A new version of APT is coming to Debian 12
- Reference: 1678303810
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/03/08/debian_12_apt_2_6/
- Source link:
Debian releases are given code names from the Toy Story series of movies; Bookworm, if you're curious, was a [1]"minor antagonist" from Toy Story 3 . Debian [2]13 will be Trixie, and Debian [3]14 will be Forky.
The APT packaging system is "probably the best feature in Debian", as a commentator already [4]observed back in 2004. APT is remarkably stable: the new release will be only [5]version 2.6.0 .
[6]
APT first arrived in Debian 2.1 [7]Slink in 1999, and it has been a slow-moving and pretty stable project ever since. It took 15 years to reach [8]version 1.0 , released on April Fool's Day in 2014. APT 1.0 was also the version where the apt command first appeared, followed by its [9]incorporation into Ubuntu 14.04.
[10]
[11]
(For comparison, automatic dependency resolution came to the Red Hat family when Fedora Core 1 [12]included yum – co-developed by the late [13]Seth Vidal – in 2003. It was [14]replaced with DNF in Fedora 22 in 2015. Before this, installing a moderately-complex package on Red Hat Linux was a nightmarish process that could involve retrieving and manually installing many dozens of dependencies.)
The fixes in the new release are relatively modest. There's some [15]refinement to the Czech language translation, some [16]tweaks to the COPYING file to include some additional licenses, and better [17]handling of the changelog subcommand.
[18]
The main [19]change relates to handling of non-free firmware, which is Debian's term for the properietary firmware "blobs" ( B inary L arge Ob jects) that are needed for a lot of modern hardware to work. We have [20]examined the problems of proprietary firmware before, as well as the [21]impacts upon the Debian project in particular .
In essence, the increasing prevalence of proprietary firmware is due to industry-wide cost-cutting: it's cheaper to use a non-dedicated, general-purpose chip, running some small specialized program to enable it to do its job, than it is to design, implement and build bespoke custom hardware to do the same job.
[22]How to get the latest Linux kernel on your Ubuntu box
[23]Canonical displays controversial 'ad' in shell update prog
[24]AmigaOS 3.2.2 released for those feeling nostalgic
[25]Can we interest you in a $10 pocket calculator powered by Android 9?
That leads to a problem: your computer may not work fully until the operating system has downloaded various of these BLOBs into its various network interfaces, its GPU and so on. That in turn means that if the boot medium from which you install the computer doesn't include this firmware, then the new OS may not be able to connect to the Internet and go online to fetch what it needs.
As a result, Bookworm will be [26]the first ever Debian release to include non-free firmware as standard . This is quite a big deal, and some of the changes involved are still working their way down the software stack… even though this release is already part of the way through the staged process of [27]feature freeze . ®
Get our [28]Tech Resources
[1] https://pixar.fandom.com/wiki/Bookworm
[2] https://wiki.debian.org/DebianTrixie
[3] https://wiki.debian.org/DebianForky
[4] https://web.archive.org/web/20060513054821/http://www.linux.ie/lists/pipermail/cork/2004-January/003744.html
[5] https://tracker.debian.org/news/1425516/accepted-apt-260-source-into-unstable/
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZAkTlluonBNJrR4nfuIIWgAAAA0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.debian.org/releases/slink/
[8] https://mvogt.wordpress.com/2014/04/04/apt-1-0/
[9] https://releases.ubuntu.com/14.04/ubuntu-14.04.6-desktop-amd64.manifest
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZAkTlluonBNJrR4nfuIIWgAAAA0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZAkTlluonBNJrR4nfuIIWgAAAA0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://fedoramagazine.org/celebrate-fifteen-years-fedora/
[13] https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/thank-you-seth-vidal
[14] https://fedoramagazine.org/fedora-22-released/
[15] https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1031008
[16] https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1019273
[17] https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1024457
[18] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZAkTlluonBNJrR4nfuIIWgAAAA0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[19] https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1029751
[20] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/01/proprietary_firmware_blobs/
[21] https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/25/debian_firmware_debate/
[22] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/06/ubuntu_latest_kernel_kde/
[23] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/13/canonical_ubuntu_ad/
[24] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/08/amigaos_322_released/
[25] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/03/android_pocket_calculator/
[26] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/03/debian_12/
[27] https://release.debian.org/bookworm/freeze_policy.html
[28] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: APT
I saw a crap leaning train.
Re: APT
Not that crap. BR just gave up too early, before they got the bugs out. The technology was sold to the Italians who developed it into the Pendolino, later bought by Virgin for the West Coast Mainline.
