7 ms·

Debian turns 23

271 points by fcambus 10y ago

njloof 10y ago
I understand the desire to keep corporate communication positive, but it's sad to see the absence of Ian Murdock so soon after his passing.
- interfixus 10y ago
  Strangely, Murdock's death is mentioned, but not a word about his founding role.
- eriknstr 10y ago
  The linked timeline at https://timeline.debian.net/ https://timeline.debian.net/ has entries linking to announcements by Ian including the annoucement of the first official release; "Debian GNU/Linux 0.93R6 released" -- https://lists.debian.org/debian-announce/1995/msg00007.html https://lists.debian.org/debian-announce/1995/msg00007.html
ajdlinux 10y ago
~13 years ago, I picked up a KNOPPIX 3.3 CD on the front cover of Australian Personal Computer and experienced the wonders of a Debian-based distro for the first time. 13 years later, and here I am, still using Debian on my home desktop, my personal laptop, my work machine and my VPS, and working professionally as a Free Software developer. So thanks, Debian devs!
- Athas 10y ago
  13 years ago, I downloaded Debian stable. The 'nv' driver for XFree86 didn't work on my machine, so my first Unix experience was learning how to use vi to edit the configuration file. Never did get it to work, but Knoppix did (in those days it had famously good hardware detection - I think the key might have been using the 'vesa' driver instead of 'nv'). The graphical environment provided by Knoppix gave me enough comfort to learn how to use the command line and install the proprietary NVIDIA drivers, and I was running pure Debian a few weeks later, and still am on my laptop (although I now prefer OpenBSD on my server).
  - ajdlinux 10y ago
    All those, uuuuuh, positive and happy memories of editing modelines in XF86Config...
    - krylon 10y ago
      Mandatory xkcd reference: https://xkcd.com/963/ https://xkcd.com/963/ I tend to agree with the graph, though - editing XF86config / xorg.conf was not a lot of fun.
    - Anthony-G 10y ago
      My first GNU/Linux experience was with Red Hat 5 on an old hand-me-down laptop during the late 90s. For the first two weeks I couldn't get X to work so I got plenty of command line experience and learned enough vim to edit XF86Config. Still, it was a piece of cake compared to configuring Sendmail!
2close4comfort 10y ago
Debian you are my hero! And I cannot think of a more fitting tribute to all of Ian's hard work. This is how he should be remembered.
maheart 10y ago
Debian is my favourite OS[0]. I've been using it full time for years: I use it on my desktop and laptop (Debian testing), and servers (Debian stable). I've installed it with big success on parents and siblings computers, and the extended family's computers. Debian takes freedom seriously[1] It's getting better with age: - Since Sarge (2005) there's been release every ~2 years - Debian LTS allows you to run Debian securely for 5 years (with caveats) Things I agree with, that may be somewhat controversial: - Debian takes packaging software seriously (it splits the application and development files) - Debian follows the FHS (e.g. config goes in /etc, data goes in /var/lib, etc) - Debian stable is stable. Apart from security patches, it really doesn't change. Other great things: - Debian is a great base to build on (see the many derivatives[2]) Cool things to come: - Reproducible builds[3] [1] https://www.debian.org/social_contract https://www.debian.org/social_contract [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian#Derivatives https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian#Derivatives [3] https://wiki.debian.org/ReproducibleBuilds https://wiki.debian.org/ReproducibleBuilds [0] I think Debian is one of the few Linux distros that can truly call itself an OS, as opposed to just a "distro"
- Haul4ss 10y ago
  I agree. I've messed around with Arch Linux quite a bit and I like their model, but whenever I need something that just works I find myself reaching for Debian.
  - jameskegel 10y ago
    Conversely, as someone who has run Debian for the majority of two decades, I find myself using Antergos (Arch-like) for the things I want to 'just work'.
    - erelde 10y ago
      Again we're running into the different perceptions different people have of "just work". As for my opinion on this: I've never used a distro I didn't need at least between 2 or 14 days before I could say "it just works the way I want it to work".
- 10y ago
overcast 10y ago
I've been using various forms of Unix, Linux , and BSD since 1998. Early days were a lot of Slackware, and eventually moved into FreeBSD, where I was happy for years. In the end the usability, stability, and package management of the Debian system has me using it for all of my server setups. I've found it the easiest of the Linux environments to get up and running quickly. It's what I would consider the "standard" for a Linux OS at this point.
optforfon 10y ago
I've been using Debian for ever .. but honestly it's mostly b/c the critical mass it has. If I have a problem it's pretty straightforward to find solutions. I think there are distributions that are more advanced and interesting (NixOS) and with quicker updates to their packages (Arch), but since I don't want to fiddle with my computer all day I just use use Debian. Maybe some day something a little more modern will take off but for the time being I'll stick to what works - Debian
corford 10y ago
I'm old enough to remember all the "Debian is dying" posts on Slashdot back in the day. As a very happy convert since the potato days, it's amazing how far Debian has come and a testament to the power of free software. Go Debian!
- nurettin 10y ago
  Potato was my first eyesore as well. Win98 kept on crashing on me, so one day I borrowed the CD from one of my professors' desk and tried installing. Three days later after lots of probing for my network card and then lots of elinks browsing to get the xfree86 configuration working, I ended up with my first graphical interface. (xterm, running xeyes) Good old days!
- dragonmum 10y ago
  > I'm old enough to remember all the "Debian is dying" posts Sadly, the Ian (Ian Murdock) in Debian did pass away (death had something to do with police). http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/12/ian-murdock-father-of-debian-dead-at-42/ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/12/ian-mu...
bechampion 10y ago
