Historical Week for Debian and Ubuntu (a Look Back)
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-02-15 11:34:24 UTC
- Modified: 2014-02-15 11:34:24 UTC
Summary: A roundup of news about Debian, Ubuntu, and derivatives of Ubuntu
Debian
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The Debian project is pleased to announce the fourth update of its stable distribution Debian 7 (codename "wheezy"). This update mainly adds corrections for security problems to the stable release, along with a few adjustments for serious problems. Security advisories were already published separately and are referenced where available. Please note that this update does not constitute a new version of Debian 7 but only updates some of the packages included. There is no need to throw away old "wheezy" CDs or DVDs but only to update via an up-to-date Debian mirror after an installation, to cause any out of date packages to be updated.
Systemd in Debian
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Since this weekend we have known that systemd was winning the Debian init system battle, but now it's official: systemd has prevailed over Upstart in Debian.
After a very heated fight between the Debian technical committee and also Debian stakeholders, Bdale Garbee as the chairman of the tech committee has announced systemd will be used in Debian 8.0 Jessie.
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systemd already has a wide adoption withing the GNU/Linux distribution with all major distros including openSUSE, Fedora, Arch Linux, etc using it as their default init system. Upstart was either way not getting much support from the free software community due to the restrictive CLAs Canonical requires which is often criticized by the community. With Debian going* for systemd, it will get even more developer power whereas Canonical will be left alone to deal with Upstart along with many more project that it’s trying to do on its own – including the recently discussed File Manager which may replace Nautilus (Files).
Systemd in Ubuntu
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Going forward, systemd will be Debian's default init system for Linux distributions, an init system soon to be used by every other major Linux distribution other than Ubuntu.
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With this move Canonical has slowed the alienation of Ubuntu from the rest of the Linux community. It also shows that Canonical also understand that it can’t fork it’s path too much from the mainstream Linux community, especially from mommy Debian. In a nutshell it’s a wise and welcome decision by Ubuntu leadership and will help them focus on more pressing issues which will help make Ubuntu better.
Systemd
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My view is that this idea is wrong: systemd is broken by design, and despite offering highly enticing improvements over legacy init systems, it also brings major regressions in terms of many of the areas Linux is expected to excel: security, stability, and not having to reboot to upgrade your system.
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As usual in these cases, not just Lennart, but many of those who supported him, also those who sponsored these efforts, has suffered all kind of attacks. Sadly not just for technical, I mean ATTACKS. Even journalists have been involved. Yes, Free Software is also mature enough to have "yellow (technical) press" associated, political and business interests and people in different communities willing to use them against anybody who threaten the current status quo.
Mobile
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Vodafone joined Ubuntu’s Carrier Advisory Group, as Ubuntu demoed progress on a unified desktop/mobile UI, but a Debian decision may further isolate Ubuntu.
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One of Canonical's main goals in bringing Ubuntu to mobile devices is to create a converged platform across smartphones, tablets, and PCs. As such, a developer should be able to write an app that has a single code base yet runs on all three types of devices, presenting a different interface to the user on each form factor.
Licence Agreement
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Canonical has issued an official explanation for the reason why Linux Mint developers have to sign a license agreement in order to continue to distribute the package straight from the Ubuntu repos.
Valve
LTS
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After this weekend sharing benchmarks of the recent Ubuntu 12.04 LTS point releases, here's some complementary tests that offer a look at the Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" performance against the current state of the "Trusty Tahr", a.k.a. Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.
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The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce the release of Ubuntu 12.04.4 LTS
(Long-Term Support) for its Desktop, Server, Cloud, and Core products,
as well as other flavours of Ubuntu with long-term support.
Development
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Last week I was in Orlando sprinting with my team as well as the platform, SDK, and security teams and some desktop and design folks. As usual after a sprint, I have been slammed catching up with email, but I wanted to provide a summary of some work going that you can expect to see soon in the Ubuntu app developer platform.
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The Ubuntu Developer Summit is the primary place where we discuss, debate, and plan the future of Ubuntu. The entire event takes place online, is open and accessible to all, and every session is recorded so everyone can see how decisions are made. It is a useful, fun, and rewarding event to join.
Ubuntu Variants
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Various flavors of Ubuntu 14.04 have come out today with their Trusty Tahr Alpha 2 spins.
Bodhi Linux
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We are huge fans of Jeff Hoogland’s work as a Software Developer and his efforts with Bodhi Linux. So we invited Jeff for a quick chat with Unixmen Australia. We were privileged when Jeff accepted our invitation. Here is what he had to say.
