Happy 20th birthday Debian • Hacker News Board

Re: Happy 20th birthday Debian

#11

Post by ics » Fri, Aug 16, 2013, 12:34 PM UTC

mhurron wrote: post #10

keithpeter wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://forums.debian.net/ is one forum. I'm not sure if it is actually a part of the Debian project or just something that grew alongside. Can be useful sometimes, but if your present channels work for you then I'd suggest you might want to do without the 'noise'[1] [1] http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=106389 PS: never ceases to amaze me that you can download an iso, boot a computer, install an operating…

> Debian is a large part of that history isn't it? Debian was an early full Linux distribution, but it wasn't the first. Debians big (early) contribution was apt, which could install packages and resolve dependencies over the internet and made package management easier than rpm based distributions of the time.

Slackware's 20th birthday was just last month!

It's a little hard to view in landscape mode but Wikipedia has this cool graphic to show the development of Linux distros.

Re: Happy 20th birthday Debian

#12

Post by toyg » Fri, Aug 16, 2013, 12:48 PM UTC

aspensmonster wrote: post #3

Happy birthday to my first permanent GNU/Linux distribution, from Etch all the way to Jessie. It's --you've, we've-- come a long way. I hope to see the community remain as strong as ever. The Debian forums were always my weapon of last resort when Google didn't have the answer to my problem, and not once was I let down. And best of luck to the new DPL!

My first release was Potato. I still remember downloading so many (3? 6?) CDs...

God, I feel old.

I don't use Debian much these days, certainly not as a desktop, but it will forever be the "real" Linux distribution in my heart. Without the ongoing work of umpteen Debian package managers, you wouldn't have Ubuntu (and all its humongous downstream), Knoppix, and so on.

Re: Happy 20th birthday Debian

#13

Post by leoedin » Fri, Aug 16, 2013, 1:02 PM UTC

toyg wrote: post #12

aspensmonster wrote: post #3

Happy birthday to my first permanent GNU/Linux distribution, from Etch all the way to Jessie. It's --you've, we've-- come a long way. I hope to see the community remain as strong as ever. The Debian forums were always my weapon of last resort when Google didn't have the answer to my problem, and not once was I let down. And best of luck to the new DPL!

My first release was Potato. I still remember downloading so many (3? 6?) CDs... God, I feel old. I don't use Debian much these days, certainly not as a desktop, but it will forever be the "real" Linux distribution in my heart. Without the ongoing work of umpteen Debian package managers, you wouldn't have Ubuntu (and all its humongous downstream), Knoppix, and so on.

I spent about a week downloading perhaps 7 CDs for Woody (I guess it would have been 2002). I'm fairly sure I never actually installed packages from most of the CDs.

Re: Happy 20th birthday Debian

#14

Post by toyg » Fri, Aug 16, 2013, 1:06 PM UTC

leoedin wrote: post #13

toyg wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My first release was Potato. I still remember downloading so many (3? 6?) CDs... God, I feel old. I don't use Debian much these days, certainly not as a desktop, but it will forever be the "real" Linux distribution in my heart. Without the ongoing work of umpteen Debian package managers, you wouldn't have Ubuntu (and all its humongous downstream), Knoppix, and so on.

I spent about a week downloading perhaps 7 CDs for Woody (I guess it would have been 2002). I'm fairly sure I never actually installed packages from most of the CDs.

IIRC most of the x86 packages were on disc 1 and 3. I don't think I've ever touched the rest.

Re: Happy 20th birthday Debian

#15

Post by leoedin » Fri, Aug 16, 2013, 1:09 PM UTC

Debian was my first linux distribution. It took me perhaps a week to download the 7 CDs for Woody (I don't think many of them ever actually got used). I was only 12 and really didn't have a clue what I was doing. My main memories are probably more of frustration than enlightenment... However, as the basis of Knoppix (the first linux distribution that I had much success with) it was a huge pillar in my (and no doubt many others') Linux education. The work put in by the maintainers has had a fantastic knock on effect and provides the basis for so much of the internet infrastructure. It's a brilliant project!

