@AdamL What is the problem with Debian exactly? I am sure it could be made to work. Is it that grub doesn't work?
@AdamL On the screen you posted (for a new disk devoted all to debian) just press yes. That is the "correct" choice. If the disk must have some other uses (or OSs, etc) then the installation may be different. But this is not the important point for Debian, the really important point is how you have partitioned your disk and if it is UEFI or MS-DOS. How have you partitioned the disk? Does it need to be UEFI?
@AdamL And, the crux of the matter, if MS-DOS, which partition have been made bootable? Root (/) or /boot ? Is there a swap partition?
@Issac the screen shots I showed before were from a virtual machine installation @FaheemMitha no it rebooted to a blank screen with a blinking cursor. I signed up for the Debian forums so I can post everything there, assuming there isn't a stack exchange for every Linux distro that exists, which, if there is, seems like slippery slope
But in the final prompt for the forum sign up, it said to check my inbox for an activation link that was sent, which I didn't receive, so I emailed them about it
@AdamL No, I meant any site where you can paste stuff. Like pastebin.com, though I don't know if you can post images there. I suppose a new SE room would also work.
But it would be more helpful if you could answer the questions I asked, instead of posting random images.
@AdamL Either will work to the same end, graphical is usually easier to follow, text install is older, but useful on some computers that have problems with some video modes, not so much anymore with present day hardware.
@AdamL I would say try graphical, if in trouble: ask. You can always try again with simple install later.
@FaheemMitha yes it was obviously installed in both, what i incorrectly phrased as not installing grub was actually the selecting of no to the first image i showed, the second one i think states that im about to go ahead with a grub install
well i don't know why it was necessary to phrase that by calling it something terrifying like a "network mirror" but ok done
is it going to be helpful to people if i participate in "popularity contest" i normally don't fare well in these which if im honest is entirely my own fault
@AdamL There is no point going to town unless you know your installation is actually working. Once you have a working installation, you can install whatever you want.
DE stuff is definitely unnecessary if you don't even know if a reboot is going to work.
@Tim Miss: ease of installation and stupid PPAs. Gain: stability, all free software. All DE (gnome, KDE. lxde, etc available for instalation) (but never a good idea to install more than two at the same time).
@FaheemMitha sure they just had this facebook post where everyone commented the Linux distribution they support and I started to um and ah about it. I just want to learn how things work on a deeper level than I do and Debian seemed the most transparent for that purpose
@Tim Ah, and the most important gain: Debian is a Distro always able to update to newer versions. Like updating from Debian 9 to Debian 10. In Ubuntu you must re-install. Not that re-installing is such a problem, but sometimes things get complicated to re-install.
@Isaac Not true. Like I just said, Ubuntu is a Debian derivative. You can do everything with it that you can with Debian, and in pretty much the same way.
@Isaac It has been the case for as long as Ubuntu has been around, I think. It certainly was the case last time I used Ubuntu which must have been around 2006
Isaac, perhaps you're thinking of Mint? Mint used to recommend reinstalling instead of upgrading.
But Ubuntu does have some significant differences from Debian, @FaheemMitha. They have their own kernel with various tweaks, they use a different install system these days on top of apt, the "snap" thing, whatever that is. Various specialized tools, tweaked defaults, tweaked deafault file locations etc.
@terdon No, I am not confused, nor lost. I've used Ubuntu several times. Just a note from the web: Read https://www.howtoforge.com/tutorial/ubuntu-rolling-release/ Ubuntu users out there have two ways to go with their systems. Either they choose to follow the “standard” release that gets upgraded every six months,
@Isaac No, it will work for any. That site is describing a method to turn it into a rolling release, like Arch, instead of a release-based one like Debian.
Thanks! 1. Is not supporting PPA a disadvantage of Debian? What is Debian's solution? 2. Is not supporting packages which are not open source a disadvantage of Debian? What is Debian's solution? 3. Does Debian support Wine and Windows programs well? What is Debian's solution? 4. Will there be more package management problems in Debian than in Ubuntu?
It is always an updatable distro, Note that you can go forward but it is almost never posible to go backward. That's why Ubuntu could teak things to become a rolling release: because Debian does it.
> At any given time, there is one stable release of Debian, which has the support of the Debian security team. When a new stable version is released, the security team will usually cover the previous version for a year or so, while they also cover the new/current version. Only stable is recommended for production use.