around 17 years ago i remember flapping betwee slack and debian .... debian package management was always superior so i stayed ... still using debian today. Also remember that I've always liked gnome-panel but not the whole desktop env , so i would use window maker + gnome-panel :) .
chajath 10y ago
After fighting RPM hell so much in the late 90s, Debian linux was such a revelation. I've been using Debian and its derivatives ever since.
_RPM 10y ago
Don't use stable. Stable doesn't mean what you think it means. It means that, among other things, it doesn't get any major updates to core software.
- keithpeter 10y ago
  Some notes as to your use case would add to your comment I think. I have in the past run Sid (aka Unstable) for non-critical use on a laptop without too many issues.
  - wiz21 10y ago
    major problem with unstable is that you get completely addicted to upgrading your system each time a package evolve. That's a huge time sink, thanks Debian :-)
- krylon 10y ago
  > It means that, among other things, it doesn't get any major updates to core software. That is the whole point of "stable". It does get security updates and bug fixes, of course. Most major Linux distros work that way (except for rolling release systems like Gentoo or Arch, of course) - once a version is released, the versions of the software packages are frozen. In return, you get software that is usually very, well, stable. So "stable" means exactly what I think it means. (Anyway a general phrasing like "Don't use stable" is useless - different people have different needs, and for a lot of us, Debian stable works very well, thank you very much.)
_RPM 10y ago
I'm really trying to figure out what Debian is. I'm searching for something, but I'm not sure where to look. Maybe it's my cynicism, but I want to believe that nobody is making money of the users of the Debian system and people contribute to make the world a better place. I've found something interesting yesterday that I think I might have uncovered. My report: Since the mailing lists are usually posted and found with a google search of a process name or a message received in a log, user will usually click on the result of the first google search. The user is then inclined to keep pressing next message in thread. in the meantime, people can use email signature with keywords in them that also have links to a target site. This target site can resolve to a private ip address. You can simply also check if the user agent isn't google, and if it isn't then don't display the email signature. Have I discovered gold? I'm not sure yet, but I'm always suspicious about everything and everyones intentions, except for family. Please forgive me for not being politically HN correct today.
- ChristianBundy 10y ago
  Just to be clear, your theory is that the Debian operating system is a honeypot operation to get people to click links from arbitrary email signatures in the Debian mailing list?
  - _RPM 10y ago
    No, the Debian Platform. That may be one way of exploiting it.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- mwfunk 10y ago
  Political correctness has nothing to do with it. This isn't just idle paranoia, this may be an actual symptom of mental illness if any of this seems remotely, marginally plausible to you, on any level at all whatsoever. Like, the real deal mental illness, so unless you're 11 years old or something and just have absolutely no idea what you're going on about, perceptions like these justify at least talking to a therapist. When people are in their teens and 20s, these sorts of things can be symptoms of problems that won't fully manifest for several years, and are much more easily dealt with up front than after the real issues have fully settled in. Good luck.
madengr 10y ago
Never did get into Debian, only because the configure files were in different locations than red hat, at least back in the day. Using fedora and Slackware.
SFJulie 10y ago
I used to use debian. But their bureaucratic self righteous organization have -at my own personal- opinion created a drift between them and upstream packages. Countless decisions of debian maintainers (that are proficient at packaging and NOT at coding) to think of themselves has «smarter» than upstream open source software maintainers have resulted in countless teeth grinding: - the openSSL randomness «fix» that resulted in openSSH being shipped with only 65535 potential keys - the complexity of building clean src vs bin packages (in opposition with RPM or slackware packaging) and the numerous kombinat called debian helpers makes packaging a hell, - latex packages being a tad broken - ruby/python packages requiring a tad of contorsion to have them work the way they were inteded to work natively (the overzealous package slicing which in python/ruby required you to install non trivial package to use gem/pip) - the multiplication of packages for «ease of use» that cluttered debian with so many fixed dependencies hell that it makes stable often hard and slow to upgrade vs testing that can break and the hell of version pinpointing - the bureaucratic approach of splitting configurations in so many directories that it is mind blowing and as usual not always following upstream simpler conventions - poor default config (like apache cgi-bin being global to help install 3rd party modules) - and the debian community above all that has taken «the melon» and kind of been evolving to be a tad overconfident leading to impose choices that are more than disputable to the users (such of course as systemd) but let's say that ubuntu having sucked most of their community of maintainer during the split it is even more obvious that they have a «microsoft» syndrome of we know better than you what is good for you (desktop choices...) As a result, I have almost happily left debian as my main OS, but I still am hating that «securing/hardening» an OS after default install has become the norm in free/open source main distribution. The more I have seen open source project take a turn of «sectarism» the less I am convinced in the so called intrinsic values of openness in free software. Yet, there are still enough valuable open source projects out there for my comfort
davidw 10y ago
For my birthday in 1996, I ordered a Debian CD and some game. I played the game once or twice, but am still using Ubuntu, a Debian derivative. Debian has its faults, but has done a lot of good work over the years.
nullcipher 10y ago
Does anyone know what happened to the case of the debian founder?
znpy 10y ago
I a week ago I upgraded an oldstable debian installation to stable and now it hangs on shutdown and reboot due to systemd. Thanks Debian.

