Opinion: Debian gets lost in its branches
This is my first article on DesdeLinux, and I would like to start doing something unusual in the world GNU / Linux: stoking your own distribution. I could talk about other distributions that have actually fared worse (seriously, we are in 2014 and there are distributions that just won't start), but what am I going to gain from it except sterile controversy?
I prefer to talk about the distribution that I will continue to use in the hope that the community will catch up and reach out to the Debian developers; it most likely won't happen, but I can't sit still and just swallow with decisions that don't seem right to me.
The Debian model has always (or almost, there are people for everything) has been praised: it divides its work branches into three, stable, testing and unstable, and lets the user choose according to the formula that the further back is , the fewer errors the system will have, but there will also be older applications.
With the branches in testing and unstable Debian it is polishing its next stable version, correcting the errors reported by its users. I think this deserves respect: Red Hat y SuSE they have no qualms about creating their experimental distributions and having the "community" and "open source" fix their commercial distributions. Debian integrates it into its system, warning what the matter is about.
Those three branches exist together with another experimental call, whose existence I can't see very clearly, but apparently it serves as a bridge to applications that are regularly updated to be able to be installed in a lower branch than the unstable one. For example, I have seen it in Audacious, where the new version could be accessed from a test system since the dependencies were the same. Xfce 4.10 also spent time in experimental before and during Wheezy's freeze.
We are already with four branches. For the Wheezy version the Debian team He decided include the backports in the official repositories. The packages coming from backports are mostly going well, but this is not always the case. For example, I only have a computer, a laptop with NVidia Optimus technology, and with kernel updates 3.13 and 3.14 the proprietary NVidia drivers (installed from the official Debian repository) do not work. A mistake already reported and apparently solved, but still continues valid.
Ironically, going bad is better than nouveau letting the kernel handle both graphs (I don't know if it's a kernel regression or a Debian problem with the new kernel, but before 3.13 things were fine). And Debian Jessie does not recognize my wireless card, then I am caught in this error.
The problem may come in the way of handling the backports: it is not always the official Debian developers who make the backports, but for packages not so important it is third parties who, with the help of sponsors who test the packages, upload the new content to the repositories. This means that it is not an official developer who is responsible for errors in backports, and therefore sometimes that is a lack of control.
For example, VLC in backports has had a dependency issue since February. And i postponed. But who is going to solve it? No one at the moment: the VLC maintainer does not enter the backports mailing lists and I am not sure that the user who sent the package or his sponsor does.
There is a much more dangerous problem in this process: the backports do not have security updates, as they are not within the branches that the Debian security team monitors. Take a look at Qemu's example: this Vulnerability in the system of almost two months ago was resolved in all main Debian branches, but in the changelog of the package in backports there is no mention of changes for three months (in fact there have not been: I had that package and not it was updated until I decided to uninstall it a few days ago).
It has also happened with, attention, the kernel. In fact Debian offers kernel 3.12 without the changelog showing a security update for this error. We enter here at a tricky point: Debian offers potentially dangerous packages in its official repository and since it is mostly open-source, its vulnerability is also published on the network. We are talking about Debian, not a medium hair distro.
To this must be added that the backports are not updated by normal means. The possibilities are to do apt-pinning with the packages installed from backports or to tell it manually that you want to update those packages from backports, putting in both each package individually (both the ones you want and the updated dependencies ... if you know them). Another method is to make a preferences file with all the packages pointing to backports directly. Neither is a good option, really. And the wiki Debian promises to clarify the matter, but I don't see the answer ...
With the backports there are five branches. But there is more. There is still oldstable, which is now lts (long time support), but beware: lts packages follow a similar system to backports, sometimes being third parties who take care of them and not developers who work in stable, in testing and unstable. And there are also backports for oldstable. There are three more branches for a total of eight.
Well, with the likely arrival of Debian Jessie next year, Debian will hit 10 !!! branches. In theory these will be the official repositories: squeeze, squeeze-backports, squeeze-lts, oldstable (Wheezy), oldstable-backports, stable (Jessie), stable-backports, testing, unstable, and experimental. And this is where I think they have passed: Debian wants to be a universal system and supports eleven architectures (those that appear in Distrowatch: amd64, armel, armhf, i386, mips, mipsel, powerpc and s390x, plus hurd-i386, kfreebsd- i386 and kfreebsd-amd64), imagine what it must be like for a developer to maintain a package in three or six branches and eleven architectures.
It's crazy when you have more than 20000 packages (already pulling 30000) in your repositories that must work with each other. And it is impossible to achieve a product as well polished as when there were fewer official branches. Without going any further, I have had several problems with Xfce in Wheezy, as I commented with my terrible English here, while Squeeze did not give me problems in the short time that I used it (it is true that Squeeze did not suffer the era of the new desktop paradigm ...).
It also helps developers get more and more fed up with problems: I have reported about ten bugs to date and they have passed me like… ten times. Perhaps the most irritating was when the security team decided to prioritize the testing branch and removed support for gstreamer from the stable branch. To this day I cannot play videos with html5 in Iceweasel, from one day to the next, due to a security update that had nothing to do with gstreamer. And they went back from me, by game double.
And here I am. I'm not one to ask Debian for things, but I'll indulge in this advice: you can't go that far. You want to be a universal system: okay, keep as many architectures as you can, but remove branches then. If you want to compete with long-haul distributions, don't release stable releases every two years, but every four. And who wants new applications and Debian, to install the branch in testing.
But hey, I already said that I am not in the day-to-day of Debian, nor do I actively collaborate, so I suppose I cannot express my opinion.
PS: I do not claim to be recommended distributions to switch to; I insist, for me Debian is the best, I think that means a lot. I will continue to use GNU / Linux until FreeBSD supports NVidia Optimus, if it ever does. We'll see if it's a quick round trip ...
After 10 years using Debian as the main Distro I go one day and install Fedora, after a good week, another week: still fine, after time (I have Debian on my main computer and Fedora on another less used one) I have my first bug , I report it and surprise! The Red Hat team answers me, thanks me for the report and tells me that when it is solved they will let me know. And so it happened with the rest of the bug that I reported. In Debian, well you have explained it.
Consequence: I switch to Fedora as the main distro, now Fedora 20 with kde and when I want something stable then there is CentOS or Scientific Linux.
Well that's nothing compared to trying to register on the forum: doing so is an almost utopian act (I tried to register with all possible methods, but it has been useless, because Debian Forums still blocks the IP from my ISP due to the background as Spam, and using VPN, it does not send you a confirmation message or anything, so I was only able to get fully into Linux Questions because their mother's children use ISP filters and not really effective CAPTCHA filters like reCAPTCHA).
Anyway, the Debian forum is where they really answer you.
I guess we can't ask Debian for professional CentOS support and semi-professional Fedora support. But it is that currently, and at least in my case, you try to help and they pass on you.
What is demanding professional support, we can not. But despite the complexity of branches and architectures, as the article explains, it must be taken into account that there are hundreds of maintainers and packers who are dedicated to it, so certain failures are not very justifiable. We can see that distros like kaos are maintained by a single person and we are talking about 2000 packages.
Then any bugs related to multimedia are considered of little importance and can take months or years until they are solved.
And above I think (this is opinion) that apt is the worst package manager or at least the most faulty.
I would like to know what you understand by professional, because I notice that many people use that word to justify or sell anything. I would also like to know who are "the professionals" who provide professional support in centos, and compare them with those of other distros.
By professional I mean (as you comment below) that they belong to a company and since they sell a purchased product, they must answer for it. Debian specifies that it comes without warranty; CentOS now belongs to Red Hat, a company that makes money and therefore must answer to its customers.
is that debian is not a company that sells services
Yeah, that's why my message starts with "I guess we can't ask Debian for professional support ...". And I'm not complaining about that in the article either.
my point of view is this, and also for who wrote the main message:
Debian is not a company like Red Hat, Debian is a community and they work at the pace of their will, not that of "excellence".
If you want efficiency, you are removing humanism.
Who has to hear that hears. Regards.
Well, that, it is not convenient to use it if you need something stable ..., at least for your words.
What you are saying is exactly what made me exit Debian to Fedora / CentOS .. And an official Debian Consultant tells you.
Now Debian is more like Ubuntu (repos, repos everywhere).
Well, keep in mind that in the same Debian team you have a few Ubunteros in the development team that directly put Ubuntu applications in Debian .. You have the test in applications like ufw or gufw in which you see directly the number of the Ubuntu version they came from (12.04, 12.10 etc ..).
Regarding Ubuntu, I appreciate that from Debian Squeeze they have put the Software Center, since I do not support Synaptic, and the Apper really competes with the Software Center in QT.
Well, hopefully the Software Center is present in Debian Jessie (not in their official repos).
Use Ubuntu or Centos 😀
Ubuntu, only LTS (14.04 is worth using, and is better than 12.04). With CentOS, 6 for now (7 is still very, very green).
I've been using Ubuntu 14.04 for a while and perfect. The only detail is the file transfer which takes a long time. Hope it gets fixed in your next version.
I tried to use Centos, but in the installation process I got errors. I better wait for your next update 😀
Also for everyday use, I do not see it favorable.
The file transfer problem is from Ubuntu 11.04, and that is why I have not migrated to said distro.
About CentOS, I understand you. Even me throws mistakes.
Uhhh, I thought it was just me.
Although in Xubuntu, everything is excellent. But I hope Debian gets better, because I loved using it with Xfce and now it's unstable.
If not, what other distro do you recommend with xfce and excellent support.
In Debian Testing (Jessie), let me tell you that XFCE is more stable than Wheezy (although I admit that XFCE is the most stable desktop I've used from Debian). However, the problem is for Iceweasel release, because in the backport version of Debian-Mozilla, Iceweasel release is the same or more stable than Mozilla Firefox itself, but in the version of the official Debian Jessie repos, it is ALL THE OPPOSITE.
