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Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

Cyber Cynic

Debian Linux needs your help

7 comments

TAGS:Debian, development, Linux
IT TOPICS:Desktop Applications, Development, Enterprise Software & Services, Linux, Open Source, Operating Systems, SOA & Web Services

Debian, for all that it's a very popular and important community Linux has a problem with hitting deadlines. I mean it's not like how Microsoft can miss its deadlines by years, but still Debian has had its troubles. The community was doing much better this time for the forthcoming release of Debian 5, Lenny, but some last-minute problems still need cleaning up and the Debian developers would like you to help.

In a note to the Debian developer list, Alexander 'Tollmar' Reichle-Schmehl, a leading Debian developer and spokesman, wrote, "You probably noticed by now, that Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 aka "Lenny" hasn't been released in September. Well, that's a shame, but very easy to explain: Too many release critical bugs."

As is so often the case with any software project, Reichle-Schmehl explained, "Our release team coordinated several transitions, took care of release goals, but it's pretty hard to estimate, how fast RC (release candidate) bugs will be fixed, and apparently they were a bit to optimistic"

What he'd like from developers is "pretty easy: Fix rc-bugs, take care, that the fixed packages are migrated to "Lenny," do upgrade tests, document problems in the release-notes. Pretty simple, isn't it?" Well, it is if you're a Linux developer, but otherwise, not really.

However, Reichle-Schmehl continued, "Even as a "simple user" (aren't we all just users?) you may help getting "Lenny" released." Specifically, he suggests that if you're already running Debian 4, Etch, "you could consider upgrading to "Lenny" and see, if everything works fine. Currently there are no detailed release notes documenting the procedure, so you best way to test upgrades are to:

1. Make backups

2. Change your /etc/apt/sources.list

3. Run aptitude update to get information about new packages

4. Run aptitude install dpkg aptitude apt to install the newest package management

5. Run aptitude full-upgrade"

Now that's the kind of thing that any experienced Linux user could do. And, "If something goes wrong [or] something unexpected happens, please report it. If you already know a specific package, report a bug against that package. If you don't know, please report a bug describing the problem you experienced to the upgrade-reports package. If your problem is something, which can't be fixed properly, but should be documented e.g. hardware support regressions, packages no longer available)please report a bug against the release-notes package (Bonus points if you not only report the bug, but also supply a paragraph to be added to the release notes)."

In a follow up to his blog, Reichle-Schmehl wrote, "If you upgraded successfully, you should report that, too. There's a template for upgrade reports."

He also suggests that if you want to help and you're interesting in making sure a particular program works properly in Lenny, you should "install the package devscripts. You'll need the version provided by backports.org, and run the script rc-alert --include-dists TU --include-dist-op and you'll get a list of release critical bugs open for one of the packages you have installed."

In addition, "You can try to help, by trying to reproduce them and reporting that to the bug report. There are even some easy bugs, where the maintainer hasn't found the time to fix it, yet. Bug 497290, for example didn't need deep technical skills. It just needed someone with some time to collect the needed data for the copyright file."

Finally, "If you speak a language other than English, you might consider joining the translation efforts. If you are willing to do so (which can be quite time consuming, especially in the final phase), please contact either your localization team or the Debian doc mailing list if there's no local mailing list."

Reichle-Schmehl concludes this section, "See? Even as a simple user without deeper technical knowledge you can help us getting Lenny in shape to be released."

I like this plan. There's too much of a tendency for Linux, heck any developers to not reach out to their user community for help. Sure a lot of programming problems need deep technical knowledge, but then there's a lot that don't.

What Debian is looking for largely is quality assurance and hands-on beta testing. If you're a serious Linux user, I'd give them a hand. You'll not only be helping an important Linux distribution, you'll be helping the bridge gap between users and programmers.

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How Hard do you like to make it?

Submitted by Neil Morgan on January 2, 2009 - 3:28 P.M.

Ok so I'm new at this but really

I managed to download and burn debian disc 1 (I gave up after disc 6 which I gather I don't need, must still be in windows multiple disc os mode)

Booted up and installed Debian, cool, quicker and easier than MS without multiple reboots.

Fire up browser, no plugins, try to install them....WTF it's like walking thru treacle. does anybody do a simple app with all the plugins i'm going to need in one easy 'click to download, install and run'

Yes I appreciate the ultimate in configurability but please not at the expense of not being able to even get the simplest of tasks to run.

