Today is Debian 8 release day • Hacker News Board

Re: Today is Debian 8 release day

#121

Post by vezzy-fnord » Sun, Apr 26, 2015, 1:36 AM UTC

cbd1984 wrote: post #119

progman wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least long enough to decide which Linux distro to use in the future. Unfortunately many distros have already jumped on the systemd wagon but I think soon there will be a increasing collection of non-systemd alternatives which will continue to follow the KISS principle which made Unix and Linux so great. There already _are_ alternatives to systemd and systemv -- launchd and upstart (used by ChromeOS) for instance.…

> many distros have already jumped on the systemd wagon Odd. If systemd is so Objectively Terrible (the general tenor of these posts: systemd is bad, it's obviously bad, with no redeeming features whatsoever), why is that happening? There can't possibly be a financial incentive.

"Objectively terrible" certainly isn't the case with systemd, but there's plenty of reasons for adopting software in general that has nothing to do with technical merit. Much of the Linux desktop daemons (particularly ones associated with GNOME and Freedesktop.org) have begun using systemd's interfaces, sometimes as hard dependencies. Thus, for the major distributions that want to tailor to the most popular use cases, the cost of adopting systemd is probably lower than patching against the ever-expanding upstream that requires it.

Lots of programmers aren't particularly good at analyzing the cost of surface convenience in proportion to future technical debt. Software is just as frequently adopted purely because it's convenient, well marketed or in a self-serving feedback cycle, because it's already popular.

It's also worth noting that ChromeOS still uses Upstart.

Re: Today is Debian 8 release day

#122

Post by superuser2 » Sun, Apr 26, 2015, 1:57 AM UTC

aruggirello wrote: post #40

viyyer wrote: post #23

Just on the side note. This was announced on microsoft website about them celebrating about Debian release. http://openness.microsoft.com/blog/2015/04/21/microsoft-debi...

I wonder why, following their new "openness" motto, Microsoft is still not: 1) porting Visual Studio to Linux. 2) porting Office to Linux, or 3) contributing to Wine, with the goal of solving long-standing issues with their (above) software - but hey they could contribute in other areas too, since Wine is far from complete (a USB driver/stack is much needed IMHO). I won't believe in Microsoft "openness" until I see o…

Probably because MS (like many others) are excited about and use Linux on the server side but don't take it seriously / want it to be taken seriously as an end-user desktop OS.

Re: Today is Debian 8 release day

#123

Post by Shish2k » Sun, Apr 26, 2015, 2:07 AM UTC

stephenr wrote: post #81

verytrivial wrote: post #10

For anyone using a Debian derivative/repackage, that "systemd" thing everyone was moaning about? It has just happened. Interesting times.

Install. Restore sysvinit. Reboot. Problem solved.

Upgrade from wheezy. Continue using sysvinit because "continue using what's installed already" trumps "systemd is default for fresh installs". Problem doesn't even exist.

(I actually like systemd, just adding to the list of ways that Debian makes it easy to avoid it, in the hope of the whiners whining less :P)

Re: Today is Debian 8 release day

#124

Post by stephenr » Sun, Apr 26, 2015, 2:46 AM UTC

Shish2k wrote: post #123

stephenr wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Install. Restore sysvinit. Reboot. Problem solved.

Upgrade from wheezy. Continue using sysvinit because "continue using what's installed already" trumps "systemd is default for fresh installs". Problem doesn't even exist. (I actually like systemd, just adding to the list of ways that Debian makes it easy to avoid it, in the hope of the whiners whining less :P)

The docs indicate sysvinit will be replaced by systemd-sysv for wheezy upgrades

Re: Today is Debian 8 release day

#125

Post by yebyen » Sun, Apr 26, 2015, 3:02 AM UTC

kasabali wrote: post #115

yebyen wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're saying makes sense, except that I would expect 15.10 to always be more current than it is before 2015-10 arrives. In reality, it's often not more current than the released version. If there is a new version of a package in sid, why isn't it in the "bleeding edge" ubuntu next-release? (I'm sure it's a good reason) In Debian, actually, I am pretty sure there's never really a freeze in unstable as you mentio…

> What you're saying makes sense, except that I would expect 15.10 to always be more current than it is before 2015-10 arrives. In reality, it's often not more current than the released version. If there is a new version of a package in sid, why isn't it in the "bleeding edge" ubuntu next-release? (I'm sure it's a good reason) I'm not closely following Ubuntu development, but they have 6 month release cycles and they…

This explanation cleared it up for me completely.

