Talk:Debian/Archive 9

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Archive 5 ← Archive 7 Archive 8 Archive 9 Archive 10

FA preparation

Since the DYK process is over, let us continue. There is no A-class in this article's WikiProjects, so the next goal is the FA-class. These are the criteria.

Compliance

Feel free to overwrite this status to reflect the discussion.

    1. well-written:
    2. comprehensive:
    3. well-researched:
    4. neutral:
    5. stable:
    1. a lead:
    2. appropriate structure:
    3. consistent citations:
  3. Media:
  4. Length:

Discussion

Regarding "well-written", this should be left to a professional writer when all the other criteria have been dealt with.

About "comprehensive", I really feel that major facts are missing: e.g. Debian Women. Although modern literature like "The Debian Administrator's Handbook" barely mentions Debian Women (Krafft wrote more in 2005), it is an important part of Debian. Besides the diversity statement, female ratio, financial support, etc, incidents like this one eventually happen. I will not go further with this issue, but someone else should give the "comprehensive" OK.

Concerning "well-researched", I will check once more that claims are verifiable. There are some sentences that do not sound neutral; verification will help with this.

The article looks stable, with a good lead, appropriate structure, consistent citations and enough media. Citations could be improved a bit more.

I am not sure whether the article stays focused. I will leave this assessment to another editor. 84.127.80.114 (talk) 23:03, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

To the best of my knowledge, the "well-researched" criterion is met. The article was fairly neutral already and the information is presented without bias; the "neutral" criterion is met too. Although other featured articles have shorter tables of contents, I do not find this one overwhelming.

The next goal should be "length". The article is more focused but another opinion is needed. I will wait one week before doing a first pass for this criterion and then ask for a review, unless another editor wants to take over. 84.127.80.114 (talk) 00:43, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

A little help opening the peer review would be appreciated ("Engineering and technology" link at the top of the page). 84.127.80.114 (talk) 22:07, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Because of events that have led to this edit, I will refrain from working in this article for one week, unless the Peer review or the FAC process (which I cannot initiate either) start. I hope that the article gets improved in the meantime. 84.127.80.114 (talk) 22:54, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Despite this edit, I am sure that GamerPro64 has nothing against Debian. May the user review this article or open the peer review at the PR list as intended? The peer review has not been advertised. 84.127.80.114 (talk) 21:36, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Featured article tools

Toolbox

It be helpful to run the Featured article tools. Lentower (talk) 03:02, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Expected information

This section is meant to receive feedback from Wikipedia users that have been selected randomly. The purpose is to make the article useful to different types of readers. Of course, users are not expected to read the whole article. The question is: what else do you want to know about Debian?

Review by GamerPro64

GamerPro64 is reviewing the article; the review should continue in this page. I should clarify that the article is not prepared, e.g., the "well-written" pass is missing. The review was meant to check the "length" criterion and a couple of questions. Nevertheless, GamerPro64's input is more than welcome.

Regarding the use of Debian Wiki as a source, I agree that it is unreliable if used "as is".[1] However, this is no ordinary wiki, because many Debian members are contributors. A claim should be reliable if the information was added by a confirmed Debian member (diff) and it is uncontested. This is equivalent to an email sent by a Debian member.

I will revise the Debian Wiki references. 84.127.80.114 (talk) 23:57, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Done. GamerPro64 may continue with the review, if he wants to. 84.127.80.114 (talk) 08:32, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Length review

The purpose of the peer review is to check the "length" FA criterion. Also, an answer to the following questions would be appreciated:

  • Does the table of contents look overwhelming?
  • Does the section Architecture ports look disruptive to the flow of text?
  • As a reader not used to articles about software, which column feels more comfortable?
Jun 17, 1996 1996-06-17 17 Jun 1996
Dec 12, 1996 1996-12-12 12 Dec 1996
Jun 5, 1997 1997-06-05 5 Jun 1997
Jul 24, 1998 1998-07-24 24 Jul 1998