@Isaac Of course, but that doesn't make it a rolling release. There are still releases, locked to specific repository. You can be running Buster or Jessie or whatever. Compare that to true rolling distributions like Arch which very simply don't have any concept of a release.
@StephenKitt you're probably the best person to settle this. Would you call Debian release-based or a rolling distribution?
@Isaac You are saying that Debian is a rolling distribution. I am saying it is not, it is instead release-based. I mention Arch as an example of a rolling distribution, in contrast to Debian.
Debian has releases every two years, approximately. You can find their names and release dates on Wikipedia, or on Debian's own site.
You can also choose to use testing and/or unstable, and many do.
@terdon Largely cosmetic differences. Ubuntu used to resync with Debian periodically. I suppose they must still do that, because they're not going to take on the task of creating such a big distribution from scratch. I don't know how many source packages Debian has now, but it's a lot.
1. Is not supporting PPA a disadvantage of Debian? I don't believe it is. There is no security in installing things fro a random developer out in the internet. What is Debian's solution? None, But you can always download the source and compile it or install a compiled program if you trust the developer that made it. 2. Is not supporting packages which are not open source a disadvantage of Debian? Most not-open packeges are available in `contrib`, What debian lacks are some "last version games". But the rest, is mostly available IMhO.
But I don't know the details either. I haven't used Ubuntu apart from a short period of a couple of years or so circa 2006, and I haven't been using Debian based stuff for several years either. I just know by being active on Ask Ubuntu and coming across so many UBuntu-specific things there.
@FaheemMitha Yes. For some reason, Isaac seems to think so and has ignored all the documents I posted that indicate otherwise. And apparently, the official Debian help docs are just my opinion.
Thanks. 1. "you can always download the source and compile it or install a compiled program if you trust the developer that made it". Do they provide compiled programs for Debian, as often as for Ubuntu? Or do the compiled programs (which I think you mean binary distribution) for Ubuntu also work on Debian?
@Isaac Debian is release-based. You might be able to consider testing and unstable as "rolling distributions", but their main purpose is to produce a release.
This has been the case since approximately the beginning of Debian.
But seriously. Let's just ask Stephen when he's online. He's a Debian dev, so I hope his answer will be assumed to come from knowledge and not mere opinion.
> Rolling release, rolling update, or continuous delivery, in software development, is the concept of frequently delivering updates to applications.[1][2][3] This is in contrast to a standard or point release development model which uses software versions that must be reinstalled over the previous version. An example of this difference would be the multiple versions of Ubuntu Linux versus the single, constantly updated version of Arch Linux.
Although that's not a very good definition for the Linux distro world, there are always updates. The difference is whether there are also specific release versions or not.
@terdon If that is the name you want to use, then use it. But Debian updates every day to newer versions, every day there is new stuff in apt-update and is applied directly. Yes, there is a bigger change when there is a change of release up-stream, but there is the guarantee from Debian that the upgrade will always be possible.
@Isaac Of course. But that's the same for Ubuntu. You get updates every day.
I suppose you could say that Debian is somewhere in the middle, in a way. It does have releases, with code names and everything, but since the release cycle is so slow, you also have significant updates while in the same release.
Though things like volatile are exceptions. And if they can't backport a security fix, then just do an upgrade. Like with browsers and things like that.
> Debian is under continual development. The latest release is Debian 10.3. It is also (currently) known as stable or by its codename "Buster".
Each version also corresponds to a set of named software repositories (at least one per CPU architecture).
At any given time, there is one stable release of Debian, which has the support of the Debian security team. When a new stable version is released, the security team will usually cover the previous version for a year or so, while they also cover the new/current version. Only stable is recommended for production use.
> There are also two main development repositories unstable and testing which are continually updated during the development of the next stable release. The latest packages arrive in unstable (which always has the codename "Sid"). Packages are automatically copied from unstable to testing when they meet criteria such as lack of release-critical bugs, and dependencies being satisfied by other packages in testing.
It is what is (every day) becoming the next release (depending on bugs count).
Again: terdon messing things up, thanks.
@FaheemMitha This is what Debian say: **Debian always has at least three releases in active maintenance: "stable", "testing" and "unstable".** https://www.debian.org/releases/
@FaheemMitha So, testing is what they call a release.
> The current stable distribution of Debian is version 10, codenamed buster. It was initially released as version 10 on July 6th, 2019 and its latest update, version 10.3, was released on February 8th, 2020.
