[bemused]

dont wont to criticize any of the great & mainly voluntary work of the debian folks, but not quite sure how to interpret these statistics [1]

looks like jessie is going to be the first debian stable to be released with rc-critical issues and not "when it's done"

some of the bugs referred [2] seem quite critical indeed, maybe someone with more insight could comment on this?

[1] http://richardhartmann.de/blog/posts/2015/04/24-Debian_Relea...

[2] https://udd.debian.org/bugs.cgi?release=jessie_and_sid&patch...

[marcosdumay]

Took a quick look at some of the bugs that would affect me... It's systemd, systemd and systemd.

Oh, yeah, that's Debian's systemd release.

[chimeracoder]

> Took a quick look at some of the bugs that would affect me... It's systemd, systemd and systemd.

> Oh, yeah, that's Debian's systemd release.

These are the bugs that are relevant when talking about the Jessie release: https://udd.debian.org/bugs/?release=jessie_not_sid&merged=i...

None of them are filed against systemd. I've been watching this page daily for the last month, and I only remember one systemd-related bug being filed in that time (there was one longstanding one from March affecting a rather obscure use case that sat there for a while as well, but was fixed).

[kasabali]

> None of them are filed against systemd

But there are bugs in systemd integration if you look closely (hdparm resume issue and kde battery low issue are the ones which are on top of my mind.)

edit: Also you're looking at the wrong list :) Jessie is being released with these [0] RC bugs, and those [1] are the ones which are not fixed in jessie and sid.

[0]: https://udd.debian.org/bugs.cgi?release=jessie&merged=ign&rc...

[1]: https://udd.debian.org/bugs.cgi?release=jessie_and_sid&merge...

[progman]

People who dislike systemd can take a look at http://without-systemd.org.

[geoka9]

Any idea how long Debian wheezy will continue to receive security bug fixes?

[progman]

At least long enough to decide which Linux distro to use in the future.

Unfortunately many distros have already jumped on the systemd wagon but I think soon there will be a increasing collection of non-systemd alternatives which will continue to follow the KISS principle which made Unix and Linux so great. There already _are_ alternatives to systemd and systemv -- launchd and upstart (used by ChromeOS) for instance.

I hope soon we will have an init system which takes the best of all current ones while still following the KISS principle. Linux must keep this principle alive unless it will probably fall into the trap of Windows' monolithic bug hell. Ironically Linux 3.11 kernel was already called "Linux for Workgroups" :-)

[cgag]

I just installed void on my laptop (x230) and it's quite nice. Very minimal and uses runit for managing services. Not many packages but it's had everything I've needed so far.

It also uses libressl and the packages build against alternative libcs so that's pretty cool. It's also interesting in that it's a new distro rather than a fork.

http://www.voidlinux.eu/

[progman]

That's really interesting. Thanks!

[cbd1984]

> many distros have already jumped on the systemd wagon

Odd. If systemd is so Objectively Terrible (the general tenor of these posts: systemd is bad, it's obviously bad, with no redeeming features whatsoever), why is that happening? There can't possibly be a financial incentive.

[vezzy-fnord]

"Objectively terrible" certainly isn't the case with systemd, but there's plenty of reasons for adopting software in general that has nothing to do with technical merit. Much of the Linux desktop daemons (particularly ones associated with GNOME and Freedesktop.org) have begun using systemd's interfaces, sometimes as hard dependencies. Thus, for the major distributions that want to tailor to the most popular use cases, the cost of adopting systemd is probably lower than patching against the ever-expanding upstream that requires it.

Lots of programmers aren't particularly good at analyzing the cost of surface convenience in proportion to future technical debt. Software is just as frequently adopted purely because it's convenient, well marketed or in a self-serving feedback cycle, because it's already popular.

It's also worth noting that ChromeOS still uses Upstart.

[progman]

https://plus.google.com/+TheodoreTso/posts/4W6rrMMvhWU

[the_why_of_y]

There may be alternatives to systemd, but ... launchd?

Do you really want to write your job descriptions in the amazingly silly XML p-list schema?

Upstart's event model doesn't even work properly.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/upstart/+bug/447654

And... did you know it's using ptrace(2) to track processes?

https://bugs.launchpad.net/upstart/+bug/406397

[JonathonW]

There's no set schedule, but the previous release generally continues to receive security updates for about a year after the release of a new version. See https://wiki.debian.org/DebianOldStable.

(This assumes that Debian doesn't decide to declare Wheezy as a new LTS release once support for Squeeze ends in February 2016... AFAIK it's not clear what their plans are there.)

[viccuad]

Don't forget that the "Stable" definition for Debian is not the normal one, they are super zelous. Testing and Sid distributions are "stable" for the rest of distros. And remember that all those bugs on the Debian release are present in other distros, and they even don't acknowledge them sometimes.

[bemused]

sure, but thats exactly why I was asking - I am looking for some background on this decision and hoping that someone with more insight can share a link or something

[kasabali]

I also wonder the reason for that.

As a speculation from an outsider, I'll list these reasons: Release team was very motivated in this cycle (auto removal of packages, not letting any new package in freeze, very strict exceptions even for packages that fix bugs etc.), most of current rc bugs are lurking there for months without any progress (and since Debian is all volunteer work, they can't force anybody to fix 'em), and they couldn't also remove those packages because they've already removed packages they could remove. Another thing is some of those RC bugs are security issues, which are handled by Security Team for stable and oldstable, so there is no reason for security issues to delay the release. When all these are considered, they may have not deemed further delaying the release worthwhile.

I would also like to hear the real reasons from a team member, though.

[walterbell]

Has there been a significant loss of Debian senior development resources to the https://devuan.org fork, as a result of the systemd debates?

[federico3]

Not at all, devuan is not considered trustworthy by the majority (to put it mildly).

[kasabali]

I don't follow Devuan development so I'm not sure but AFAIK no senior developer went to Devuan.

There has been loss of senior development resources because of the systemd and related discussions, though (some quit, some lost motivation etc.)

[tzakrajs]

Russ Allbery left https://lwn.net/Articles/620879/

edit: I don't know if he is going Devuan, but is related.

[forgottenpass]

He just left the tech committee, the last paragraph sounds like he'll still be working on debian.

[the_why_of_y]

It was very sad to see Russ Allbery leave the Debian Technical Committee; his deeply insightful and remarkably well written discussions will be missed.

[jestinjoy1]

Thats interesting. One thing that is said about Debian is "most stable GNU/Linux". Now it seems, it is a thing of the past.

https://bugs.debian.org/release-critical/

Any idea why they have gone with this?

[Demiurge]

Wouldn't that only be true if there is a more stable distro? What would that be?

[kasabali]

I hope stable release team accepts fixes to some of those issues into later updates.