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Ubuntu Open Week - Debian and Ubuntu - James Westby - Tue, Nov 4th, 2008

(12:02:08 PM) james_w: thanks dholbach
(12:02:27 PM) james_w: I'll give you all a minute or two to calm down after a whole hour with dholbach :-)
(12:02:37 PM) dholbach: hehe
(12:02:44 PM) ***sebner hugs james_w in the meantime =)
(12:02:54 PM) chillitom: thanks dholbach, great stuff
(12:02:54 PM) Nuc134rB0t: haha thank would be rly helpful
(12:04:34 PM) james_w: right
(12:04:40 PM) james_w: are we all sitting comfortably?
(12:04:56 PM) barcc: +1
(12:05:05 PM) james_w: then let us begin
(12:05:19 PM) james_w: Hi, my name is James Westby, and I am an Ubuntu MOTU, and a Debian contributor, and I'm going to tell you more about the relationship between Ubuntu and Debian.
(12:05:37 PM) Nuc134rB0t: welcome james
(12:05:41 PM) james_w: First though, I'll go over a really simple question for those that don't know, "What is Debian?"
(12:06:13 PM) james_w: Debian is another Operating System that has been around for many years. It is linux-based, though there are people working on making it work on top of other kernels.
(12:07:03 PM) james_w: You can read more about it if you go to http://www.debian.org/
(12:07:42 PM) james_w: It's a really great OS, and it has a lot of users who really care for it, and a huge number of developers, including Mr. Mark Shuttlewoth himself.
(12:08:29 PM) james_w: So, what does that have to do with Ubuntu?
(12:08:52 PM) james_w: When Mark was creating Ubuntu he looked at Debian (because he was part of it), and wanted to change a few things about it, so he created Ubuntu.
(12:09:21 PM) james_w: They differ in a few ways, for instance the way we organise ourselves, the process to get membership, and some technical differences.
(12:09:21 PM) dholbach left the room (quit: "Ex-Chat").
(12:10:30 PM) james_w: The major difference for me is that they differ in aims. The sort of motto of Debian is "The Universal OS", and they would like to support many things that people want to do.
(12:11:14 PM) james_w: For instance, as well as normal PC architectures you can run Debian on many different architectures, like your big-iron servers, or your tiny embedded computer, and it is all the same Debian.
(12:12:04 PM) james_w: This however takes a lot of effort. Ubuntu sacrifices this to only work on a few architectures, and so doesn't need to do all of the work, meaning that effort can be focused on other places.
(12:12:37 PM) james_w: It works the same in other areas too. Ubuntu tends to pick one solution to a problem and make that work really well, whereas Debian will often try and support every solution.
(12:13:02 PM) james_w: They are equally valid approaches, it just depends what you want out of your distribution.
(12:13:37 PM) james_w: Another big difference is that it's a lot harder to become a member of the Debian project, and it's almost impossible for non-developers.
(12:14:35 PM) james_w: Perhaps because of this Debian is lacking in people for non-development tasks.
(12:14:50 PM) james_w: There is some discussion currently about changing this, so we will wait to see what happens.
(12:15:08 PM) james_w: <catonano> QUESTION: does that mean that, for example, Debian would support both ALSA and Pulseaudio, ehile Debian would support Pulseaudio only ?
(12:15:39 PM) james_w: catonano: assuming you meant the second "Debian" to be "Ubuntu", then yes, sort of.
(12:16:17 PM) james_w: it doesn't always work that way, for instance Ubuntu supports GNOME, KDE and Xfce.
(12:16:54 PM) james_w: but look at MTAs, Ubuntu mainly focuses on postfix, but Debian spreads its effort between exim, postfix, sendmail, etc.
(12:17:36 PM) james_w: Any more questions about what Debian is, or how it differs from Ubuntu?
(12:17:46 PM) mneptok: james_w: let's be clear, though. the Ubuntu project supports people creating derivatives with other WMs or DEs, but Canonical as a corporate entity behind the Ubuntu Project does not offer commercial support for such derivatives.
