RE: gEDA-user: Help request

["Adrian Nania" <Adrian.Nania@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Al,

Your review is great and I could not agree more. Just a small detail:
Ubuntu default gEDA packages are to old to be of any use.

Adrian Nania

-----Original Message-----
From: geda-user-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:geda-user-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of al davis
Sent: Friday, June 23, 2006 6:45 AM
To: gEDA user mailing list
Subject: Re: gEDA-user: Help request

On Friday 16 June 2006 16:21, Svenn Are Bjerkem wrote:
> What is it with Ubuntu or Kubuntu that makes you _not_ use Debian 
> directly?

I use Debian directly, but I think I can explain it...  

First, take a look at what Debian offers...  There are 3
variants:  "stable", "testing" and "unstable". 

"Stable" is in the opinion of many, too stable for comfort.  It has two
important distinguishing characteristics.  The first is that it is
reputed to be extremely reliable, making it well suited for servers that
absolutely must work, with a minimum of down time.  The second is that
it is a long time between releases, and even when a version is released
it is a year or so behind.  With a 2 year release cycle, this means it
is about
3 years behind when the next major release comes out.  I have heard it
called "Debian Fossil".  This is ok for a server, usually, but "desktop"
users usually want something more recent.  It gets a lot of criticism
for this.  Between major updates, the only changes important bug fixes.
Security related bugs are addressed very fast.  When there is such a fix
in a new "upstream" release of a package, they won't use the new
release.  Instead, they patch the old release to fix the bug.

On the other extreme is "unstable" which tries to be always current.  It
usually includes the most recent "stable" release of most packages.  It
usually doesn't go so far as the development snapshots.  To do this, it
means daily updates.  
Sometimes a single package can be updated several times in a week.
Occasionally it breaks.

"Testing" is somewhere in between, but much closer to "unstable".
Basically, if a package survives 10 days without serious bug reports in
"unstable", it automatically moves to "testing".  There are daily
updates, but they are not as big as in "unstable".  When a package is so
volatile to be itself updated daily, these versions do not propagate to
"testing".  Occasionally it breaks.

This set of 3 does not provide what a typical casual desktop user wants,
which is fairly stable, but not so much as to be years behind.

Debian is a distribution for techies.  There are certain aspects of it
that make it appeal to the more technically oriented.  
Beginners are often intimidated by this.

Looking at these two issues, this is where Ubuntu comes in.  It provides
a sort-of stable release, with major updates about twice a year, then
holding except for important updates between them.  As I understand,
they take a snapshot of Debian (testing or unstable, I am not sure
which), freeze it, and harden a subset of packages that are important to
mainstream desktop users.  It is a similar process to Debian stable, but
only on a subset of the packages and a subset of the platforms.  This
becomes the "main" part of the distribution.  The rest of Debian becomes
the "universe" part of the distribution, without any additional testing.
You need to enable the universe.  It is off by default.  It is a check
box in the graphic installer.

The latest version (Dapper) of Ubuntu has a graphic installer and a live
CD.  You can run off the CD like Knoppix with a subset of the packages.
Then click the install icon to install on your hard disk if you want.
It is a nice graphic installer, with a few issues that are expected on a
first release.  The previous release (Breezy) used the Debian installer.

There are several variants of Ubuntu, but they are all on an equal
level, with different focuses.  There is "kubuntu" which substitutes KDE
for Gnome.  There is a server version.  There are a few others.

As I understand, Ubuntu gives the changes back to Debian, which it
respects as sort of a master distribution.  Lots of the Debian packages
do have Ubuntu entries in the change logs.

So, it is a fairly up-to-date, newbie friendly variant of Debian.  I
think of it as the Debian variant between stable and testing.

When you want to move on to Debian (testing or unstable), just change
some info in /etc/apt/sources.list, then "sudo apt-get update" and "sudo
apt-get dist-upgrade".

Regarding Stuart's comment about a disproportionate share of install
problems on Ubuntu (but not Debian).  The difference is that Ubuntu,
being more newbie friendly and being marketed as such, attracts more
newbies who are likely to have trouble by overlooking things that people
who have been around consider obvious.  I think it is good that it is
bringing these people into the fold, who would still be on MS-Windows
otherwise.  
Most of them who try to use the CD don't realize that Ubuntu packages
for gEDA already exist.  You just need to "sudo apt-get install geda".

I am not trying to convince anyone to use any particular distribution.
I am just conveying what I believe their intent is.
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