84.127.80.114 (talk) 08:26, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Table usability (2)

This topic was split off from #Length review, above. 84.127.80.114 (talk) 12:38, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
Month names shouldn't be abbreviated, that's been already beaten over and over in MOS discussions. — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 21:58, 18 October 2014 (UTC)
Brevity is required.[2] 84.127.80.114 (talk) 03:25, 19 October 2014 (UTC)
Why is it required? — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 03:58, 19 October 2014 (UTC)
It is an accessibility issue, that is why I made the change regarding the date format. Relocating references is another technique towards that goal. Regular edits also help, such as removing redundancy.
Although the manual reads "Only where brevity is required ... tables", it is not required to use the abbreviated format in tables. Abbreviation is just one option to reduce width. There are alternatives, such as removing the "≈" signs and dropping one feature in Squeeze, but I needed someone else to suggest those changes first.
Dsimic made a good decision then; that table was completely different. I have not forgotten that Dsimic prefers MDY dates and Derianus needs ISO 8601 for some reason; both users represent a type of reader. The #dateformat function could help solving this divergence, but I am not sure about the default format. However, abbreviation does make a difference; does Dsimic find the abbreviated MDY unacceptable? 84.127.80.114 (talk) 06:19, 19 October 2014 (UTC)
To me, abbreviating the month names brings more disadvantages than benefits. From one side, it is simply less readable; on the other hand, it somehow reflects the "I have no desire to do this properly, so just let me slap something really quickly" attitude, which is common to many abbreviations in general.
As I've already explained, this is 2014 and really small screens are not so common. Also, let's just have a look at the timeline graphs in Debian § Timeline section – how are those supposed to fit and still be readable on screens that small so the releases table requires substantial compactions? To me, that turns the compaction of dates into a moot point. — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 06:46, 19 October 2014 (UTC)
If abbreviated months are not acceptable, then I guess that only one format is possible. Would {{abbr}} (Dec 12, 1996) solve this perception of laziness?
Now that the timeline graphs are in the discussion, I also notice that they may be too wide. The manual recommends the 1024×768 resolution. The reason I have not reduced the graph width is because some horizontal scrolling is allowed and graphs do fit in the mobile view. I would certainly support a graph width reduction. 84.127.80.114 (talk) 02:00, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
Well, I'm still against month name abbreviations and pretty much all other "pinching" in 2014, so I'd guess that we should hear opinions from other editors. — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 03:50, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
Is Dsimic against the 1024×768 resolution guideline? 84.127.80.114 (talk) 06:08, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
Hm, 84.127.80.114, why do you refer to me in third person? :) Regarding the 1024×768 resolution guideline, I'd say that using |upright= parameter for images makes much more sense. — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 19:35, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
About persons; odd sound it does?
I mentioned letter-spacing; font-size is another option. However, resizing does not address accessibility for a lower resolution, but for a bigger one, otherwise scrolling would be unnecessary; we should not try to fit 4096×2160 into an unreadable 1024×768. Resizing would be a sign that the table contains too much information to be useful. If MDY without abbreviation is chosen, other information should go elsewhere. 84.127.80.114 (talk) 06:19, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
Sorry, but I really don't get your third-person riddles. What's it about, as there's nothing about it in WP:OWNTALK you've referred to? Is it about distantiating yourself?
Also, don't you think that putting the width of a table above its content is actually going to hurt what's most important, and that's the content? — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 16:29, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

"No personal attacks are intended."[3] Let us focus on the subject.

Strictly answering the question, sacrificing content merely because of width minimization is harmful for the article. The article is the most important, the understanding of the subject, major facts and key details.

