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Debian 12 “Bookworm”

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Re: Debian 12 “Bookworm”

#171

Post by mikae1 »

krylon wrote: post #44

One thing I really appreciate about Debian is that when a new stable release comes around, I can just upgrade and be reasonably sure nothing bad will happen. It's not exciting, but a fair amount of the time, this is what people expect from their operating system. Support my hardware, give me the software I need, and stay out of my way otherwise. And that is what Debian does very well.

> One thing I really appreciate about Debian is that when a new stable release comes around, I can just upgrade and be reasonably sure nothing bad will happen.

That's good feedback and I've heard it from other people. Personally I've never been able to dist-upgrade Rapbian or Ubuntu without breaking the OS.

Re: Debian 12 “Bookworm”

#172

Post by stracer »

gsich wrote: post #47
sylware wrote: post #33

Finally with init system alternatives or do they still shove systemd down our throat (if so I'll stick to devuan gnu/linux instead)?

systemd is the superior init system.

How did you came to that conclusion? In my experience, sysvinit comes with less bloat, and hangs randomly much less than systemd. I've worked with both old debian (sysvinit) and current centos (systemd) systems, and if I had a problem with init, it was always with systemd. If something related to disks or user login sessions fails, with sysvinit most of the time things proceed promptly, while with systemd, you're in for a waitfest/eternal hang.

Systemd seems to be propelled by distro packagers and developers, but for admins/users, it's not that great.

Re: Debian 12 “Bookworm”

#173

Post by Karellen »

jacquesm wrote: post #92
enriquto wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the simple fact that without it the hardware you've invested in won't work How is that different from the "if you want to run linux don't buy a winmodem" that we said convincingly twenty years ago ? Would you have approved that linux 2.0 added binary blobs to the kernel in order to correctly work with the hardware that you had invested in (some random winmodem) ?

Winmodems had plenty of alternatives, for PCs the choice is usually limited to 'what you were given' or 'what you recycled from a dumpster'. Linux is typically not the first OS to be installed on any given piece of hardware (even if brand new plenty of people pay either the MS or the Apple tax). And because those are exactly the people that benefit from having a working PC I'm all for maximizing their chances. Choice…

> Linux is typically not the first OS to be installed on any given piece of hardware. And because those are exactly the people that benefit from having a working PC I'm all for maximizing their chances. Choice is a luxury.

But they don't have to choose Debian.

If Debian had maintained a strict "Free" stance, people could still use their troublesome hardware out-of-the-box simply by picking another distro that did include non-Free firmware in the installer. There are plenty of them. Like, 99% of all other distros.

Not all distros have to be everything to everyone. It's OK to have a niche.

Re: Debian 12 “Bookworm”

#174

Post by jacquesm »

Karellen wrote: post #173
jacquesm wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Winmodems had plenty of alternatives, for PCs the choice is usually limited to 'what you were given' or 'what you recycled from a dumpster'. Linux is typically not the first OS to be installed on any given piece of hardware (even if brand new plenty of people pay either the MS or the Apple tax). And because those are exactly the people that benefit from having a working PC I'm all for maximizing their chances. Choice…

> Linux is typically not the first OS to be installed on any given piece of hardware. And because those are exactly the people that benefit from having a working PC I'm all for maximizing their chances. Choice is a luxury. But they don't have to choose Debian. If Debian had maintained a strict "Free" stance, people could still use their troublesome hardware out-of-the-box simply by picking another distro that did inc…

Fortunately Debian recognized that being a 'niche' would sooner or later spell the end of Debian and that would be a loss.

Re: Debian 12 “Bookworm”

#175

Post by bayindirh »

blihp wrote: post #124
teddyh wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://wiki.debian.org/RISC-V

That doesn't answer the question. It's still 'unofficial' per https://wiki.debian.org/SupportedArchitectures If you want the maintain the status quo you support the hardware that has the most users, if you want to change it you also support the hardware you want them to use.

In Debian, there's no single entity which decides on things. There are rules, and processes.

The relevant documentation is here: https://wiki.debian.org/PortsDocs/New

Also, the rules for becoming an official port is here: https://ftp-master.debian.org/archive-criteria.html

When RISC-V satisfies the relevant criteria, they can become official.

Also, maintaining a port is tremendous amount of work. Debian users only see the tip of the iceberg. There's so much beneath that.