If the Debian Mozilla team were also contributing to the Iceweasel polish in Jessie, then I could say that Debian would be on the right foot (in fact, implementing the ESR branch of Iceweasel in Wheezy has been the best option for non-versioniters, also that in the ESR version of Iceweasel it does not require as much code review).
And by the way, Slackware with XFCE is a really favorable option if you want good stability along with a speed at the speed of light.
If you thought that about Debian, that the testing version was more stable over the stable one. Especially the integration with Xfce.
If you had Slackware in mind, but what I'm looking for is faster or easier to use without weighing down the system. Although Ubuntu, Xubuntu are "light", there are setbacks when working with few open packages.
I was thinking of Mageia or OpenSUSE with Xfce.
The transfer goes too fast for me and sometimes the system hangs until it finishes.
With Debian Wheezy, something similar happened to me, although the problem was mainly mine.
The mistake I made was to install 32-bit Debian Wheezy on my desktop without realizing that my desktop PC is capable of 64-bit operation. It gave me problems with GNOME 3.4 (which, I quit) and KDE 4.8 (… cofcofcof:QTCurse: cofcofcof ...), which have made me opt for XFCE.
For fed up, I saved my important files on my USB, I formatted my partition with Debian Wheezy, and installed Debian Jessie, and as if by magic, the Debian Jessie reportbug appears activated, to such a degree that when I update it, it sends me bugs that have been resolved, and now I can enjoy HTML5 videos on Chromium, and the sudden KernelPanic problem was magically fixed after playing Half-Life on Steam for quite a while.
Regarding the repos, Jessie's have given me confidence not to use the backports (in fact, I changed the kernel 3.2 in Debian Wheezy for 3.14 and the result was from Guatemala to Guatemala), and the truth is that, with my hardware that is 100% Intel chipset, I have done wonders, to the extent that I can play Steam games more fluently, and on my audio problem, they disappeared.
If you want to migrate to Ubuntu, you will run into versions that are earlier and one later than the current one, being maintained at the same time (the backports in Ubuntu are in the Launchpad PPAs), and it has support for platforms that are not X86 nor X86_64 really miserable.
On the Slackware side, it's something else: either you grab the binaries from slacky.eu, or you compile them yourself using Slackbuilds.
Anyway, I don't feel like a Debian fanboy, because both Ubuntu and Debian share certain problems with regard to managing repos, and few users admit that situation.
I am glad that a Debian user shares my opinion in a criticism that tries to be constructive. Jessie's Xfce 4.10 is much (much) better than the stable one, unfortunately the wireless card prevents me from using Jessie and going beyond the backports, which in turn are necessary for me because stable does not have support for NVidia Optimus (well, but with both graphs activated) ...
Well, it's a pity that you have hardware that has a lot of driver support like your wireless card (in fact, I wanted to manually add the firmware of the Huawei E173 USB modem in Debian Jessie, and let me tell you that it is a real pandemonium).
And does it work for you in Ubuntu?
What wireless card do you have?
What a way to get dizzy between reading the article and Debian branches. But hey, I'm glad I abandoned that distro, personally I am stressed by the extreme care they take with stability. There are also broken packages and things like that, but hey, I've gotten used to compiling Gentoo style, for example.
It would be 😀
I prefer Slackware and Debian a thousand times over Gentoo and Arch.
Slackware? wtf
Seriously, it seems to me that in Debian, I can do everything in Slackware, even more and in a simpler way.
With regard to Gentoo, now I'm going to test it, but it has very good tools and Arch would understand why you don't like it.
Personally, I like Fedora a lot, as they have said above too, Arch instead not much to say, bah I'm always between using it or not, but in the end it doesn't convince me, it has several annoying bugs and, although they offer several extra packages in the AUR, all those that interest me do not work, on the other hand, Fedora works more than well for me, so far I have found 3 bugs, but they were not serious and only one was something that could become important.
Although, if there is something that catches my attention it is compiling packages and Fedora does not offer any way to do it easily, only the manual way, and Arch only offers it with the AUR, but does not offer it with the packages that are converted into binaries, so I'm not that interested either.
On the other hand, in Debian with apt-build you can compile easily, and that is the reason why I find it extremely good and that it beats Slackware.
Also Gentoo and Sabayon seem very good to me in this regard.
Anyway, I'm still in doubt, because compiling packages takes a long time and the truth is that, compared to bianrios, there is not such a big difference in performance, although there is.
Personally, I think Sabayon is the best, since it is as "binary" as you want, and you can also use portage to compile. With Debian, although it is true that you can also compile with apt-build and it can be as binary as you want, portage offers many more options from what I saw and, in addition, the Gentoo repos are more extensive.
To be honest, Slackware has given me fewer cracks than Debian Stable XD
@Furwind:
And on top of that, KDE is a lot better for me than Debian and Arch.
If I had known that Debian had apt-build, I would have thought better of it before leaving Debian, but it still stresses me a bit how much they worry about stability to the point of having older packages than usual D:
Perhaps it is because of a common theme that I stayed here in Gentoo, which gives you the option to compile with what you REALLY need, in addition to that ability to resolve dependencies and repair broken libraries 😀
Yes, the truth is that I really like Gentoo, I'll be testing it shortly
Interesting, although I do not like that even to install it as one wishes, it has to be compiled that it compiles in Gentoo.
You did well ... apt-build is not even close to how flexible and powerful portage is, they have no comparison ... apt-build is more for adding or removing features of ONE program, if you want to use it to compile the whole system it is a breakdown of head, also does not support patches. .. and use flags as portage ..
Seriously?
Debian Stable seems more stable than Gentoo, especially for USEs. I would prefer Centos or Slackware.
I've been in gentoo testing for more than 4 years, never a problem, it's even boring, last year I installed gentoo testing on my wife's pc and two months ago on my boys' pc. Three pcs with gentoo testing in ~ amd64 to update, mine live and the other two by ssh in the local network.
Before I had used archlinux between 2008 and 2010 if I remember correctly and abandoned it for betraying me with systemd and its gazillion bugs.
The only advice I give to those who want to get into gentoo is to do it with the stable branch for at least three to six months, then they will see on their own that going to testing has its advantages.
I can't say anything about debian, I never used it, just once back in 2005 or before, I installed it and I found that most of the programs, their menus came out media in English, media in Spanish ... that's a lack of respect total, or Spanish or English, there I made the crosses.
Honestly, I consider myself a computer scientist and not an end user, the best thing that could happen to me was meeting gentoo.
You are encouraging me to Gentoo Testing xD, I am more of Funtoo… but the Current branch generates more problems than it solves….
Wow, don't invent gentoo testing.
It makes me want to go back to Gentoo.
We will have to try to go to Testing
apt-build is very limited, you won't compile all the packages you create and I won't tell you if you intend to customize your compilation, a mess.
Slackware's slackbuilds are much better, and of course Gentoo which is designed to build everything has nothing to do with apt-build, the resulting system is something else.
But why are slackbuilds better? They are quite limited from what I saw and you can not compile everything you want, for most dependencies you have to use the traditional way of compiling and the Slackbuild repository does not have a lot of software, from what I see it is the same as using apt-build, only that it resolves dependencies.
Slackbuilds allow you to add and remove features (for example I can compile mpd without dependency on pulse) in a simple way, with apt-build it is a pain. I don't know how many packages the repository has, much less than safe AUR, but more than enough, and you can always go to the software sources and compile the latest in a very stable system (surely you have fewer problems than in debian).
Dependency auto-solving is not part of Slackware, if you use it you have it, but you always have sbopkg
But above all, if we want to compile and resolve dependencies and configuration to taste :: Gentoo
Ah ok, I was also seeing that Arch has something called ABS, which allows you to compile from PKGBUILD, it looks a lot like Slackbuilds. What do you think of that?
Oh, by the way, I was wondering if the Slackbuilds also patch the applications, do you know if that's the case?
Yes, in Arch you can configure your compilations through the PKGBUILDs, also very simple, with ABS you can configure the packages that are in the official repositories to your liking. Either way, both official and AUR ones, you can easily change them.
Slackbuilds patch if they are configured for it, keep in mind that they are scripts, so many of them have patches that are applied and others do not, but you can always modify them to do so.
Ah, I come to correct what I said about Arch, it turns out with ABS (Arch Build System) you can compile the packages available in the official repos, similar to the Slackbuilds they work
With which I give it more consideration. Although, it's probably best to use Gentoo or Sabayon with Portage when you need it, but I'm still looking at it. Maybe I'll post when I came to a conclusion
I used Debian for several years and I also had some issues and actually came to a point where I realized that what I needed to do with my OS did not require that I use Debian. Now I have been using Fedora for a couple of years (now for three) ... <3 Thanks for the article.
Greetings.
blah blah blah
I am still of the idea that better tutorials come than opinion articles
And I keep saying that it is better to respect and when you do not agree with something, before issuing an unfounded criterion, keep quiet. This is more than an opinion article, this is a reality, something that is happening and that is worth discussing.
@Elav, the answer to this comment is prettyoooooo simple:
Write tutorials and submit them. Point.
my nose detects flame, and my phorobard detector is about to explode xD hahaha
Hahaha .. ..did I invite you popcorn?
Not on my guard!
Nope, because everything you have stated is true, and the truth is that I have had problems with Debian Wheezy and the backports that to support those bugs, I chose to migrate to the testing branch (which by the way, I feel that there is more trust and Attention that in the stable branch, besides that I finally installed Steam without problems such as audio).
And from what I see, this article is not as flamboyant as I thought (Debian itself shares certain issues that Ubuntu does, so claiming that Debian is superior to Ubuntu is half true).
I don't think so, I've been using Debian for like 1 year and fed up with the bugs / problems with Debian, I switched to Ubuntu 14.04. Wow, what difference is there and better behavior, I continue with Ubuntu for almost 2 months and with Xubuntu, without any problem; just as I mentioned the one to pass files is very slow, except in Xubuntu.