That said, tables should present information in a useful way. Tables with too many details are less useful and they are not a substitute for prose. Concerning content, no relevant information has been discarded because of my decisions on accessibility, although my criteria about what is relevant may be questioned (and has been questioned). 84.127.80.114 (talk) 12:38, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

The content is most important, in the end that's what the articles are about. Also, I agree that too much information in tables makes them less readable. However, I'm still against the concept of making tables more readable by not using MDY dates. As we're proposing pretty much different approaches, I'd say that going back and forth isn't productive; thus, let's hear opinions from other editors, if you agree. Maybe even starting an RfC would be an option? — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 14:13, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
Of course, an article is made of content, but not every content can be in the main article. Dsimic prefers MDY dates without abbreviation; in that new table, what other information should be moved? 84.127.80.114 (talk) 02:38, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
I would like Dsimic to make a first suggestion. While he is absolutely right regarding this edit, we should focus our efforts on this issue; some reasons are:
  • That content will eventually get revised around November 5.
  • The table is already a mess.
  • Perfection is not required; we are still preparing this article.
  • We work in the open, under constant good faith mistakes and vandalism.
Please try to isolate from that noise and look at this table. 84.127.82.127 (talk) 06:54, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
Well, here's what I'd suggest to be done:
  • Bring the MDY dates back, as they look and read way better.
  • Merge the "Timeline description" table into primary "Timeline" table; that way, a lot of content would be deduplicated.
After that I'd call it a day. — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 20:35, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
So, we have Derianus that wants YYYY-MM-DD, regardless of accessibility. We have Dsimic that wants MDY, regardless of accessibility too. I seem to be the only one who cares about accessibility. Therefore, let us use the #dateformat function and we will address accessibility later. The default should be the format produced by five tildes (16:12, 30 October 2014 (UTC)), i.e., DMY. Will Derianus be able to copy dates using an account?
Example: 30 October 2014
84.127.82.127 (talk) 16:12, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
"wants YYYY-MM-DD, regardless of accessibility" - any source for the latter part? Also, DMY uses even more space and it will not go towards date format consistency for tables across different articles. Otherwise, the reasoning to use the date format produced by four tildes (i.e. the English Wikipedia software default format), looks wise. Derianus (talk) 03:35, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
At the same time, it isn't that I don't care about accessibility. Instead, I just find that trading readability for a dozen or two of pixels doesn't make much sense. Readability, in general, is also a form of accessibility, if you agree. — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 04:05, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
I will wait until consensus is reached in the WikiProject discussion. 84.127.82.127 (talk) 19:07, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Review by GamerPro64 (2)

This topic was split off. 84.127.80.114 (talk) 12:38, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
  • I'll be adding this article to my watchlist so you don't have to ping me anymore. Now for the next thing that needs to be worked on are the images. The image of Buzz Lightyear has to go. Doesn't add anything to the article. As well the source for File:Debian-cd-cover1.png redirects to itself. Might raise a few alarms. Just overall get them looked at to see if they can pass a Image Review. GamerPro64 22:35, 19 October 2014 (UTC)
The swirl in Buzz Lightyear's chin is relevant, specially to the "Code names" subsection. Pixar's influence in Debian's history is notable. Some people believe that this influence was acknowledged at Pixar, including project leader Stefano Zacchiroli;[4] with Bruce Perens working at Pixar, this is plausible. I would not reliably affirm that this is the Debian swirl, but this detail in the chin of the first named Debian release character is an interesting fact. 84.127.80.114 (talk) 03:00, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
Can you at least mention that into the actual article instead of it being only mentioned in the image's caption? GamerPro64 03:10, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Images

There are copyright problems with File:Debian Installer graphical etch.png, uploader BorgHunter, and with File:Debian Etch-ja.png, uploader Green from Commons. Regarding the History section, my choice of screenshots would be:

  • Birth (1993–1998): Debian 0.91
  • Leader election (1999–2005): Slink
  • Sarge release (2005–present): Sarge and Squeeze

Unfortunately, image uploads are out of my reach. 84.127.115.190 (talk) 18:15, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Support for communities

"Community support" seems ambiguous. This section should be under Features and the layout would be:

  1. Support for communities
  1. Localization
    As it is.
  2. Virtual communities
    This section would tell how Debian supports big virtual communities, such as Facebook, Tencent QQ and Skype.

