I cerainly appreciate the efforts of the Trinity folks too. Yes, this is confusing with ubuntu, names just add to it. I have to keep a link so I can sort this out far too often. One thought would be to include the number along with the name. Yes, I wish this name silliness would go away too. Thanks for your efforts, you guys are the best! On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 6:54 PM, Brad Alexander <storm16(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On Saturday 18 February 2012 11:07:56 Lisi wrote: i think the OP had just the problem to always remember the correct relation between code name and version number, e.g. what was exactly maverick ? (10.04, 10.10 ?) - i confirm having this problem also, from time to time :) werner

On Saturday 18 February 2012 06:16:07 am Lisi wrote: Looking at the main page at trinitydesktop.org, you see "Debian Lenny" and "Debian Squeeze", not "Debian 5.0" and "Debian 6.0". This may be what the OP was referring to. The only reason I know the difference is because I have been using Debian for just under a year. If I hadn't done my research on Debian beforehand, I'd have no inkling of an idea what "Squeeze" and "Lenny" referred to. Since I'm not an Ubuntu user, I have not been keeping track of their code names, so I could not tell you the difference between "Karmic" and "Lucid" except that they are two different versions of Ubuntu, but I do not know what those versions are. -- Kris Gamrat Ark Linux webmaster http://www.arklinux.org/

On Saturday 18 February 2012 19:29:11 Andy wrote: Except for Warty Warthog! That was one of the early ones.before they started being in alphabetical order. I don't use Ubuntu myself, so do not keep track of Ubuntu names. But since I don't use it, I don't need to chose a version of Trinity for it. If I used it, I would know the name of the version I used. (Or could easily look it up on my system.) I do use Debian, so I know the version names. They don't all have numbers, so have to be referred to by name. None out of experimental, Sid and Wheezy has a number. By the time that Wheezy is released, we will all have been calling it Wheezy for some time. It is easier to continue doing so after release as well, even though on release it will acquire a number, presumably 7.0.0. I have just discovered that version 1.1.3 of vlc is called "The Luggage". Presumably from the Terry Pratchet novels. Car names are no better. Perhaps all geeks are small boys at heart. (Us too, before feminists do battle!) Lisi

Version numbers added to installation page. Tim

On Saturday 18 February 2012 02:48:27 pm Lisi wrote: Even a newbie might not know the difference. Some newbies won't bother with the name, at least not at first. I know I didn't when I first used Debian (and I wasn't exactly a newbie when I did). All I knew was that I was using Debian 5.0, it took me a few weeks to start calling it "Lenny". I didn't care much for what some refer to as "childish nicknames", I only bothered to learn the name so I could communicate with other Debian users. On Saturday 18 February 2012 02:59:17 pm Lisi wrote: I thought they did all have numbers? I don't know about the first few releases, but IIRC, Etch was 3.? (I forget the point number). -- Kris Gamrat Ark Linux webmaster http://www.arklinux.org/

On Sunday 19 February 2012 04:51:46 am Lisi wrote: As "Testing", which is the name officially given to it regardless of the official codename for the release they are working on. There are also "Development" and "Upcoming", though these aren't officially used. Also, nothing's stopping the developers from giving it a version number. They just choose not to. -- Kris Gamrat Ark Linux webmaster http://www.arklinux.org/

