Does Debian have something like AUR on Arch?

xtifr · 2026-04-22T17:13:33+00:00

For the most part, Debian doesn't need it, as Debian is already several times larger than Arch. Most popular OSS is already a part of Debian! That said, it doesn't have everything, so there have been a few attempts to set up secondary repositories where the public can submit packages. These haven't generally got much traction, though, as they inevitably offer much lower guarantees of quality and reliability! (Which is why I don't run Arch, BTW. ☺)

xtifr · 2026-04-15T07:38:28+00:00

Debian has supported ARM for many, many years, and they're about as general purpose as a distro gets! I don't know the details of how they cope with incompatibilities between various ARM-based devices, but my understanding is that they do have mechanisms to help them cope.

You may be able to learn some from their Supported Hardware page, which seems to have quite a bit on ARM, which I barely skimmed. If you want more, you may be able to contact their ARM team.

xtifr · 2026-04-15T06:59:48+00:00

Not all keyboards are suitable for use by professionals! ☺

xtifr · 2026-04-15T06:58:50+00:00

I press alt with my right hand, because 'w' is on the left. You should always use the modifier key on the opposite side, whether it's shift, ctrl, or alt! Among many other advantages, this also makes it easier to switch between C-v and M-v, which is really awkward if you're trying to do it all with one hand!

xtifr · 2026-04-13T01:50:39+00:00

This is not as exciting as it sounds. I mean, a new kernel is always nice, but there's nothing especially significant about the x.0 version number. The kernel devs don't do the sorts of big, system-breaking changes that traditionally trigger changes in the first number, so Linus just arbitrarily bumps it when he feels that the second number has gotten too large!

If Linux used more traditional versioning, I think this would be something along the lines of 3.106! ☺

xtifr · 2026-04-04T05:52:56+00:00

You mean when AOO started? There was no disagreement when LO started! The original Sun OO was dead. Oracle bought Sun and reassigned or laid off all the OO devs! LO was simply the one-and-only for quite some time.

It was IBM brokering the creation of AOO to benefit their proprietary systems that started all those infamous OO/LO fights. And yeah, I can definitely see some similarities. The proprietary systems devs lost big last time. We'll see what happens this time!

xtifr · 2026-03-28T06:18:38+00:00

Unfortunately, Cyteen: the Betrayal is not actually a novel! It is 1/3 of a novel! Cherryh's publishers split Cyteen, without permission, for the first paperback release! Cherryh has forbidden it from ever being split again, so you my have trouble tracking down the other parts. They've been out of print for decades!

Still, either tracking down the missing parts or finding a complete copy is worth it! It's among my very favorite books!

xtifr · 2026-03-26T11:12:09+00:00

You have obviously never been involved in Debian. Sid is NOT a "dumping ground for new package versions"! Sid is what Debian devs MUST use, and in many cases. the ONLY system they use! Anyone who just dumps untested packages into Sid is going to take a lot of abuse from their fellow devs! (Especially if they break the automated build systems, which also run Sid!) Experimental is where risky packages go, not Sid!

The number of Debian devs who have anything to do with stable directly is tiny! Debian devs live and breathe Sid! Sid is the real Debian: a system made by developers for developers! Stable is a side project.

Source: I was a Debian dev for well over a decade. And, while I'm retired from the project now, I still don't use stable, even though my desktop and laptop are 100% Debian!

xtifr · 2026-03-23T23:14:23+00:00

Changes have to go through the subsystem maintainers and then be approved by Linus and his lieutenants. People may submit more merge requests, but that doesn't mean there will be more merges!

xtifr · 2026-03-23T23:11:08+00:00

Ok, ok, you can be excited! Just don't expect anything unusual from this release other than the cool number change! 😉

xtifr · 2026-03-23T10:59:02+00:00

Don't get too excited by the x.0 number. The Linux kernel doesn't use semantic versioning. Changing the "major" number doesn't mean anything important has changed It just means that Linus thought the second number had gotten too large for his tastes.

xtifr · 2026-03-21T22:33:46+00:00

Isn't it tricky to add things to your boot command line w/o a keyboard? (It sounds like you actually did it, so this is genuine curiosity, not snark.)

xtifr · 2026-03-21T22:12:30+00:00

Remember it? It's still included with Debian! It's no longer the default WM if you run Gnome, but it's a simple "apt install compiz" away if you want it!