I will wait one week before adding this content, just in case someone wants to give it a try. 84.127.115.190 (talk) 23:47, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

New release names

Regarding this edit, these code names have been announced. However, this kind of future event is not appropriate. Jessie is not released, but there is an actual distribution (testing). Unless distributions for Stretch and Buster exist, this information should be left for later. 84.127.115.190 (talk) 21:32, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

It looks like we have some fans excited with these names.[5][6] Let us tag this information appropriately and wait until the excitement fades away. 84.127.115.190 (talk) 00:31, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

Maybe "not appropriate" is not appropriate here. 91.9.127.47 (talk) 17:49, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Freeze of Jessie

According to http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Freeze-fuer-Debian-8-Jessie-2443508.html?wt_mc=rss.ho.beitrag.rdf, Debian 8 "Jessie" was freezed around 2014-11-06. Unfortunately, I can't find any more information about it in the net. But I think it's time to update some timeline information. 195.141.2.242 (talk) 08:49, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Of course, the reference in the article is not clear enough. 84.127.115.190 (talk) 01:41, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

Features, policies, variants

Current hierarchy of the following elements in the article is:

  1. Features
    1. Variants
      1. Distributions
      2. Releases
      3. Blends
    2. Derivatives
  2. Policies

What is meant by "features"? Policies are also a feature of the Debian project. If Policies are outsourced, then why are Derivatives included? I suggest something like:

  1. Software features OR Operating system features
  2. Variants and derivatives
    1. Debian branded variants
      1. Distributions
      2. Releases
      3. Blends
    2. Derivatives
  3. Project policies

91.9.127.47 (talk) 18:07, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

"Policies are also a feature of the Debian project." that is true. However, the very first sentence in the lead says: "Debian is an operating system". If 91.9.127.47 does not understand what this article is about, how can the editor make proper decisions? I am going to let 91.9.127.47 edit the article as much as wanted; I can repair it later. A warning: references that should go away do not need to be fixed. 84.127.115.190 (talk) 02:12, 14 November 2014 (UTC)
"If 91.9.127.47 does not understand what this article is about" - maybe 91.9.127.47 understood that better than 84.127.115.190? In the second sentence it says "Debian is one of the most popular Linux distributions" and under "Features" it says "Distributions". So, is it one or is it several distributions? Then, in the category section it says "Category:Free software culture and documents Category:Debian Project leaders Category:Debian people". Do Wikipedia articles restricted to software reside in the category tree for "culture and documents" or "people"? Are policies part of the OS? Was the "2008 OpenSSL vulnerability" part of the OS? Why is the latter placed under Policies? Why is Ubuntu mentioned under Policies? Can 84.127.115.190 explain the mess? 91.9.103.21 (talk) 06:43, 22 November 2014 (UTC)
If 91.9.103.21 is asking why I have not fixed every issue in this article yet, then the answer should be obvious: I am not a bot (MediaWiki asks me several times) and I have to convince people of my edits. So, one issue at a time, the WikiProject discussion being the priority. 84.127.115.190 (talk) 17:31, 22 November 2014 (UTC)
  • "Distribution" is Debian lexicon;[7] it is a bit confusing. Let us try the "branch" nomenclature. 84.127.115.190 (talk) 16:23, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

my Announcement on Debian regarding Jessie 8.0

Debian Jessie is currently frozen right now as i have googled it this week the release date for Debian Jessie is TBA --User:superusergeneric hello (talk) 01:11, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Buzz Lightyear

The current image of Buzz Lightyear seems out of place, but I thought I would bring it up here. Is there any reason for its presence, apart from the fact that he has a swirl on his chin? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.17.250.246 (talk) 23:27, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Hello! Well, one theory says that Buzz's swirl is shared with the one on Debian's logo, so having the image included should make some sense. — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 23:33, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Unstable doesn't become Testing

The article says "Testing becomes Stable, and Unstable becomes Testing", which is incorrect. Unstable doesn't become anything, but rather packages migrate to Testing from it after a few days. I'd fix this inaccuracy myself, but I'm not sure of how to reword this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:805:8101:8F9F:2225:64FF:FE7B:9B52 (talk) 03:50, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Piece of news/reference, where should this go in the article

I think this is useful information to add to the article. I wanted to ask where it should go.

