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> 1) someone who will eventually be willing to allow me to upload the release to their anonymous ftp-site. Please contact me. Back then data sharing was so goo

> 1) someone who will eventually be willing to allow me to upload the release to their anonymous ftp-site. Please contact me. Back then data sharing was so good. Despite the now present security threats in a more weaponized net, this even beats the most convenient drag&drop sharing site. > Debian will contain the most up-to-date of everything. Ironic that today it is the dependable system. Still flexible enough for development, but I guess priorities have changed. Debian is my favorite distro, it just always works for me. The author seemed to have a tragic life and made many stops at different companies, would have been interesting to hear his reaction to the development of Debian. I don't know if he was still an active developer, Debian had many, many project leaders as far as I know.

macintux 3y ago
I worked closely with Ian at Progeny Linux. He wasn’t an active developer on Debian at that point in time, although he was very technically savvy.
TacticalCoder 3y ago
> I don't know if he was still an active developer According to Wikipedia he died in 2015: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Murdock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Murdock
- edgyquant 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - jrockway 3y ago
    Are you sure Twitter is to blame? It seems like he was abused by the police.
    - throw81749202 3y ago
      I worked with him at the time of his death shortly after Christmas of 2015. There was definitely a toxic twitter mob, and it's also true that he had been in police custody the day before, but whether either of these things was the reason for his suicide was never clear.
- richardwhiuk 3y ago
  I think the parent was wondering before they passed.
- echelon_musk 3y ago
  The use of "was" in the parent as opposed to "is" tells you that they are already aware.
clintfred 3y ago
Unfortunately, he passed away in 2016. RIP Ian.
- avar 3y ago
  2015, not 2016.
neilv 3y ago
Of course, for anyone who wants up-to-the-minute Unstable/Testing channel, Debian still has that as an option, but I'm with you on Debian Stable. When Debian's APT network package manager happened, that was pretty new and unusual. Imagine hearing about a package, typing a shell command, and Debian probably had the package, and it was installing. (When I was using Red Hat before Debian, there was a set of Web sites that I'd have to use to find packages, in a way that now seems naive and reckless: "https://www.neilvandyke.org/lab-linux-1999/#software https://www.neilvandyke.org/lab-linux-1999/#software".) The package ecosystem is more mature now, and it turns out that Debian Stable almost always has what I need, so I still get the APT experience. (I even got the closed Nvidia CUDA stack from Debian Stable `non-free` repos, the other day, and it just worked. Maybe a little too easily and well, but that's another matter.)
- TacticalCoder 3y ago
  > The package ecosystem is more mature now, and it turns out that Debian Stable almost always has what I need At times it's missing something I want but usually Debian stable is all I need. I don't use unstable or backports: typically I either use Debian stable or I compile from source (like Emacs). Last little hiccup recently is the lack of support for JPEG XL in the latest ImageMagick shipped with Debian stable (if I'm not mistaken), so I'd need to compile it from source (haven't done it yet but it's on my todo list: I want to recompile "losslessly" all my JPG to JPEG XL).
- antod 3y ago
  > When Debian's APT network package manager happened, that was pretty new and unusual. Imagine hearing about a package, typing a shell command, and Debian probably had the package, and it was installing. I think a lot of people who came to Linux later don't fully realise how revolutionary apt was back then. I can still remember the pain of manually downloading rpms only to find it needed another one installed first or wasn't version compatible with something else etc.
  - ilyt 3y ago
    WINDOWS STILL CAN'T DO THAT
ilyt 3y ago
> Ironic that today it is the dependable system. Still flexible enough for development, but I guess priorities have changed. Testing is pretty stable for something named "testing" and unstable is remarkably stable for something called stable. Well, except that one month every 2 years after release where all that was frozen for release gets unfrozen.. And it being stable is not only important feature. The upgrades just work, better than in any other distro I tested (unless you make frankendebian but even then surprisingly often it also "just works". Slap unattended-upgrades package with some settings and you can basically forget it if it is just some service
- Doxin 3y ago
  I honestly think debian does itself a disservice with calling testing testing. Testing is what any other distro would call stable, and stable is the sort of stable you need for running nuclear reactors and the like. How many people installed debian stable and bounced off because all the packages were quite old?
  - ilyt 3y ago
    Hell, Ubuntu builds it's "stable" release from Debian's testing. Maybe just call it "next" instead of testing ?
    - Doxin 3y ago
      Honestly I'd call testing stable, and stable something like "rock solid" or whatnot. Testing is for sure plenty stable for day-to-day desktop use.

macintux 3y ago

I worked closely with Ian at Progeny Linux. He wasn’t an active developer on Debian at that point in time, although he was very technically savvy.

