Firefox To Be Renamed In Debian - From Slashdot.org

[calcmandan]

I read the story today on slashdot. I read a comment below the story and wanted input from anyone who knows who can clarify and confirm it:

...make no mistake, ubuntu (everyones favorite distro recently it seems) relies on debian to do most of thier work for them.

I had an understanding that (k)ubuntu has developers to do the work. Am I wrong? I mean, I've run debian before and noticed updates coming in on a very slow basis. I get updates on kubuntu almost daily so it is obviously ubuntu and not Debian who does the work. Correct me if I'm wrong please. The comment continues (I didn't correct his obvious grammar mistakes),

From debian ubuntu gets a huge library of software that is kept up to date for them (yes they could of course keep the current version of it if debian disapeared but i highly doubt they would have the manpower to keep the bulk of it up to date). The fact that there are very few distros that both cover a wide range of software and do thier own packaging work (fedora/redhat,debian,gentoo,not sure about mandrake) just serves to highlight how much work it is.

I thought ubuntu has its own repos and manages it independently. Anyway, just thought I'd come home and ask the masters. Thanks.

[askrieger]

Re: Firefox To Be Renamed In Debian - From Slashdot.org

I'm hardly a master, but I'll try to clarify a bit.

First of all, Ubuntu has a small staff of developers. Their work consists of generating things that are unique to the various flavors of Ubuntu, for example, the Kubuntu System Settings application, and a new, faster boot system for Edgy. The majority of the packages in (K, X, Edu)Ubuntu are generated by the Debian Project and modified for Ubuntu.

Second, Debian Stable is just that: stable. Ubuntu, however, is derived from Debian Unstable, which updates on an almost daily basis. As someone who has used Debian Unstable for a few years, I can tell you that it is sometimes a great learning experience, and not for use on mission critical tasks. The Ubuntu developers take a snapshot of Debian Unstable every six months, then massage it to squeeze out bugs and glitches before publishing it as Warty, Hoary, Breezy, Dapper or Edgy. As new bugs are found, they are squashed and the distro is updated. Sometimes new upstream versions are added (e.g. KDE 3.5.4). Dapper will be updated for five years. Previous versions, (and Edgy) have had 18 month support cycles.

By the way, the one thing I didn't see in the Slashdot article was the new name for Firefox. It's already been Firebird and Phoenix.

[calcmandan]

Re: Firefox To Be Renamed In Debian - From Slashdot.org

Thank you for the reply. You gave me the best all around answer than anyone gave me with this question. Embarassingly, I cross posted this question on another forum. They weren't as openminded. Thank you much!