Linux Mint
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It’s no great secret that our organization Reglue uses Linux Mint on many of our outgoing computers. I run Mint on one of my work computers and at home as well. Linux Mint has given us the opportunity to create a respin for educational purposes within our non profit, largely due to an app named mintConstructor. It provides a fairly simple method of making custom systems using Linux Mint as the base.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- GNU/Linux Reaches 6.5% in Canada (Including ChromeOS), Based on statCounter
- Not many news sites are left to cover this, let alone advocate for GNU/Linux
- The Only Thing the So-called 'Hey Hi Revolution' Gave Microsoft is More Debt
- Microsoft bailouts
- FUD Alert: 2024 is Not 2011 and Ebury is Not "Linux"
- We've seen Microsofers (actual Microsoft employees) putting in a lot of effort to shift the heat to Linux
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- GNU/Linux Grows in Denmark, But Much of That is ChromeOS, Which Means No Freedom
- Google never designs operating systems with freedom in mind
- Links 16/05/2024: Vehicles Lasting Fewer Years, Habitat Fragmentation Concerns
- Links for the day
- Links 16/05/2024: Orangutans as Political Props, VMware Calls Proprietary 'Free'
- Links for the day
- TechTarget (and Computer Weekly et al): We Target 'Audiences' to Sell Your Products (Using Fake Articles and Surveillance)
- It is a deeply rogue industry that's killing legitimate journalism by drowning out the signal (real journalism) with sponsored fodder
- Links 15/05/2024: XBox Trouble, Slovakia PM Shot 5 Times
- Links for the day
- Windows in Times of Conflict
- In pictures
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, May 15, 2024
- IRC logs for Wednesday, May 15, 2024
- Gemini Links 15/05/2024: 50 Years of Text Games
- Links for the day
- Ebury is Not "Linux", That's Just the Media Shifting Attention (Microsoft in the Hot Seat for Total Breach Right Now)
- Seems like it may be a Trojan
- Links 15/05/2024: Growing Tensions Between East and West, Anticlimax in Chatbot Space
- Links for the day
- [Video] 'Late Stage Capitalism': Microsoft as an Elaborate Ponzi Scheme (Faking 'Demand' While Portraying the Fraud as an Act of Generosity and Demanding Bailouts)
- Being able to express or explain the facts isn't easy because of the buzzwords
- Richard Stallman Talk 'Delayed'
- "Repousé à une date ultérieur. Du au congé, il n'était pas possible de l'organiser bien dans le temps disponible."
- Links 15/05/2024: Toll on Climate Change, Physical Assaults on Politicians
- Links for the day
- [Meme] Free Society Requires Free Press
- The Assange decision is now less than a week away (after several delays and demand for shallow 'assurances')
- CyberShow Goes "Live"
- The CyberShow has a similar worldview (on technology and ethics) to ours
- Latest Status of Site Archives (Static Pages)
- article listings are reaching a near-final form
- IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, May 14, 2024
- IRC logs for Tuesday, May 14, 2024
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- Today's Talk by Richard Stallman Going Ahead as Planned
- That talk will be in French
- At This Pace (and Rate) It Won't Take Long for Android to Unseat Windows in Russia
- Operating System Market Share Russian Federation
- [Video] The High Cost of High-Level Tools and High-Level Programming Languages
- Windows and Microsoft-style teaching remain a barrier to simple programming
- Linux and Linux Foundation Leftovers
- Some more Linux news
- Africa is Still Android
- Operating System Market Share Africa: May 2024
- Windows Falls to 10% in Uganda, It Was 94% in 2010
- Microsoft fell from market dominance to (soon) single digit (percent-wise).
- Grouping Our Archives by Week
- No more 'numbers lottery', the clustering is based on dates
- [Video] LinuxFest Northwest is Letting GAFAM Take Over (and Why It's Hard to Resist)
- Microsoft and LinuxFest Northwest
- Links 14/05/2024: Bounties on Terrible Patents, China Censors Dissidents Internationally via Attack Dogs
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 14/05/2024: Server Failure Swallows rawtext.club
- Links for the day
- Links 14/05/2024: SoftBank and ARM Chasing Hype, "Why Are You Working?"
- Links for the day
- Links 14/05/2024: Microsoft Edelman Works for Climate Change Deniers, NATO Draws a Cyber Red Line in Tensions With Russia
- Links for the day
- Feasibility of Self-Hosting is About More Than Speeds
- Speed helps, but the Internet (Net) is a global, interconnected system that no single person or company or government fully controls
- EPO: Language of Conflict
- A letter about this has already been sent
- IRC Proceedings: Monday, May 13, 2024
- IRC logs for Monday, May 13, 2024
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- Watching Our Videos Before We Write Articles for Them
- It has long been possible
- Microsoft is Measured at Lower Than Apple in Niger (Of Course Android Dominates)
- Niger's OS share (as measured by Web sites) is subjected to significant fluctuations because it's not highly connected
- Refuting the Ludicrous, Laughable Idea I Don't (or Cannot) Code
- I've written code for 30 years
- [Meme] "Talk is Cheap. Show Me the Code." - Linus Torvalds
- be like Chad
- Windows in Chad: Going Extinct
- From 100% to 1%?
- Doing the Site From Home (What I Always Wanted to Do)
- Even some of the hosting was done from home (since 2020)