the ability to create a local mirror of all remote repos, not just caching repos I've downloaded. Something that would usable offline.

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

#250

Post by rahiel »

ptman wrote: post #223
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.…

Why not SELinux?

Because Debian has already done much work on integrating AppArmor [1].

And Debian based distro's like Ubuntu, Tails, and Subgraph also work on AppArmor so choosing AppArmor over SELinux means overall less work for the Debian community.

[1]: https://wiki.debian.org/AppArmor/Progress

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