Re: Happy 20th birthday Debian

#16

Post by arc_of_descent » Fri, Aug 16, 2013, 1:18 PM UTC

I started using Debian around a year back. Been a Linux user for all my professional life. Started with Red Hat, then Fedora, then ArchLinux. I was always aware of Debian but I got the idea that the installation process was a bit tricky (this was way back).

I finally installed Squeeze and the installation process was painless. The dist-upgrade to Wheezy too was easy. And now I'm really glad to see they have a 1 CD download containing only Xfce, which is my display manager of choice.

Happy Birthday to the Debian project!

Re: Happy 20th birthday Debian

#17

Post by drbawb » Fri, Aug 16, 2013, 1:28 PM UTC

toyg wrote: post #12

aspensmonster wrote: post #3

Happy birthday to my first permanent GNU/Linux distribution, from Etch all the way to Jessie. It's --you've, we've-- come a long way. I hope to see the community remain as strong as ever. The Debian forums were always my weapon of last resort when Google didn't have the answer to my problem, and not once was I let down. And best of luck to the new DPL!

My first release was Potato. I still remember downloading so many (3? 6?) CDs... God, I feel old. I don't use Debian much these days, certainly not as a desktop, but it will forever be the "real" Linux distribution in my heart. Without the ongoing work of umpteen Debian package managers, you wouldn't have Ubuntu (and all its humongous downstream), Knoppix, and so on.

I shyed away from Debian initially, as I had a bad experience with Knoppix on my hardware (though it did pique my interest.) However I do remember that Fedora Core 3 came on 4 CDs though. That was the very early 2000s.

I still remember when Fedora moved to DVDs. I was quite frustrated because I didn't have a DVD burner at the time. Almost 13 years later and my distro of choice fits on a single CD-R; I guess I've come full circle.

Re: Happy 20th birthday Debian

#18

Post by dfc » Fri, Aug 16, 2013, 1:29 PM UTC

toyg wrote: post #12

aspensmonster wrote: post #3

Happy birthday to my first permanent GNU/Linux distribution, from Etch all the way to Jessie. It's --you've, we've-- come a long way. I hope to see the community remain as strong as ever. The Debian forums were always my weapon of last resort when Google didn't have the answer to my problem, and not once was I let down. And best of luck to the new DPL!

My first release was Potato. I still remember downloading so many (3? 6?) CDs... God, I feel old. I don't use Debian much these days, certainly not as a desktop, but it will forever be the "real" Linux distribution in my heart. Without the ongoing work of umpteen Debian package managers, you wouldn't have Ubuntu (and all its humongous downstream), Knoppix, and so on.

I think potato was six CDs.

Re: Happy 20th birthday Debian

#19

Post by dfc » Fri, Aug 16, 2013, 1:37 PM UTC

mhurron wrote: post #10

keithpeter wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://forums.debian.net/ is one forum. I'm not sure if it is actually a part of the Debian project or just something that grew alongside. Can be useful sometimes, but if your present channels work for you then I'd suggest you might want to do without the 'noise'[1] [1] http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=106389 PS: never ceases to amaze me that you can download an iso, boot a computer, install an operating…

> Debian is a large part of that history isn't it? Debian was an early full Linux distribution, but it wasn't the first. Debians big (early) contribution was apt, which could install packages and resolve dependencies over the internet and made package management easier than rpm based distributions of the time.

> made package management easier

That is quite the understatement. I can remember the shock and amazement that came over me the first time I used apt. It was one of those computing moments that I will always remember.

Unfortunately I also remember being frightened whenever I had to read the XFree86 README and saw the section about video cards setting on fire.

Re: Happy 20th birthday Debian

#20

Post by ctb_mg » Fri, Aug 16, 2013, 1:42 PM UTC

Just recently switched to Debian for a server distro. Early in my linux learning, I had been messing around with Gentoo, Fedora, and even Ubuntu. It's taken me so long to understand what Debian is and how important good package management is, but now I'm grateful. Thanks Debian!