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- sanford42, on 01/06/2009, -3/+36Great to see that they're able to get over the "hoopla" and just put out another good, stable, awesome release. I've been a Debian fan for years (as my posting history here shows), so this is nothing but good news.
And of course, every improvement that comes from Debian trickles down to the Ubuntu and Mint families as well, and then those distributions prompt Red Hat/Mandriva/SuSE and the like to innovate, and *everyone* wins. - spikeb, on 01/06/2009, -2/+20move the damn blobs to non-free already debian. christ, it aint that hard.
- int19h, on 01/06/2009, -0/+14software that is without the sourcecode, but wrapped in open source like a piece of candy
- diggrim, on 01/06/2009, -2/+16How can one guarantee Open Source stability with a binary blob? More eyes make better software. Binary blobs degrade open source software to the levels of stability offered by propriety software. With that said, I use binary blobs because I often have no other choice.
- hazello, on 01/06/2009, -1/+12All Hail Debian, the Mother of all great distros!
- rmxz, on 01/06/2009, -0/+11-1. There are plenty of corporations (Canonical, etc) that take Debian and specialize on integrating with proprietary stuff (drivers with binary blobs, adobe's flash, etc).
I thought Debian's strength was that it was a clean base from which you can start that didn't depend on such unsupportable components as binary blobs. - TheScreamer, on 01/06/2009, -4/+13Man, I gotta get off the internet. I read that as binary boobs. Sheesh.
- jamesmcm, on 01/06/2009, -4/+13They shouldn't have added non-free blobs, it destroys the point of Free Software.
Remember - when fighting the dragon, do not become the dragon yourself. - scribby, on 01/06/2009, -1/+9Tit's OK. I did the same thing.
- mathcreative, on 01/06/2009, -0/+7What do they mean by binary blobs? -This is a serious question. I did read the article
- McGrude, on 01/06/2009, -0/+7Piece of compiled object code (firmware) that would run on a peripheral, such as an Adaptec SCSI controllers chip, etc.
At driver load time the driver will push the binary blob (firmware) into the device to program it. - stargatesteve, on 01/06/2009, -0/+6that's what Ubuntu is for. A large part of Debian's user base is the people who use it /because/ of the "free software principles".
- Culyt, on 01/07/2009, -0/+5I have never understood the kind of Free Software Zealot who does that.
I can understand wanting to run Free Software on everything, but either your using the binary blobs in which case removing them is just going to make your hardware useless (and isn't going to stop the fact that you paid for the hardware already) or you don't need them in which case them being in there isn't going to matter.
I also feel the need to point out that your BIOS/EFI is closed (unless your using OpenBIOS or CoreBoot), cdroms have closed firmware (with DRM for DVDs), hell even processors and chipsets have microcode embedded in them that is closed.
About the only reasons I can see are security (ensure there is no hidden backdoor in the blob) and to see if its possible to run the system using only opensource. And as I said they only work at the userspace/kernel level, you still have the hardware level (Like the DoD worrying that Chinese knockoffs of Cisco routers could have backdoors activated with specific packets to allow external access to the network, or a processor with microcode that intercepts a specific block of data and executes raw machine code that could read data from ram and send it out the network).
☢ - jimminy, on 01/06/2009, -0/+5Ubuntu is built on Debian.
- 3242130193, on 01/06/2009, -1/+5YES.
I love Debian. Moderately lightweight, stable, and still current enough so that it does what I need.
I started out with Ubuntu. After about a year, it just got annoying with all the tools that are made to make it simple (it's not that they shouldn't be there, they were just annoying and intrusive). It's a great distro, but it got old after a while. When I was ready, I jumped over to Debian it was hard at first, but after a few months, it's been smooth sailing. I've learned much more about Linux than I'd have ever explored if I were still on Ubuntu. Thanks Debian! - inactive, on 01/07/2009, -0/+4Oh boo hooooo, god forbid you won't be considered a "l33t h4x0r" for using Linux anymore. Grow up. Computers are primarily used as tools to make someone's job / life easier and more productive, something which _doesn't_ entail typing out commands and compiling drivers. God damn it, even when Linux starts becoming mainstream, you guys _still_ find something to bitch about.
- InorganicMatter, on 01/06/2009, -6/+10Hope the blobs stay. Having GNU/Linux work out of the box for new users is far more important upholding "free software principles."
- rmxz, on 01/06/2009, -1/+5There are plenty of commercial releases in the "linux with proprietary stuff" extending all the way to Novell with their IP-sharing-covenant with Microsoft.
IMHO much of the value of Debian was that it is (should I now say was?) a nice clean (from an IP point of view) F/OSS base upon which you can build less free platforms if you so chose.
