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Debian 11 “bullseye” freeze started

lists.debian.org

51–60 of 93 posts

Re: Debian 11 “bullseye” freeze started

#51
post #5

Following the recent CentOS fiasco, I'm advising friends to go with Debian. It's rock solid and can be depended upon.

Maybe for servers. But it still has plenty of rough edges as a desktop OS. Mint is a much better choice (IMO) for the desktop, that still is somewhat within the Debian ecosystem.

What are your rough edges? I have found Debian Unstable with latest Gnome to be way more stable and productive than I expected.

Re: Debian 11 “bullseye” freeze started

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The code names make issues with specific versions or eras easy to search

Ubuntu at least does it in alphabetical order of the first letter of the codename. Eg, the release after Ubuntu 20.04 Focal was Ubuntu 20.10 Groovy. This means that hearing the Ubuntu codename "Bionic" provides some information: it was 4 releases before Focal. But Debian codenames are arbitrarily based on characters from the movie Toy Story, so there's no relation to the Debian release. To fix this, I propose for fut…

Sure; but (IMHO) I think the code names provide an visible and fun reminder that this operating is a operating system for hackers, and this is a tiny bit of personality from that ethos baked into the system.

Debian labels itself the 'universal operating system', and makes no aspirations to cater to the lowest common denominator of users.

Re: Debian 11 “bullseye” freeze started

#53
Some of the highlights (from my point of view) that have been frozen, according to the packaging website:

Linux kernel 5.10

gcc 10.2

libc 2.31

Perl 5.32

And some non-essential packages that look to being included in the upcoming release (I'm sure there's plenty of other exciting inclusions that I've missed):

GNOME 3.38

KDE Plasma 5.20

Xfce 4.16

LXQt 0.16

MATE 1.24

Cinnamon 4.8

Apache httpd 2.4.46

Python 3.9

LibreOffice 7.0

QEMU 5.2

Re: Debian 11 “bullseye” freeze started

#54
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because in 2021, i386 processors are obsolescent. The last non-amd64 processor that ran x86 is the Pentium 4E from 2004, a 17-year-old machine. The packages will still be available as long as there's a maintainer, but it's not worth packaging a full debian release for such a small and shrinking portion of the userbase.

But i386 will still run on 64 bit hardware. A place I was working recently was insisting on sticking to 32 bit linux while they migrated off Solaris, mostly for stupid reasons on code that wasn't too hard to port, but just because the hardware is no longer compatible doesn't mean the software is, especially for any proprietary software that will never be upgraded.

[deleted]

Re: Debian 11 “bullseye” freeze started

#55
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because in 2021, i386 processors are obsolescent. The last non-amd64 processor that ran x86 is the Pentium 4E from 2004, a 17-year-old machine. The packages will still be available as long as there's a maintainer, but it's not worth packaging a full debian release for such a small and shrinking portion of the userbase.

> The last non-amd64 processor that ran x86 is the Pentium 4E from 2004, a 17-year-old machine. Atom CPUs without x86_64 support were released up until 2013.

Debian Buster LTS is supported until 2024 and then probably ELTS until 2026. Also how many of these 32-bit Atom CPUs are actually in use anymore? It's a pretty edge case.

Re: Debian 11 “bullseye” freeze started

#56
post #36

Debian is an amazing project. I love how it's so fundamental but doesn't call attention or hype to itself. It's used by millions but doesn't try to be sexy or glamorous. Even the website is minimal.

Hmm, popcon says only 199127 submitters, I wonder how many Debian systems there actually are. https://popcon.debian.org/

would ubuntu also count?

Re: Debian 11 “bullseye” freeze started

#58
post #36

Debian is an amazing project. I love how it's so fundamental but doesn't call attention or hype to itself. It's used by millions but doesn't try to be sexy or glamorous. Even the website is minimal.

Hmm, popcon says only 199127 submitters, I wonder how many Debian systems there actually are. https://popcon.debian.org/

We have hundreds, if not thousands of vms running Debian in our datacenter, none of them have popcon installed.

So yeah, I think this statistic is orders of magnitude lower than in reality.

What I like about Debian is that they don’t really force you to install this.

Re: Debian 11 “bullseye” freeze started

#59
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The last non-amd64 processor that ran x86 is the Pentium 4E from 2004, a 17-year-old machine. Atom CPUs without x86_64 support were released up until 2013.

Debian Buster LTS is supported until 2024 and then probably ELTS until 2026. Also how many of these 32-bit Atom CPUs are actually in use anymore? It's a pretty edge case.

Debian is (or at least used to be) popular for old hardware - e.g. they supported m68k for longer than most distros. I had an i386 Atom netbook that I was using up until about a year ago, and if I hadn't moved internationally I'd probably still use it.

Re: Debian 11 “bullseye” freeze started

#60
post #13
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, it "just works". It's so reliable that I almost forget it's there. 10+ years in production and not once an OS/distro bang-up.

As an outsider, it's not the reliability of the software that is amazing to me. It's the governance and management of the project. The distro has managed to be amazingly consistent and stable for years. But the reason for this is how the project is run. It's hard to do that for so long with minimal drama and they deserve tons for kudos for that effort. Like some others, where CentOS was my go-to distro, I've started…

Yes! One of the things that stands out to me about Debian is that it is community governed and not underwritten by a specific large corporation. There are a special few huge open source projects that can boast that kind of stable, persistent governance.
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