In Debian stable, the problems I looked for when using the backports to the beast, while in Jessie, they were drastically reduced (ironically, Debian Jessie is the main base of Ubuntu 14.04, and for the two weeks that I have been using it, of It is true that I do not regret anything in the world having migrated to the best testing version that Debian has made together with Squeeze and Lenny).
Not in my case.
I don't know if it was the kernel with the Ati drivers, but when I wanted to use firefox or google chrome (I could only use it without a graphic accelerator) the pc seemed to take off. Sounded a lot, now with Ubuntu, it works better than my Windows 8.1.
But still I see unity somewhat heavy or clumsy. That's why I want to return to Xfce I think it will be with Mageia or openSUSE:
Thank you very good article; I believe in my humble and ignorant opinion that they made higher quality distros years ago, I remember when I installed Ubuntu for the first time everything was perfect, a few years later I did not recognize the wireless card in the same computer, and today after many years I am in antecedents, who has not wanted to have arch without the fear of urging it… ..
Installing it is quite easy, I tell you, but it is true that Antergos leaves it all done
Keep in mind that since the kernel goes on one side, the firmware on the other, and each distribution goes through its own, it is difficult for someone without great knowledge of GNU / Linux to know why a component that previously was not going. Sometimes you go crazy looking for solutions, 🙁.
I totally agree, it must be very hard to maintain so many branches and architectures, and currently we see many packages that remain unstable because there is no one to maintain them. Hopefully and I can make a change that helps in that aspect because Debian is a great distribution for any type of user.
Well, I've been using Debian for 6 years, almost always in its stable version, and the truth is that I have to agree 100% with the author of this opinion article. Nor can I say that I have found bugs, in the style of Ubuntu 11.04 and later, but I don't know, since Debian is not that distro that made my eyes shine with satisfaction at each new release. I am leaning dangerously towards Xubuntu 14.04 LTS, since Ubuntu started with Unity I have been staunch anti-ubuntera ... 🙁
You should use Antergos. Believe me linuxXgirl, you will not regret it, Arch hooks and catches for life, look at me 😀
Well, the question in my case is in the repos, I have nowhere to get them. So far I have been content with updating / downloading infomed ftp packages for Ubuntu and Debian, but I cannot do it from the young club or from the official repos of any distro because I have an obnoxious proxy that prevents me.
On more than one occasion I have wanted to try Arch, OpenSUSE, Fedora ... even FreeBSD and that situation of the repos has prevented me. Nor can I go looking for them anywhere because I do not have any external support with enough capacity, that is to say, mine is… or Ubuntu or Debian on line (from FTP Infomed) or nothing… !!!! 😥
I understand you perfectly, since before I had an internet speed that is equivalent to the maximum internet speed in Cuba, and simply updating Mandrake Linux was a pandemonium and I didn't come back until I had decent internet and got to know Debian.
If you use Debian Stable, you don't know what you are missing. Right now I am in Debian Testing, and I can tell you that there is a possibility that XFCE will replace GNOME as the default desktop environment (I confirmed it when I downloaded the Debian Jessie netinstall in 64 bits, and in the section on Other Desktop Environments, GNOME appears instead of XFCE).
The best version of Debian that I have used has been Squeeze, since it has been the one that has been the pioneer in putting the software center to facilitate the installation of applications.
And by the way, the Debian Jessie software center may not be for the final version.
I have used Debian Testing, but the Testing repos of the mirror from which I have to grab them was inactive for a long time. I had to take Jessie / Sid's, and I almost had to cut my wrists from the constant updates. In my case I need to use something a little more stable, especially due to connection problems. The best version of Debian I've ever used has been Lenny on another PC; Squeeze gave me problems with the video drivers (64bit) and the modem drivers (64 bit). Now I'm going to switch to a distro based on Xubuntu 14.04 LTS called Tuxtrans, for translators.
Ah good. About the constant updates, I understand you (in my case, it is not a problem due to the bandwidth I have, although it is really insufferable for those with very low bandwidth).
About Debian Lenny, I agree with you, since that was the version of Debian with which I have fallen in love with said distro, and in Squeeze, it simply fell well to my previous PC with Pentium IV, in addition to enjoying the Software Center just released on Debian.
Well, I pray that Debian Jessie applies a better version of Software Center (regarding the desktop, I have no problem).
Unity is just the only thing I like about ubuntu xd
I'm with you with Unity! Unity has its charm: 3
debian testing is my favorite and with kde
with xfce I liked the stability of the environment
with gnome it is a hard dung little taste
now I'm in lmde cinnamon and it's going well but it's less updated than debian I'm giving it the opportunity now
note: debian testing is faster even though they are the same base
I already migrated to testing on my desktop PC because Wheezy was a fiasco because my PC did support 64 bits, and because I didn't notice it, I put the 32-bit version.
I also used Debian. The friendship I had with the distro was good. I used it for two or three years in a row, from Etch (with external kernel) and then with Squeeze. But I think that Debian is moving away from the current needs of the user and overlooks that new technology requires updated drivers and programs. True, the philosophy of "security" is important first and foremost, but I think Debian is fixing its program bugs, in which these programs make quite a few versions they have fixed.
I currently use Archlinux, robust, small (no dependencies on the dependent dependency) and it's AUR.
The good thing that in the Linux world we have to choose from.
It is my humble opinion
That's right, I think it's a good criticism. Same loose dependency issues I have when trying to install closed drivrs like fglrx. It turns out that several dependencies get lost, and you have to do an apt-pinning, or look at snapshot.debian.org
I have made several reports on lists.debian.org, for example several AMD computers did not have the USB keyboard during installation. It was a regression that they had, but they left me 3 months without being able to install testing. And according to the responses to the report, they use intel and they didn't realize it. Patience, lots of patience, and try to use stable.
It seems to me an interesting post but it makes several mistakes in the branch part:
1. Experimental is not a branch, it is a repository with packages that due to their importance (kernel, desktop environments) are not suitable for unstable and must spend more time testing. It can be used without problems with testing or unstable.
2. The backports repositories are not main and depend yes or yes on their main branch, they are used for packages that require updating even if they are already stable, such as antivirus or encryption systems. I repeat: they are not main and cannot be counted as repositories in a stable / testing / unstable plan.
3. Do you really take into account oldstable and LTS? Those are for businesses and taking them into account for desktop is pretty irrelevant.
Hold on a touch ...
1.- Experimental branch.- the Debian Jessie and SID testing backport.
2.- Backports of oldstable / stable branches.- It depends on the main repos, in addition to adding some missing utilities in the main repos.
3.- Oldstable / LTS.- Ideal for legal entities. You don't always have to have the latest.
I have doubts about what is experimental, that's true, 🙂.
The case of backports is that I would love not to use them, I am not on Debian because of their new packages. But Wheezy without backports does not support NVidia Optimus, with or without proprietary drivers. I am obliged to use them, because also Jessie does not detect my wireless card. They are not a main branch, but the point is that they are in the official repositories; I would have preferred it to be as before, with the backports out, and if there are errors, they are a matter of external, unofficial repositories.
Regarding oldstable and lts, a desktop user is not going to use them, but the fact is that there are more branches to maintain, which in the end is the problem: the more branches, the less time to spend on the main ones.
Finally someone who writes something coherent.
There are three Debian repositories: stable, testing and sid.
Everything else is "special cases" that the community has been requesting for different reasons.
Experimental was due to periodic updates faster than in sid, but so dubious that they were set aside (Users shouldn't be using packages from here, because they can be dangerous and harmful even for the most experienced people).
The backports are very specific things, also requested by the community, which with a good apt pinning are not even necessary (Backports are packages taken from the next Debian release (called «testing»), adjusted and recompiled for usage on Debian stable. the package is also present in the next Debian release, you can easily upgrade your stable + backports system once the next Debian release comes out.)
The last pearl that Debian accessed was to give LTS to squeeze (https://www.debian.org/News/2014/20140616), so there will be a supported "old-stable" at some point.
In short, this "chaos" is not such if one stays true to Debian's principles of sticking to its three branches, which, incidentally, are the only ones recognized as official (https://www.debian.org/releases/index.es.html)
I have been using Debian for 9 years, in the stable and testing branches, depending on which team it is. I have only had some problem in testing, never in stable, but nothing that could not be solved in a short time. And testing is synonymous with "looking for problems" on purpose, because that branch is just for testing problems.
I never liked Slakware, but it's a skin problem.
From Red Hat Fedora, the reality is that it goes beyond the standardization that is intended in GNU / Linux, so you always have to fiddle with it if you want to run third-party things.
And from Gentoo, I never tried it; I have apt-build, that is, Debian with pleasure to Gentoo 😉
JAP
Very agreed, Debian works perfectly as long as it is used properly, the backports are not for updating the entire system but specific packages, and experimental is for developers, any packages installed from there lose the warranty.
Javier and dhunter, I guess you two have never experienced the bugs that I comment on the Debian forum (I link in the article) regarding Wheezy and Xfce, namely:
1. Squeeze does not decompress certain files even though it supports them in principle (for example the .zip of JDownloader, from its official website).
2. Xfce power manager is incompatible with Xscreensaver, even though Xfce recommends Xscreensaver with installation.
3. Tumbler gives trouble with mounted drives and sometimes goes crazy (once I filled up my 8GB of ram until I killed the process).
4. The temperature sensors give a non-existent error message.
5. The composition of Xfce causes tearing in various hardware.
I reiterate: that never happened to me in Debian Squeeze. And Xfce 4.10 eliminates bugs 1 and 3 that I comment (the others are still there). Maybe if there wasn't so much to maintain, or if the Debian developers had been more vigilant, Wheezy wouldn't have come out with these bugs. By the way, all reported, as I comment in the link, but none fixed for stable.
1. Explain about JDownloader (maybe it's JDownloader that doesn't work with Debian).
2. No idea about Wheezy; I use Sid and it works fine.
3. Are you sure it's a Debian problem and not a Tumbler problem?
4. In Sid I see an error with the hddtemp sensors, which asks me to handle permissions in a certain way. I don't know if it's the same mistake.
