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I read at the offical debian site that the 4.0 release was comming in december.
Quote:
The Debian project confirms December 2006 as the date for the next release of its distribution which will be named Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 alias 'etch'.
There is of course, no surprise that there is delay of software development in the industry, but there i no new information and im wondering when this version is gonna come. I dont really wanna use the unstable version, so does someone know when the stable 4.0 is comming?
Actually, Debian has 3 branches:
stable(Sarge), testing(Etch), and unstable(Sid)
Etch is testing, and is currently in the process of becoming stable. I'm using Etch on my desktop right now, and I can only say that is appears quite stable already. Unfortunately, by the way things appear to be going, Etch may not replace Sarge for a few more months. The Debian team is very meticulous, and won't put the label "stable" on Etch until it meets specific guidelines.
I've been using Debian quite happily for about 4 years now, and it was the same situation when Sarge was becoming "stable".
For "standard" architectures, like i386, amd64, Etch is 100% stable. It is just some of the more exotic processors like sparc, alpha etc that are not 100% stable and bug free. Unless you're using one of those processors on a server that needs 100% uptime, Etch is more than ready for you.
Ok, thanks for the information guys, i love debian, probably like you, but its quite picky about hardware, how is debian 4.0 "testing" doing this job (the job of finding new hardware and hardware compatibilities) ? I think i read something about that debian 4.0 was going to have a much improved hardware compatibility, so im kind of looking forward to that.
The reason that im not currently running debian, is because i bought a new PC (really good one though), but debian doesnt support the graphics card at all, it lags when using the desktop for example, that kind of why im waiting for the 4.0 release, to hope for better hardware compatibility, so i can use the king of linux distributions.
The main reason for the hardware improvement is just a modern kernel. Sarge comes with 2.4.27 by default, and 2.6.8 if you boot with linux26. There was very little SATA detection happening with either of those kernels, which makes getting Sarge on any new machine difficult at best, unless you use IDE drives.
Etch (4.0) Looks to ship with 2.6.18-3, and the SATA detection was pretty good by that point.
Also, you'd be 100% crazy to run Debian Stable on a desktop machine. Stable when used by Debian doesn't mean, "no big problems", it means, "rock solid, never changing, never crashing server OS." Stable is just that, it is for a server that you want to be up forever. You don't get any new software, unless it gets backported, and the packages it does get only fix security issues, they don't add new functionality. With pure Debian on a desktop, Testing will never cause you a problem. Even unstable is pretty stable. Using Testing, you still have Unstable to pick up problems and clear them out before it hits Testing.
And as mentioned above, you can use Sidux, or any of the Ubuntu family, all of which are based off Debian unstable, and as a result have new packages.
I keep noticing a lot pf people keep forgetting about an entire branch of Debian. A very imoprtant one at that. Experimental. Its the branch the developers actively work on. Once they deemed their package to be ready, they throw it in the "unstable" branch. This is where most dependancy and security issues are noticed and fixed. Then the package is thrown into the "testing" branch. It will sit here until all packages (including itself) play nicely together, and all bugs are fixed. Then it becomes "stable".
Personally, I run Sid (unstable) because I like having the newest softwares. If something breaks, I feel comfortable enough that I can either fix it, or temporarily maneuver around it.
Experimental is damned near impossible to use. Constant dependancy issues, but things updated as fast as the developers can save their code. (sometimes updates can happen minutes apart)
Unstable gets the quickest updates (hourly).
Testing gets updates regularly (daily).
Stable gets only Security updates, but only every now and then (weekly, sometimes monthly).
You can't generally use experimental. You can reach into it and grab a package and hope for the best, but you can't use the experimental branch to install across the boards packages. It's not a question of skill of know how, it is just that you can't always (or even often) build a usable system out of experimental. If you could I would use it gladly.
Also, due to the code freeze right now, all the builds are screwy. Testing is as stable as Stable, Unstable is stable as Testing, etc. Once Etch releases, Unstable will get choppy, and Experimental will be impossible.
You can't generally use unstable. You can reach into it and grab a package and hope for the best, but you can't use the experimental branch to install across the boards packages...
Unstable is not Experimental. I've been running Unstable (Sid) for over a year solid now. It is very usable.
My bad, that was a typo. It should have read experimental, not unstable. I have been using unstable on my desktop and laptop for the past 2 years. I fully agree that it is very stable.
Also, you'd be 100% crazy to run Debian Stable on a desktop machine. Stable when used by Debian doesn't mean, "no big problems", it means, "rock solid, never changing, never crashing server OS." Stable is just that, it is for a server that you want to be up forever. You don't get any new software, unless it gets backported, and the packages it does get only fix security issues, they don't add new functionality.
I wouldn't consider myself 100% crazy, but I desire a desktop that doesn't crash ever. Never ever. Besides, with the new 2-3 year release cycle, I think I can live with it. Heck, MS went without a overhaul for about 6 years.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BillyGalbreath
I keep noticing a lot pf people keep forgetting about an entire branch of Debian. A very important one at that. Experimental.
I didn't forget about Experimental earlier. It's just that Experimental is not considered a true branch, because it is not a full system. You generally cannot run a pure Debian Experimental system. http://wiki.debian.org/DebianExperim...xperimental%29
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