[GRLUG] WMNTUG Windows 7 Meeting

[Bob Kline]

On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 12:49 PM, john-thomas richards <jtr at jrichards.org>wrote:

> On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 12:22:24PM -0400, Bob Kline wrote:
> > On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 12:14 PM, john-thomas richards <
> jtr at jrichards.org>wrote:
> [snip]
> > > > This isn't happening until next month, but Ubuntu will have ext4 as
> > > > default in 9.10
> > >
> > > That's a pretty big endorsement.  Since I am running Debian stable I
> > > won't be seeing 2.6.28+ for some time.  :-)
> > > --
> > > john-thomas
> > >
> >
> > Wasn't the Debian effort being
> > criticized for being excessively
> > cautious?  In the eyes of others
> > anyway.
> >
> Debian has long been criticized for being excessively cautious, but
> remember, in operating system terms that generally means more stability
> since a lot of the bugs that affect stability are fixed before the next
> version of Debian goes live.
>
> > I'd thought the releases were going
> > to come a little more often now.
> >
> >    -- Bob
>
> Well....sort of.  There is general agreement among the developers to
> release more frequently, but you will never see anything approaching the
> frequency of a Ubuntu (who still continue to benefit from Debian's
> approach).  If Debian could release every 18 months I'd be happy.  The
> two- or three-year release (such as with Sarge) are really painful since
> change happens so quickly in the FOSS world.  As I mentioned, I'm
> running Debian Lenny (the current Stable) and I'm rock-solid.  For
> example, I haven't experienced any instability with xorg that comes from
> the new graphics execution manager (GEM) and kernels 2.6.28 and up.
> (See http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20090817#feature for more
> details.)  That sort of instability cannot* happen with Debian since
> Debian is so far behind the curve.
>
> *Okay; "cannot" is a strong word—perhaps too strong.
> --
> john-thomas
>

There are issues with this.  In one sense
the Debian effort simply gets to ride the
backs of more current distributions, where
bug fixes are an ongoing process.  In enough
time  things are pretty well debugged.  The
most used things anyway.

And unless it does all its own testing, it
also gets the benefit of legions of testers
for the current releases of other distributions.
In many ways the game is to get as many
knowledgeable users to use something, and
report any bugs, as possible.

Nothing unfair about all this, but simply to
say that in part Debian's distribution is
solid simply because it's old.   Old in the
software world anyway.

Is there anything to suggest Debian's
distribution is measurably more reliable
than, say, an older version of Ubuntu?

I'm sure there are fight'n words here
somewhere, but I'm just looking at the
situation.

     -- Bob
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