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Lenny release date a little excessive?

By my count, this article references that Lenny was released in February at least 4 times. This seems a little bit redundant. I mean, I know everyone gets excited when a new version is released, but to repeat this one fact in each section is a bit silly. 173.8.168.145 (talk) 00:26, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, my count was off. It's mentioned 5 times plus a chart/graphic (so 6?). 173.8.168.145 (talk) 00:33, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Lenny dedicated in memory of Thiemo Seufer

I will leave it at the discretion of those whom most carefully edit this page to decide if it is relavent. Thiemo Seufer died on Dec 26, 2008 and was a very active member of the Debian team and was in charge of many projects. The Debian team decided to dedicate Lenny to his memory on December 29, 2008. 72.54.34.34 (talk) 02:54, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

DCC Alliance

The DCC Alliance article is up for deletion. Those interested may wish to weigh in at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/DCC_Alliance and/or help improve (correct...) the piece as a historical record of past diversions. —Sladen 08:01, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Sid/Lenny screenshot

I added a Debian Sid Gnome-2.20 screenshot in the article before ports.but anonymous(190.144.171.19 as of now) user who deletes this!I hope showing newer Gnome and Debian is definitely a must do.as people's perception will be debian running only old softies+sec.updates and is meant for server.while Debian testing or unstable(Sid) are getting up2date packages and may be even better than ubuntu with sid using upstart and pulseaudio =).so please control this anonymous user deleting the screenshot again and again :x Praka123 (talk) 19:51, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

First, OS screenshots are useless. Second, what is the difference between the Etch screenshot and the Sid one? Can you tell the desktop has really "improved"? Third, your screenshots are far from the default installed desktop. Last, what is the copyright situation of the wallpaper on your screenshot? --190.66.184.60 (talk) 21:15, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

I dont think so.for many people who are new to GNU/Linux and especially Debian,the only distro they can "see" is Debian Stable or Etch as of now.while there are Lenny which is almost stable with much more current packages and Debian Sid contains the latest packages.no wonder there is a distro called sidux made by Debian Sid users(kde esp) just to enjoy the Debian+latest packages.let it be there,dude!I aint doing any harm,I just want to remove the false norm that Debian means Old packages with security fix only.instead urges people to try Sid if you can! Praka123 (talk) 19:47, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

What has users' perception to do with Wikipedia? The page is not supposed to be a promo for Debian, is it? -- Adam 213.156.49.141 (talk) 21:15, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Debian Sid is not ever released, at least not officially by Debian. Consider it a development version. Wikipedia doesn't represent unreleased development versions as released software. Not to discourage you from using Sid; by doing so (and hopefully reporting bugs), you are playing a valuable role in making the next release better :) mmj (talk) 05:35, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Merge with Debian bug tracking system

No sufficient notability established for Debian bug tracking system. JASpencer (talk) 17:40, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

And what does this statement have to do with the name of this section? -- Yellowdesk (talk) 19:02, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

• Perhaps you are unfamiliar how the article merging WP:Merge and article-for-deletion WP:AfD procedures work at Wikipedia. It has *everything* to do with merging the Debian bug tracking system article into the Debian article so that Debian bug tracking system is, after the proposed merger, effectively deleted as per the WP:Notability policy. For example, the people who want to campaign for keeping Debian bug tracking system as a separate article could demonstrate one or more notable uses of the Debian bug tracking system outside of Debian. Such a beyond-Debian use of Debian bug tracking system would reveal just how much of a notable life of its own that Debian bug tracking system has taken on in & of itself. If Debian bug tracking system is just a facet of Debian Linux, Debian BSD, and Debian Hurd distributions, then Debian bug tracking system is probably not noteworthy. But if people regularly consider whether to install JIRA versus FogBugz versus Debian bug tracking system on SUSE or on Cygwin or on Fedora, then Debian bug tracking system can probably be demonstrated to have established notability in itself, standing on its own two feet, beyond being merely a facet within Debian (and thus merely a section or a paragraph or a sentence or a phrase in the Debian article as non-noteworthy subjects are properly treated in Wikipedia). If Debian died, is Debian bug tracking system so noteworthy that it is likely live on as the rest of Debian fell away? Or does Debian bug tracking system's worth of mentioning emanate solely from riding on Debian distributions' coat-tails. If the former, then Debian bug tracking system likely notable (and you should be able to give a compelling line of reasoning). If the latter, then Debian bug tracking system is likely non-notable. optikos (talk) 23:41, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Suite