I'd like Debian to stay clean; and leave it to corporations like Canonical and Novell and Red Hat to deal with the maintenance hell of trying to support binary blobs. - gerryk, on 01/06/2009, -0/+3That's the joy of multiple distros... if you want a 'it just works' Linux, use Ubuntu or Fedora, if you want a 'free software' distro use Debian (or so it used to be).
- blackb0x, on 01/06/2009, -0/+3...and how'd that wireless network work in Windows? Did you have to visit the manufacturer website to download the latest driver?
On a fresh install, Windows requires much more support and digging to find drivers that Linux, given the same hardware. The problem is, almost no one installs Windows from a fresh install. if they do it at all, it is from the manufacturer's DVD preloaded with all of the drivers you'll ever need. That's called vendor support. - Azathothh, on 01/07/2009, -0/+2"More eyes make better software"
or a mess - tuberbob, on 01/06/2009, -2/+4OK, so riddle me this: How much have you paid for your debian releases? How often have you been contacted by some organization threatening you with legal action because you have not paid for your debian based software? People like you are a large part of the reason Linux CANNOT be accepted by the mainstream. The community is too fragmented, there's too much idiotic whining about what is and is not free. Canonical is finally making efforts to produce a good, stable, clean, easy to use OS that can take market share from MS, but you'll be damned if it's good enough for you right, because it isn't "free." For god' sake, quit bitching about the only free OS alternatives available. Microsoft will continue to rule the roost simply because of your attitude being so pervasive in the Linux community.
- CarzorStelatis, on 01/07/2009, -0/+2If a binary blob is the only functioning driver available for a piece of hardware (e.g. no 3d acceleration from open source graphics drivers... kinda negates the value of a piece of hardware designed to do 3d acceleration) then surely a system will be better with even a buggy binary blob than with no working driver at all?
- Mutiny32, on 01/07/2009, -0/+2Whoever battles with monsters had better see that it does not turn him into a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you. -Friedrich Nietzsche
- jamesmcm, on 01/07/2009, -0/+2I use a Mac and GNU/Linux on my PC. But I believe that Free Software is important - I use the Mac because I bought it before reading Free Software, Free Society.
I think it's more hypocrisy rather than irony btw. - Haplo, on 01/06/2009, -2/+4A few angry Linux geeks with beards are not that well suited to fight a dragon.
Much better to make GNU/Linux suitable for a large audience (as in: working Wi-Fi, not Wi-Fi that requires some magic and requires reactivation every 5 minutes). That way GNU/Linux will get the audience to which dragons listen. - 3242130193, on 01/06/2009, -0/+2rmxz is right. If you're installing Debian, you're not someone that's just looking for things to work out of the box. There's still a lot to build yourself - leave it to other distros like Ubuntu and Mint to polish it and make it usable. That's not Debian's role.
But personally, I think that what's most important for Debian is that they make their release as soon as possible. They're always plagued with issues delaying releases and it's good to see it finally coming out. - mathcreative, on 01/19/2009, -0/+1Thanks for explaining. I can see why some people would have a problem or an issue with this.
- 3242130193, on 01/06/2009, -0/+1Why?
I just bought a new netbook and started out with xubuntu on it. And now I remember why I don't use it anymore - I'm sick of the bloat, the bells and whistles, all things that I don't need. I was even having problems unmounting a flash drive from CLI because some daemon kept automounting it.
I want Debian because it's simple, it has only what I need and there aren't too many things going on in the background that'll just confuse me. For me, it's no problem taking time to tweak things to make them work - it's worth it to have a distro that installs only what I need.
In light of that, it's great news that Lenny will be released soon. Since I usually run only from the testing repository, the freeze has been holding a lot of things back that are long since due. - stargatesteve, on 01/06/2009, -0/+1you should try using Debian, so you don't make an ass out of yourself in the future. Anybody who has used Debian for more than about 5 minutes would know that the non-free software is in the "non-free" repo. That's why this debate is so big. This would be the first time that non-free software is put in the "main" repo en-masse. If you just read the social contract and the policies, you would notice that they never claim that they don't distribute non-free software, just that none of it ends up in "main" or "contrib". noob.
- yoshman, on 01/06/2009, -1/+20110001001101111011011110110001001110011
- royalboyle, on 01/06/2009, -0/+1Kind of ironic coming from a Mac user isn't it?
- HiVoltRock, on 01/06/2009, -4/+5I can appreciate the fact that they want to stick to their ideology, but they should focus more on experience, stability, and (as they just have), progress. Debian can be rock solid, let's not ruin that arguing with ourselves!
- oswaldkelso, on 01/06/2009, -1/+2Agreed thats one option.
