[TAG] Scale5x Report 7

[Kapil Hari Paranjape]

On Sun, 11 Feb 2007, Kapil Hari Paranjape wrote:
> I've been attending Scale5x. Here is my first report.

Here is report 7.

===================================================
The last talk (for me) at Scale5x was the one by Don Armstrong on
"From Sarge to Etch". Don Armstrong is a Debian Developer who among
other things is one of the people managing the Bug Tracking System
(BTS).

Now any review by me of a talk by a Debian person is probably very
likely to be biased but I thought it was a very rich talk. If
anything, Don had too much material (which is a common error of
graduate students!). So let me summarise the main points:

	1. How does Debian release? What users can do to help.
	   Some tools to help users help Debian.
	2. Using "aptitude". Why "aptitude" surpasses "apt-get".
	3. Upgrading from Sarge to Etch.
	4. Pointers to obtaining information about Debian,
	   Debian developers and Debian packages.

One important point he made which may seem contradictory is that
Debian users who keep wanting Debian to release "etch" as stable will
actually benefit from checking it on a "test" machine and filing
bugs. While this may increase the RC bug count it will improve the
quality of the release. Furthermore, fresh information on a bug can
often help track it down. So his message to all Debian users was keep
finding and filing those bugs (Hint: Use "reportbug" when you do.)

The heart of "apt-get" is "libapt" and the former was meant as a
"demo" program --- which achieved "world domination". The newer
curses and command-line program "aptitude" is a meant as a more
complete interface to "libapt". In particular, it can do everything
that "apt-get" can do and more. One important addition is that it can
give hints for conflict resolution. Another is that it can keep track
of packages that are installed only as dependencies---in other words
it incorporates some features of "deborphan"/"debfoster". Then there
are pattern searches. All this with good documentation. Check out 
"aptitude" and you will enjoy---the "etch" version is even better!

The entire text of Don's talk and host of other information (like the
re-usable bits of his "rc" files) can be found on his web site at
www.donarmstrong.com. (I was surprised and pleased to see that his
"graphical" interface is "ion" and his chosen method of creating a
presentation is "latex-beamer".)

A great way to end.
===================================================