What is a Debian suite ? sarge, sarge-volatile, sarge-backports, etch, etch-m68k, etch-volatile, etch-backports, lenny, sid, experimental. --Mac (talk) 08:34, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

¿ yes —Preceding unsigned comment added by Petchboo (talk • contribs) 18:56, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

GNU/Linux

Shouldn't it say it's a GNU/Linux-distribution since that is what its name says? --212.247.27.19 (talk) 21:50, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Any Linux distribution out there uses GNU, it's just Debian that mentions it at all. Moreover, Debian also comes with GNU HURD kernel, but it's scarcely used. In everyday speech the term Linux distribution was coined and it's used even by people that bother to mention that Debian is GNU/Linux. All for the sake of brevity. People that read (and know the difference) can see that it's a GNU/Linux, as it's said in the title itself. If they don't understand the GNU/Linux vs Linux case they won't care anyway. Actually this makes Debian comparable to Ubuntu, Suse, Fedora and any other Linux distibution for average Joe (or Jane).Llewelyn MT (talk) 09:32, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Not all Linux distributions use GNU, several that I know of use OpenBSD and I know there was a FreeBSD userland and Linux kernel distribution at one point at least. 74.13.39.148 (talk) 06:00, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

For Debian it probably makes sense (from a disambiguation POV) to specify GNU/Linux when talking about the distro that uses the Linux kernel, since there's also GNU/Hurd, GNU/kFreeBSD GNU/NetBSD, which run the Hurd, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD kernels respectively. You also have Nexenta, which could be considered to be GNU/OpenSolaris. Andareed (talk) 06:09, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

The article already elaborates on Debian's relationship with GNU. Given that it is implied that all Debian systems are GNU, the most common term ("Linux distribution") can be used without confusion when referring to Debian distributions which use the Linux kernel. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 06:54, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree that Debian should be described as a GNU/Linux distribution. Chris and a few others do not think so. That is why there is a discussion going on right now at the Linux Talk page Talk:Linux and at Talk:Linux/Referring_to_this_article. There are many editors who think the term GNU/linux is apropriate and it should be used and not removed from wikipedia. Feel free to take part in the discussions and give your comments there.--Grandscribe (talk) 09:30, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I think we should use whatever the distribution itself uses (such as "GNU/Linux distribution" for Debian GNU/Linux and "Linux distribution" for Red Hat Enterprise Linux). --Evice (talk) 04:26, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Err, no. Articles aren't written from the point of view of their subjects. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 16:19, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

That's true, but it isn't written from your point of view, either. Besides, my suggestion was more about consistency. It's odd seeing an article use one term and then using another (such as if the French fries article referred to its subject as chips for most of the article, despite the fact that the name of the article uses the American term for the food). --Evice (talk) 11:02, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Criticism

I think that it's worth including a Criticism section after the recent OpenSSL vulnerability. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.134.56 (talk) 08:30, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Criticism sections are poor writing style. The criticisms (IceWeasel and OpenSSL vulnerability, for instance) should definitely be addressed, but not lumped together in a criticism section. Find a neutral way to present the information. — Omegatron (talk) 01:41, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Epiphany Web Browser

In Debian 'Etch' Isnt there a web browser named Epiphany that replaced Iceweasel? Is it also still a rebranding of firefox? Cbwcjw (talk) 23:25, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

No, that is false. Epiphany is a web browser for GNOME, and is part of GNOME project. Iceweasel is rebranded Firefox. These are totally unrelated. If I recall correctly, both Epiphany and Iceweasel are installed in default GNOME-based desktop install. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.100.3.251 (talk) 08:57, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Introduction

Can we have this back the way it was, please? Per the rationale I gave in my edit summary:

please see the ongoing discussion at Talk:Linux. The intro specifically presents "Debian" before "Debian GNU/Linux" because this article incorporates the non-Linux Debians

I'm fine with taking "Linux" out of the infobox and just leaving it as GNU, given the historical affiliation between the two projects. But the rest was fine as it was, and was worked out carefully in the talk archives. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 19:52, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