5. I use Xfce which uses the X.org composer. On IRC I was recommended to install Compton because the one on X.org is (or was at the time) somewhat broken. Definitely not a Debian problem.
Do you have a report of any of these, either in upstream or in Debian? From any of the reports do you have specific information about the origin of the problem or a patch?
I put the link again where I explain it in English, because I think I had an error when writing it in the original text: http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?t=110150 . Regarding error 2, even if you are in Sid you still have the error: if you have activated Xfce power-manager, Xscreensaver blocks it. Head over to the link of the page to which I link.
None are specific to Debian, but they have been reported and ignored by the Debian Xfce, which are the same as Xfce ...
if you've never used Gentoo ... you can't say "I have apt-build, that is, Debian glad to Gentoo;)" ..... no apt-build is not nearly as complete as Portage is ...
I attest to what you affirm, the flexibility that emerges with portage there is nothing that equals it, but the more flexibility the greater the complexity, to that well-known phrase of "tell who you are with and I'll tell you who you are", the analogy in gentoo / funtoo would be, "show me your /etc/portage/package.use and I'll tell you who you are" ... hehe.
Of course, you need a powerful machine, it is something very obvious, I would say a minimum of 4 cores and 8G of ram, to avoid suffering from heartburn, around here I have a fx8350 at 4.5Ghz with 16G of ram at 2133Mhz and the heaviest package as you may know is libreoffice, this took time to compile last time:
$ genlop -t libreoffice | tail -n3
Wed Jun 25 02:13:05 2014 >>> app-office / libreoffice-4.2.5.2
merge time: 1 hour, 30 minutes and 15 seconds.
From what I read from the comments, it seems that the same thing happens in debian, where they say that debian testing is better and gives less problems, well the same happens here in gentoo, it is easier to mask the latest version of a package that has a bug and use the old version or the stable one, than be in stable and try to use a test version, for the holy dependency headache.
finally another relevant comment, not a person who "does not recognize" his wireless card and buys software without first knowing if it is supported or not!
I've been using debian for 6 years, in stable I never abused the backports and both with kde and xfce from Lenny I had no problems, or the few that there were were easily solved (which were not critical, some desktop effects for example).
I've been on Debian Sid with kde for 7 or 8 months and it's tremendously stable. Here they recommended arch because it falls in love, well ... I recommend debian sid because it falls in love and I bet that it is better served than arch.
errata: where it says software it should have said hardware.
I'm sorry to disagree with you student, not because Debian Sid has no attention, but because I have no problem with Arch.
Another thing, if we look here https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=kde&searchon=names&suite=unstable§ion=all we can see the difference in packages in terms of versions for KDE, for example.
In Arch I enjoy KDE 4.13.2 without any problem, stable, fast and believe me, you can see the difference between the KDE 4.11 and 4.12 packages (available in SID) and the KDE 4.13.2 packages available in Arch.
Anyway I don't mean to make a holy war with this, if you do well with Sid, man, congratulations 😉
Editorial: Now that I check the link again I see packages from KDE 4.11, KDE 4.12 and KDE 4.13.1 .. WTF? All that is installed together?
Debian is not a perfect distribution, there are many bugs, but if you start looking for errors in things, you will find them that is an obvious fact. I don't know what the mess is with the repositories, all the time I've been using debian, I've used SID and Testing, Stable has never been an option, now all the packages that I occupy or at least 95% of them, come in The official repositories, complaining about the supposed entanglement with the repos, is like saying that the great failure of Ubuntu, is having like 1 million PPA's.
Unlike Ubuntu, which usually has several problems as soon as you update it (and I mean the desktop, which is its main objective), Debian often gives you errors that are easy to solve (not as simple as Slackware's , but at least, they are not as serious as those of rolling distros and in the testing branch it is useful even when it stabilizes).
On the side of the testing branch, I already gave my opinion about it (a couple of important packages missing that you can install, and issue solved). Finally, I risked the bugs and the truth is that, for my hardware that is 100% Intel chipset, this version of Debian has fallen like heaven.
Anyway, now, with Debian Jessie, I can finally play Half-Life fluently.
PS: Opera Blink is more fluid than Chromium and Chrome together.
I believe that each distribution has something to teach us, and that is why I am not satisfied with just one. My favorite is Gentoo for its great adaptability, it is a technological marvel.
I think that most of the time it is not necessary to change distro, although I am struck by the particular problems in this post that made them change distro.
I totally agree with the post. I think it covers too much and that can be negative for everyone debian ...
I use Kubuntu 14.04 and I am quite happy, I have no problem. And I have Xubuntu 14.04 on other computers and it works great, really. I have only had a small problem with the monitor and resolutions (since the monitor is not a good brand).
The truth is that I want to try ChakraOS Descartes, who say that it works very well and KDE is great. Someone to use it ??
Greetings and continue with this piece of Blog.
Before Descartes, I recommend KaOS.
Bold xD
I dont know. I prefer to install Arch + KDE as God intended (with the recommended commands and using the KDE-Meta package).
What happens to me with Debian is that I don't understand about the Stable branch. I have already mentioned it other times, the Stable thing is for what they consider, not for what it really is. Some have given the example of XFCE, I could mention many others.
Stable is supposed to contain everything that is really stable, and not what remains stable because once it worked without problems, even if it is a very old version. They should rename Stable to SomethingOldWhatOneTime It Worked.
But I will not make firewood from the fallen tree, I used it for many years and for servers it is my favorite.
It is precisely that is the origin of the problem:
Debian Stable (and, we could say, Debian in general) is NOT intended for primary use as a desktop OS for everyday use.
There is no reason to justify so much "stability", except on servers.
That is why the "bugs" and lack of maintenance are mainly found in packages that have to do with desktop use, in video drivers, multimedia applications and programs with a graphical interface in general.
On the other hand, stability is not guaranteed with "old packages" like debian does. On the contrary, on many occasions the new versions bring corrections to old problems, not just new features "to test". Actually, debian's goal with that policy (in my opinion) is not to "bother" users with "unnecessary" news.
That's why I think that when deciding on a distro you have to know its objective well: If you want a distro for daily use on the desktop, Debian Stable is a bad choice. There are thousands of good distros for that purpose. Of course, I recommend it 100% for use on servers or for "business" use, where no modifications should be made for years, where the motto is mainly: "if it works, don't touch it."
I, for my part, happy with Arch: 0% dependencies and repositories problems, with 100% updated packages and every known application is instantly available (and if it is not in AUR, you add it yourself).
Greetings.
We agree on everything !! U_U
Is that using Debian Stable on the desktop is like putting Mascherano forward.
LET'S GO ARGENTINA!!!
I do not agree. If you put Mascherano as a forward and he scores as many goals as Higuaín, then that's what counts, right?
I've been using Debian stable as my main desktop for years, and in all that time, with both squeeze and wheezy, not a single bug, and I can count bugs on the fingers of one hand.
What I want is to be absolutely sure that my software is reliable and that it will practically never hang. The price I pay for that is older versions of my programs, but it is a price that I gladly pay.
Regarding the subject of Backports, reading the article and the comments, it gives the impression that enabling these repositories was essential or mandatory, when it is not. These packages are only used to get some programs in newer versions, for example Libreoffice, Iceweasel.
And as you all know, they do not install, or update, or affect the system unless we use the specific command "sudo apt-get -t wheezy-backports install (name of the program we want to install)".
Therefore, everything that is said in the article about the problems with these repositories, are consequences derived from using them for what they are not. If our priority is to have much more recent versions of all programs, it is better to install Testing and forget about the stable branch.
In fact, in Debian, it is already advised that the use of Backports can give some dependency problems. In such case, backtracking and reinstalling the package from the official repositories, problem solved.
Devil's advocate, I have made my case in the article: I have a laptop with NVidia Optimus, technology that is only supported in Wheezy-backports (Bumblebee is not in stable and kernel 3.2 does not perform graphics exchange, that was implemented in a rear kernel). I don't install the backports because I want to, but out of necessity, as the wiki indicates: https://wiki.debian.org/Bumblebee . At the same time Jessie does not detect my wireless card, neither in the installation nor later installing the firmware, which with Wheezy works. So I am stuck in backports.
But the overall meaning of the article is that Debian, always in my opinion, is spending resources that it could use elsewhere. You think that being stable does not affect you; Well, I have had some ugly bugs in stable with Wheezy (without backports) that I did not suffer in Squeeze (I comment on them in the article, and although it is not a bug there is also the disabling of gstreamer for Iceweasel because yes), I have reported them and nobody wanted to know anything. Why? Perhaps because work accumulates unnecessarily. You yourself comment that the backports are not good for much, well, that Debian eliminates the branch, so the developers will have less problems and more time to optimize the important branches. And I would understand that Debian still can't support my hardware because I wouldn't be able to install it with either Wheezy or Jessie, I would just give up and not have to piss off the distro.
I'm not attacking Debian to give it a bad image, but to see if the flute plays, some developer understands the problem of having so many branches and elevates this kind of thing to a discussion committee.
I think both comments prove me right:
- 'Devil's Advocate' is a typical user with the motto: "if it works, don't touch it": Debian is perfect for it.
- 'OtakuLogan' is a clear example of why Debian is not intended for massive use on the desktop: to use it it depends on video drivers that are not supported in the official branch.
On the other hand, I reiterate: nothing guarantees that an "old" package has fewer "bugs" and is more "reliable" than a new one (see the case of openssl). You just have more testing time, nothing more. I repeat: usually updates bring more fixes than new features (is that why Arch is so "stable"? Hehe).
Finally, putting Mascherano as a forward (I don't remember seeing him score many goals), having Messi, Higuaín, Aguero and Di María, and especially with the lack that he makes us in the background, is, to say the least, crazy.
It is the same case, each one fulfills its function. So if we use what doesn't go where it shouldn't, I think we shouldn't be wailing and taking charge of our decisions.
