Live data from Hacker News

Debian 9.2 released

debian.org

61–70 of 120 posts

Re: Debian 9.2 released

#61

When I run linux on servers, I always choose Debian. It is the best distro IMO. Glad to see that the project is still going as strong as ever!

As someone who has been choosing CentOS for the same purpose, what would be some reasons for me to switch off the top of your head?

When I switched around Red Hat 6 (not RHEL 6), the difference in quality of uninstall scripts and dependency management was stark: you can install and uninstall Debian packages without changes to your system. They test for this. If you need to tweak source, you can get build dependencies with one command, source with another, and build and install from your tweaked version with just one more.

Re: Debian 9.2 released

#62
post #45

I wish Debian would adopt Ubuntu-like versioning number: "yy.mm". So easy to understand. Another good example is TeXLive, which simply uses "yyyy". Much better.

I wish most software would switch to this, I really don't like semantic versioning.

Re: Debian 9.2 released

#64

A curious fact is that Debian name their releases after Toy Story characters. Debian experimental is permanently named "sid" (the kid that breaks toys) and "stretch" (Debian 9) is a rubber octopus from Toy Story 3. https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/project-history/ch-releas... https://wiki.debian.org/DebianUnstable#Which_Toy_Story_chara... Other curious fact about Debian, is that there are 2 logos: the open use one,…

I always like to point out the other two logos[1][2] that prefaced the buzz lightyears chin logo[3].

[1]http://ianmurdock.debian.net/index.html%3Fp=1880.html

[2]see "old logo" at https://www.debian.org/vote/1999

[3]https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81x4CGvFvNL...

Re: Debian 9.2 released

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has been choosing CentOS for the same purpose, what would be some reasons for me to switch off the top of your head?

I switched from CentOS to Debian on servers three years ago. I'd give two reasons: 1) No need for EPEL and similar extra repositories. Debian is extremely comprehensive. 2) Rolling updates. We keep some servers in the stable release, some in the testing release. No hiccups on upgrade, yet. Servers you keep on the stable channel will go through the same kind of upgrades you see on major CentOS versions. I never had a…

> I never had a CentOS upgrade go smoothly; We'd usually just reinstall everything from config management

AFAIK CentOS does not support distro-upgrades (eg. upgrading from CentOS 6 to CentOS 7)[1], we always end up making a fresh install whenever we want to upgrade, i've tried to use the UpgradeTool a few times but it didn't work (there was always something blocking the upgrade).

I believe this would be a point for Debian, the upgrade between releases just work :)

[1]https://wiki.centos.org/TipsAndTricks/CentOSUpgradeTool

Re: Debian 9.2 released

#67
post #45

I wish Debian would adopt Ubuntu-like versioning number: "yy.mm". So easy to understand. Another good example is TeXLive, which simply uses "yyyy". Much better.

I wish most software would switch to this, I really don't like semantic versioning.

Semantic versioning makes sense for libraries, not so much for user-facing applications.

Re: Debian 9.2 released

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A huge effort, yes -- but probably worthwhile. You might be surprised about the number of non-english speakers; I know I was when visiting Italy and Portugal this summer (especially Italy). I suspect that we tend to live in "language bubbles".

"You might be surprised about the number of non-english speakers; I know I was when visiting Italy and Portugal this summer (especially Italy)." As an Italian I have to agree with you; for us old timers it wasn't easy as English didn't become the official 2nd language over here until some decades ago. Both my parents and most relatives as an example knew some French but next to no English, so I had to learn it for my…

English is an official language in Italy?

Re: Debian 9.2 released

#69
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sid (still in Development)

sid is said to be unstable but I have experienced the opposite of that. In fact, testing is way more unstable than sid.

That is not true at all, and i can prove to you by showing just one bugreport:

An update to network-manager broke dns for everyone, the broken package stayed about 5 hours on unstable repository, if i recall correctly. This broken package never got even close to being on testing.

https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=784587

Re: Debian 9.2 released

#70
post #44
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's how the web is supposed to work. If you prefer English versions of pages, go into your browser configuration and tell it to prefer English.

It is a bit more complicated but I can get if people whose first language is English and who are rarely exposed to other languages cannot understand the struggle. If I prefer to read English texts in their original form (because I understand it perfectly clear) but read texts in my native language in that original language, there is no single setting. It feels weird saying this, but it reeks of a very anglo-american…

It's even worse than that. My primary criterion for whether I want English or German is not the language itself, but my expectation of the content being well-maintained. Translated versions are usually lagging behind a bit. On the Arch Linux wiki, I'll always use the English version. On my (German) university's website, I'd rather want the German version.
Post reply on HN