Debian has been entirely sane and usable for me from Etch through Lenny and now Squeeze. Can I count on Wheezy to be as good or better when it becomes the Stable release?

I say this because of all the trouble I now only see and hear about but don't experience with new technologies on the desktop that aren't quite (or at all) ready for production and sap users' ability to do much but try to get things working.

I've been there, and if that's your thing (latest, greatest), then have at it. I've never had fewer problems than when riding Debian Stable.

I don't have anything against Ubuntu 11.10, or the Unity interface. I might even like it. I'm getting so used to the way my Android phone works that I'm open to new desktop paradigms/metaphors.

But Debian Squeeze with Backports + sundry extras is running so well, and I remember so very well how I regretted my move away from Debian Lenny in 2009.

If Ubuntu doesn't fall off the track into "every damn thing is new" crazy for 12.10, then I'll be interested. It needs to work.

The Make Tech Easier site offers a short post titled How to Build a Lightweight Linux for your Low-End Laptop on why and how to use Debian to set up an older laptop.

I've used Debian many times to get old hardware running and, like the author of this entry, Joshua Price, I find the flexibility and lightness of Debian really helps the Linux distribution live up to its billing as "The Universal Operating System," which can run well on many different kinds (and eras) of hardware.

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I like it when Jono Bacon, community manager for Ubuntu, can focus on the cool things the Linux distribution is doing and not just the problems with the project. Not that those problems should be ignored, but if Ubuntu doesn't have the goods, what's the point?

To that effect, Jono offers a detailed screen-by-screen look at the upcoming 11.10 release on his blog.

Seen above is a smallish grab from Jono of what happens when you use alt-tab to switch between applications.

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I just discovered the debianandi blog, and wanted to point out Complete Debian Linux Guide - On Your Desktop, which shows you how to install the debian-reference package and then access a guide to Debian that you read from your local drive with a web browser.

The blog itself is well worth following. It's in my bookmarks now.

One of the main reasons not to run Debian Stable is that you have newer hardware that doesn't respond well to the older packages in the release. For those with Intel Sandy Bridge and other newer chips, the X server as it is packaged in Squeeze can be a problem, which can be solved by running Testing or Sid, or now with X in Squeeze Backports.

This is a great thing. While many users prefer Testing or Sid, or the six-month releases of Ubuntu (or Arch, or your favorite often-released or rolling distro ...), it's nice to be able to run Debian's stable distribution on your newer hardware.

I'm doing this, in a way, with my newer Liquorix kernel -- version 2.6.38 instead of the 2.6.33 that ships with Squeeze. With the newer kernel, my Lenovo G555's sound chip behaves much better.

At this point in the Squeeze cycle, a newer kernel is now available in Squeeze Backports (and currently 2.6.39), so Squeeze-running users can get a newer kernel directly from Debian. And now they can get a new X server, too.

I hope this newer X server in Squeeze Backports allows many more people to run Debian Stable, and I once again thank the Debian Developers responsible for continuing to make Squeeze -- and Debian in total -- even better than it already is.

This brings up a question: Should you run Debian Stable?

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The Icedove (aka Thunderbird) mail client is back in the Debian Mozilla team APT archive.

http://mozilla.debian.net used to be the place to get a newer version of the Mozilla mail application for Debian, but Icedove disappeared from the archive for awhile when version 3.1 moved into Debian Backports proper. Now that Icedove in Backports seems stalled at 3.1 (and is the same in Wheezy and Sid for the time being, with a newer version in Experimental), the Mozilla Debian team has brought the app back into its own archive at version 5.0.

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Buried in the late-June "Bits from the Release Team" minutes is the news that the Debian Project will aim for a time-based freeze for the next stable release, Wheezy. At the moment that date is June 2012:

After some discussion at the sprint, we have looked again at the concept of having a time based freeze. I'd like to thank the DPL for progressing a consensus on debian-devel on a way forward for this proposal. The release team would like to support the idea of a time based freeze.

