20 ms·

Debian 9.2 released

234 points by rayascott 9y ago

marmaduke 9y ago
I have the impression that Jessie came out recently. Is time speeding up? Meanwhile I’m happy on CentOS 7 since many years now.
- icebraining 9y ago
  Jessie was released in April 2015 - Debian Stable releases are usually two years apart. CentOS 7.0 was released a bit less than a year before it (July 2014). Jessie will still be supported until June 2018 by the official security team, and until 2020 by the Debian LTS project.
- jmiserez 9y ago
  > Is time speeding up? I ask myself that every day, certainly seems like it getting older ;-) On a more serious note: It’s great that Linux is now sufficiently mature that even a 3 year old release is perfectly adequate and can do pretty much whatever you need. Maybe I’m misremembering here, but it didn’t always used to be like that.
- susam 9y ago
  Debian 9 Stretch came out recently (June 2017).
- deadbunny 9y ago
  Debian switched to a more formal 2 year cycle for releases (similar to the Ubuntu LTS releases) from their "when it's ready" cycle they had before.
staticelf 9y ago
When I run linux on servers, I always choose Debian. It is the best distro IMO. Glad to see that the project is still going as strong as ever!
- gear54rus 9y ago
  As someone who has been choosing CentOS for the same purpose, what would be some reasons for me to switch off the top of your head?
  - marindez 9y ago
    As someone who hasn't used CentOS much, when I've had to use it I've found the package selection (packages/versions) to be lacking, requiring me to use one of the countless 3rd party repos that may or may not contain what I need
    - vbezhenar 9y ago
      EPEL is a must. Also I'm using official nginx and postgres repositories for latest releases. Never used other repositories.
    - jlgaddis 9y ago
      If you want to run the latest, greatest, bleeding edge version of $foo, CentOS may not be for you.
      - baruch 9y ago
        It's not just the latest. Debian stable doesn't have the latest but it does have a larger selection of official packages.
      - scbrg 9y ago
        And neither is Debian (stable). But given that they're often used for the same purpose (servers), it's not that irrational to compare them. Having a larger, supported package selection (even if it's a bit old) may be a good thing, and relevant when you choose your distro. For the record: I have no idea how the package selection compares between CentOS and Debian - I've been firmly in the Debian camp since forever, and stay there mostly for other reasons, of which laziness is the most important one.
      - 9y ago
partycoder 9y ago
A curious fact is that Debian name their releases after Toy Story characters. Debian experimental is permanently named "sid" (the kid that breaks toys) and "stretch" (Debian 9) is a rubber octopus from Toy Story 3. https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/project-history/ch-releases.en.html https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/project-history/ch-releas... https://wiki.debian.org/DebianUnstable#Which_Toy_Story_character_is_Sid.3F https://wiki.debian.org/DebianUnstable#Which_Toy_Story_chara... Other curious fact about Debian, is that there are 2 logos: the open use one, and the restricted use one. The restricted use one is a less known and includes a bottle.
- jlgaddis 9y ago
  sid == unstable
  - evook 9y ago
    sid (still in Development)
    - jlgaddis 9y ago
      I began using Debian c. 1998 and I've never heard that.
    - scbrg 9y ago
      While true, I guess the point was that it's misleading to refer to sid as Debian's "experimental" release, since Debian actually has a "release" referred to as experimental and it is not sid. https://wiki.debian.org/DebianExperimental https://wiki.debian.org/DebianExperimental
      - evook 9y ago
        But sid isn't referred to as an experimental release. The experimental release is more or less an voluntary option for the devs to use or not. > Some packages/developers don't use experimental, they just put the new versions in unstable
    - 9y ago
jstimpfle 9y ago
On a tangential note, I don't like how I get served the German version of the site with no obvious way to get the "canonical" one. And then I hate realizing how hard it is to combine support of multiple languages and still making everything transparent and accessible. And also, what a huge effort it is to translate pages to different languages while (I think) almost everyone wants to read the English version.
- jhasse 9y ago
  There's a link at the bottom: https://www.debian.org/News/2017/20171007.en.html https://www.debian.org/News/2017/20171007.en.html
  - jstimpfle 9y ago
    I actually looked for a while there (even Ctrl+f'ed) but somehow missed it. My bad. Still it's more of a nuisance to most people and I don't like how the standard URL does not deliver the same page to all.
    - chungy 9y ago
      That's how the web is supposed to work. If you prefer English versions of pages, go into your browser configuration and tell it to prefer English.
      - raimue 9y ago
        I usually prefer English for anything related to development, software engineering, and computers in general. I also run my user interface in English, as it is much easier to search for error messages that way. However, when visiting websites of local places such as restaurants, I prefer the German version and not the one in English meant for tourists. While third-party extensions allow to switch Accept-Language, it is not in the standard UI of modern browsers. For people like me, an advanced setting of Accept-Language per top-level domain would reduce the number of times I have to find the language switcher on the web page to a minimum.
freddref 9y ago
Time to upgrade my laptop
chj 9y ago
I wish Debian would adopt Ubuntu-like versioning number: "yy.mm". So easy to understand. Another good example is TeXLive, which simply uses "yyyy". Much better.
- tonyedgecombe 9y ago
  I wish most software would switch to this, I really don't like semantic versioning.
  - pvdebbe 9y ago
    Semantic versioning makes sense for libraries, not so much for user-facing applications.
    - lucideer 9y ago
      I used to agree with the point about year-based versioning, but I've changed my tune and I don't think this point about libraries is completely true either. If you look at what semantic -vs- date-based versioning communicates to end-users of normal user-facing apps: Date-based: - how recently it's been released - not much else The above is useful if you are interested in being up-to-date on a piece of software you know and trust, or in trying out new / cutting edge software. Semantic: - a (very) rough idea of how long it's been in development for (number of versions its gone through) - a (similarly, very) rough idea of how active the development effort is in terms of testing/maintentance/bug-fixes/patches (i.e. major version churn -vs- minor version churn -vs- patch version churn - the likely relative stability of the current release (e.g. 2.0.0 might be less stable than 2.0.4) All of the above may be rough and may give false impressions sometimes, but it is still extremely useful as an indicator for any relatively technical user evaluating whether or not to use or upgrade a piece of software. Less technical users are less likely to be as interested in version numbers full stop.
      - vacri 9y ago
        If a project actually follows semver, then you know that unless the first number changes, there won't be any (significant) backwards-incompatible changes - eg, your config files will still work as expected.
aerique 9y ago
I came here for systemd trolling but left sadly disappointed.
BackToSchool 9y ago
Will it work on AMD promontory chipsets?
bovermyer 9y ago
Does Debian have the same support for AWS eccentricities that Ubuntu now does?
- lamby 9y ago
  Can you elaborate?
  - bovermyer 9y ago
    Up until March of this year, the Ubuntu kernel was not tuned for AWS. This included not having support for Elastic Network Adapter, which limited network speeds when compared to Amazon Linux. See here: https://insights.ubuntu.com/2017/04/05/ubuntu-on-aws-gets-serious-performance-boost-with-aws-tuned-kernel/ https://insights.ubuntu.com/2017/04/05/ubuntu-on-aws-gets-se...