Re: Debian 12 “Bookworm”

#176

Post by sylware »

vbezhenar wrote: post #150
sylware wrote: post #33

Finally with init system alternatives or do they still shove systemd down our throat (if so I'll stick to devuan gnu/linux instead)?

That's one of the reasons I don't like Debian. All this old cruft for compatibility with stuff nobody should be using. Just embrace systemd, jesus.

Actually, on my custom elf/linux distro, I have neither systemd nor sysvinit.

But one is grotesquely and absurdely bigger and kludgier than the other one, so this is more about choosing the lesser evil...

Re: Debian 12 “Bookworm”

#177

Post by teddyh »

blihp wrote: post #124
teddyh wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://wiki.debian.org/RISC-V

That doesn't answer the question. It's still 'unofficial' per https://wiki.debian.org/SupportedArchitectures If you want the maintain the status quo you support the hardware that has the most users, if you want to change it you also support the hardware you want them to use.

Who is the actor in this scenario who wants to change the status quo and therefore support the RISC-V platform in Debian? I.e. who are the people with the motivation to do that?

Re: Debian 12 “Bookworm”

#178

Post by jasomill »

arp242 wrote: post #77
bayindirh wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was involved in the discussion, and I'm also torn on that issue, but at least you can disable installation of non-free firmware and install Debian without any non-free software. On the other hand, firmware is a convoluted issue. It was always present, but became increasingly visible over the years. While I'm a strong Free Software supporter, firmware is one of the hardest parts to convert, because of the IP it enta…

As I understand it "firmware" is essentially just the same as an EEPROM, except that using volatile memory is cheaper and easier to upgrade. No one seems to have great issues with EEPROMs (FSF doesn't anyway), but uploading that same code to the device when it starts is a huge problem? I never understood this, and especially given the huge practical trade-offs the entire thing seems fighting windmills. The Linux-libr…

Debian distributes firmware stored in volatile RAM because it is either required to use the hardware, or, as is the case for CPU microcode updates, highly recommended for most users.

As far as I know, Debian does not distribute proprietary EEPROM firmware updates at all, as these are generally not required to use the hardware (and, depending on the device and update in question, may or may not be recommended for most users).

In other words, the difference is practical, not ideological.

Re: Debian 12 “Bookworm”

#179

Post by winrid »

noisy_boy wrote: post #81
unpopularopp wrote: post #24

A bit offtopic... are there any distros besides PoPOS that comes with the proprietary Nvidia drivers preinstalled? I tried to use (live image) Debian on an RTX 4070 PC and nothing worked just black screen after GRUB. PoPOS works out of the box but honestly I'd prefer something more simple as Debian.

I have been thinking of switching to Debian from Pop!_OS and have a Thinkpad X1 Extreme Gen 2 with Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 - if graphics drivers are an issue, then my wish is dead in water.

I would play with the livecd for a while first. Even straight ubuntu gave me problems on my gen1 (wifi, sleep, graphics...). I switched it back to win10 and have a Carbon for Linux now.

Re: Debian 12 “Bookworm”

#180

Post by krylon »

mikae1 wrote: post #171
krylon wrote: post #44

One thing I really appreciate about Debian is that when a new stable release comes around, I can just upgrade and be reasonably sure nothing bad will happen. It's not exciting, but a fair amount of the time, this is what people expect from their operating system. Support my hardware, give me the software I need, and stay out of my way otherwise. And that is what Debian does very well.

> One thing I really appreciate about Debian is that when a new stable release comes around, I can just upgrade and be reasonably sure nothing bad will happen. That's good feedback and I've heard it from other people. Personally I've never been able to dist-upgrade Rapbian or Ubuntu without breaking the OS.

It's been a long time since I have used Ubuntu. In the ~2009-2013 era, my desktop ran Ubuntu, and I repeatedly upgraded it from 2008.04 -> 2010.04 -> 2012.04. There were a few issues, but nothing that made the system unusable. But that was over ten years ago, I have no idea how Ubuntu has evolved since.

Raspbian has been problematic for me. I tried upgrading from Buster to Bullseye, and it went so badly I ended up reinstalling from scratch. (To be fair, the docs were clear that was a likely outcome.)

OTOH, my ThinkPad x220 has been running Debian since 2016, I installed Jessie back then and upgraded as new stable versions were released. The upgrade to bookworm has finished by now, and it's been entirely unexciting. :-)

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