The big problem you keep running into in trying to systematically censor the phrase "GNU/Linux" is your inconsistent application or emphasis of principles that you espouse when it is convenient for your purpose. The elephant in the room is your regular, unsubstantiated insistence that common usage trumps everything in the case of "Linux", therefore, you reason, get rid of "GNU/Linux". Yet, you conveniently forget this criterion when it comes to, for example, the common usage of "Debian". What do people commonly mean by "Debian"? You know all too well what they mean. But instead of even following your own rules as with "Linux", you rig the very first paragraph with a historical or some other context that allows you to pervert the introductory (thus, most important) placement or order of terms such as "GNU" and "Linux" that most people would use to describe the software commonly meant by "Debian". The purpose being served is your wish to demote or censor language that you personally do not agree with, regardless of whether it deserves its place or even if it is consistent with your very own principles that you espouse when convenient.

Why not just make a page called "Debian Project"? That would be the obvious way to indicate the minor stuff that they do, in addition to the software that people commonly associate with "Debian". Even then, however, "GNU/Linux" would have to be prominent in an introduction, given the overwhelming area of focus of the project, and, uh, the fact that the project itself calls its software "Debian GNU/Linux", in all but the rarest of circumstances.

This, of course, is assuming that "common usage" is all you claim it is. It's remarkable how much leeway you have been granted over this point for so long. Forget about Wikipedia for a moment. Consider "African American" versus "black". "Black" is used far more often, therefore, let's censor "African American", replacing it with "black." That's very shaky reasoning, or maybe you mean something else. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Freed42 (talk • contribs) 21:42, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

If you have a problem with my "censoring" (which incidentally happened ten months ago now, raising the question of why you waited so long to bring it up) then as I say you can bring it up in the appropriate place - shopping around on random articles for an audience which is more sympathetic isn't particularly good form. I've previously argued for this page to be "Debian GNU/Linux", but the consensus has been that because none of the non-Linux Debians are particularly notable it didn't make sense to have separate articles - have a look at a random snapshot from two years ago to see that there's been little change until today. The onus is on you to convince the community that the introductory sentence should refer specifically to Debian GNU/Linux and not Debian-the-OS. And again, I'm not addressing vaguely similar arguments about completely different articles - there's been more than enough said on this particular subject to have no need for random new contrived analogies. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 23:04, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

OK, how about a concrete suggestion? How about this intro: "According to the Debian Project, 'Debian is a free operating system (OS) for your computer. An operating system is the set of basic programs and utilities that make your computer run. Debian uses the Linux kernel (the core of an operating system), but most of the basic OS tools come from the GNU project; hence the name GNU/Linux.'"? It reads reasonably and it is qualified with "according" for those who doubt that the people of the Debian Project can summarize what it is that they themselves do. Yet another concession to the "Linux" side is that the Debian hyperlinks can be replaced with the Wikipedia links, i.e., links to pages that undergo regular removal or demoted placement of any "GNU/Linux" instances. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Freed42 (talk • contribs) 00:00, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm happy with such compromises. Unlike almost any other example, Debian is explicitly a GNU system with a swappable kernel, and I'm happy for such wording to be used. Let's see if we can work on perfecting what we're replacing the current wording with. Firstly, we need to drop "your computer", it's an inappropriate use of second-person. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 06:55, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Two points: first, as an aside, it is quite straightforward to: pick another distribution (Redhat, SUSE, Ubuntu, whatever); find a non-Linux kernel--GNU hurd would be the easiest I think since one can expect the biggest potential hurdle, GNU libc, to already be available in the other distros; and swap Linux for it, and all the while note the obvious presence of the GNU software. Just because the distribution may not advertise these things on its web pages, for example, does not imply that the capability is essentially any different than Debian in those two respects (explicit GNU system and swappable kernel). Indeed, it is predictable that commercial distros have little incentive to advertise such functionality equivalent to Debian, in the interest of minimizing support costs and not suggesting free alternatives to add-ons that they may sell.

