Woody has received scant attention from Linux websites compared to other recent Linux distributions. Debian “Woody” 3.0r0 was released on July 19, 2002; but months later, there have been few reviews of Woody online (one, in French). Read more for the link to the full DebianPlanet.org editorial.Contrast this with Red Hat 7.3, which received four reviews within just over two months of its release. Or Mandrake 8.2 with four reviews. Or SuSE 8.0 with seven reviews within two months of release. Less widely known Linux distributions than these, with an ubergeek appeal similar to Debian’s, have also drawn more attention on Linux oriented websites. Slackware 8.0 received two reviews after it came out, and Gentoo bagged three reviews within two months of the Gentoo 1.2 release. So why hasn’t Woody received more attention from Linux websites? One likely possibility is that Debian is losing “mindshare”.
Is Debian Losing Mindshare?
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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id put my money on the fact that most users use gentoo nowadays…
Oops.. the third time that we osnews’ed someone. DebianPlanet took a whole 2,5 minutes to load here after we linked them (was working fine before that)… 😉
The fact of the matter is that due to Debian developers and their diligence in releasing stable versions very slowly, reviewing Woody would be a little like reviewing a 2003 US made automobile in the Fall of 2003, the car was released over a year ago. Woody was pretty solid as a version, even though still labled unstable, a year before it’s official “stable” release.
Just my $0.02
John Gowin
Linux Orbit
Ah, works fine now again.
Oops.. the third time that we osnews’ed someone.
Sorry, DebianPlanet loads fine from here, perhaps it’s just attbi.com?
-fooks
The number of reviews of a distribution is not directly proportional to the number of users it has. After all, the FLOSS (http://www.infomatic.nl/FLOSS) study confirms that Debian is BY FAR the preferred distribution (http://www.infonomics.nl/FLOSS/report/Final4.htm#_Toc13908308 http://floss1.infonomics.nl/stats_13.html) of Open Source/Free Software developers – it received more votes than every other Linux distribution COMBINED. The Linux Counter Page (http://counter.li.org) has Debian as the third most popular distribution (http://counter.li.org/reports/machines.html) among those who are counted.
The lack of excitement for releases for non-developers (even major releases) could very well be due to the very nature of Debian – nothing is hidden. You know what the major changes are going to be well before the release because they are already implemented in the stable branch. For some people (myself included), major releases mean little because they already track unstable.
And to the idea that most people use Gentoo, I find that pretty laughable. Using Gentoo on anything less than a GHz+ machine (and broadband, but this is true for all distros) is pretty much unbearable for the type of person who likes to be kept up to date as much as possible. And if you don’t care about being kept up to date, why not just use Slackware? It’s much more mature.
The best is yet to come…
There may be a lack of interest in Debian right now, and I agree with Robert that Gentoo may have aquired some of their audiance, but I think of Debian as the tortoise of the the whole open sorce movement. They are slow adopters of pretty much everything that comes out, but in exchange they tend to be the most stable out of the box. This means that spells where it seems like no one is interested in them will occur, but more than likely it’s just that there isn’t really anything news worthy and Debian isn’t the type to try to generate hype just for the sake of keeping their name in the public eye.
I wonder if Debian will throw the same tantrum that OpenBSD did about Sun’s license for ECC in SSL.
Seems like although therenshould be a bazillion devs working on deb., they aren’t. They just dont seem to want to be that bleeding edge as Gentoo and Sorcerer etc are….plus, is there a significant difference with 2.2 kernel vs 2.4.x?
But the install was just too big of a PITA. Now just for reference, my first Linux install was RedHat 4.2 on i386 and Sparc platforms. As mentioned in the article, the process of setting up my hardware is tedious. I am a smart guy and CAN do it, but why would I want to? It’s neat to play around with different OS’es on my dedicated “Alt OS” box, but if it’s going to take me a while I am going to get fussy and try something else out.
Thats just one geek, speaking in a room with a door closed.
