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What happened to Debian?

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RainmakerRaw
Posts: 5
Joined: 2015-04-08 17:55

What happened to Debian?

#1 Post by RainmakerRaw »

I'll preface this by openly stating that it's not a troll attempt, nor a fanboy soapbox. I have run GNU/Linux for well over a decade now, and as always I use what works best at any given time and for any given situation. As such my VPS runs Wheezy (headless obviously) because it just never dies and it runs light. My desktops run everything from CentOS and Fedora to Arch and Mint and everything in between. Since I maintain separate data disks and a NAS I tend to format / quite often on various machines when the whimsy takes me after a new distro release catches my eye. As I said, I'm not a fanboy unless you count GNU/Linux generally speaking.

However (there is always a 'but'!)...

I have been fairly dismayed at my return foray to Debian on the desktop. I've run it in the past on older machines, and always loved it in the sarge/etch days. The community was just that, and talk of the social contract and the desire to push free software and help others was strong. Sure some of the developers were eccentric, but what's new? :lol: It was always 'the' byword for stock stable reliability, and a metric for others.

Having taken a shine to Jessie initially I scaled it on a couple of VMs and started testing it for various scenarios (server, desktop, firewall/router). I noticed some pretty big bugs even when it was in freeze, and the response from the community was a one line 'RTFM' type response and I was frozen out. I then posted to the email list to seek advice about reporting said bug - no replies. Eventually I gave up and went back to a distro that works.

On the stable release of Jessie I decided to give it another whirl. After all, Debian and Stable means something, right? Same bugs. It's impossible to import an .ovpn file through network manager's applet without a segfault occurring. Completely predictable, totally reproducible, and as it turns out it's been reported as an open bug for a long time now with no fix. It's essentially the same bug fixed by Ubuntu (and Debian) several years ago, but it's cropped back up and open bug reports remain. What use is a stable OS often touted for enterprise, and relied upon as a bastion of free software for all - even those in impoverished and oppressive regimes - when it can't connect to a secure server without recourse to a shell not all users understand (or wish to use for networking for the sake of tidiness if nothing else)?

'Never mind I'll find a workaround', I thought. I'd been running mate as it's lightning fast, light and gives instant web page rendering even on ancient hardware in a way only Debian can provide. No other distro, even the mate-father Mint, is as light or fast as this on a mate DE. Cinnamon, as it turns out, gives a workaround as although the segfault occurs using nm-applet there's Cinnamon's own network settings, which do work! Great! However I note that although Gnome shell imports ovpn files perfectly, XFCE and LXDE also segfault the same way as mate and cinnamon. KDE is even worse in that it pretends to import the file and even connect 'securely' to the remote server, but actually nothing really happened and you're still connected to the original ISP only. A shocking security risk for many vulnerable users!

I load up Jessie in a VM today to install it to have a poke around again, now it's stable. The mate release has a desktop installer shortcut inviting me to 'install sid'. It seems, lamentably, the days of Debian stable being uber-polished and solid are not what they were. How do such blatantly obvious things slip through to a 'stable' release? The community are directly aggressive to people seeking to contribute, and devs just ignore them while bugs stay open. What an absolute shame. :(

So fellow users, am I wrong? Is my experience of Debian stable's new found rough edges and lacklustre bugfixing a statistical anomoly? It's ironic that the Arch and CentOS communities both have reputations for being abrasive to noobs, and yet I've found quite the opposite (though I'm hardly a noob). They welcome questions, embrace and downright encourage poking and prodding that results in bug reports, and everyone just gets along. How sad that Debian's community and user experience have left such a sour taste when there's such a rich and wonderful heritage to build on. Or is it just me? I'd invite your sensible comments and look forward to hearing from you. I'd dearly love to switch back to Debian full time but with such glaring omissions I can't, but maybe in time. If you made it this far, thanks for reading.

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Head_on_a_Stick
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Re: What happened to Debian?