271 points by fcambus 10y ago

I understand the desire to keep corporate communication positive, but it's sad to see the absence of Ian Murdock so soon after his passing.

interfixus 10y ago
Strangely, Murdock's death is mentioned, but not a word about his founding role.
eriknstr 10y ago
The linked timeline at https://timeline.debian.net/ https://timeline.debian.net/ has entries linking to announcements by Ian including the annoucement of the first official release; "Debian GNU/Linux 0.93R6 released" -- https://lists.debian.org/debian-announce/1995/msg00007.html https://lists.debian.org/debian-announce/1995/msg00007.html

ajdlinux 10y ago

~13 years ago, I picked up a KNOPPIX 3.3 CD on the front cover of Australian Personal Computer and experienced the wonders of a Debian-based distro for the first time. 13 years later, and here I am, still using Debian on my home desktop, my personal laptop, my work machine and my VPS, and working professionally as a Free Software developer. So thanks, Debian devs!

Athas 10y ago
13 years ago, I downloaded Debian stable. The 'nv' driver for XFree86 didn't work on my machine, so my first Unix experience was learning how to use vi to edit the configuration file. Never did get it to work, but Knoppix did (in those days it had famously good hardware detection - I think the key might have been using the 'vesa' driver instead of 'nv'). The graphical environment provided by Knoppix gave me enough comfort to learn how to use the command line and install the proprietary NVIDIA drivers, and I was running pure Debian a few weeks later, and still am on my laptop (although I now prefer OpenBSD on my server).
- ajdlinux 10y ago
  All those, uuuuuh, positive and happy memories of editing modelines in XF86Config...
  - krylon 10y ago
    Mandatory xkcd reference: https://xkcd.com/963/ https://xkcd.com/963/ I tend to agree with the graph, though - editing XF86config / xorg.conf was not a lot of fun.
  - Anthony-G 10y ago
    My first GNU/Linux experience was with Red Hat 5 on an old hand-me-down laptop during the late 90s. For the first two weeks I couldn't get X to work so I got plenty of command line experience and learned enough vim to edit XF86Config. Still, it was a piece of cake compared to configuring Sendmail!