@terdon Testing is **always** the next version, The next version **name** changes from time to time. It has been always like that, since the first version I used seriously: potato.
@Isaac Oh. Great! Then why didn't you say so! We've spent the last half hour trying to convince you that Debian does have releases. Nobody said it doesn't get updates all the time, of course it does. But so does Ubuntu and everyone else.
@terdon you have been debating a non-issue, Debian has release, always had. I need no convincing.
@terdon And my next comment was: Releeases have point like 9.1 9.2 etc. it is always posible to update from one to the next
@terdon So, you pick what you like to make your controvesial point, yes, that's you.
@terdon I wasn't able to "say so" because there were too many things going on at once, and you are a master at twisting positions, that I grant you. You are amazing at that.
@Isaac Someone did. On some web page. It might be worth writing to the web team (if anyone is listening) and pointing on that this usage, in this context, is confusing.
@FaheemMitha What we are discussing then is debian interpretation of what is a release and what we (and you) understand of what the word release means, is that correct?
@Isaac If I said I would ignore you, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that since I can't really ignore one of the most active users in the chat room of the site I mod. I know I asked you to ignore me, but I don't remember promising or even suggesting that I ignore you. In any case, if I did say so somewhere, I was wrong to do so.
are people allowed to exchange contact details and basically go for it in an email? I certainly don't to lose any of the sources of knowledge I have in this room
By one definition, anything you put out on the net can be called a release.
In that weak sense, any files that anyone throws up can be called a release. Including Debian testing. But it's not normally what people mean when they talk about a Debian release.
hey come on I really think this is something for the DEBIAN forums which reminds me I I still haven't received the activation email ill just reregister
@FaheemMitha Fine, no problem. Debian should have used some other word, please raise a bug report, I am very sure that they will read and answer to it quite quickly. The correction might take a bit longer.
@Isaac I could write a bug report, but I do have other things to so. If anyone else would volunteer, I'd be grateful. But perhaps expert opinion would be useful. What was that web page, again?
OK, here’s my take on things (ignoring what’s said on various pages of the Debian web site).
Debian, as a project, aims to build distributions. One of those, Debian GNU/Linux, is released every couple of years; those releases are what the project supports (at least, the current and previous one, for a while).
Because Debian does (nearly) everything in public, it also makes available the testing and unstable suites, which are really tools used to build the next release.
Those suites are usable by their target audience, which isn’t the general public.
Testing can be considered a rolling release in some respects, and there were plans to use it to produce such a “release” when it was created (CUT). But those plans were never completed, and testing lacks a few keys pieces to be an always-usable rolling release.
Unstable can also be considered a rolling release, but it isn’t guaranteed to be a consistent distribution, i.e. it can contain packages which are uninstallable at any given point in time.
The “stable” releases don’t get much in the way of updates; only fixes for security issues, shipped continuously, and fixes for serious bugs, which are shipped periodically in point releases. Fixes are normally backported to the version of the package which shipped initially in any given release; there are exceptions, e.g. for Chromium and Firefox ESR.
@everyone I re-checked and seems that I never said that Debian is a "rolling release". What I did say and still mean is that Debian updates continuously. More on testing than on stable, but there is the written guarantee that you could always update from one release to the next without having to re-install. In fact, if you peg to "testing" you will always be in testing, new release or not.
@Isaac that’s just as true of “stable”, if you pin to that you will always be upgraded to the current stable release (which causes major surprises when new major releases are produced).
@StephenKitt Yes, true, but the size of the download at th epoint on time where the system gets frozen is quite bigger and it may be noticeable (well, it usually is).
@StephenKitt Yes, both work, but some features were only available on beta, so I switched, I have not used Firefox ESR (nor chromium) in quite some time.
@StephenKitt The point is that when on stable, the updates are usually small and mostly security.
@StephenKitt When Debian freeze the system (in preparation for a release change) the sixe of the needed download gets quite bigger than the small security updates.
@StephenKitt Testing and stable are different. Most of the time.
@StephenKitt But there is not way around it, stable must get exactly equal to testing when switching from one release to the next. At tha point in time, development of new packages gets frozen, new features are left for the "next release". At that point in time all changes that have been accumulating in testing go to stable and stable needs a bigger download.
@StephenKitt Well, yes, but all the packages on testing that have cleared (usually all) release bugs flow into stable at once. That point in time is brief, though. New security changes that were waiting on th efreeze get immediately applied and the release is then no longer pure testing. But lets not get caught in semantics, yes?
