Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by simonw 4442 days ago
I've tended towards Ubuntu over Debian because I've found Ubuntu historically to be more likely to run a recent version of the packages I use (Python, PIL, python-mysql etc). Might not be so true these days now that Python 2.x development has more or less finished.
1 comments
snark42 4442 days ago
This makes no sense. All ubuntu packages originate in debian, although ubuntu may get them out the door as an official release first.
link
smtddr 4442 days ago
Nope.

Packages originate from the package authors; these people are not particularly tied to any linux distro. Ubuntu tends to stay close to the most recent version of packages(via apt-get update && apt-get upgrade), Debian purposely lags behind for stability reasons.

Probably one of the most notable examples of this is rtorrent(http://libtorrent.rakshasa.no/) for the longest time didn't support magnet-links; at least not for people who could only do apt-get upgrade. But going to the site itself and getting the src you could compile the newest version and get magnet-link support. Ubuntu , Debian, Fedora, etc. have nothing to do with what the rtorrent developers release on their website.

Another example, GIMP somehow is _still_ not 2.8 for all linux distros package-managers(at least my Linux Mint doesn't get it as of this writing) , but clearly http://www.gimp.org/downloads/ GIMP is on 2.8. The devs behind GIMP don't care what the distros do, they just write their code and release it.

link
snark42 4442 days ago
Yep.

For basic apt-get Ubuntu starts by merging with debian for each release: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDevelopment/ReleaseProcess#Mer...

Magnet links have been supported since rtorrent 0.8.9 which was release in June 2011. It was available for debian sid in September 2011 and is currently available in wheezy backports even. It was available for Ubuntu in April 2012 (possibly October 2011.)

GIMP 2.8 has been available for Debian since May 2012 if you run sid (or backport from sid). Debian stable since May 2013. Ubuntu since October 2012. Not sure where Mint gets it sources from.

These seem like reasonable delays in getting the package made available for testing.

link