I hardly consider debian to have “releases” you install once and apt takes care of being in the “current” release for the most part. Commercial vendors put you on the upgrade treadmill with stuff like RHN and BRAND_NEW_OS_VERSION.NEXT which is usually some upgraded packages and a newer kernel. If you’re not comfortable getting these new packages or compiling a new kernel yourself then by all means go out and buy the box set of whatever is on the shelf, but see it for what it is. None of the commercial vendors are offering anything that makes me want to go out and buy their shrink wrapped box. Debian releases very slowly but it’s calculated for stability and security, it’s not because developers are lazy, there’s much work to do supporting so many architectures. It’s also one of the last distro’s that doesnt have a corporation with it’s fingers in it, which keeps it free from being swayed in directions that it’s users may not like. The point is, who cares if debian is losing mindshare? As we all know Mindshare(tm)(c)(r) is about as important as things get. Really who cares, use the best tool for the job, use what you like. It’s not your job to be an operating system cheerleader.
pc dude: just so you know, Debian did have GNOME 2 and KDE 3 before Gentoo did, just to name two big software components that it was on the bleeding edge of.
And there is a huge difference between 2.2 and 2.4
By the way, first link in my above post is busted because of a PEBKAC error on my part, it’s http://www.infonomics.nl/FLOSS/
Losing people or not, Debian Woody is still the best linux distribution i’ve EVER used, which includes Gentoo (albeit Gentoo/alpha). Having the most users isnt what makes a distro “good”. RedHat has a lot of users, and i personally dont find it to be a very good distro.
I’ve just got hold of a copy of Debian. Tried Red Hat, Suse, Mandrake, and Slackware, Don’t what it my main Home PC will be useing it for a home server. If that work then I may move it over to my main PC.
I installed debian onto my sparcstation5. it was the absolute most WORST install I have ever done. dselect is awefull. the ‘new’ installer died a horrible death on loading.
the install was a PITA. I ran it for a day and reinstalled solaris on it. the solaris install was 100% easier and hasslefree. I’m trying to install the netbsd1.6 iso, but my ye-olde scsi sun style cdrom is playing up.
the first thing you do with a new os, install it. when the install is HORRID, what makes you think once inside, is going to be any better?
Debian could lose an overall percentage of the Linux market and while growing at its fastest pace ever. How? Glad you asked
.
Although I have no facts to support this theory, it may be that Linux in general is growing (maybe taking some market share away from Windows) on the desktop. It is logical to assume that Windows users are going to take the path of least resistance to a Linux desktop. Debian is certainly not the path of least resistance in that respect.
However, there are people like me who will test the waters with many different distributions. But, when it comes to setting up a server, I’ll probably stick with something with less fluff (like FreeBSD or Debian).
So, looking at the natural migration, you might be able to assume that Debian is in fact taking market share from other Linux distributions while other distributions are taking market share from Windows.
So, Debian could be growing in popularity. BTW, Gentoo is fun. But, it lands in between for me. Too hard for day to day desktop duty and not solid enough for server duty.
Darren
Ok now I want a Sparcstation to diddle with!
It will never die (or at least any time soon).
Debian is not meant to be in the spotlight. In my opinion, Debian is meant for the user who has a clue but doesnt want to waste time doing things from the ground up (Gentoo). While Debian can can be used for a desktop (like mine) it is better suited for stable and secure servers.
Let Red Hat and friends take the lead, with their weirdo file systems (how it is layed out not the type), in the public opinion. I will remain keep my (un)stable distribution that does exactly what it is supposed to do.
lets see…as i write this…18 for this article…54 for the LindowsOS article…42 for the RedHat article…hmmmmmm
(it’s a joke…laugh)
I actually had good experience with debian on my SPARCstation 2. The installer was nice, but I didn’t install any X, only the base system and NFS server. I wouldn’t say that debian is too ‘old’. For servers, it’s stable enough…
I’m a debian user myself, and never use dselect, as I find it completely counter-productive and confusing to use. That as well as other graphically console-based package tools that are more frustrating to use than productive.