Thanks!

Re: Today is Debian 8 release day

#126

Post by mrmondo » Sun, Apr 26, 2015, 6:08 AM UTC

As a long time Debian user in a professional environment I was really excited to see that Debian 8 finally added proper SELinux policies - however my colleagues and I were very disappointed to see that these (although working without noticeable issue) were dropped at the last minute with no explanation.

Several people in the community have asked what happened to the packages but had no reply from the Debian mailing list. I've asked several times on twitter but I too have had no response from the official Debian twitter account.

Sources:

* http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/selinux-devel/2015-...

* https://twitter.com/s_mcleod/status/589699467885948928

* https://twitter.com/s_mcleod/status/583172820802281472

Re: Today is Debian 8 release day

#127

Post by progman » Sun, Apr 26, 2015, 7:01 AM UTC

cbd1984 wrote: post #119

progman wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least long enough to decide which Linux distro to use in the future. Unfortunately many distros have already jumped on the systemd wagon but I think soon there will be a increasing collection of non-systemd alternatives which will continue to follow the KISS principle which made Unix and Linux so great. There already _are_ alternatives to systemd and systemv -- launchd and upstart (used by ChromeOS) for instance.…

> many distros have already jumped on the systemd wagon Odd. If systemd is so Objectively Terrible (the general tenor of these posts: systemd is bad, it's obviously bad, with no redeeming features whatsoever), why is that happening? There can't possibly be a financial incentive.

https://plus.google.com/+TheodoreTso/posts/4W6rrMMvhWU

Re: Today is Debian 8 release day

#128

Post by exadeci » Sun, Apr 26, 2015, 7:43 AM UTC

johnchristopher wrote: post #16

That's not an official release statement. It's a month old mail stating Debian targeted today as a release date for Debian 8 (edit: latest news item in the list).

What about this:

https://www.debian.org/News/2015/20150426

Re: Today is Debian 8 release day

#129

Post by ben_bai » Sun, Apr 26, 2015, 8:29 AM UTC

gcr wrote: post #111

D4AHNGM wrote: post #109

Minor highlight: Debian 8 ships with an OpenSSL which has SSLv3 disabled at compile-time.

Do you mean that only TLS is supported now?

SSLv3 is so 1996... Please, please, please with sugar on top, use TLS only. Also there are lots of changes in the software world in the last 20 years, which the SSL codebase didn't keep up with (mainly meaning OpenSSL).

Re: Today is Debian 8 release day

#130

Post by the_why_of_y » Sun, Apr 26, 2015, 10:16 AM UTC

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #121

cbd1984 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> many distros have already jumped on the systemd wagon Odd. If systemd is so Objectively Terrible (the general tenor of these posts: systemd is bad, it's obviously bad, with no redeeming features whatsoever), why is that happening? There can't possibly be a financial incentive.

"Objectively terrible" certainly isn't the case with systemd, but there's plenty of reasons for adopting software in general that has nothing to do with technical merit. Much of the Linux desktop daemons (particularly ones associated with GNOME and Freedesktop.org) have begun using systemd's interfaces, sometimes as hard dependencies. Thus, for the major distributions that want to tailor to the most popular use cases…

The primary reason why systemd got adoption it that it solved real problems both for end users (system administrators) and for higher layers of the stack.

It has replaced various kinds of NIH'ed and pointlessly differently colored bikesheds in different distros with stable public interfaces that obviate #ifdef hell in higher layers of the stack.

Your technical debt argument is very apt. It's how we ended up with piles of brittle and unmaintainable shell scripts that don't do error handling worth a damn.