

Debian 7.4 Released - bbzealot
http://www.debian.org/News/2014/20140208

======
RexRollman
I usually use Arch Linux but I've been playing with Debian lately. I don't
like dpkg as much as I like pacman, but it a really nice distro (assuming the
age of some of its software packages doesn't bother you).

~~~
osivertsson
Sigh... People always remark on Debian having old packages. Well the "stable"
repository might be stable which in this case means run-in-production-
for-5+-years-on-many-archs without problems.

But then there is "testing", and "unstable" too which gets newer packages
quite often. I personally run "unstable" as my main development machine and
have for many years. Even "unstable" is very stable, but might require some
manual work once-a-year or so, with a solution often easily found by some
google-fu.

Then there is also "experimental", which might very well have broken
dependencies etc.

The cool thing is you can run stable, but then pick some packages from
unstable using what is called apt-pinning. This way you can get a rock solid
base, but use newer packages of some software. Best of both worlds!

~~~
sandGorgon
Hey thanks for "apt pinning". Never knew about that. One more question - how
do you get the Ubuntu PPAs into Debian? It seems a lot of new software is
exclusively published on Ubuntu.... at least that's what it seems from Webupd8
and omgbuntu

~~~
dfc
Answer to your question and method for figuring out other "how to do something
ubuntu in debian" questions. A great way to answer a lot of these questions is
simply use `apt-cache search` however this is not always enough. The next
thing to try is apt-file. Install apt-file:

    
    
      # apt-get -y install apt-file
    

Update apt-file db (might do this on install, I forget):

    
    
      # apt-file update
    
    

Now the bit you are interested in: How do you add PPAs in ubuntu? Answer:
`add-apt-repository`

Does debian have something named add-apt-repository?

    
    
      # apt-file search add-apt-repository
      software-properties-common: /usr/bin/add-apt-repository
      software-properties-common: /usr/share/man/man1/add-apt-repository.1.gz
    

That looks familiar.

    
    
      # apt-get install -y software-properties-common 
      # add-apt-repository ppa:libreoffice/ppa
    

As a long time debian fanboy I have to say "new software is exclusively
published on Ubuntu" was kind of funny. Unless you were talking about
`upstart` ;) A great reseource for debian is the Debian Administrators
Handbook. The section on pinning is:

[http://debian-handbook.info/browse/stable/sect.apt-
get.html#...](http://debian-handbook.info/browse/stable/sect.apt-
get.html#sect.apt.priorities)

~~~
sandGorgon
No I'm not referring to upstart. Incidentally, I'm pretty familiar with apt in
the Ubuntu context, but this is not what I was referring to.

For example, take a look at this -
[http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2014/01/turpial-3-available-
ubunt...](http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2014/01/turpial-3-available-ubuntu). How
do you get this into Debian? This is what I mean by software that is published
for ubuntu. I do not mean that it cannot be built for debian, but rather that
it is not PUBLISHED for debian.

Or is the only option to do a dpkg-build?

~~~
dfc
I don't know what you are missing here. Did you think I spent all that time
typing about add-apt-repository because a-a-r was a complete red herring? Did
you notice that the page you link to mentioned a-a-r?

    
    
      $ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:effie-jayx/turpial

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robinson-wall
I can't find any official announcement of it, but it looks like there are now
official HVM AMIs available with the release of 7.4:
[https://wiki.debian.org/Cloud/AmazonEC2Image/Wheezy](https://wiki.debian.org/Cloud/AmazonEC2Image/Wheezy)

~~~
justinsb
If you're running Debian on EC2, do you have the problem where restart from
within the instance doesn't complete? (Have you found a way around it?)

Edit: Not sure whether there was a real problem before (vs PEBKAC), but the
new images _do_ reboot successfully (takes about 2 minutes). Now to get
systemd running...!

~~~
robinson-wall
No, I'm not noticed this. That said, in the past (2years+) I have contacted
AWS support about an instance that wouldn't start and was told shutting down
from within an instance would normally work, but was not officially supported.

I think they were just looking for a scapegoat in that particular case.

~~~
justinsb
Thanks.

For anyone reading along, reboot does now work, and I was just able to install
systemd (apt-get update, apt-get install systemd, edit /etc/default/grub, edit
/etc/fstab to remove the systemd-unsupported nobootwait line, update-grub,
init 6). Thank you Debian cloud team :-)

------
0x0
Nice to see openssl enabling assembler implementations on arm. Seems to
improve scp performance a lot!

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urza
What is the preferred way of upgrading from 7.3 with aptitude?

On the wiki
[https://wiki.debian.org/Aptitude](https://wiki.debian.org/Aptitude) they say
dist-upgrade is no longer recommended, I am a bit confused (I don't keep up
with linux world very much, I am just a linux hobbyist).

Thanks.

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Havoc
Does anyone have a link for a netinstall image hosted via BT? The one on the
debian page is broken.

[https://www.debian.org/CD/netinst/](https://www.debian.org/CD/netinst/)

~~~
RexRollman
I don't think the 7.4 images have pushed out yet. I always download the newest
version, in case I need it, and its not available for me yet either.

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marris
There a typo in the HN title.