234 points by rayascott 9y ago

I have the impression that Jessie came out recently. Is time speeding up? Meanwhile I’m happy on CentOS 7 since many years now.

icebraining 9y ago
Jessie was released in April 2015 - Debian Stable releases are usually two years apart. CentOS 7.0 was released a bit less than a year before it (July 2014). Jessie will still be supported until June 2018 by the official security team, and until 2020 by the Debian LTS project.
jmiserez 9y ago
> Is time speeding up? I ask myself that every day, certainly seems like it getting older ;-) On a more serious note: It’s great that Linux is now sufficiently mature that even a 3 year old release is perfectly adequate and can do pretty much whatever you need. Maybe I’m misremembering here, but it didn’t always used to be like that.
susam 9y ago
Debian 9 Stretch came out recently (June 2017).
deadbunny 9y ago
Debian switched to a more formal 2 year cycle for releases (similar to the Ubuntu LTS releases) from their "when it's ready" cycle they had before.

staticelf 9y ago

When I run linux on servers, I always choose Debian. It is the best distro IMO. Glad to see that the project is still going as strong as ever!

gear54rus 9y ago
As someone who has been choosing CentOS for the same purpose, what would be some reasons for me to switch off the top of your head?
- marindez 9y ago
  As someone who hasn't used CentOS much, when I've had to use it I've found the package selection (packages/versions) to be lacking, requiring me to use one of the countless 3rd party repos that may or may not contain what I need
  - vbezhenar 9y ago
    EPEL is a must. Also I'm using official nginx and postgres repositories for latest releases. Never used other repositories.
  - jlgaddis 9y ago
    If you want to run the latest, greatest, bleeding edge version of $foo, CentOS may not be for you.
    - baruch 9y ago
      It's not just the latest. Debian stable doesn't have the latest but it does have a larger selection of official packages.
    - scbrg 9y ago
      And neither is Debian (stable). But given that they're often used for the same purpose (servers), it's not that irrational to compare them. Having a larger, supported package selection (even if it's a bit old) may be a good thing, and relevant when you choose your distro. For the record: I have no idea how the package selection compares between CentOS and Debian - I've been firmly in the Debian camp since forever, and stay there mostly for other reasons, of which laziness is the most important one.
    - 9y ago

partycoder 9y ago

A curious fact is that Debian name their releases after Toy Story characters. Debian experimental is permanently named "sid" (the kid that breaks toys) and "stretch" (Debian 9) is a rubber octopus from Toy Story 3. https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/project-history/ch-releases.en.html https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/project-history/ch-releas... https://wiki.debian.org/DebianUnstable#Which_Toy_Story_character_is_Sid.3F https://wiki.debian.org/DebianUnstable#Which_Toy_Story_chara... Other curious fact about Debian, is that there are 2 logos: the open use one, and the restricted use one. The restricted use one is a less known and includes a bottle.

