Linked by Eugenia Loli-Queru on Sat 25th Oct 2003 05:13 UTC, submitted by Charles Krohn
Today, Ian Murdock described his recent work on APT to the Debian community. This announcement has far-ranging implications for the future of Fedora and Debian projects. Ars Technica has the details.
Permalink for comment
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
It isn't the infamous installer that keeps me from using Debian on my desktop. It's the twisty turning maze a user faces trying to build a modern Debian desktop.
Perhaps it is time to consider an different or a supplementive alternative to the stable/testing/unstable paradigm.
Consider: The stable branch is, in fact, very stable. But, from a desktop pespective, it is hopelessly outdated and essentially useless. A user may update to testing or unstable, but that sacrifices stability for -- even in the case of unstable -- software that is often a few iterations behind existing, widely used, release versions.
A key point, I think, is this: While other distributions build and test a complete mix of current releases, a Debian "stable" user is left to attempt to build and test their own mix of current releases from an array of backports or to migrate to testing or unstable, platforms that -- unlike other distributions -- lack Debian's stamp of approval for everyday use.
From the point of view of people responsible for keeping servers alive, Debian's stable/testing/unstable arrangement makes much good sense. But not from a desktop perspective. Perhaps relabeling "stable" as the "server branch" and opening a new "desktop" branch is worth considering. The testing and unstable branches would remain as is, but software would migrate at different rates to "server" or "desktop".