2close4comfort 10y ago

Debian you are my hero! And I cannot think of a more fitting tribute to all of Ian's hard work. This is how he should be remembered.

maheart 10y ago

Debian is my favourite OS[0]. I've been using it full time for years: I use it on my desktop and laptop (Debian testing), and servers (Debian stable). I've installed it with big success on parents and siblings computers, and the extended family's computers. Debian takes freedom seriously[1] It's getting better with age: - Since Sarge (2005) there's been release every ~2 years - Debian LTS allows you to run Debian securely for 5 years (with caveats) Things I agree with, that may be somewhat controversial: - Debian takes packaging software seriously (it splits the application and development files) - Debian follows the FHS (e.g. config goes in /etc, data goes in /var/lib, etc) - Debian stable is stable. Apart from security patches, it really doesn't change. Other great things: - Debian is a great base to build on (see the many derivatives[2]) Cool things to come: - Reproducible builds[3] [1] https://www.debian.org/social_contract https://www.debian.org/social_contract [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian#Derivatives https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian#Derivatives [3] https://wiki.debian.org/ReproducibleBuilds https://wiki.debian.org/ReproducibleBuilds [0] I think Debian is one of the few Linux distros that can truly call itself an OS, as opposed to just a "distro"

Haul4ss 10y ago
I agree. I've messed around with Arch Linux quite a bit and I like their model, but whenever I need something that just works I find myself reaching for Debian.
- jameskegel 10y ago
  Conversely, as someone who has run Debian for the majority of two decades, I find myself using Antergos (Arch-like) for the things I want to 'just work'.
  - erelde 10y ago
    Again we're running into the different perceptions different people have of "just work". As for my opinion on this: I've never used a distro I didn't need at least between 2 or 14 days before I could say "it just works the way I want it to work".
10y ago

overcast 10y ago

I've been using various forms of Unix, Linux , and BSD since 1998. Early days were a lot of Slackware, and eventually moved into FreeBSD, where I was happy for years. In the end the usability, stability, and package management of the Debian system has me using it for all of my server setups. I've found it the easiest of the Linux environments to get up and running quickly. It's what I would consider the "standard" for a Linux OS at this point.

optforfon 10y ago

I've been using Debian for ever .. but honestly it's mostly b/c the critical mass it has. If I have a problem it's pretty straightforward to find solutions. I think there are distributions that are more advanced and interesting (NixOS) and with quicker updates to their packages (Arch), but since I don't want to fiddle with my computer all day I just use use Debian. Maybe some day something a little more modern will take off but for the time being I'll stick to what works - Debian

corford 10y ago

I'm old enough to remember all the "Debian is dying" posts on Slashdot back in the day. As a very happy convert since the potato days, it's amazing how far Debian has come and a testament to the power of free software. Go Debian!

nurettin 10y ago
Potato was my first eyesore as well. Win98 kept on crashing on me, so one day I borrowed the CD from one of my professors' desk and tried installing. Three days later after lots of probing for my network card and then lots of elinks browsing to get the xfree86 configuration working, I ended up with my first graphical interface. (xterm, running xeyes) Good old days!
dragonmum 10y ago
> I'm old enough to remember all the "Debian is dying" posts Sadly, the Ian (Ian Murdock) in Debian did pass away (death had something to do with police). http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/12/ian-murdock-father-of-debian-dead-at-42/ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/12/ian-mu...

bechampion 10y ago

around 17 years ago i remember flapping betwee slack and debian .... debian package management was always superior so i stayed ... still using debian today. Also remember that I've always liked gnome-panel but not the whole desktop env , so i would use window maker + gnome-panel :) .

chajath 10y ago

After fighting RPM hell so much in the late 90s, Debian linux was such a revelation. I've been using Debian and its derivatives ever since.

_RPM 10y ago

Don't use stable. Stable doesn't mean what you think it means. It means that, among other things, it doesn't get any major updates to core software.

keithpeter 10y ago
Some notes as to your use case would add to your comment I think. I have in the past run Sid (aka Unstable) for non-critical use on a laptop without too many issues.
- wiz21 10y ago
  major problem with unstable is that you get completely addicted to upgrading your system each time a package evolve. That's a huge time sink, thanks Debian :-)
krylon 10y ago
> It means that, among other things, it doesn't get any major updates to core software. That is the whole point of "stable". It does get security updates and bug fixes, of course. Most major Linux distros work that way (except for rolling release systems like Gentoo or Arch, of course) - once a version is released, the versions of the software packages are frozen. In return, you get software that is usually very, well, stable. So "stable" means exactly what I think it means. (Anyway a general phrasing like "Don't use stable" is useless - different people have different needs, and for a lot of us, Debian stable works very well, thank you very much.)