jlgaddis 9y ago
sid == unstable
- evook 9y ago
  sid (still in Development)
  - jlgaddis 9y ago
    I began using Debian c. 1998 and I've never heard that.
  - scbrg 9y ago
    While true, I guess the point was that it's misleading to refer to sid as Debian's "experimental" release, since Debian actually has a "release" referred to as experimental and it is not sid. https://wiki.debian.org/DebianExperimental https://wiki.debian.org/DebianExperimental
    - evook 9y ago
      But sid isn't referred to as an experimental release. The experimental release is more or less an voluntary option for the devs to use or not. > Some packages/developers don't use experimental, they just put the new versions in unstable
  - 9y ago

jstimpfle 9y ago

On a tangential note, I don't like how I get served the German version of the site with no obvious way to get the "canonical" one. And then I hate realizing how hard it is to combine support of multiple languages and still making everything transparent and accessible. And also, what a huge effort it is to translate pages to different languages while (I think) almost everyone wants to read the English version.

jhasse 9y ago
There's a link at the bottom: https://www.debian.org/News/2017/20171007.en.html https://www.debian.org/News/2017/20171007.en.html
- jstimpfle 9y ago
  I actually looked for a while there (even Ctrl+f'ed) but somehow missed it. My bad. Still it's more of a nuisance to most people and I don't like how the standard URL does not deliver the same page to all.
  - chungy 9y ago
    That's how the web is supposed to work. If you prefer English versions of pages, go into your browser configuration and tell it to prefer English.
    - raimue 9y ago
      I usually prefer English for anything related to development, software engineering, and computers in general. I also run my user interface in English, as it is much easier to search for error messages that way. However, when visiting websites of local places such as restaurants, I prefer the German version and not the one in English meant for tourists. While third-party extensions allow to switch Accept-Language, it is not in the standard UI of modern browsers. For people like me, an advanced setting of Accept-Language per top-level domain would reduce the number of times I have to find the language switcher on the web page to a minimum.

freddref 9y ago

Time to upgrade my laptop

chj 9y ago

I wish Debian would adopt Ubuntu-like versioning number: "yy.mm". So easy to understand. Another good example is TeXLive, which simply uses "yyyy". Much better.

tonyedgecombe 9y ago
I wish most software would switch to this, I really don't like semantic versioning.
- pvdebbe 9y ago
  Semantic versioning makes sense for libraries, not so much for user-facing applications.
  - lucideer 9y ago
    I used to agree with the point about year-based versioning, but I've changed my tune and I don't think this point about libraries is completely true either. If you look at what semantic -vs- date-based versioning communicates to end-users of normal user-facing apps: Date-based: - how recently it's been released - not much else The above is useful if you are interested in being up-to-date on a piece of software you know and trust, or in trying out new / cutting edge software. Semantic: - a (very) rough idea of how long it's been in development for (number of versions its gone through) - a (similarly, very) rough idea of how active the development effort is in terms of testing/maintentance/bug-fixes/patches (i.e. major version churn -vs- minor version churn -vs- patch version churn - the likely relative stability of the current release (e.g. 2.0.0 might be less stable than 2.0.4) All of the above may be rough and may give false impressions sometimes, but it is still extremely useful as an indicator for any relatively technical user evaluating whether or not to use or upgrade a piece of software. Less technical users are less likely to be as interested in version numbers full stop.
    - vacri 9y ago
      If a project actually follows semver, then you know that unless the first number changes, there won't be any (significant) backwards-incompatible changes - eg, your config files will still work as expected.

aerique 9y ago

I came here for systemd trolling but left sadly disappointed.

BackToSchool 9y ago

Will it work on AMD promontory chipsets?

bovermyer 9y ago

Does Debian have the same support for AWS eccentricities that Ubuntu now does?

lamby 9y ago
Can you elaborate?
- bovermyer 9y ago
  Up until March of this year, the Ubuntu kernel was not tuned for AWS. This included not having support for Elastic Network Adapter, which limited network speeds when compared to Amazon Linux. See here: https://insights.ubuntu.com/2017/04/05/ubuntu-on-aws-gets-serious-performance-boost-with-aws-tuned-kernel/ https://insights.ubuntu.com/2017/04/05/ubuntu-on-aws-gets-se...