Sarge (finally) released...

[psych-major]

./ article

[infiniphunk]

Right on!

Debian

The only thing is though, as for as a desktop system is concerned, can it really compare to Ubuntu?
For example, Sarge will still use XFree86, Ubuntu has Xorg. I'll still definitely be testing out myeself.

[TheSpeedoBeast]

Xorg will be in the Testing (etch) release category relatively soon (very soon in sid/unstable), but probably never in sarge.

Xorg is still pretty young in its fork, so there are few compelling reasons to switch to xorg as of yet, anyway; that WILL change over the course of the next few months, but it is still not very heavily diverged from its original xfree source.

[Hayl]

there's nothing that ubuntu does that any other distro doesn't already do or can't be tweaked to do easily so i don't see why not... only difference is gnome 2.8 vs. 2.10 but the differences between those are very minimal.

the whole XFree thing puts me off. i'm actually surprised they (debian) are staying with xfree with the license change unless they are still below the version of xfree where they changed it (the license) -- i'm not sure though, never cared enough to look at what version of XFree they are using.

[infiniphunk]

Originally posted by TheSpeedoBeast
Xorg will be in the Testing (etch) release category relatively soon (very soon in sid/unstable), but probably never in sarge.

Xorg is still pretty young in its fork, so there are few compelling reasons to switch to xorg as of yet, anyway; that WILL change over the course of the next few months, but it is still not very heavily diverged from its original xfree source.

That's good news.
The reason I like xorg better is because of xcompmgr and compositing. I've become a bit addicted to the eye-candy involved with transparency and shadows; I can't help it, I just like my desktop to look that way. This won't matter soon anyway; it looks like I might inherit on old PII soon that I will use to learn about setting up as a server/router. Debian will for sure be one distro I'll use to test it out in this purpose.
I have to say though, when I started using Debian-type distros, that's when the fun began! (When I really started to like linux.)

[askrieger]

As a recent Debian convert, who has never seen a new stable release before, I am wondering how this release will affect Testing and Unstable and, specifically, how it should affect my strategy of upgrading my Sid system, once a week or so, to get the latest security and bug fixes.

Presumably, a lot of the packages that have been sitting in Sid waiting to move up to Testing (now Etch) will do so now that Testing is no longer frozen. But what will happen to Sid? Have there been a string of packages sitting in Experimental waiting to get into Sid, or has Sid been kept pretty much up to date? Should I rush to upgrade my Sid system within the next few days or should I deliberately hold off upgrading anything for a few weeks?

[Megatron X]

I just want to know one thing....Do I have to throw away my Sarge testing DVD's and burn the stable version? Sarge is my first for Debian as Woody was an *** to install.

[TheSpeedoBeast]

I am 95% sure that debian froze xfree just before the point where they did the lisence change. Debian is as anal about lisences as any distro out there, so they would be some of the past people using non-gnu software.

[Parcival]

Time for me to give Debian a real try again.

[psilo]

To answer some of the questions here:

X.org

The X strike force will skip the present legacy X.org which is monolithic (One Big Lump of Software, to be build in one go) to a new X.org that is modular (All pieces can be build seperately and are developed somewhat seperately).

Sid
There will probably a large influx of packages that were waiting for the sarge release. It will probably honour it's description again: 'unstable'. Using apt-listbugs will be a good idea. A daily or weekly update will not always be as easy as the past year.

Throwing away old DVD's
This depends on your internet connection. If you could just update fixed packages not on your DVD over the internet, there is no reason to burn completely new DVD's.

[paj12]

Personally, I don't see what all the excitement's about. In a few months, everyone will be complaining how old sarge is and will switch to etch.

[IsaacKuo]

I've been waiting for Sarge to go stable! Yippee! Now I can put Debian STABLE on all of my family's computers! No more constantly morphing Kaffeine!

I have a dumb newbie question, though--do I need to download a new installer CD? I use a "minimal" install CD with high speed internet connections.

If I use my current Sarge minimal installer CD, then the install will default to Debian "Testing", right? Or will it default to Debian "Stable"? Obviously I want the latter, since I want Debian Sarge Stable.

Thanks!

[mrhoyt4]

According to the debian docs all you have to run is atp-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade.

[sasKuatch]

This couldn't happen while I was still on campus with a fast connection, could it...

[TheSpeedoBeast]

I have a dumb newbie question, though--do I need to download a new installer CD? I use a "minimal" install CD with high speed internet connections.

So you are saying that you are using an older version of the debian installer? It would probably be a good idea just to upgrade to the newest cds, just for hardware compability reasons. The older cds may not support new hardware, etc., but other than for hardware compatability, and the ease of use of the installer, it would be fine either way. I am not sure exactly *how* old the cd you are using is though, so I couldn't say for certain.