#2 Post by Head_on_a_Stick »

At the risk of sounding like a complete fanboi (guilty as charged), I think Jessie is a fantastic release and I have encountered no problems with it whatsoever in the month or two I have been using it.

I'm not exactly a "heavy" user though, so...
deadbang

twoflowers

Re: What happened to Debian?

#3 Post by twoflowers »

Well, systemd was forced into debian and a bunch of good developers were forced out of debian ...

confuseling
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Joined: 2009-10-21 01:03

Re: What happened to Debian?

#4 Post by confuseling »

twoflowers wrote:Well, systemd was forced into debian and a bunch of good developers were forced out of debian ...
Name them.

I've come across one aspiring DD - as in still under a mentor, and no upload rights - as far as I remember.
The Forum's search box is terrible. Use site specific search, e.g.
https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3A ... terms+here

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HITMAN
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Re: What happened to Debian?

#5 Post by HITMAN »

RainmakerRaw wrote: <snip>
I have been fairly dismayed at my return foray to Debian on the desktop. I've run it in the past on older machines, and always loved it in the sarge/etch days.

<snip>
It seems, lamentably, the days of Debian stable being uber-polished and solid are not what they were. How do such blatantly obvious things slip through to a 'stable' release?
<snip>
Admittedly, I think Etch was Debian's last truly polished release - excepting Jessie, as I've only had 8 installed a few days. I left for #! (crunchbang) because there were bugs in 5.0 which remained unsolved with the release of 6.0 (I've been away too long to recall what the bugs were). Then #! switched from Ubuntu to Debian 7 and things were working very well for me. Sadly, Crunchbang has ended development under corenominal; since security updates for #! were unavailable, I switched to Jessie. Honestly, I'm very pleased with the netinst/DVD combination install on this Asus lappy. Plus, as a Linux user since 2001, I have noted shifts in attitudes both on USENET and in Forums from various distributions but, like tides, good and bad attitudes come and go - there's always a jerk in every group, but most people aren't snarky RTFM keyboard coward types.
HITman
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Head_on_a_Stick
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Re: What happened to Debian?

#6 Post by Head_on_a_Stick »

HITMAN wrote:Crunchbang has ended development under corenominal; since security updates for #! were unavailable
[off-topic]The CrunchBang repositories were *never* updated anyway during the lifetime of Waldorf so the situation is actually completely unchanged since corenomial quit -- we're still offering support over on the forums, FWIW[/off-topic]
deadbang

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HITMAN
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Re: What happened to Debian?

#7 Post by HITMAN »

[quote="HITMAN"]Crunchbang has ended development under corenominal; since security updates for #! were unavailable[/quote]

[quote="Head_on_a_Stick"]
[off-topic]The CrunchBang repositories were *never* updated anyway during the lifetime of Waldorf so the situation is actually completely unchanged since corenomial quit -- we're still offering support over on the forums, FWIW[/off-topic][/quote]

More precisely, until lately apticron had no errors, then the servers became unreachable ...
HITman
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Head_on_a_Stick
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Re: What happened to Debian?

#8 Post by Head_on_a_Stick »

HITMAN wrote:then the servers became unreachable ...
They are still there, they're just slow -- increase the timeout for APT.

Code: Select all

sudo su
cat > /etc/apt.conf.d/99timeout << "EOF"
Acquire::http::Timeout "60";
Acquire::ftp::Timeout "60";
EOF
http://packages.crunchbang.org/waldorf/pool/main/
deadbang

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HITMAN
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Re: What happened to Debian?

#9 Post by HITMAN »

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:
HITMAN wrote:then the servers became unreachable ...
They are still there, they're just slow -- increase the timeout for APT.

Code: Select all

sudo su
cat > /etc/apt.conf.d/99timeout << "EOF"
Acquire::http::Timeout "60";
Acquire::ftp::Timeout "60";
EOF
http://packages.crunchbang.org/waldorf/pool/main/
Thank you; no need now that I've switched to Jessie.
HITman
My goal is to be a man of Honor, Integrity and Truthfulness.

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