Second, thanks for the grammar suggestion. I was looking for the proper device for substituting within a quote: brackets. So we could replace the "your"s with "[a]"s. I suppose some folks might replace a bunch of wording with hyperlinks. I would certainly expect the obvious hyperlinks, but am otherwise content with the wording. Moreover, if it stays a quotation, replacements of words will lead to a load of bracketed hyperlinks which may be ugly. I know very little about the stylistic standards expected on Wikipedia, however. I am sure you know more. Freed42 (talk) 05:13, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Neither your assertion that it is "straightforward" to swap kernels on an average distro nor your speculation that the reason such things are never carried out is because of hypothetical conflicts with the "commercial add-ons" sold by distro vendors pass the laugh test, and until you can point to something more reliable than your own opinion there's no reason to take such commentary (which has no sway with the mainstream community) into account.

As for the grammar suggestion, I'd missed the single-quote which indicated that the line in question was a quote. I don't believe that a quote is necessary here, and that there's no reason we can't phrase it accurately ourselves.

Anyway, in light of a failure to achieve consensus for the new version of the lead, I'm going to switch this back later. We should work on backporting individual improvements to the old version, which will be less likely to cause disputes. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:06, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

We could continue the discussion of those (not directly related) technical matters in a more appropriate forum. However, I find it bizarre that one day you are happy with the compromise of the intro wording, I agree about the intro (suggesting bracketed expressions within the quote), and then the very next day you declare out of nowhere that there is a failure in consensus. You did not even bother to show a single point of disagreement over the wording of the intro. Where is it? Freed42 (talk) 14:02, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

The two aren't mutually exclusive. I agree that the intro can be improved, but first the intro should be restored to the layout which has had consensus for the last two years or so, which gives us an undisputed foundation for editing. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 14:40, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Merging as a self purpose

By methodology, none of the proposals to merge Wikipedia articles refers to a clear expression of purpose. Initially in starting the discussion and finally in the course of contributions the lack of expression is often overriden by the challenge to keep the sizing recommendation. It would be a good approach, beyond merging, to move portions from here to there and generally improve the linking between the texts proposed for merger. Could it be possible to revert the proposal to more productive attempts to improve structures? Please overcome the vanity of authors.Wireless friend (talk) 13:20, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Citation Formatting

Please use Wikipedia:Citation_templates to write your citations. Thx. VShaka (talk) 10:49, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Are Ian Murdock and wife Debra divorced?

The main page refers to her as "ex-wife" but I can find no such reference whatsoever on the web —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.219.155.164 (talk) 09:50, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

The Ian Murdock article has a source; I added it to this article as well.-- era (Talk | History) 12:37, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

64 Bit on x86

The article does not mention support for 64bit processors in a clear way. It's hard to understand if the amd64 bit architecture is the correct to use on x86-64bit. I suggest that there should be a own section describing the basic steps and what to choose and the advantages and disadvantages. As far as I know it's possible to address 64GB of ram on a 32bit kernel and this probably a large enough amount of memory for most people. Hope someone with a little insight on this can write a little section in the main article! Cheers!

No, a 32 bit kernel can handle 2/3 (or 4-8 if your CPU supports PAE and you use a PAE enabled kernel)

A 64 bit kernel (EMT64/amd64/x86_64 (these are identical) can adress like 1 terabyte or something. Most modern CPUs can run these (about half of pentium 4s, nearly all AMD ones of that era and beyond, and virtually all modern CPUs (With the Pentium M, and the original Core[1]duo being the exceptions) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.16.153.191 (talk) 23:35, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

If you have a modernish CPU, then it can most likely run 64 bit kernel. The advantages is more addressing space, the disadvantage is in the past there was some issues with having to have both 32 bit and 64 bit libaries installed in order to get flash to work. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.16.153.191 (talk) 23:37, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps you are confused between the architecture names. What Debian refers to as amd64 is also commonly known as x86-64 or Intel 64, and occasionally known as x64 or EM64T. They're all equivalent. mmj (talk) 05:29, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

GNU/kFreeBSD

GNU/kFreeBSD isn't even mentioned. I suggest breaking Debian down into separate articles, focusing each one on the actual OS (Linux, HURD, FreeBSD), and leaving "Debian" to describe what they actually do.

 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.213.169.83 (talk) 19:21, 3 May 2009 (UTC) 

Kernels Table

The kernel table comparing versions of released kernel to Debian releases version is completely useless, non relevant information.

I think that the kernel version _is_ relevant, but not compared to the latest upstream released version, I'd put the kernel version in the other release table.