(12:18:19 PM) mneptok: (i.e. you can buy professional support for Ubuntu and Kubuntu, but not XubuntuA)
(12:18:28 PM) mneptok: -A
(12:18:41 PM) Guest32104 is now known as parth
(12:19:04 PM) james_w: mneptok: true. However, development focus is often on picking the best and making it better.
(12:19:08 PM) parth is now known as Guest47879
(12:19:50 PM) ***mneptok nods
(12:19:53 PM) james_w: <Nuc134rB0t> QUESTION: Which one would you recommend to a new Gnu/Linux user non-developer as the best ditro to start with Free Software? Debian or Ubuntu
(12:19:55 PM) james_w: that's a hard question to answer.
(12:20:14 PM) james_w: many people will recommend Ubuntu to new users, as it puts a lot of effort in to working "out of the box"
(12:20:20 PM) james_w: Debian is catching up in that respect though
(12:20:33 PM) james_w: apart from that, it kind of depends what you are looking for
(12:20:41 PM) macaco: bien dia
(12:20:50 PM) james_w: so I would suggest you try a live-CD of both, and see which you prefer.
(12:21:23 PM) Nuc134rB0t: thanks
(12:22:50 PM) james_w: I said that Ubuntu is based on Debian, what did I mean by that?
(12:23:11 PM) james_w: I meant that when Ubuntu started it just imported Debian, and then started modifying things from there.
(12:23:53 PM) james_w: This process carries on. We are just starting development on Jaunty, and just about to start the activity known as "merging".
(12:24:29 PM) james_w: During this time we pull in all of the updates done in Debian since the last time we did this, and integrate them in to the Ubuntu packages, so all the improvements (and some new bugs, unfortunately) in Debian end up in Ubuntu.
(12:25:31 PM) james_w: We don't have to do this manually for all 15000 source packages in Ubuntu though, it's only a small fraction of packages that are modified in Ubuntu, for the rest we just pull in whatever Debian currently has.
(12:25:52 PM) james_w: <jimbodoors> QUESTION: do you think is better debian for a new user tooking about stability?
(12:26:18 PM) james_w: jimbodoors: Ubuntu releases every 6 months, Debian releases "when it's ready", typically every 6 months
(12:26:31 PM) james_w: er, typically around every 18 months sorry
(12:27:10 PM) james_w: so Debian stable releases will typically be more stable than Ubuntu releases
(12:27:26 PM) jimbodoors: but have a relly stability distribution
(12:27:28 PM) rizitis: -james_w: what is your opinion for this (” - When’s the new debian release? - When it’s ready!”) ?
(12:27:56 PM) james_w: however, there is a trade off. To do this Debian freezes earlier in it's development cycle, so the packages it releases with are already a bit more out of date.
(12:28:18 PM) james_w: and as you have to wait 18 months for a new release they become very out of date.
(12:28:47 PM) james_w: This long-term stability is good for large deployments and the like, and is the reason that Ubuntu has its LTS releases
(12:29:49 PM) james_w: so you can find the release that balances stability with updates that suits you
(12:30:10 PM) james_w: note though that long-term support and bug-free are two different things
(12:30:38 PM) james_w: there is another way though. Debian has rolling releases known as "testing" and "unstable".
(12:31:11 PM) james_w: Using them you can get fairly recent stuff, but it would be like running an Ubuntu beta release, not for those who can't deal with their X server not starting
(12:31:17 PM) james_w: or who don't want a lot of changes
(12:31:48 PM) james_w: I could debate the merits of different release strategies all day, but we should move on
(12:32:23 PM) james_w: We also send some of our improvements and bug-fixes back to Debian, so that they can benefit too. This is a great help for both sides, as Debian gets the improvements, and Ubuntu can stop maintaining them.
(12:32:54 PM) james_w: Merging is a good activity if you want to get involved in Ubuntu development, so join #ubuntu-motu if you want to join in.