The instructions are opaque (unzip this, navigate to this directory, run this(just how do I execute a file in linux, what sort of files just run if I type in their name, at least in DOS it was .EXE, .COM, .BAT in that order)) the very likelyhood of any or all of these steps working on any random users PC are so slim.
This is a PC for gods sake.
Why do I have to type anything more complicated than Y/N

1. How about a 'Click here to download all the crap I'm ever going to need and Install Button'

2. How about another 'Click here to remove all the crap I've never used to free up space Button'

3. How about 'Click here to reinstall the stuff that is quite handy but uninstalled at the last step'

4. How about'Click here to search the internet for upgrades for existing stuff'

5. How about a 'Click here to search for interesting stuff that wasn't availiable when I clicked the 'Download all the crap Button''

Don't get me wrong, Linux is brilliant, it's just me and a million other users just don't know what we are doing or how we should be doing it, we don't have either the time or the inclination to learn, please give us a simple to use OS and we will embrace it (linux is a beautifully elegant OS just not intuitive).

I however will persevere (only cuz that is the way I'm built) The first computer I programmed was on punched cards (what are they!) then came a cambridge scientific, commodore pet, vic 20, zx80 and eventually IBM PC (4MHz), PC AT clone(12MHz) and so on, I love the 8xxxx architecture

But don't expect windows users to come running (despite how bad vista is) unless it is

a. easy to install (debian is on the 17th try),
b. apps are transparent for the user
c. just much more simple (I mean, just how hard can it be)
d. I know you linux junkies must be congratulated for your efforts, aside from creating a viable competitor to the behemoth of MS, you have created the most stable platform for PC computing but please make it easy for the new user to think and say, 'Linux, Iv'e never tried that, I've heard good things, I think I'll give it a go'. A quick google for Linux should give a link to

'Click here to download all the Linux stuff I'm ever going to need and Install it in one go, this procedure will preserve all of your data, it will also preserve all of your existing operating system in the unlikely event you want to go back Button'
'I want Linux Now'

It's not rocket science, windows is easy, linux is hard, make linux easy and MS will die

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I think Ubuntu is what you

Submitted by Anonymous on February 19, 2009 - 6:30 A.M.

I think Ubuntu is what you want:
http://wubi-installer.org/ (install from windows)

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not ubuntu

Submitted by geek on June 12, 2009 - 2:55 P.M.

I think what he wants is Linux that just works. You know, stuff that is important to most users.

I installed Lenny just weeks after it's release.

Java - doesn't work out of the box

Flash - doesn't work out of the box

Wired Networking with Windows and network printing - doesn't work out of the box

NTFS support - doesn't work out of the box including file permissions problems

usb hard drive support - doesn't work out of the box. Can read, but not write to usb hard drives.

There's lots to love about Debian but Lenny is going to be known as Debian's Vista - a beta, not ready for public release.

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nVidia users: wait until package is ready

Submitted by Andre Felipe Machado on October 13, 2008 - 7:41 A.M.

Hello,
For those using the proprietary 3D driver versions of nVidia Debian Packages (at the, not default enabled, non-free repository section):
- Wait until all nVidia binary packages migrate to Testing (Lenny) repository.
You could see if all of them are already listed at this page:
http://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=nvidia&searchon=names&suite=testing&section=all
nvidia in Debian 5.0 Lenny

If you migrate before they all migrate to Lenny repository, the full-upgrade will not upgrade all needed packages and will disable your X environment.
For more advanced users, they could reconfigure for nv 2D driver or even Vesa, or then mix unstable nVidia 3D binary packages.

Regards.
Andre Felipe Machado

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Translate from Toy Story please?

Submitted by Gordon Haverland on October 12, 2008 - 3:45 P.M.

Hello.

Some of us don't do Toy Story. Can you rephrase this so that those of us who only know stable, testing and unstable can figure out what is wanted?

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If you read carefully, what

Submitted by Onan the Barbarian on October 13, 2008 - 3:43 A.M.

If you read carefully, what you ask for is already in the article:
"the forthcoming release of Debian 5, Lenny"
"Debian 4, Etch"

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Finally, some inspirational bug testing

Submitted by Anonymous on October 10, 2008 - 11:33 P.M.

This has been getting worse as Linux seems to grow. I'm quite impressed you wrote this "type" of article. Usually I'd see a little more cynicism from you. Well, I for one am glad you took the high road with this, where you could have just as easily pointed, laughed, and stated, "They need help from the users... Failures!"

This is an important topic, where in a community that boasts, well...community, I'm glad someone took the time to tell us to get up off our butts and do something.

Thanks,
Knight4linux

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