Talk:Debian

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Feature list

What about adding a feature list of the advantages of Debian over others? For example preseeded installations.

Pronunciation

The article has /ˈdiːbiən/, yet the Debian web page says [1] "Since many people have asked, Debian is pronounced /ˈde.bi.ən/." Am I missing something? --Æ (talk) 21:25, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

It was a bad change three weeks ago that I've now reverted, thanks for pointing it out. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 22:53, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Multi-Architecture Support

It should be noted that Debian does not yet support multiple architectures per installation.

The most common example would be a user with a 64-bit Debian installation who needed for one reason or another to run a 32-bit program. While there has been some effort to aid this particular case (packages such as ia32-libs), there is no general way to install packages from the official repositories for architectures other than that of the installed OS. This has led to many third party .debs being created for specific programs for the user to manually install with "dpkg --force-architecture".

Contrast this with say Fedora, where one can specify the architecture within the package manager, thusly:

yum install firefox.i686

Provided the repositories for the i686 architecture are installed, this will install firefox and any 32-bit dependencies .

139.80.48.118 (talk) 02:26, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Debian Release History

Someone has changed the release history links to the "List of Toy Story Characters". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.59.125.151 (talk) 08:13, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

If you check the released section, it explains that the releases are all named after Toy Story characters. - SudoGhost (talk) 09:05, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Despite the fact that the releases are named after Toy Story characters I find the links unhelpful. I clicked on it, knowing very well about this naming convention but expecting more info on the release, and was annoyed to find myself on the "List of Toy Story Characters". --Keithonearth (talk) 05:53, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Ok, I've removed the links. I can't see a case where someone was reading the debian article, and thought to themselves "I wonder who the character in toy story was who this was named after. <click>." I can only see a case where someone is reading it and thinks "Oh, I'd like to know more about the squeeze release. <click>. WTF?" If anyone disagrees please leave a note here to let me know why. --Keithonearth (talk) 18:36, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Case of code names, like "lenny"

Are the code names for the Debian versions really lowercased? For example, "lenny" vs. "Lenny"? --Mortense (talk) 09:02, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Weird sentence

In the lead, we have With its inclusion of the GNU OS tools and Linux kernel, Debian GNU/Linux[4] is a popular and influential Linux distribution. This seems to be trying to say that the combination of GNU tools and Linux kernel are the reason for Debian being popular and influential, whereas actually every Linux distro combines them. I have a horrible feeling that the sentence arose from someone trying to shoe-horn mentions of GNU and the kernel into the lead. While it is nice to have prominent links to them, it shouldn't be at the cost of meaningful text. Can we fix this? Henry^Flower 16:01, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

GNU/Linux is the most popular OS that Debian released, they also released a GNU/kFreeBSD OS man with one red shoe 20:23, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification, if not for the revert. Henry^Flower 13:12, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

The formation of the "Debian" name

Under History: 1993-1998, the origin of the name is mentionned two times in two subsequent paragraphs. Isn't it a bit redundant ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pboi20 (talk • contribs) 15:51, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

This got fixed today. Pboi20 (talk) 02:12, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Bruce Perens, Ean Schuessler and the initiation of SPI

The phrasing of the 4th paragraph of 1993-1998 section of Debian's history is terribly unclear. It currently reads as if Ean Schuessler initiated the creation of SPI, which I did not. I was very much involved in the early days of SPI but Bruce did most of the heavy lifting on getting the SPI holding company going.

While I was responsible for first suggesting the social contract concept it was also Bruce who did the lion's share of editorial wrangling that made that suggestion into a historic document. From my point of view, the Social Contract and the DFSG should be viewed as the product of a community but Bruce's role as an editor and catalyst should be made clear.

I think it would make sense for this paragraph to receive some attention from someone with good writing skills to balance and clarify the roles of the various individuals. Unfortunately, a good bit of this information is locked up in early Debian-Private and SPI-Private mailing lists so I'm not sure how much of the information is directly available. There is a lot of interesting reading in there about the origin of the DFSG, the Open Source trademark and other important events in Free Software. It would make sense to start contacting the people involved in those discussions and get permission from them to release their writings to the public at large so that a clear historical picture can be assembled. Ean Schuessler (talk) 20:09, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Debian multiarch?

I see that the 'release history' table includes "introduce multiarch support" in the list of milestones for wheezy. However, there is no information either here or anywhere else in Wikipedia that explains what multiarch precisely is or why it should be considered important.

Relevant information here: wiki.debian.org/Multiarch — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.245.70.191 (talk) 14:48, 28 September 2011 (UTC)