Hi Morfeo, let's see ... you previously said that Debian Stable was not suitable for everyday use on the desktop, and that is too strong an appreciation in my opinion.
When you qualify those statements, I substantially agree, and I would add one more, which in my opinion is the most important. If you have an outdated PC, (this is my case), Debian Stable is probably better for you than Testing, and certainly Arch.
Stability is guaranteed by the indisputable fact that these packages have been installed for years, on thousands of machines with diverse hardware, and the bugs have been fixed ad nauseam before moving to the stable branch.
The problem is that, with the new, more modern hardware, new bugs appear, and of course those kinds of problems that you mention appear. In my opinion Debian is designed for servers of course, but also, for any environment whose main need is to practically never fail, and to use equipment that will not be renewed for a long time.
With these premises, Debian is a very good choice for your desktop, that's why I disagreed with your categorical statements.
My experience, as I said before, is that I, in all these years, have had practically 0 bugs, and on my PC I can work, watch videos, etc. That is to say, I have no impediment making daily and professional use of the computer.
I also clarify that I never install software that is not from the official repos or the official backports for some specific applications.
I say this, because a lot of people judge the stability of Debian having a gazillion Ubuntu PPAs enabled, or lots of unofficial backports like the ones from siduction.
I also believe that bugs in the use of programs cannot be confused with vulnerabilities that are discovered over time and that affect all GNU / Linux distributions.
Debian stable receives security updates on time, and the Openssl case has nothing to do with the packages being old.
I repeat, Debian maintains its packages as well as possible and in many cases reacts faster than other Distributions, as in this example:
http://www.etccrond.es/2014/05/cve-2014-0196-fallo-de-seguridad-en-linux.html#more
And to clarify what I meant by the football metaphor, in my team and in my field, (my needs and my obsolete hardware), I cannot put Higuaín as a forward, because he does not give up.
On the other hand, Mascherano, without being a forward, scores as many goals for me as Higuaín and that is what matters to me.
In short, what counts is that Argentina win the World Cup, even if the goals have to be scored by Sabella. (By the way, wonderful gamer, super stylish when he was active)
Hello OtakuLogan, let's see, I think it's good that you criticize Debian, I will not be the one to say that Debian is the best in the world always and in all cases. (In fact I would not say it of any distribution, or almost anything). All options have their pros and cons).
Only two corrections, as many of my opinions are already exposed in the comments that follow.
I have not said that the Backports do not serve much, I only say that they serve to have some applications in more current versions, and criticized that the impression was given that the Backports were indispensable.
Obviously for you they are, but I can't understand your saying to eliminate them. For many people they are very useful, and because unfortunately they cannot solve your problem for you, we are not going to annoy the other users, don't you think?
And the second correction is that, to criticize more accurately, you have to document well how Debian works and what its branches are and that they are only repositories. Well, in my opinion you are very wrong in the article. Regards.
If backports can cause problems, why bring them to official servers? By eliminating them, I mean that they remain "out", as before: I would not complain if deb-multimedia gives problems, but if I do it with backports because they are part of Debian's own servers. On the one hand you tell me that they are not part of the official Debian branches, but on the other hand Debian includes it in its package searches and the wiki makes reference to it. It doesn't seem right to me.
I think I know how Debian works. It seems good to me that you don't want to include backports, experimental or oldstable as branches with their backports and lts. For my part, I understand that they are different branches since if you install backports packages, those packages are updated (for security, for new versions) of backports, not stable. Then, for me, it is a new branch; totally dependent on stable, but a new source of binaries with compatibility between your packages, after all.
We are going that it is almost better to use Centos / RHEL since they at least backport the packages even if they keep the same numbering .. 😀
Exactly. On a production system, you can't update every day.
Good, but my initial intention with Debian was to have a distro that could update only the essentials and nothing else, and then, seeing that I became more consumerist with multimedia and video games, I went to Testing.
For the server, Debian is great next to Slackware and CentOS.
Good article.
I am a Debian Testing KDE user, but I think I will have to opt for another distro.
I read things that make a lot of sense.
Greetings.
I would like to clarify a few things about the note:
1 experimental is not a branch, it is a repository http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian https://www.debian.org/releases/index.es.html
2 sid is intended for developers, this version, in principle, is not offered to the general public since there is no debian sid installer, the only exception I know is the debian hurd installer, but it must be clarified that hurd has not yet is part of the official debian architectures
3 testing is the trial version, it is designed so that users have a preview of the new stable, and can collaborate by reporting bugs
4 While it is correct that the backports repository was added to the list of repositories that one can add with the debian installer with wheezy. It should be noted that to install a backports package you must use the command apt-get install -t wheezy-backports package
5 on the subject of bug reports, not always but there are times when a bug stays in a package for a long time and the reasons can be very many. Among them, the package has been orphaned. That the bug is not from the reported package but from another package.
It should be noted that when a bug is reported in Debian, you have to put the degree of importance of the report, those that are treated with a degree of critical importance are the first to be treated, as well as those that have a large number of reports. In my experience it is more practical to generate new reports than to join a report already done, although we can be challenged for doing this, the same if we criticize something slight.
6 backports repository, its packages are not tested with the rigor of stable, they are taken from the test version and compiled for stable, but there is a risk of incompatibilities so this is carried out at your own risk
“Backports cannot be tested as extensively as Debian stable, and backports are provided on an as-is basis, with risk of incompatibilities with other components in Debian stable. Use with care! "
Many times we find that in backports a package disappears or does not receive the updates it is receiving in the test repositories, this may be due to reports of failures or bugs that are not supported for the stable branch
But backports are not the only solution to have some other program with more modern software than the branch of debian in which we are. So an excellent alternative to backports is apt-pinning https://wiki.debian.org/AptPreferences
7 on the subject of the amount of software and supported architectures it is impressive to read what you wrote and it gives me the guideline that is the troll part of your article.
Instead of appreciating the great effort made by the community of developers and maintainers to make debian the universal operating system, you take it as a devaluation since the only thing that matters to you is that your "bug" is solved (at this point already I don't know if it's a problem or it's the wild click baby who wants everything to be perfect with two clicks)
8 on the issue of the lack of support for html5 videos in debian wheezy that is directly libelous, not true.
Many users start to install any program and then when things are not going the fault is the distro
9 Debian is maintained by the community, it is one of the distros with the most forks, among them the best known is Ubuntu, but with few exceptions, none returns to Debian what it takes from it, contributing with people to the maintenance of the packages. But that's not Debian's fault
By the way Debian is the oldest distro and it maintains a trend of rising popularity, I don't think that so many people, over the course of more than 20 years, make so much mistakes, wouldn't it be that the problem is you?
The joke is that the comment has been in not taking into account layer 8, so, although it is diffuse for many, it must be taken into account that at least, the Debian repos are better ordered than those of Ubuntu, and at the very least, be aware that Debian can give you a bad taste in your mouth when it comes to truly exotic hardware (ahem: Huawei E173 USB modems).
On the other hand, the first thing I do when I get a bug is google /duck a good couple of hours to make sure it's not a layer 8 bug. If the bug is layer 8, then the problem wasn't that bad; otherwise, I just report the bug.
Another thing: Debian backports are more reliable than Launchpad PPAs and Arch Linux AURs (I was using Launchpad PPAs as if they were Backports in Debian Squeeze). Those who abuse them are prone to render the distro useless, no matter how desperate they may be to want to run their preferred application.
And as if that were not enough, my netbook does not change Debian Wheezy for anything in the world, because it is the distro that saves me battery every time I use it, and I prefer not to take risks with them, because it is with that PC with which I do emergency work.
Sorry, I can understand whether or not you agree with my point of view, but point 8 speaks of defamation. Do you have a gstreamer on Iceweasel on the stable branch? I say it because I don't. It's not that it doesn't work, it's that it's compiled without gstreamer support. Have you entered the links where it explains it to you, in the package's own changelog? Have you put "abouit: config" in the bar and searched for "gstreamer", an option that does appear in Icedove? Do you want me to upload a video to Youtube for you to see? Or do you upload one where you can see that you have gstreamer in Iceweasel 24.5 without compiling? A little more respect, please.
It is not the issue to agree or disagree, it is that you say many impressions (the most obvious is that of confusing the branches with repositories) and based on personal problems you assume that they are generalities when they are not
Author says: «… It also helps developers get more and more fed up with problems: I have reported ten bugs to date and they have happened to me like… ten times. Perhaps the most irritating was when the security team decided to prioritize the testing branch and removed support for gstreamer from the stable branch. To this day I cannot play videos with html5 in Iceweasel, from one day to the next, due to a security update that had nothing to do with gstreamer. And they happened again from me, twice…. »
I say that is not true, in any case it will be a problem that you had as a newbie and you attribute it to iceweasel to debian or to gstreamer since the fact is that webm videos can be played perfectly. now if you want to play h.264 videos well there you will have to install the deb-multimedia.org or vlc repo and the pulgins for browsers browser-plugin-vlc
here is a sample of how you can play html5 video from youtube with iceweasel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXftdNSREYU&feature=youtu.be
on the subject that jessi does not take the wifi mmmm… .. could you check to install it from a netinstall with firmware non free http://www.esdebian.org/wiki/enlaces-directos-descargar-imagenes-iso-debian
PS: I ask you a favor, stop confusing branches with repositories
That's because Debian has at least 3 good main repos, while Ubuntu easily doubles or triples them with 4 official oldstables repos (and not just LTS), 2 LTS repos, a stable repo, and 1 just testing repo (they even lack a repo equivalent to Debian SID).
I see that it is true that html5 videos can be played, but not h.264. But it still has no support for Gstreamer: https://imageshack.com/i/mv6c5yp , and this is how it should be http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-70qQer3-PZs/UkZasbhlmQI/AAAAAAAAAUM/JUOvE5GQQUQ/s1600/firefoxConfig1b.png .