Margamanterola (talk) 17:44, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Sid release?

I know it's impossible to say when a sid "release" is made, but shouldn't we say (updated daily) instead of (N/A), just so it sounds more like it's still being developed daily (and at a blazing fast speed) rather than being developed n/a'ly. Can't really think of a better term other than "updated daily", and I can't seem to find how to edit that part.120.28.71.120 (talk) 15:28, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Sure, I agree with that. It is not perfect, but I think it is the best option. Anyway, are there any "daily ISOs" of sid? SF007 (talk) 15:44, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Not really. It's very time consuming to make one, since it'll be outdated in a few hours. There is the iso's of sidux though, which are quarterly snapshots of sid. I do recall people posting weekly iso's of a sid installer... not sure what happened to it though.120.28.64.72 (talk) 14:51, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. It is true the ISOs would be ALWAYS outdated, nevertheless, at lest weekly or monthly ISOs would be nice. SF007 (talk) 16:11, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

The cost, in the lead

It is written in the lead that "the Debian GNU/Linux project ... would cost $819,274,547 to redevelop from scratch". It is also written that "The cost of developing Debian 4.0 etch ... close to US$13 billion". A billion is either 10⁹ or 10¹². In both cases, 13 billion is much more than 819,274,547. What could it mean? Boris Tsirelson (talk) 07:03, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Global terminology

On the release of squeeze, it says 'Spring 2010', Spring is September where I am, and March in the northern hemisphere, so which is it? This should really be put in global terms, rather than northern hemisphere terms, narrowed down to the closest month maybe —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.238.250.92 (talk) 20:42, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

This is moot now since it's obviously not going to be released when they were aiming. See [1]. Actually, estimating a release date for any Debian release is problematic since they are not time-based. They freeze it, then it's released when the number of release critical bugs that they care about reaches 0. mmj (talk) 05:17, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

More information

I also miss information about Fonts, IRC places and popularity-contest.

Where does the funding of the project comes from?--109.169.62.35 (talk) 03:44, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

There really isn't much, but generally from donations and from Software in the Public Interest. 72.64.220.179 (talk) 16:36, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Arm and Eglibc: Conlicting information

Under Squeeze, this information appears to be incorrect, they are opposite of what the articles say.

dropped architectures: alpha, arm.[63] eglibc in favour of glibc.[64]

Reference 63

alpha 22:51, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

After we sent mails to debian-alpha last month we came together with the porters to the conclusion that we cannot keep up this port for Squeeze. We will start purging the packages from testing in about a fortnight. Bugs specific to alpha are no longer release critical. -snip- armel 22:51, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

The buildd speed isn't always as wanted, but work is underway to replace machines with newer hardware. Also there are discussions on getting the buildds within DSA-control after that; we would appreciate that. Anyways, nothing really worries us.

Reference 63:

Debian is switching to EGLIBC

I have just uploaded Embedded GLIBC (EGLIBC) into the archive (it is currently waiting in the NEW queue), which will soon replace the GNU C Library (GLIBC).

So both of these are wrong unless something has changed that has not been referenced. --24.26.251.35 (talk) 22:51, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Color of the tables

Until 2009-11-23, the colors of the tables were "Red, Yellow, Green, Blue". This was logical, because the past could be depicted in traffic lights, and the future was blue (without "date of expiry" to warn about with traffic lights). Why these color pattern was changed to the dreadful pattern "red, light green, dark green und yellow"? This pattern lacks any kind of logic! Can it be changed back? --78.52.234.205 (talk) 08:20, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Usually I would disagree if it werent for the fact that we're talking about Debian releases. Blue is percieved as "serious", and green as "playful", and even though "traffic light" makes sense, it would seem better to use yellow to indicate a warning. However, being a Debian unstable user (at the moment, usually I used 'testing', but I gave up on 'stable' as its quite obsolete), I have to say that even though Debian project labels versions in such an uncomfortable way, the "upcoming" versions are usually more usable on desktop than 'stable'. Then again, since Debian is probably still most used on servers (it is defacto standard, isn't it?), perhaps the new color scheme is better suited. In other words, I can't help you decide ;-) --Paxcoder (talk) 12:21, 26 November 2009 (UTC)