You can always compile your own linux-libre kernel http://www.fsfla.org/svnwiki/selibre/linux-libre/ or use their scritps to remove the blobs. Even .debs are availible for those on lowend machines or just to lazy or unskilled to compile their own. - encryptz, on 01/11/2009, -0/+1People who hold that Ubuntu is "training wheels for Linux" need to don a new pair of glasses. Tell me, why did you learn more about Linux with Debian than Ubuntu? You can learn as much as you want about Linux with any distribution out there- Ubuntu, openSUSE, Fedora, Debian, Slackware, etc. You just need to spend the time doing it.
- encryptz, on 01/11/2009, -0/+1The blobs are coming from the kernel for hardware firmware. It's not something you 'apt-get remove'. The only way to rid yourself of the blobs is to compile the kernel from source.
- QubitTarutaru, on 01/07/2009, -0/+10100111001101101010011010011001001011010011010100101101001101010
- factotum218, on 01/07/2009, -0/+1It's been running great since I started messing with beta's from the net-install images. Not great enough to go beyond a virtual system on my Slackware box naturally. But with no doubt this is another great release of one of the greatest distributions available anywhere.
- inactive, on 01/08/2009, -0/+1"Great to see that they're able to get over the "hoopla" and just put out another good, stable, awesome release."
How do you know its going to be good or even stable? Nobody can possibly know how it will turn out if they include these blobs. Even the debian folks really have no idea whats in them. They just know that they might work. Its irresponsible.
It seems the ability to have fancy desktop effects has finally become more important than system stability. Well thats the price of desktop popularity i guess. Closed source blobs suck ass. This release will definitely be skipped for a lot of server installs. - 3242130193, on 01/07/2009, -0/+1Regeya, edit /etc/apt/sources.list to include contrib and non-free and change stable (or etch) to unstable.
- encryptz, on 01/11/2009, -0/+1@r3negadeX- Debian is suited for a large audience. That's why Ubuntu is so successful- it was built on the shoulders of giants.
- Mutiny32, on 01/07/2009, -0/+1Are you referring to Richard Stallman, inventor of GNU?
- CarzorStelatis, on 01/07/2009, -1/+1Debian isn't Gentoo. If you don't want the binary blobs, why not remove them post-install?
- WhiteCloud, on 01/06/2009, -2/+2I think the obstacles Linux faces with the mainstream have more to do with the learning curve required to use the various operating systems. I just recently began using Ubuntu and I quickly realized that the average user would give up right away. I mean just getting wireless to work was a struggle. Most people want an OS that does not require multiple steps and a bunch of tinkering to get things to work. Windows if nothing else is easy that way. I like my experience with Ubuntu so far but I also like to tweak and customize how my PC works. Plus all of the extra time I put into making it work makes it more worthwhile for me. I just don't see the average user wanting to take the time to learn how to use Linux until it becomes much more user friendly.
- regeya, on 01/07/2009, -1/+1Eh, I got tired of Ubuntu for that reason as well. I mean, I'm all too happy to have a system that does things automagically...as long as the automagic things actually work. For me, many of the pieces just don't work.
I'm currently using Fedora, though, which sadly does much of the same hand-holding. Slackware is tempting but I used it ages ago; Debian, to me, starts with sane defaults (great if you want to get going in a hurry) but is so anal about its DFSG that there's even GNU software that violates the DFSG (plus the glacial pace of stable releases makes me cringe...great for servers, not so much for the desktop), and well, I don't know enough about other systems to know whether I want to try 'em. ;-)
Any recommendations, anyone? - LastDitchHero, on 01/06/2009, -1/+1Glad they didn't include gvfs. It maybe greater but it isn't as well integrated and screws up a lot of stuff like samba, samba on vista, and a few other things. Granted things are getting better but it wasn't easy.
- inactive, on 01/07/2009, -1/+1Debian is not meant to be suitable for a large audience.
- funklor, on 01/09/2009, -0/+0You can't just say drop ideology in favor of pragmatism, if it weren't for ideology people would've just been content using one of the non-free UNIXs, there'd be no GNU/Linux, it would've been pointless going trough the pain of creating a free one that quite frankly didn't even come close to the Solarises, HP-UXs, etc. until the late 90's / early 2000's.
- bitbytebit, on 01/07/2009, -2/+1exactly ..as ive said before the only way linux will become more mainstream is if a distro becomes as easy and dumbed down as windows .. and here comes ubuntu, the linux for the 'average' computer user.
in a few years the 'average' linux user will be just as clueless and the windows using drones who don't understand anything about comps, 'it just works' is akin to saying 'its magic and I don't understand but its linux so yay!'
This is why I hate ubuntu -
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