Its main advantage seems to be the clarity that people will get knowing when we will freeze. For this reason, we need to pick a date. This is one that not everyone will be happy with, and caused quite a bit of discussion. However, we had to make a decision, and have picked on June 2012 as the current proposed freeze date for the next release.

This means that the current Debian Testing release, which is Wheezy, is set to be frozen at that time (no new versions of packages, just bug fixes) in preparation for the next stable release.

And given the recent history of Debian releases, I think that means aiming for a February 2013 release to follow Lenny's February 2009 and Squeeze's February 2011 releases, continuing the pattern of two years between stable releases.

Add the extra year of maintenance as Old Stable, and that gives Debian releases effectively a three-year support life.

For users who aren't already running Debian Testing (and that includes me), the prospective June 2012 freeze is a good time to migrate from Stable to Testing in anticipation of Wheezy becoming Stable early in the following year.

Debian Developers in favor of the freeze have said that users appreciate the ability to plan for the future knowing roughly what will happen to the stable Debian release (in contrast to the "ready when it's ready, and that's it" way of thinking). I agree. I'm already thinking of Debian Stable in terms of the two-year release cycle, substituting newer bits from Debian Backports, the Debian Mozilla Team APT archive, Liquorix, Google and Dropbox as I need them to keep my Debian Squeeze installation a bit fresher between now and then.

I'm in the same situation now with Debian Squeeze that I was in back when Debian Lenny was the stable release:

I can't think of a system that allows me to do so much, so efficiently and without trouble as Debian Stable.

Debian Stable can be boring. Nothing new enters the archive. Except this time I'm using Debian Backports, the Liquorix kernels built for Debian, the Debian Mozilla Team APT archive, Google's Chrome browser repository and Dropbox's Debian/Ubuntu repository in addition to Debian Multimedia to shape Debian the way I want and need it.

So as much as I'd like to give some of my other favorite operating systems a try (Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenBSD ...), I'd be crazy to give up Debian as my daily workhorse operating system. It works without complaint. And that means I work without complaint.

I can't help but think that a key component of all of this is the GNOME 2 desktop, which is on the way out in favor of the still-controversial (and not all-the-way functional/finished) GNOME 3. That will come into Debian by the next stable release. Let's hope it works.

Back when I was running Lenny, I got bored and tried to dist-upgrade to Squeeze (then the Testing release, and I don't think there were release notes for Squeeze to help me do the upgrade right). I blew out the installation and then moved on to other systems.

I'm going to try very hard not to make that mistake this time around. Squeeze is running so very, very well that I am extremely reluctant to mess with it on my hardware (Lenovo G555 with AMD Athlon II at 2.1 GHz, 3 GB RAM, 320 GB SATA hard drive).

I don't write as often as I'd like, and my aim is to write less about what OS I'm running and more about everything (and anything) else. But I've been working very hard lately, using Debian to do it, and I thought it deserved a mention.

I tend to write more when things aren't working right, but with Debian, that's seldom the case.

I'm doing an update today on my daughter's Ubuntu 10.04 LTS-running Gateway Solo 1450, the 2002-era laptop that I upgraded from 8.04 in a not-seamless but doable operation for someone with a bit of experience in these matters.

I've done a lot of upgrades. I'd say maybe half were successful. That doesn't say much for upgrades. But when it comes to Ubuntu upgrades, I can generally make them work with a bit of Googling.

I've been hard on Ubuntu 10.04 over the life of the release. (I could find links, but I'm just going to keep writing.) While the UI changes in 11.04 (GNOME giving way to Unity) are bigger, I thought the changes from 9.10 to 10.04 were too huge and unproven for an LTS release. My opinion was and is that 10.04 needed to be 9.10 with bug fixes and not a total reworking of the GNOME theme with buttons on the other side of the screen and lots of unproven, slightly broken Ubuntu-coded (or -ordered) enhancements.

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