(12:33:17 PM) james_w: It does require some technical knowledge, but it doesn't usually require actual coding or patching, but just working out what has changed, and what you need to do.
(12:33:32 PM) james_w: <chillitom> QUESTION: what is being done to fight the commonly expressed opinion (not mine) that Ubuntu doesn't contribute enough to upstream/Debian?
(12:33:46 PM) james_w: chillitom: two things really.
(12:33:55 PM) james_w: firstly, contributing to Debian.
(12:34:11 PM) james_w: Ubuntu hasn't always done as it should here, but we are trying to improve things in that area
(12:34:27 PM) james_w: it's never been as bad as some people would have you believe though
(12:34:48 PM) james_w: the second one is making sure our contributions are visible.
(12:36:34 PM) james_w: bhk_f> QUESTION: Any statistics on contribution of Ubuntu to Debian Stable ?
(12:37:02 PM) james_w: I doubt Ubuntu contributes anything to Debian stable
(12:37:02 PM) james_w: Debian doesn't contribute much (proportionally) to Debian stable
(12:37:23 PM) james_w: they only push critical and security fixes to stable, and they are quite capable of taking care of that
(12:37:55 PM) james_w: also, Ubuntu development is based of Debian unstable, and is currently about 18 months away from Debian stable, so the issues we are hitting are probably not the ones Debian stable users are hitting
(12:38:30 PM) james_w: having said that the Ubuntu security team typically ensures that security patches we have are in the Debian BTS to make things easy for the Debian security team for those cases where we patch it first.
(12:39:15 PM) james_w: we try and push our fixes to Debian unstable, as that is the correct place for them.
(12:39:50 PM) james_w: we do have some information on that, but it's not complete (it requires action from the submitter and some people forget/don't bother)
(12:40:20 PM) james_w: see https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Debian/Usertagging for details
(12:40:52 PM) james_w: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?tag=origin-ubuntu;users=ubuntu-devel@lists.ubuntu.com shows the bugs forwarded by Ubuntu where the person that did it tagged it
(12:42:17 PM) james_w: <gscholz> QUESTION: Does Ubuntu only get fixes from Debian or is there also a knowledge flow in the oposite direction?
(12:42:34 PM) james_w: gscholz: we get a log of fixes from Debian, either directly, or indirectly
(12:42:44 PM) james_w: directly when the Debian maintainer fixes something
(12:42:59 PM) james_w: indirectly when they package a new version of the software, with all the juicy bug fixes
(12:43:10 PM) james_w: however, Ubuntu also fixes some things
(12:43:46 PM) james_w: we don't have nearly as many developers as Debian, so we can't do as much, but we do what we can
(12:44:13 PM) james_w: Ubuntu will typically only fix critical bugs ourselves, for some definition of critical
(12:45:03 PM) james_w: <weboide> QUESTION: Instead of developping for Ubuntu, should we develop for debian and "port" it onto Ubuntu (so that we contribute to both)?
(12:45:09 PM) james_w: that's one way to do things
(12:45:15 PM) james_w: and many people do do it that way
(12:45:23 PM) james_w: however it's not always possible
(12:45:54 PM) james_w: some things aren't applicable to Debian, either due to freezes etc., or other reasons.
(12:46:23 PM) james_w: <hophet> QUESTION: Lets say that Debian die or they stop the work on it. How Ubuntu will moving on?
(12:46:32 PM) james_w: hophet: I've no idea
(12:46:59 PM) james_w: I doubt it will ever happen, and I don't think there is a contingency plan in place for if it does
(12:47:36 PM) james_w: if Debian dies then there will be a lot of debian developers with time on their hands, and they might like to develop for Ubuntu as it would be familiar, but that won't be the full story
(12:47:49 PM) james_w: <bhk_f> james_w: QUESTION: with progeny gone, who's still doing paid support for debian ?