_RPM 10y ago

I'm really trying to figure out what Debian is. I'm searching for something, but I'm not sure where to look. Maybe it's my cynicism, but I want to believe that nobody is making money of the users of the Debian system and people contribute to make the world a better place. I've found something interesting yesterday that I think I might have uncovered. My report: Since the mailing lists are usually posted and found with a google search of a process name or a message received in a log, user will usually click on the result of the first google search. The user is then inclined to keep pressing next message in thread. in the meantime, people can use email signature with keywords in them that also have links to a target site. This target site can resolve to a private ip address. You can simply also check if the user agent isn't google, and if it isn't then don't display the email signature. Have I discovered gold? I'm not sure yet, but I'm always suspicious about everything and everyones intentions, except for family. Please forgive me for not being politically HN correct today.

ChristianBundy 10y ago
Just to be clear, your theory is that the Debian operating system is a honeypot operation to get people to click links from arbitrary email signatures in the Debian mailing list?
- _RPM 10y ago
  No, the Debian Platform. That may be one way of exploiting it.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
mwfunk 10y ago
Political correctness has nothing to do with it. This isn't just idle paranoia, this may be an actual symptom of mental illness if any of this seems remotely, marginally plausible to you, on any level at all whatsoever. Like, the real deal mental illness, so unless you're 11 years old or something and just have absolutely no idea what you're going on about, perceptions like these justify at least talking to a therapist. When people are in their teens and 20s, these sorts of things can be symptoms of problems that won't fully manifest for several years, and are much more easily dealt with up front than after the real issues have fully settled in. Good luck.

madengr 10y ago

Never did get into Debian, only because the configure files were in different locations than red hat, at least back in the day. Using fedora and Slackware.

SFJulie 10y ago

I used to use debian. But their bureaucratic self righteous organization have -at my own personal- opinion created a drift between them and upstream packages. Countless decisions of debian maintainers (that are proficient at packaging and NOT at coding) to think of themselves has «smarter» than upstream open source software maintainers have resulted in countless teeth grinding: - the openSSL randomness «fix» that resulted in openSSH being shipped with only 65535 potential keys - the complexity of building clean src vs bin packages (in opposition with RPM or slackware packaging) and the numerous kombinat called debian helpers makes packaging a hell, - latex packages being a tad broken - ruby/python packages requiring a tad of contorsion to have them work the way they were inteded to work natively (the overzealous package slicing which in python/ruby required you to install non trivial package to use gem/pip) - the multiplication of packages for «ease of use» that cluttered debian with so many fixed dependencies hell that it makes stable often hard and slow to upgrade vs testing that can break and the hell of version pinpointing - the bureaucratic approach of splitting configurations in so many directories that it is mind blowing and as usual not always following upstream simpler conventions - poor default config (like apache cgi-bin being global to help install 3rd party modules) - and the debian community above all that has taken «the melon» and kind of been evolving to be a tad overconfident leading to impose choices that are more than disputable to the users (such of course as systemd) but let's say that ubuntu having sucked most of their community of maintainer during the split it is even more obvious that they have a «microsoft» syndrome of we know better than you what is good for you (desktop choices...) As a result, I have almost happily left debian as my main OS, but I still am hating that «securing/hardening» an OS after default install has become the norm in free/open source main distribution. The more I have seen open source project take a turn of «sectarism» the less I am convinced in the so called intrinsic values of openness in free software. Yet, there are still enough valuable open source projects out there for my comfort

davidw 10y ago

For my birthday in 1996, I ordered a Debian CD and some game. I played the game once or twice, but am still using Ubuntu, a Debian derivative. Debian has its faults, but has done a lot of good work over the years.

nullcipher 10y ago

Does anyone know what happened to the case of the debian founder?

znpy 10y ago

I a week ago I upgraded an oldstable debian installation to stable and now it hangs on shutdown and reboot due to systemd. Thanks Debian.