Now I have to use an unofficial repository like deb-multimedia when a lot of comments (like yours) tell me it's my fault for mixing stable and backports (and backports is on the official servers)? In Iceweasel 24.5 everything was fine; in fact Icedove uselessly comes with support for gstreamer: https://imageshack.com/i/mu26zcp . I'm still in my thirteen, why does a security update that has nothing to do with gstreamer deactivate it for stable and activate it for testing? Sorry, I still don't see the point.
Regarding the Jessie installation, yes, I have put the firmware, Wheezy installed it like this. In fact I have done the netinstall installation without the network working for me and then with a base system, I have installed the firmware by hand, in case it was something from the installer. It does not work; neither by putting the library in / usr / lib. Somewhere they say that you have to change the installation order of each file; too complex, because also I can't access the internet while trying.
Anyway I think it's good that for you Debian does not have problems, for me it does and I would like you to change them, so that I can enjoy my distro more.
Hold on a touch ...
Do you have Firefox and Iceweasel together on Debian? If so (and both are ESR versions), you have just literally entered all four, because the ESR versions are not enabled by default in the GStreamer function, so you right-click on the "false" value, choose modify, and it is activated (just in case, restart Firefox to take effect).
And by the way, both Firefox and Iceweasel (the release branch) already have GStreamer support activated, so it would not be necessary to activate it manually.
And by the way, here is my screenshot about me about: config from Iceweasel 30 on Debian Jessie (if you use Wheezy, use the backports from Debian-Mozilla, no more):
Sorry, I forgot that comments do not support HTML code to embed images.
I leave you here my screenshot of Iceweasel 30 with GStreamer activated.
PS: install the libav codecs in case the activated GStreamer doesn't work for you.
No, elliotime3000, it is just what I comment: the security team has disabled compilation with gstreamer. That is, you go to about: config and search for gstreamer and there is no result (in Icedove yes), like the capture that I have put above. In version 24.5 yes it could, with the new version 24.6 not, read the changelog.
With version 30 you can gstreamer, but I don't like to use a semi-official repository, you are already reading that when something fails they will blame me for not using the official branches.
As I see that the comment has been deleted, I will put it again, omitting subjective assessments
the author put “… It also helps developers get more and more fed up with problems: I have reported ten bugs to date and they have happened to me like… ten times. Perhaps the most irritating was when the security team decided to prioritize the testing branch and removed support for gstreamer from the stable branch. To this day I cannot play videos with html5 in Iceweasel, from one day to the next, due to a security update that had nothing to do with gstreamer. And they happened again from me, twice…. »
the issue is that you can easily play html5 videos with free codecs, so I assume you have a conflict for installing programs without control and surely related to the video driver and you blame ideweasel, debian etc.
here I show a video where you can perfectly appreciate how you can play html5 video from youtube with iceweasel 24 in debian weheezy
on the topic of wifi problem in debian jessie could you try to install it using netinstall image with not free firmware
here you will find the links http://www.esdebian.org/wiki/enlaces-directos-descargar-imagenes-iso-debian
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXftdNSREYU
On the Backports site [1] it clearly says (my translation):
> The backports are not tested as extensively as Debian stable, and
> backports are offered "as is", with the risk of incompatibilities
> with other components in Debian stable. Use with care.
>
> Therefore it is recommended to only select the packages individually
> backports as needed and not all available backports.
Despite the above, the opinion aims to convey the feeling that
Debian falls apart due to excess official branches (judging by the
title), when the problem is that you enabled Backports.
This article is merely an exaggeration, not to highlight the style
sensationalist. Obviously you can see that he has a problem with Backports.
[1] http://backports.debian.org/
All of us who have used Debian for a long time (in my case 10 years) know exactly what backports and the testing and sid branches are; which does not mean that we do not grasp the problems that Debian has by maintaining noscuantas architectures, noscuantos kernels, noscuantos packages for each architecture, in short, that the Universal Operating System, ends with the patience of anyone.
It is true that the search for universality makes maintenance more complex but this is precisely one of Debian's objectives and so far a great job has been done, being the distribution has gone further, with the highest quality and excellent fundamentals social. Consequently, talking about whether Debian has too many architectures or not becomes irrelevant. Regarding the branches, the handling of the 4 main branches is what allows working in Debian without breaking the stable branch. The only thing that is demonstrated in the opinion is the ignorance of the distribution. Naturally this is multiplied by NxM, but there is a lot of automation within Debian development that makes it easy to handle. For this and other reasons, the OP's opinion is ill-founded. The downside is that these failures support each other and give the impression that it is a valid opinion.
In the opinion of the OP, the key point is the support for a technology whose provider not only does not release specifications or open drivers, but also the Linux support for said technology was released by the vendor itself just 1 day before the release of Debian Wheezy and 3 years after its official announcement [1]. Furthermore, the support of the proprietary driver is partial and only offers to work with both cards activated [1], matching what the stable branch offers (as indicated by the OP in one of his comments [2]).
On the other hand, the quality of the distribution should be judged only by the "main" repository of the stable branch, as it is the only thing that is considered "officially released". At this point, all your problems are gone except for nVIDIA Optimus: your problem with VLC is in Backports, your wireless card is problematic in Testing, etc.
I was really hoping you would mention something about your wireless network card, where you are most likely to resolve and unlock your dependency on Stable + Backports, plus you would actually help improve Jessie before her release. It is about this topic that is less talked about: neither the brand, nor the PCI ID, nor the report (if it did), nor the description of the problem, nor how to reproduce it ...
A perception problem is evident: the user is using Debian aggregated services and branches (Backports, Testing) of which he expects a quality that by definition they do not have and with hardware whose support by the manufacturer is little or no.
In conclusion, the OP should be complaining about the manufacturer, not Debian. One of the ways to complain is to stop acquiring the brand.
Finally, I suggest that the OP get involved in Debian development, starting with reporting his wireless card problem with enough information for the developers to solve it.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_Optimus#Official_Nvidia_driver
[2] https://blog.desdelinux.net/debian-pierde-entre-ramas/#comment-119378
My card is an Intel Centrino Wireless-N 2230, I have not reported the error because as I comment, I have reported 10 bugs and they have never answered me. What is the mistake? During installation the system skips the network scan, even though the image has the firmware. After installing the system base and manually applying the firmware installation, the device remains undetected.
NVidia Optimus is supported by the Bumblebee project that started before 2013. But if it is too new a package, there is a way to fix it: through backports they put a kernel that supports the technology and that they patch it safely. If they introduce new kernels that are incompatible, it does not make sense to use backports that, today, are official (if they do not want to ensure the quality of those packages, let it be an external repository such as Mozilla Team or deb-multimedia, and I would not have right to complain).
I've been losing a bit of love for Debian for some time now. But I don't know which distro to choose. Honestly, I never tried Fedora, but I want something easy and intuitive, because my idea is to be able to install the distro that I use to my friends without finding complicated problems to solve when I leave them alone (Ubuntu seems complicated to me when it starts to fail)
Ubuntu's LTS are reliable, although no system is bug-free.
Linux Mint is an excellent option to try, as it does not fail to update.
Previous 😉
I have already seen several name antecedents that is based on arch. Is it better than manjaro ?? I want to try some of these distros in a virtual machine to see how they go.
Your update system is a pure rolling like arch, or is it updated based on updates packages like in manjaro? for the issue of breaking in an update and that.
I've been in Debian testing with kde since version 4.4, and the truth is that the problems have been very few. The only special repository I have is for Iceweasel, to have more recent versions. Otherwise, now I am calmer and I do not have versionitis. For me, today if certain applications work well, what sense does it make to mix branches, install or build your own .deb, etc, to have a more recent version. It is true that there may be cases in which we need this update, but most of the time if X program was functional a few weeks ago it will not stop being so because there is a new version.
On the other hand, I understand that everyone uses the branch they want, that's what they are for, and that the entire set of branches / applications is taking an immense size. The truth is, I don't dare to put a but to the developers, who offer me a great system that has been my main OS for a few years now.
For Steam, I migrated to Jessie, because with Wheezy I had problems with ALSA when playing Half-Life with headphones. And best of all, it came with reportbug activated (PRAISE SEAS, DEBIAN !!!).
The SID branch is lousy in itself, to the point that to stay on the razor's edge I'd go for Arch or Slackware Current. But, if they go without unnecessary quirks and / or versionitis, Debian Stable, CentOS / RHEL stable or Slackware stable are enough distros to make up for the shortcomings.
But, if you really want to get the most out of your PC, either Gentoo, Linux From Scratch or FreeBSD / OpenBSD. Point.
hey what happened to my answer that does not appear ?? ¬¬
It is in moderation. If you use the usual email, you immediately post it. However, if you use a new email then by default they will moderate it because it detects it as a new commenter.
[…] The formula that one is against further back […] and that's where I stopped reading.
I have been using Debian for several years and the truth is that at first when I started using it it was quite complicated but today I have mastered it and it does not give me any problem, indeed, I am happy to turn on the computer with Debian. I use the testing branch and it has not given me any problems. I have read that some people have problems with the detection of the wifi, all they have to do is download the driver in http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Devices And put the driver in / lib / firmware and as for the graphic driver I use nouveau, since I don't use it to play games, to work and to go around the internet is enough.
As I am tired of playing with a terrible performance in Windows due to my humble PC, I decided to install Steam because of the excellent performance I have had when watching HD videos in Debian in contrast to Windows.
And by the way, before dropping the first stone, better check if the error is your fault with the help of Google.