(12:47:53 PM) james_w: I've no idea
(12:48:01 PM) james_w: there are a few small firms
(12:48:17 PM) james_w: but I don't think there is anyone currently trying to do something like Progeny with Debian
(12:49:43 PM) james_w: <billybigrigger> QUESTION: why would it matter if Debian fell off the face of the earth, couldn't Ubuntu just continue from where its going with 8.10? or is Ubuntu specifically dependant on Debian? It would just mean Ubuntu needs more developers to continue keeping up-to-date security fixes no?
(12:49:57 PM) james_w: billybigrigger: more than security fixes
(12:50:11 PM) james_w: we would need developers to help us make the next release
(12:50:19 PM) james_w: and *lots* of them
(12:50:25 PM) james_w: <gscholz> QUESTION: Ubuntu has a nice tool called Launchpad for monitoring bugs. I personally used it several times not only to file bugs but also to provide patches (which were accepted). Are those Launchpad-patches passed over to upstream (Debian or original author)?
(12:50:54 PM) james_w: yeah, they generally end up where they are supposed to, but it depends on a few things to how efficient that is
(12:51:45 PM) james_w: if you send the patch to upstream yourself, then you can be sure it will happen. If it's important and you want to see it in Ubuntu sooner then you can send it to both.
(12:52:06 PM) james_w: if you do that then I would give you a HUGE hug, as that's a great help
(12:52:27 PM) james_w: I wanted to talk about bugs for a bit
(12:52:44 PM) james_w: however, I haven't got much time left
(12:52:49 PM) james_w: so I'll be really quick
(12:53:04 PM) james_w: the Debian bug tracker is at http://bugs.debian.org/
(12:53:35 PM) james_w: when you file a bug in Ubuntu checking the bugs against the Debian package and seeing if you bug is reported there to is a HUGE HUGE HUGE help
(12:54:05 PM) james_w: if you find it then linking it in the Ubuntu bug report helps us track it
(12:54:16 PM) james_w: if you don't find it then saying so can also be helpful
(12:55:34 PM) james_w: jcastro did a fantastic post about the linking and why it helps here: http://stompbox.typepad.com/blog/2008/08/feeding-the-har.html
(12:56:05 PM) james_w: as I said, it helps us to track it, but it also increases the chance that it will be fixed, which is always good right?
(12:56:21 PM) james_w: I wanted to go in to this a bit more, but I don't have time
(12:56:56 PM) james_w: suffice to say that if you file an Ubuntu bug and find a matching upstream one then jump on #ubuntu-bugs and explain the situation and someone will be glad to help?
(12:57:03 PM) james_w: any last questions?
(12:57:34 PM) james_w: If you don't find a Debian bug report then it's possible to file one, but you have to be careful that the bug isn't Ubuntu-specific
(12:58:05 PM) james_w: checking that is hard, and it's easy to make mistakes, but sometimes you know it's not and you can file them.
(12:58:32 PM) james_w: ok, as I seem to have put everyone to sleep I'll wrap up
(12:58:45 PM) james_w: thanks everyone for your attention and your great questions
(12:58:54 PM) hophet: thank u
(12:58:55 PM) cyphermox: thanks james_w!!
(12:58:59 PM) hophet: congrats
(12:59:00 PM) KiNnaZ: thanks indeed
(12:59:01 PM) charlie-tca: %C5Thank you%O
(12:59:02 PM) catonano: thanks !
(12:59:04 PM) rizitis: james_w thanks
(12:59:08 PM) weboide: thanks james_w
(12:59:11 PM) james_w: next up is mathiaz
(12:59:11 PM) Txt_file: congratulations
(12:59:17 PM) cyphermox left the room (quit: "Quit").
(12:59:18 PM) zeroathome: thanks for the great insight
(12:59:20 PM) james_w: with some server-love
(12:59:21 PM) ***mathiaz waves at james_w
(12:59:27 PM) gladk: thanx
(12:59:31 PM) james_w: hey mathiaz, the stage is all yours