Re: APT
Thanks for that.
It’s interesting that I know nothing about it, but have the impression it’s “crap”.
I contacted a friend of similar vintage and mentioned it. He thought it was “crap” too, at least, that was what he “remembered”.
It goes to show, I know not what, but it shows it anyway.
Ubuntu video drivers
So having spent a while recently rebuilding some previously loved laptops with Xubuntu, I find that trying to install Nvidia's Linux drivers is a step too far. For the Windows variant, you just download the app and off you go. The Linux version bleats that X is running, and one must perform half of the magic from Lord of the Rings before you can then install said drivers, young Frodo. Surely it's not beyond the wit of Nvidia to work around this, maybe by setting something to run once when you reboot the laptop? I decided my life was too short for all that faff, and nouveau would have to do. Even ticking the 'non-free software' box during install doesn't grab said drivers.
How about it, hmm, Nvidia?
Re: Ubuntu video drivers
Linux Torvalds gave the finger to Nvidia. How about it, Torvalds?
Re: Ubuntu video drivers
Been using ubuntu with Nvidia for close to 15 years. It's always just worked for me. Though have not used bleeding edge Nvidia chips. Was Nvidia not included at all in xubuntu?(never used it). Normally I think Ubuntu fires up with noveau driver then its a few mouse clicks to enable the commercial nvidia driver. Ubuntu automatically downloads and installs it.
Or maybe whatever card you have was too new for the drivers that was included. Probably was around 2008 for the last time I manually downloaded and installed the Nvidia drivers. And at that time I just installed them and let them overwrite whatever to get things working. It was easy at the time just download the driver which itself was a self executing installer and it prompted you through the process. Unsure if that has changed since.
Been using Nvidia on linux almost exclusively since about 1999.
Re: Ubuntu video drivers
Or maybe whatever card you have was too new for the drivers ...
Hmm ....
@Liam Proven: not necessarily so.
Or maybe Nvidia decided to mothball the drivers for the perfectly working set of Quadro FX cards you have in your box ...
There you go.
Nvidia first re-labels them "legacy drivers" and after a couple of years, drops support for them.
I paid through the nose for the two Quadro FX580 cards inside my Sun WS.
They have worked perfectly well and will (most probably) continue to do so as long as there are Linux drivers for them to run on.
It's not spinning rust so I will only replace them if they go south.
But not with Nvidia hardware: I will never purchase Nvidia hardware again.
Of course, YMMV.
.
Re: Ubuntu video drivers
Just how "previously loved" are these laptops?
If they are older than a certain age, then you may find that the driver you need for the GPU in the laptop has been removed from the current binary driver that Nvidia make available for Ubuntu. I've come across this problem more than once over the years.
Nvidia decide that you should not be using their older hardware, which is a real problem for laptops where you can't just pop out the graphics adaptor and install a new one.
They do normally tell you in their info about their universal driver which cards are still supported. The release notes are normally referenced in the long description for the package that can be seen in Synaptic (not sure about the Software Centre).
If you don't want to use Nouveau, then you may find that installing the older Nvidia packages from the version you're running, or even from an older Ubuntu repo. may actually allow you to get it working, but it's quite a faff, adding an older repo. and then installing the driver you need, and then holding the package so that it will not be automatically upgraded.
Re: Ubuntu video drivers
"...I find that trying to install Nvidia's Linux drivers is a step too far"
I can't speak for everyone (and every Distro) else, but
I've run OpenSuse since 9.3
All I have always had to do is enable the "NVidia package repository". And that's it. The system downloads and installs the drivers for me. Easy and simple. Don´t have to compile something, don't have to run some CLI arcane thing. Just fill a checkmark and Bob's your uncle.
Not an apt change
Adding non-free firmware is not an apt change. Just a debian change.
apt is great
I've never needed it to play nice with proprietary BLOBs on my PCs.
For me, it's mostly for installing applications, not system components.
On Mint there's a thingy ("Driver Manager") that tries to work out whether I might be better off with non-free trojans, but so far it hasn't been so.
At work I'm responsible for a workstation with nVidia silicon that we require to do complex arithmetic. The desired acceleration doesn't work without the right nVidia BLOB in place. It has a good go, but APT struggles here. So, against better judgment, I downloaded the DEBs and assumed personal responsibility for keeping them up to date.
It sucks.
-A.
APT
Hands up everyone who saw "Advanced Persistent Threat" for APT.....