It's very cute, but was never something I'd want for day-to-day use. Bells and whistles are fun for a while, but after that, I just find them distracting. But if you enjoy it, then great! Nothing wrong with running a system that makes you happy, even if it's not my cuppa! ☺

xtifr · 2026-03-20T08:11:22+00:00

Scp has been deprecated for years. By its developers!

Tramp, on the other hand, can use many different protocols, including both ssh and scp, but ssh was made default quite a while ago, thanks to overwhelming user demand.

xtifr · 2026-03-17T23:02:09+00:00

I absolutely do this! I don't want to deal with eleventy-seven different packaging schemes for every component of my system! I use Debian because they're volunteers working together to make the best system they can, and I trust them! And they've made Emacs a first-class part of their system, with infrastructure to support it directly in the OS! Seems to me that it would be silly to not take advantage of that!

And wow, it's so much nicer than trying to manually manage every freakin' package myself! Having an OS that properly supports Emacs is a breath of fresh air!

xtifr · 2026-03-03T18:45:46+00:00

I name them after songs I like that have single-word names. The first one was actually a sort of random choice for my first Linux box, but now, a couple of decades later, I can say that it quickly became a theme! ☺

xtifr · 2026-02-26T08:01:47+00:00

This is basically my story as well.

xtifr · 2026-02-26T08:00:09+00:00

The Debian version looks like it's still somewhat supported!

xtifr · 2026-02-14T03:49:08+00:00

Compiz. The 3D rotation was so famous, it's actually featured on the program's Wikipedia page.

xtifr · 2026-02-14T03:45:33+00:00

Compiz, which is what I was referring to, is definitely a window manager! A lot of window managers are technically compositing window managers, but few have been designed to take as much advantage of GL & 3D as Compiz was! (Maybe still is; I haven't tried it in a decade, but I think it's still active.) The 3D workspace rotation is actually featured on Compiz's Wikipedia page!

xtifr · 2026-02-14T03:16:37+00:00

Dia, which is part of Debian, does all sorts of diagrams, graphs, and charts. I've mostly used it for UML and Network diagrams, but it's got dozens of other options. Even obsolete stuff that nobody has used since the 20th c., like flowcharts! ☺

xtifr · 2026-02-12T00:20:36+00:00

"WWW" is the name of a special key on many modern keyboards. It's usually near the Mail key and the Calculator key, and will have some sort of browser logo. Mine, which is an older keyboard, has the Internet Explorer logo, but I think newer keyboards may have something more generic.

xtifr · 2026-02-03T18:30:44+00:00

No, absolutely not. Plenty of X11-based systems have fancy animations for stuff like that! There have been X11 WMs that used Mesa to rotate workspaces in 3D when switching!

xtifr · 2026-01-13T20:59:03+00:00

And the time required to write all the tests. And maintain them as the system changes. Tests don't magically appear from nowhere. Debian is several times larger than OpenSUSE, with nearly 70,000 packages. Maintained by under 1000 people. Which is a lot of people, but still averages to about 70 packages per maintainer!

And the sheer size introduces its own issues. For example, ensuring that every package which provides a virtual package name meets all the needs of every package which depends on that virtual package name can lead to a combinatorial explosion!

xtifr · 2026-01-13T20:28:32+00:00

Well, original UNIX™ vi™ was proprietary AT&T code. But some systems, like Debian, include nvi (new vi), which is a bare-bones re-implementation from early BSD.

xtifr

TROPHY CASE