Hello good, I would like to know how I can uninstall old versions of programs from the Debian system, I am using the testing version and it has been updated several times and there are programs, especially those from the base system that are not uninstalled when updated and I try to find if they are as packages Orphans but still they don't appear here I leave you an example of which I speak with the gcc I have already been updated several times to new versions but the old versions are still installed on my system I hope you can help me here I leave an example:
root @ debian: ~ # dpkg –get-selections | grep gcc
gcc install
gcc-4.6 install
gcc-4.6-base: amd64 install
gcc-4.7 install
gcc-4.7-base: amd64 install
gcc-4.7-base: i386 install
gcc-4.8 install
gcc-4.8-base: amd64 install
gcc-4.9 install
gcc-4.9-base: amd64 install
gcc-4.9-base: i386 install
libgcc-4.7-dev: amd64 install
libgcc-4.8-dev: amd64 install
libgcc-4.9-dev: amd64 install
libgcc1: amd64 install
libgcc1: i386 install
linux-compiler-gcc-4.6-x86 install
linux-compiler-gcc-4.8-x86 install
as you can see there are many versions and I want to know if they are not necessary and if they can be uninstalled to save disk space.
I can't give a definitive answer, but I think yes, they are removable: kernels also accumulate and I remove them in backports. Obviously, if when trying to do so, you mark an important package to uninstall, cancel.
Thanks for answering I have another problem and it goes with the updates I just updated Jessie and I lost almost 2,7 gigabytes of the hard drive I don't know what happened, I just downloaded the updates and I lost that amount of disk space the updates only weighed 30 mb
In / home or in / (root)?
I already got the problem were the system logs files
Good,
I see comment that Debian stable is only recommended for use on servers and for desktop the testing branch. I think that this conclusion or maybe I'm wrong, it was taken over time by users, since in my opinion Debian stable is recommended to use in production systems, the preparation test for the next stable and unstable development, etc ...
Another thing is that users call our attention to use the most modern software packages, in order to access the new features. Sometimes it may be right to want to access these features, other times people use it for the simple fact of having the latest of the latest. How many times have you been asked to install the latest version of the word processor and then it turns out that it is to write a simple letter that can be done with a version of the processor of the year the pear. And a bit of the same if we sometimes talk about hardware, the user wants the most modern to use the computer to write letters.
Be careful, all this is respectable, I have been a Debian user since Woody and I could see that with the passage of time there are things that you may like more and others less. Having a large number of software packages is good and bad at the same time, although it is stable there are errors that are there.
I from Debian, what I miss at the desktop user level, which comes as the rough diamond for the desktop, without polishing, to give it a "professional" look at the graphical and tools level. I know that you can modify topics, etc ... but it is time that one has to dedicate to it, and when you are young you do it to acquire knowledge, but with the passage of time, you want everything ready.
You will tell me that there are other distributions that leave things fine, such as Linux Mint, Ubuntu, etc ..., that I have tried them and I have to say that they have greatly improved the user experience. But for me, seeing the distro update every day kills me. And in the end I don't know if it's the longing you always come home "DEBIAN".
What a roll I have released, greetings to all and good morning 😉
It's been a long time since I visited the blog, since the merger of #UsemosLinux and #Desdelinux.
Since I have never been involved in relation to the comments, today I will comment my humble opinion on the subject.
Complementing what many have already warned about the "deviation" of the branch over the excesses on the developers, I have to emphasize a theme that is the deviation in the Debian philosophy, which is based largely on the thinking of a free culture on which we can all contribute and comment. By not wanting to be left behind from the competition and the advances towards a sense of user: Who wants everything ready without lifting any finger, without understanding why things are modified and what can be done if modified.
From my point of view Debian is turning entirely to this user, leaving no space for loyal Debian users who have been with him for a long time.
regards
On the one hand, I think it's good that they try to attract people without much knowledge, sometimes it is a real handicap for GNU / Linux, because there are people who do not want to waste time looking for information.
But it is also a return to what I said in the article: it is not possible to cover everything, because the extension of the duration with the lts goes in another direction. And there is also Ubuntu and its derivatives to make it easier for inexperienced users.
Well, my opinion without having much knowledge about debian / linux is the following:
If you have a last generation pc (from nvidia optimus I understand that it does) the stable version of debian will not work well when using old kernel / drivers unless you use backports version, things that make the system become unstable and / or that don't have certain security updates (when using the backports for the kernel and so on).
Greetings.
It's weird that Wheezy detects the wireless card and Jessie doesn't.
Have you tried this?
sudo apt-get install firmware-iwlwifi
What card is it exactly? I recommend the esDebian and Debian User Forum to solve it. And, as they said above, also look at this website:
http://wireless.kernel.org/
Although I am afraid that this post has one more reading of satiety and disappointments with Debian because of its idiosyncrasies. You say you don't want us to recommend other distros, so I can only tell you to fight. With Debian and new hardware you've always had to be willing to fiddle with the system and wander through the help forums. Sometimes the solutions are not immediate. But this is not a Debian drift, it has always been.
Anyway: Have you tried Xubuntu? It might be the best for your needs… Nvdidas are not exactly Debian's priority.
On the other hand (and responding to another debate that arises in the comments), I am a desktop user and I always use Debian in its stable version: it is not true that it is a bad choice for daily use on the desktop. The programs are not "as" outdated as claimed (there is a tendency to exaggerate too much on these issues). In essence, they do what they have to do (if someone can't live without Thunar's eyelashes I understand, but let's not dramatize either, huh?). Anyway! this goes to tastes and perceptions. And also at age, but that's another issue.
I have always thought that Debian (although it does it halfway), to calm the impatient, should make a good selection of new programs to add them in "conditions" to Backports (programs that have never been in the stable repos) and consider the same with the new versions of desktop environments and key programs (LibreOffice, Clementine, Icedove…). This would be very popular, but also very costly in developer endeavors, which is exactly what you question in your analysis.
It never rains to everyone's liking!
Greetings.
Hello, Xiep.
Yes, when I tried Jessie I installed that package, along with firmware-realtek. I have an Intel Centrino Wireless-N 2230. My problem may be this: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=734976 . But they link to a very long and very technical issue, and in the end they give it as arranged. I don't know if Debian has uploaded that patch or not ... I'll try reinstalling when I have time.
On the other hand, about other distros, I have already commented that although I am critical of Debian, I prefer it. Xubuntu is not bad at all, but with time of use, errors begin to appear that I do not understand. For example, the problem I have now in Debian Wheezy with tumbler I suffered in Xubuntu 12 (I can't remember if .04 or .10), but then I couldn't see a way to fix it. As I install Debian clean with netinstall, if I could find the error and even if it did not solve it, but minimize it.
Maybe the article looks negative, but I'm not going to give up, 🙂.
On the subject of the Intel Centrino Wireless-N 2230, you could look at this iso that brings firmware-iwlwifi also that it is an alpha1 (which means that jessie is taking her first steps to be frozen) http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware/jessie_di_alpha_1/amd64/iso-cd/
With the post-alpha versions it didn't work for me, but I'll try anyway, 🙂.
Ok, well tested with the alpha: it doesn't work.
When Wheezy was in testing there were also some problems with firmware (a usb wifi that I had worked at times, sometimes it disconnected), they solved it shortly before it became stable. I guess now it is the same, they will think about fixing these types of problems when the branch is frozen, to make sure they fix them only once and not several and with the kernel that Jessie will come out with.
There is a phrase that says, Jack of all trades, master of none, and from your comment it seems that this is what happened to Debian.
The truth is that I never liked that distribution as a desktop, only version 6 could hold out for a season and since then I only use it as a server, where I love it and continue to use it as a test server.
Honestly, whoever wants Debian on the desktop, pull Ubuntu. It's what I've done.
Or if he is armed with eggs, that he install Debian Jessie and customize it as one wants (in case they got tired of Ubuntu, just in case).
I think another option would be Tanglu, or SolydKX.
here things are getting confused according to this article the blockports are a branch of debian and I don't know if to laugh or cry debian has the old stable, stable, testing, sid and experimental branches
I have tried them all so I can speak properly since many speak with just trying them for a month, at this moment I use sid and the truth is not a problem what is confused here is that stable debian is being used for home use and that is what I find an error because debian stable is for servers for a normal desktop user I would see the sense, testing is to get used to the system and dependencies after it is already used be using the system in testing it is passed to sid and you get to a system ideal updated and fluid despite the fact that the branch is unstable I have not had problems from years ago and using it I have my applications updated and the dependencies are solved as days go by, nothing serious or headache
To speak you have to use, learn and have a good time of experience using the system and then give an opinion because if they tell me that they use debian stable to use it as a desktop, I do not know whether to laugh or cry
I think you make a mistake. Stable is perfect for home use, especially on older machines. In fact, in these cases, it is much better than any other branch of Debian.
There is nothing, (process texts, gimp, instant messaging etc etc), that I cannot do in stable, with the advantage that the system is a real rock, (it does not break or want to).
The applications will be older, but not everyone wants and needs to always be up to date, nor does they suffer from versionitis
As I have commented in the article, I have tried testing and the wireless card does not work for me.
I'm sorry to say this, but it is very difficult for me to think of a GNU / Linux that gives 0 problems as many of you affirm. Of those that I have tried, CentOS if you do not put external packaging, and that limits it a lot. Debian Sid and not a problem? Hard to believe, really. I use stable Debian because it is the one that gives me the least problems, and you see that I still have them right now, with or without backports ...
I read the comments and most of them talk about stable versions of debian I think they are wrongly using debian if they have a home pc so what do they want stable debian I wonder, I think they lack more experience in debian and go to testin and try sid
Mess with blackport and repositories and application versions, I use iceweasel and it works great for me with the mozilla team repos, I use vlc and I have no dependency problems I have my applications updated and functional and the bugs that have arisen come mainly from kde which is my desk I insist friends are using debian wrong and are giving their opinion without having really known debian
There are other distro that are updated to the latest beta versions but they are unstable and it really shows the instability as arch that many times they will find that they will have to install everything again after some update at least in debian that has never happened to me and I have my applications updated and on par with firefox and thunderbird to give an example
I recommend you use, learn, find out and most of all the experience of using a good time and not the stable version xD and then give your opinion and say that debian is a problem
As morpheo said above, debian is intended for use on servers and at most workstations but not for desktop PCs, not even the testing branch because although it is more up-to-date than stable, it can give problems at any time with an update, especially when a new test is released.