Apt will do the job for you. It’s console, it’s clean, it’s fast and it’s simple.
I found the Debian FTP-based install passable on my SPARCstation 5. Sure, it wasn’t nearly as good as OpenBSD’s (which is just a single floppy-based install that *works*), but it wasn’t terrible, either. However, I felt that the Debian folks weren’t really all that interested in non-IA32 architectures — there were a huge number of packages (apt-get thingies) that had major dependency problems or were not available on Sparcs. Other than that, apt-get’s pretty nifty (though not as cool as *BSD’s ports system).
Still, Debian’s the best *Linux* distro for Sparcs, as far as I can see, so if I really wanted to run Linux instead of a BSD or Solaris, I’d go for Debian.
Use Libranet: Debian with ease of use. Cost a few bucks.
Perhaps making a decent installer, so reviewers are actually
able to install it helps?
And a bit more friendlier to newbies? Still a black magic art to configure certain things in Debian, big and small things that “just works” in other distros.
I tried for the 2nd time last night to install debian from the Woody iso’s and failed again.
For one thing, the installer won’t let me go “back”, so if I goof something up I end up resetting and waiting for the whole disk check to finish each time. Ugh.
I skipped the whole dselect thing, went with a very minimal list of selections from tasksel, but I guess it didn’t like my generic choices at the end (for X settings I chose vesa, 1024×768 @ 75Hz for my GeForce2 MX200). Shortly thereafter, the screen went blank never to return. I rebooted, but then only got weirdness: monitor switched between blank and the login prompt. Back and forth. Weird, disappointing, and frustrating.
The installer is the first thing new users see. I hear about how great Debian is — the installer sure doesn’t seem too great to me. [shrug]
the installer works just as it is intended to work. dselect actually has nothing to do with the installer. you are given the option to use it after the base system is installed but it is not necessary to use it.
the reason you can not “go back” is because you should not have to go back. if you know how you want your sytem set up then it is a painless process. debian can be setup in less than ten minutes with no problems – if you know your system and how to set it up.
as for your screen switching back and for forth: dont use xdm. i dont even know why they set xdm to be a depency of X. run ‘update-rc.d -f xdm remove’ to prevent it from starting on boot.
I didn’t use xdm. Funny that you don’t go on to mention which one I *should* be using.
I used gdm.
I’ve got a flat panel, but I’m using just a regular 15-pin analog connection. After specifying 1024×768 @ 75 Hz, there was a later question asking which modes it could use. 640×480 and 800×600 were checked, and I went ahead and checked 1024×768 too — maybe that was my downfall. (?)
> run ‘update-rc.d -f xdm remove’ to prevent it from starting on boot.
Of course, I can’t even get a command prompt with the state of affairs my installation is in. Do you mean, boot off the CD and somehow (left-Alt-F2?) get to a prompt?
in my opinion you shouldnt be using either one for this specific reason.
but yes you could use the cd and boot ‘rescue’ instead of ‘linux’.
>>> as for your screen switching back and for forth: dont
>>> use xdm. i dont even know why they set xdm to be a
>>> depency of X. run ‘update-rc.d -f xdm remove’ to prevent
>>> it from starting on boot.
>>
>> I didn’t use xdm. Funny that you don’t go on to mention
>> which one I *should* be using.
I used gdm.
>
> in my opinion you shouldnt be using either one for this
> specific reason.
Hehehe. Well then, now that I know EXACTLY which one to use I guess that I’m all set.
The install is a little hard, but if a newb like me can get through it its not impossible. Of course since I was using potato (couldn’t find a free download of woody) usb didn’t work so I had to borrow a friends mouse.
I have tried debian and like it very much. But, It is seems to be a pain to standardize on for servers.
First, until 3.0, a stable version of debian would not even install on a modern Intel server (raid drivers, large memory support, etc).
Second, the update cycle is too slow. While tracking unstable on a workstation is fine, I cannot advocate that on a farm of production Oracle servers. Also, admins need to be able to easily reproduce systems exactly. Tracking unstable is “package of the moment”.
