News About Debian and Its Derivatives
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-04-08 09:36:17 UTC
- Modified: 2014-04-08 09:36:17 UTC
Package Managers
Synaptic is a graphical package management program for apt. It provides the same features as the apt-get command-line utility with a GUI front-end based on GTK+. Most importantly, users can install, remove, upgrade and downgrade single and multiple packages.
16 years old and still ever changing: Not even the name remains stable. What used to be called "deity" was announced as "Apt", first released as "APT" [1], shipped as "apt-get" and "apt-cache", interpreted as "A Package Tool" and "Advanced Package Tool" and is now also available as "apt" … But the initial wisdom holds: "it's still a good word in its own right". And this word has surely influenced the way we manage our software on phones, servers and space stations.
“We need ensure that we cater to our users, and there's millions of them. From those running the latest software in unstable, to people who simply want a rock solid core release. The size of Debian is increasing, and will reach a point where we're unable to guarantee basic compatibility with other packages, or the length of time it takes to do so becomes exponentially longer, unless something changes,” said Neil McGovern.
Software
Mutter can replace Openbox in LXDE, and bring a modern, elegant look to your desktop. To experiment with it, install the software package and start it...
Comparison
Threehosts.com compares Mint, Ubuntu and Debian to show which is the best Linux Distribution.
All benchmarking for this article was done from the same Intel Core i7 4770K "Haswell" system with HD Graphics 4600, 16GB of RAM, and 120GB Samsung SSD 840. No hardware or settings changed between the clean installs of the different Linux distributions. The operating systems tested from this Intel Core i7 desktop were:
- Debian 7.4 "Wheezy" stable with the Linux 3.2 kernel, GNOME Shell 3.4.2.1, Mesa 8.0.5, and GCC 4.7.
- Debian 8.0 "Jessie" testing with the Linux 3.12 kernel, GNOME Shell 3.8.4, Mesa 9.2.2, and GCC 4.8.2.
- Debian "Sid" unstable with the Linux 3.13 kernel on top of the Jessie changes.
- Ubuntu 14.04 with the Linux 3.13 kernel, Unity 7.1.2 desktop, and Mesa 10.1-rc3.
Init Systems
Branches Debate
So there you have it. There is a simple summary for all of this:
Debian Stable if your first priority is a rock-solid system, and you don't necessarily need to support the very latest hardware. This is often the case if you are setting up a server of some sort, but it may also be true if you are going to use a bit older .system as a desktop workstation,
Debian Testing if you want or need to have the latest hardware support, kernel dvelopments and advanced filesystems
Derivative distributions if you want a lot of additional packages included in the base distribution, thus saving you the time and effort of installing and configuring them.
Installer
The Debian Installer team has just announced that the first Alpha build of the Debian 8 "Jessie" version is now available for download and testing.
Wheezy
The Debian project has just released the Live CD version of the recently launched Debian 7.4 in several separate images with various flavors.
“At the moment it seems likely that an extended security support timespan for squeeze is possible. The plan is to go ahead, sort out the details as as it happens, and see how this works out and whether it is going to be continued with wheezy. The rough draft is that updates will be delivered via a separate suite (e.g. squeeze-lts), where everyone in the Debian keyring can upload in order to minimise bottlenecks and allow contributions by all interested parties," said Moritz Muehlenhoff in the official mailing list.
Derivatives
Parsix GNU/Linux, a live and installation DVD based on Debian, aiming to provide a ready-to-use, easy-to-install desktop and laptop-optimized operating system, is now at version 6.0 Test 3 and is ready for testing.
Tails, The Amnesic Incognito Live System, version 0.23, is out.
Clonezilla Live is a Linux distribution that is designed to do bare metal backup and recovery on a wide variety of file systems and operating systems. It's very similar to other older cloning software, such as True Image or Norton Ghost.
The distribution is based on Debian and, as usual, the developers have upgraded the underlying GNU/Linux operating system and the release is now based on the Debian Sid repository, as of March 31, 2014.
Grml is not a regular Linux distribution for regular users. It’s packed with a sysadmin's favorite tools and allows admins with packages for installation, deployment and system rescue. This latest version has been dubbed Ponywagon and it comes with a couple of interesting features.
LMDE
-
Only the Cinnamon and MATE editions of Linux Mint Debian Edition 201403 were released. If there’s going to be a KDE edition, it probably will be released in about a month. Prominent features of this release are support (in the installer) for computers with UEFI firmware and for GPT partitions. But the installer, as you will read in the next section, is the weakest part of this distribution, a problem it shares with most distributions that are based on Debian. And the cause of that weakness is that it does not use the Debian Installer. Rather, the installer is a custom application that does not belong on a modern desktop operating system.
When I wrote about the Linux Mint Debian Edition Release Candidate last week, I promised to look at it in more detail when the final release was made.
Knoppix
Version 7.3.0 of Knoppix is based on the usual picks from Debian stable (wheezy) and newer Desktop packages from Debian/testing and Debian/unstable (jessie). It uses kernel 3.13.0 and xorg 7.7 (core 1.15.0) for supporting current computer hardware.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- Microsoft-Connected Sites Trying to Shift Attention Away From Microsoft's Megabreach Only Days Before Important If Not Unprecedented Grilling by the US Government?
- Why does the mainstream media not entertain the possibility a lot of these talking points are directed out of Redmond?