The truth is that I get tired of doing it all yourself distros like Arch, in addition to the fact that it is not only installing the base system, the desktop, but more things have to be taken into account such as security settings, configure the energy saving system…, not to mention that Arch can leave you without a system at the least opportune moment. I do not understand much how there are people who criticize the lack of maintenance in debian of some packages and use Arch that put packages without hardly testing them that frequently fail.
I calm and uncomplicated with my opensuse.
Unlike OpenSUSE or Fedora, which have a company behind their backs, Debian was made by volunteers, and many times, their modus operandi.
Many of the mistakes they make when installing Debian Stable as a desktop are waiting to be put to use like OpenSUSE or Ubuntu, with disappointing results. However, there are people who love to have an OS with only updates that are really relevant and that do not bother any more, which do not always have to be those that manage servers (from which, is that the vast majority comes), but from those people who practically follow the philosophy If it works, do not touch it. A case of those is the currently famous author of the saga Songs of Earth and Fire Geroge RR Martin, who until now has kept his old PC with DOS and Wordstar 4.0 for writing his books, and another more "modern" PC to enter social networks and take a look at his email.
For my part, I have destined Debian Stable for my netbook, which I use for jobs that are extremely emergency and to have the solution at hand, something that many times Debian Stable has saved my skin. And the reason why I have to migrate to the Testing branch is because the LTS version of Ubuntu (14.04, of course), has proven to be quite reliable and stable, which is due to the good stability it is achieving. Debian Jessie, which is due to receive its freeze by November of this year.
As an amateur Linux user and not a computer user, the post makes a lot of sense considering the following: I have Debian testing KDE and Tanglu KDE installed on my computer. The fact is that I have had a few really silly bugs in Debian, for example the machine crashed when changing the time, which I have not had in Tanglú. So this proves the fact that maybe Debian developers don't give them the time to polish packages for the desktop user, but for servers. On the contrary, in Tangluo, they take what they did in Debian and polish it in their own way. Not to mention the overwork to maintain so many architectures in Debian.
I had thought of looking for some other distro, but I think I must remain faithful to Debian since the community does it and if there are bugs, at least report them.
I agree with you on the excess of architectures. In my opinion, three would be enough for Debian ... Go from i386 to i686, s390x, ppc64, x86_64. The others are superfluous.
Why so much complexity, what if they should, what if arch, what if BSD, what if HURD, don't screw people with so much digital snobbery, the masses want something simple !!:
http://ftp.nluug.nl/os/Linux/distr/zorin/6/zorin-os-6.2-lite.iso
http://ftp.nluug.nl/os/Linux/distr/zorin/7/zorin-os-7-lite.iso
Great, a FreeBSD user 😀
I think debian has nowhere to point to right now, I think the universal distro went to their heads, I am currently using manjaro linux, going from debian and I really think I will not go back, the hardware support that manjaro has solved all the problems I had with my notebook, especially the battery problem and nvidia optimus.
PC-BSD has support for nvidia / optimus, the last time I tried it with version 9 it worked quite well.
For me the definition of stable is: a computer is installed, configured and updated when he asks for it and works whenever it is needed.
By that definition, Debian is stable. A computer has been with Debian Squeeze for 4 years and no problem, using it by people with enough knowledge for office suites, browsing, music and storage, and no complaints.
Is that OpenBSD? 😀
It is quite a bummer Debian is a great distro but it also has its problems in any case so as not to have so much trouble, it is best to use the stable version for my part at the moment I am staying with Tiny Core Linux my little big giant ^ _ ^
Reading all these hundred and so many comments I realize that in a general sense many of us who are or have been Debian users feel a little disappointed with the changes, and I dare say that Lucas Nussbaum and his team have neglected enough what Most attracted to this distro: its stability and the absolute confidence that everything would work perfectly. I do not know if its purpose is to remain at the forefront not only for its stability, but for the speed of its updates (we are already on 7.6 !!!) or compete with Ubuntu, OpenSUSE and whatever for the novelty, but What is certain is that it is losing a bit of its loyal desktop users (including myself). I hope the same does not happen with users who use it on servers. I hope not, and even from outside their ranks I cry with tears in my eyes: Long live the Debian king !!!
I propose that we write an explanation to Debian about these problems as users. We all have different needs and we need stability for our personal projects, we have interests and a free system like Debian has long loved us to fulfill them.
Let's stop complaining and help solve the problem as far as we can.
Many are leaving the project, check out this news where Spotify ships its 500 teams with Debian to Ubuntu for the long support and other issues:
http://lamiradadelreplicante.com/2014/07/16/spotify-estaria-migrando-sus-5000-servidores-de-debian-a-ubuntu/
If we want our preferred system to continue, let's help them fine-tune effective solutions.
We have better solutions like CentOS or FreeBSD, but let's not let what identifies Debian get lost; its strong work to promote free software and community development.
Also together we propose solutions to the project to correct the disaster in your organization.
We have to do something.
As the author of this article, I will join any initiative for a better Debian, either through a writing supported by many Debian users or in any other way that you can think of. It would be great if you started such an initiative.
I don't see any other way to help; as I mentioned I have already reported bugs and absolutely no one from Debian has responded to them, 🙁.
It occurs to me to make a list of the problems Debian presents objectively. Then carry out a collection of signatures and present them to the corresponding team or teams to find a solution.
Also proposing real solutions to problems to make the voice of users present.
I use debian sid from 1 year ago and I had a minor bug some crashes but nothing that made me reinstall the complete system as happens to arch many times with its new packages but with bugs
Obviously dabien is not focused on desktop users that is not the focus the focus is on the servers but debian sid for desktop for me is pretty good I use it daily and the support that many speak will be for the video cards, I use intel and no problem so I can't talk more about support because I don't need more I have everything installed and stable so I don't understand those who talk about problems since I use it for more than a year and they have never given me any problems with this system want to change it for me debian does not need more I do not need more support and I do not mess with the dependencies since I already know how to solve them
each one stays with what they like and what gives them less problems, stay with arch and the newest and its instability, I'll take debian sid with the new but not so green
Nobody is obliged to use backports, it is only a help in case you do not want to upgrade to a more modern version of the distribution and want to use a new version of some software. I don't think complaining about it makes much sense. Do you want stability and security? Stay with your stable and don't use backports. Do you want news? Use testing or unstable.
It is what they do not understand but it will be each madman with his theme they criticize a stable and robust os and they do not criticize the instability of arch it is incoherent but it will be like this is life xD debian has for all tastes it is a thing to try to use and then give an opinion with so just try stable can not comment
Hi Alex, you are right, I have tried to install arch and I could not achieve it at the end it told me that I installed debian again and I accommodate it to my liking 🙂 although I have tried to install gentoo in VM but it no longer supports it: s
I'll leave you my email in case you want to add me jesus.davidr80@gmail.com
Well I agree on certain things, it must be said that the nvidia optimus technology is relatively new and is not supported until the debian jessie version, that's just to start, then the testing issue, we have not reached the level of ubuntu that releases stable versions like for example a software that supposedly was to watch TV and tune channels which the bug I had is that it was not finished, or rather started? They released as stable a program that when you tune in surprise ops, not implemented? the main function of the program not implemented? are we kidding? That would be around the time of ubuntu 7.10 and I still have that bad taste in my mouth, besides that something else happens, when you say 11 architectures and I don't know how many branches, there are 4 guys who develop it, it is a community in the there are thousands of programmers, there are about 20 times more developers in the world of GNU / Linux than in any other operating system, also think differently, the software and source code between the different distributions are the same, the only thing there is is a maintainer from the package, they take the source code, they compile it, they test it, it has bugs, they report it to the developer, it works, they package it and pass it to experimental, they correct it and pass it to sid, from there they correct errors and stabilize it and pass it to testing It is in testing, minor bugs may appear, they are corrected and uploaded from subversion, moderate non-serious bugs in which they also go up from subversion and serious bugs in which the package is removed and returned to sid or simply They do not detect bugs, in which a stabilized version is maintained for the future stable but that does not mean that new versions of this software do not come out during the period in which it freezes there is a period in which new packages are not accepted from sid to testing and begins to stabilize and correct testing errors, if these errors are very serious, it is decided to remove the package according to whether it is critical or not that once it is stabilized and frozen, all packages come out the new version, oldstable and other bagpipes the only thing What they do is correction of incidents.
Another thing, each one is free to add the repositories that they want, the only thing I give you the reason is that it should be indicated in the installation or give the option to add the backdports or not and not activate them by default, because by that rule out of three I prefer to be added by default debian multimedia before the backports, in wheezy it has worked without problems with jessie not so much, the current kernel is giving many problems for example it has lowered the speed of the network both by wifi and by cable and it is not a problem with my router, I had a kernel update and some other package and since then it has gone wrong, before I downloaded at 1000 Kilobytes per second and now at 35-50 Kilobytes we are bad, and not always but most of them Of the times, for example the download of the repositories is slow but from google chrome or chromium it goes fast although sometimes it becomes slow in streaming, and I am sure that it is because of something that has been touched in the kernel, or in some libr It was rather because if I boot with the previous kernel it does not solve it.
I'm not a fanboy in fact the first time I use debian I hated it with all my might, version 2.0 deleted everything, but everything, when doing the automatic partitioning, it gave an error and left the partition table unrecoverable (at that time there were no tools as good as now for data recovery)
But now I do defend it for a reason I am a developer and no matter how well you want to do things, there will always be errors, because the hardware ecosystem is quite large and two memories of the same model and manufacturer do not have to work 100% the same
I have a colleague with the same equipment as myself, model and everything and he has not managed by any means to make the nvidia optimus work even after several installations and I even deleted my recently installed debian jessie and we did a parallel installation we did exactly the same thing already. they did not start the xserver and I did
That is why I say criticizing for criticizing is useless, as for the backports repositories and other stews, each one goes to the restaurant they want but it is true that they should give you the menu to choose from.