On Saturday 18 February 2012 18:38:00 Kristopher John Gamrat wrote: I suspect that the reason that Ubuntu follows the Debian idea of using names as the primary way to identify each release, as opposed to version numbers, is because it's quite a good idea and it's a good idea because it makes it easy to upgrade, or not, from one release to the next. As previously mentioned by some of the other posters, there are several concurrent Debian releases, or more accurately, distributions, at any one time. At the top level these distributions are 'stable', 'testing' and 'unstable'. The way the Debian scheme works is that 'stable' is always the current release distribution, 'testing' is always the candidate distribution for the next 'stable' release and 'unstable' is always the development distribution. When it is decided that the 'testing' distribution is fit for release it becomes the new 'stable' distribution release and a snapshot of the 'unstable' distribution becomes the new 'testing' distribution. In addition to the 'stable, 'testing' and 'unstable' identifiers, each distribution is given a name (with the names being taken from characters in the film 'Toy Story'). Whilst each distribution progresses from being known as 'unstable' via 'testing' to 'stable' the name of each distribution does not change, so for example, the current 'stable' release, 'Squeeze', was once a snapshot of 'unstable', which became 'testing' and then 'stable'. When you identify the Debian repositories from which you install Debian packages you can do so by using either the 'stable', 'testing' or 'unstable' identifiers or by specifying the name of the distribution e.g. 'Lenny' (old stable), 'Squeeze' (current stable), 'Wheezy' (testing) or 'Sid' (unstable). Now the reason that this is a good idea is because if you want your systems to be automatically upgraded when a new release is issued, or if you want to ensure that you're always using the 'testing' or 'unstable' distributions then all you need to do is use the 'stable', 'testing' or 'unstable' identifiers to specify from which pool you want to install packages. Conversely, if you don't want your systems to be automatically upgraded to the next release then you can use the names, such as 'Lenny', 'Squeeze', 'Wheezy' or 'Sid' to identify which package pool to use. There are valid reasons for using either scheme: if you're running production/mission critical systems then you won't want to automatically upgrade your systems until you've validated the new release and made plans to deal with any manual admin-side changes that may be required, in which case you'd be better off using the distribution names e.g. 'Lenny', 'Squeeze' etc. to identify the package pool to use. However, if you're just running a desktop system that only uses packages installed from the Debian repositories, or if you're a developer who be will always be working on the 'testing' or 'unstable' distributions then using 'stable', 'testing' or 'unstable' to identify the package pools is more appropriate. Just for info, there are a number of additional Debian repositories, such as 'non-free', 'contrib', 'experimental', 'backports', 'oldstable', 'security' and 'snapshot' and these are commonly used in conjunction with the 'stable', 'testing', 'unstable' or named distributions. Sorry for the lengthy explanation but it seemed clear that many folk didn't understand why there were different ways of identifying releases and why a simple numbering scheme isn't used; Debian only assigns a release number to each 'stable' release once it is released and then increments that number by points as updates (bug-fixes/security-fixes) to that release are issued, and whilst the base release number of the 'testing' distribution might easily be predicted, a release number for the 'unstable' distribution is simply inapplicable. LeeE

On Sunday 19 February 2012 07:52:37 am leee wrote: <snip> <snip> The oldstable, stable, testing, and unstable identifiers I can certainly understand. However, if one only wants to use stable, I don't see any reason to change it, except to use TDE 3.5.12 instead of 3.5.13, in which case you'd be using 'oldstable' anyway. It is generally considered good practice to always use stable anyway, except on a spare machine or partition. Also, considering that "stable" and "squeeze" currently produce the same exact package lists, I'm assuming there's some sort of linking going on with their mirrors, so why not just replace "squeeze -> stable" with "6.0 -> stable"? I just find the whole naming thing confusing. -- Kris Gamrat Ark Linux webmaster http://www.arklinux.org/

On Sunday 19 February 2012 05:30:56 pm Lisi wrote: The point I am making is that one shouldn't need names for the releases in order to stay with a certain version. Perhaps if you say what you find confusing, I can explain. I thought my logic was very clear. I didn't say I didn't accept. I am just stating that I don't like it. I certainly don't like it when people try to make like I am saying something that I am not. -- Kris Gamrat Ark Linux webmaster http://www.arklinux.org/

On Monday 20 February 2012 08:07:14 am leee wrote: I still count 6.0.4 as being 6.0 because it's a direct update to 6.0. However, seeing as to how we don't yet know if Wheezy will be 6.1 (looking at the release history of Debian, that has happened), it's too early to say if the symlink should be "6.0 -> stable" or just "6 -> stable". -- Kris Gamrat Ark Linux webmaster http://www.arklinux.org/

On Saturday 18 February 2012 21:07:56 Lisi wrote: <snip> G'day Lisi, I guess that the original poster was joking. It is a bit like ... Q. Why do traffic cops travel in pairs? A. One is good at numbers and the other does letters. Slightly more seriously, I find some of the naming conventions used for disto releases a bit silly at times, particularly the ones from Canonical -- "Daffy Duck" was the last stable release and things like "Karmic Koala" leave me flabbergasted. Can you think of any animal with a lower karma than a piddly, smelly, scratchy koala? I know these stupid koalas, they regularly visit my garden and I can assure you that only an American tourist would want to cuddle one. :-) G. (now taking tongue out if cheek) -- Today is National Existential Ennui Awareness Day.