- [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
- Microsoft ("a Dying Megacorporation that Does Not Create") and IBM: An Era of Dying Giants With Leadership Deficits and Corporate Bailouts (Subsidies From Taxpayers)
- Microsoft seems to be resorting to lots of bribes and chasing of bailouts (i.e. money from taxpayers worldwide)
-
- GNU/Linux in Kyrgyzstan: From 0.5% to 5% in Eight Years
- the country is almost the size of the UK
- Justice for Victims of Online Abuse
- The claims asserted or pushed forth by the harasser are categorically denied
- [Meme] Senior Software Engineer for Windows
- This is becoming like another Novell
- Links 18/05/2024: Deterioration of the Net, North Korean IT Workers in the US
- Links for the day
- Windows in Lebanon: Down to 12%?
- latest from statCounter
- Links 18/05/2024: Caledonia Emergency Powers, "UK Prosecutor's Office Went Too Far in the Assange Case"
- Links for the day
- US Patent and Trademark Office Sends Out a Warning to People Who Do Not Use Microsoft's Proprietary Formats
- They're punishing people who wish to use open formats
- Links 18/05/2024: Fury in Microsoft Over Studio Shutdowns, More Gaming Layoffs
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, May 17, 2024
- IRC logs for Friday, May 17, 2024
- Links 18/05/2024: KOReader, Benben v0.5.0 Progress Update, and More
- Links for the day
- [Meme] UEFI 'Secure' Boot Boiling Frog
- UEFI 'Secure' Boot: You can just ignore it. You can just turn it off. You can hack on it as a workaround. Just use Windows dammit!
- The Market Wants to Delete Windows and Install GNU/Linux, UEFI 'Secure' Boot Must Go!
- To be very clear, this has nothing to do with security and those who insist that it is have absolutely no credentials
- In the United States Of America the Estimated Share of Google Search Grew After Microsoft's Chatbot Hype (Which Coincided With Mass Layoffs at Bing)
- Microsoft's chatbot hype started in late 2022
- Techrights Will Categorically Object to Any Attempts to Deny Its Right to Publish Informative, Factual Material
- we'll continue to publish about 20 pages per day while challenging censorship attempts
- Links 17/05/2024: Microsoft Masks Layoffs With Return-to-office (RTO) Mandates, More YouTube Censorship
- Links for the day
- YouTube Progresses to the Next Level
- YouTube is a ticking time bomb
- Journalists and Human Rights Groups Back Julian Assange Ahead of Monday's Likely Very Final Decision
- From the past 24 hours...
- [Meme] George Washington and the Bill of Rights
- Centuries have passed since the days of George Washington, but the principles are still the same
- Daniel Pocock: "I've Gone to Some Lengths to Demonstrate How Corporate Bad Actors Have Used Amateur-hour Codes of Conduct to Push Volunteers Into Modern Slavery"
- "As David explains, the Codes of Conduct should work the other way around to regulate the poor behavior of corporations who have been far too close to the Debian Suicide Cluster."
- Video of Richard Stallman's Talk From Four Weeks Ago
- 2-hour video of Richard Stallman speaking less than a month ago
- statCounter Says Twitter/X Share in Russia Fell From 23% to 2.3% in 3 Years
- it seems like YouTube gained a lot
- Journalist Who Won Awards for His Coverage of the Julian Assange Ordeals Excluded and Denied Access to Final Hearing
- One can speculate about the true reason/s
- Richard Stallman's Talk, Scheduled for Two Days Ago, Was Not Canceled But Really Delayed
- American in Paris
- 3 More Weeks for Daniel Pocock's Campaign to Win a Seat in European Parliament Elections
- Friday 3 weeks from now is polling day
- Microsoft Should Have Been Fined and Sanctioned Over UEFI 'Lockout' (Locking GNU/Linux Out of New PCs)
- Why did that not happen?
- Gemini Links 16/05/2024: Microsoft Masks Layoffs With Return-to-office (RTO) Mandates, Cash Issues
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, May 16, 2024
- IRC logs for Thursday, May 16, 2024
- Ex-Red Hat CEO Paul Cormier Did Not Retire, He Just Left IBM/Red Hat a Month Ago (Ahead of Layoff Speculations)
- Rather than retire he took a similar position at another company
- Linux.com Made Its First 'Article' in Over and Month, It Was 10 Words in Total, and It's Not About Linux
- play some 'webapp' and maybe get some digital 'certificate' for a meme like 'clown computing'
- [Meme] Never Appease the Occupiers
- Freedom requires truth. Free speech emancipates.
- Thorny Issues, Violent Response
- They say protests (or strikes) that do not disrupt anything are simply not effective. The same can be said about reporting.
- GNU/Linux in Malaysia: From 0.2 Percent to 6+ Percent
- That's like 30-fold increase in relative share
- Liberty in Liberia? Windows Falls Below 10% and Below iOS
- This is clearly a problem for Microsoft
- Techrights Congratulates Raspberry Pi (With Caution and Reservations)
- Raspberry Pi will "make or break" based on the decisions made in its boardroom
- OSI Makes a Killing for Bill Gates and Microsoft (Plagiarism and GPL Violations Whitewashed and Openwashed)
- meme and more
- The FSF Ought to Protest Against UEFI 'Secure Boot' (Like It Used To)
- libreplanet-discuss stuff
- People Who Defend Richard Stallman's Right to Deliver Talks About His Work Are Subjected to Online Abuse and Censorship
- Stallman video removed
- 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
- 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
- Links 16/05/2024: Orangutans as Political Props, VMware Calls Proprietary 'Free'
- Links for the day
- The Only Thing the So-called 'Hey Hi Revolution' Gave Microsoft is More Debt
- Microsoft bailouts
- 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
- 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
- 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