I like the FreeBSD way. They release a stable branch about every 6 months and it is very easy to have production servers upgrade to stable branches, with known versions of each application.
I would really like to be able to replace all of our redhat boxes with debian, but it just does not seem feasible without frequent releases of a stable branch.
Well, I don’t know, but then I started with Linux Debian “was the one”, back then Debian was good. Now adays I just think it ‘s bad since all the programs are old and I don’t understand why I should use an old system with buggy programs missing new features. Sure, you could tell me to use unstable, but in that case I actually miss the point of going with Debian, because what Debian gives is a welltested system. If I would use Linux I would go with Gentoo, but now I’m into BSD since a few years ago so I’m all OpenBSD right now. That will probably change to FreeBSD 5 then/if i get a decent box.
I belive the old versions of everything is Debians major problem since people want the new and cool stuff everyone else has.
Btw, I don’t see why you would go with Gentoo instead of FreeBSD either. BSD seems a lot more mature, you know what you get and the documentation for Open-/FreeBSD is excellent.
excuse me but why would you need to update your server every six months? the only thing that needs to be updated are security patches. that is what the security deb source is for. i will agree that with 2.2 and less it was a pain to install on some machines because of the default boot images but there were other boot images that you could use.
> excuse me but why would you need to update your server every six months? the only thing that needs to be updated are security patches.
Not necessarily update every six months, but have releases available at frequent intervals like that. It is necessary to upgrade servers more frequently that debian releases a stable version. And security is NOT the only reason to upgrade. Bug fixes and important new features are also very good reasons. Furthermore, I like to keep my servers near the same version, so, If I need to upgrade a few for new features, then I try to update the others to that same new version over time. That way I do not have to remember all of the quirks for every different version on each machine.
> but there were other boot images that you could use.
Not as part of stable. Stable only supported kernel 2.2 until recently.
debian is _the_ lazy mans distro.
i use it because i am _very_ lazy.
gentoo hasn’t really stolen that much users from it.
debian doesn’t need reviews either, it’s not sold at any kiosk for few bucks. you really can’t install gentoo on your ircing/samba box that’s just p200mmx.
and about dselect/apt-get, there are some (minor) differenceses on how they handle depencies&recommends. i’ve never found dselect that ‘bad’ to use once you read the manual once and learn the keystrokes.
unlike the major distros like redhat&all, debian has package managament that _works_ enough to not having to fall back into updating to new ‘version’ of the distro every few months.
part of the price to pay for using debian is to have the skills to check what goes wrong during install, if you’re not up to it, stay in windows/redhat/suse/mandrake.
part of the price to pay for using debian is to have the skills to check what goes wrong during install, if you’re not up to it, stay in windows/redhat/suse/mandrake.<i>
I can’t say for sure, but I think that at the end of the install, xf86cfg (?) was being run and it was bombing. I ran it myself and it bombed. I tried xf86config and it worked fine.
The installer told me something like, [i]your X configuration seems messed up. Shall I run the config program? where I’d have preferred if it had explicitly told me which config program it was using. Even better, if it gave me a choice.
In the end, there was also some problem with installing the ppp stuff (although my md5 checksum was correct) so I’ve got a booting system but with no internet. Guess I’ll take your advice dddd and wait for Mandrake “dolphin” to show up at CompUSA.
part of the price to pay for using debian is to have the skills to check what goes wrong during install, if you’re not up to it, stay in windows/redhat/suse/mandrake.
I can’t say for sure, but I think that at the end of the install, xf86cfg (?) was being run and it was bombing. I ran it myself and it bombed. I tried xf86config and it worked fine.
The installer told me something like, your X configuration seems messed up. Shall I run the config program? where I’d have preferred if it had explicitly told me which config program it was using. Even better, if it gave me a choice.
In the end, there was also some problem with installing the ppp stuff (although my md5 checksum was correct) so I’ve got a booting system but with no internet. Guess I’ll take your advice dddd and wait for Mandrake “dolphin” to show up at CompUSA.