Announcing availability of Debian GNU/Linux as an endorsed distribution in Azure Marketplace

Microsoft brings Debian GNU/Linux to Azure cloud

SarrCat ∑;3 03:19, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Wow, pigs are flying over hell's icecap! I suppose if there's nothing more to add to the bare announcement, the end of the history section would be the place. Rwxrwxrwx (talk) 19:11, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Update of section: "Features -> Multimedia support"

I stumbled across the "Multimedia support" section, and it appears to be ready for an update.


Because this article has acquired Wikipedia:Good_articles/Engineering_and_technology status, it is worth discussing such an update here so that article quality status is maintained (and hopefully improved).


I see two primary issues:

  • The content and references should be more current and accurate than they are.
  • The section begins in the past tense, "Multimedia support has been...". This section is part of the (current) "Features" of this distribution, so I propose the verb tense be changed to present tense.


What are some reliable, authoritative sources that should be cited for this section?


Possibilities include:


Any additional suggestions for sources to cite?

--OnTheGas (talk) 00:45, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

Architecture ports

The specification of an ABI involves looking at its technical merits. The availability of a wide-spread ABI, involves acceptance based on a common interest. Free and open-source software can be compiled any time with any options to any of the instruction sets supported by the employed compiler. Proprietary software cannot.

I added file:Linux stake holders.svg to this section as the scheme should explain some implications: by compiling Debian for a certain instruction set we not only make Debian run on it, but we also inevitably create a version of the Linux kernel user-space ABI. In case somebody cares to run proprietary software on this Debian, the packagers of the proprietary software need to compile it in a way compatible with this Debian port ABI, else it wont run!

Now in case you have multiple Linux distributions targeting some specific platform, they could or not care about sharing an identical ABI, so that proprietary software runs well on all of them.

My diagram was removed with some explanation I cannot fathom. User:ScotXWt@lk 09:55, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

The diagram claims that Linux distributors

fragment the GNU/Linux market for ISVs and by that, segregate the users from each other, that want to purchase proprietary software (e.g. video games)!

That's opinionated writing without attribution, and there's more of it. By putting this in an image, you're also making it very hard to edit the opinion out. QVVERTYVS (hm?) 09:31, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

release history

This article used to include a table with release histories and dates for each release. This was incredibly useful, in fact, I regularly referred to it. I'm not sure why it was deleted but if I were an editor working on this page I would consider it worth another look. -- 82.132.235.139 (talk) 09:15, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

Maybe it got just moved; to List of Debian releases? That list seems ok. I'm not sure that list needs to be (more) excessive, was there anything you wanted on it? And if EOLed version, why do you look it up..? comp.arch (talk) 09:24, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

Debian is NOT an operating system, it is just a distribution. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.68.200.200 (talk) 19:09, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

New DPL

https://bits.debian.org/2016/04/results-dpl-elections-2016.html --RaphaelQS (talk) 19:28, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Multiple version numbers in the infobox?

There is currently a discussion of whether Template:Infobox OS should be used with multiple version numbers - for example, to list both a "software update" and "next major release" beta, or to list betas from more than one release stream. If you believe that multiple {stable, preview} releases should never appear in that infobox, or if you believe that they should appear under some or all circumstances where there's more than one beta of the OS in question available, you might want to comment there. (I have no strong belief either way; I'm OK with the main OS page listing only the "next major release" beta, but listing betas from multiple streams if they exist, but I'd also be OK with other choices.) Guy Harris (talk) 08:18, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

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