TacticalCoder 3y ago

> I don't know if he was still an active developer According to Wikipedia he died in 2015: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Murdock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Murdock

edgyquant 3y ago
[flagged]
- jrockway 3y ago
  Are you sure Twitter is to blame? It seems like he was abused by the police.
  - throw81749202 3y ago
    I worked with him at the time of his death shortly after Christmas of 2015. There was definitely a toxic twitter mob, and it's also true that he had been in police custody the day before, but whether either of these things was the reason for his suicide was never clear.
richardwhiuk 3y ago
I think the parent was wondering before they passed.
echelon_musk 3y ago
The use of "was" in the parent as opposed to "is" tells you that they are already aware.

clintfred 3y ago

Unfortunately, he passed away in 2016. RIP Ian.

avar 3y ago
2015, not 2016.

neilv 3y ago

Of course, for anyone who wants up-to-the-minute Unstable/Testing channel, Debian still has that as an option, but I'm with you on Debian Stable. When Debian's APT network package manager happened, that was pretty new and unusual. Imagine hearing about a package, typing a shell command, and Debian probably had the package, and it was installing. (When I was using Red Hat before Debian, there was a set of Web sites that I'd have to use to find packages, in a way that now seems naive and reckless: "https://www.neilvandyke.org/lab-linux-1999/#software https://www.neilvandyke.org/lab-linux-1999/#software".) The package ecosystem is more mature now, and it turns out that Debian Stable almost always has what I need, so I still get the APT experience. (I even got the closed Nvidia CUDA stack from Debian Stable `non-free` repos, the other day, and it just worked. Maybe a little too easily and well, but that's another matter.)

TacticalCoder 3y ago
> The package ecosystem is more mature now, and it turns out that Debian Stable almost always has what I need At times it's missing something I want but usually Debian stable is all I need. I don't use unstable or backports: typically I either use Debian stable or I compile from source (like Emacs). Last little hiccup recently is the lack of support for JPEG XL in the latest ImageMagick shipped with Debian stable (if I'm not mistaken), so I'd need to compile it from source (haven't done it yet but it's on my todo list: I want to recompile "losslessly" all my JPG to JPEG XL).
antod 3y ago
> When Debian's APT network package manager happened, that was pretty new and unusual. Imagine hearing about a package, typing a shell command, and Debian probably had the package, and it was installing. I think a lot of people who came to Linux later don't fully realise how revolutionary apt was back then. I can still remember the pain of manually downloading rpms only to find it needed another one installed first or wasn't version compatible with something else etc.
- ilyt 3y ago
  WINDOWS STILL CAN'T DO THAT

ilyt 3y ago

> Ironic that today it is the dependable system. Still flexible enough for development, but I guess priorities have changed. Testing is pretty stable for something named "testing" and unstable is remarkably stable for something called stable. Well, except that one month every 2 years after release where all that was frozen for release gets unfrozen.. And it being stable is not only important feature. The upgrades just work, better than in any other distro I tested (unless you make frankendebian but even then surprisingly often it also "just works". Slap unattended-upgrades package with some settings and you can basically forget it if it is just some service

Doxin 3y ago
I honestly think debian does itself a disservice with calling testing testing. Testing is what any other distro would call stable, and stable is the sort of stable you need for running nuclear reactors and the like. How many people installed debian stable and bounced off because all the packages were quite old?
- ilyt 3y ago
  Hell, Ubuntu builds it's "stable" release from Debian's testing. Maybe just call it "next" instead of testing ?
  - Doxin 3y ago
    Honestly I'd call testing stable, and stable something like "rock solid" or whatnot. Testing is for sure plenty stable for day-to-day desktop use.