Kanotix seeks stability, sidux follows unstable [LWN.net]

Kanotix is a live CD distribution, that originally used Knoppix as a base. As a live CD it automatically detects and configures lots of hardware and has software for analysis, data rescue, forensic work, removal of viruses on Windows systems, or it can be used for surfing and mailing in an Internet cafe. Kanotix can also be installed to a hard drive where it allows the user access to all the packages available in the Debian unstable repository. The Kanotix fan base has remained loyal because of the hardware support and because of the great community support available to help smooth over the rough spots while following Debian unstable, aka 'sid'.

Now it seems that Kanotix will be changing. One developer, Stefan Lippers-Hollmann (slh) has left the project. Lead developer Jörg Schirottke (Kano) writes:

Since financing Kanotix through donations has proved a failure and I am planning restructuring to a more stable base (be it Ubuntu or Debian will have to show in tests) and I myself regard Debian/Sid as unfortunately not compliant with a more commercial orientation, he [Stefan Lippers-Hollmann] has left the project.

Stefan Lippers-Hollmann posted his resignation to an internal section of the forum, but it has been copied in its entirety (with permission) into this public forum post by kelmo. Stefan writes:

I hereby I resign from all positions within in the Kanotix project because of technical and personal disagreements about the status quo. Therefore I suggest changing all passwords I might have had access to (including the webserver, different login passwords, postnuke accounts etc.) and locking my account on the forum. I've already withdrawn my key from kanotix-archive-keyring.

Why do I resign after two years of hard work for Kanotix? As expected this isn't easy to answer and has evolved over time, but technical and personal disagreements make this step inevitable and non revocable for me. In particular I object about:

almost one year without any form of suitable release:
- this is an eternity for an debian sid based distribution, clean upgrading from the latest release to current -sid is no longer possible
- no significant technical progress in those >11 months from upper leading personnel, planned milestones slipped, finished code improvements were neither incorporated nor even tested
seriously deteriorating inter project communications and working athmosphere
unequal distribution of workload and/ or responsibilities
a significant shift of agenda in ways I can- and will not endorse

Meanwhile, for those who still want to follow Debian sid, but need some help getting through the rougher spots, a new distribution, sidux, is on the horizon. This sidux press release introduces a new star in the Linux galaxy:

On 24th of November 2006 sidux was formed by a group of people who strive to do the impossible: making Debian Sid (aka "Unstable") stable. The goal is becoming the best Debian Sid based live distro with special focus on clean and easy hard disk install. Strategic milestones and 3-4 planned releases timetabled will give stability and accountability to corporate and home users with a demand for bleeding edge software running on modern hardware, and a definable path over time.

sidux has yet to see its first release, but the documentation is there to upgrade an existing Kanotix system, or to install sidux on a free partition. The forums and IRC channels are open and there's code available in its SVN repository. This would seem to be a good time to get started, while Debian sid is relatively stable.

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Kanotix seeks stability, sidux follows unstable

Posted Dec 15, 2006 8:05 UTC (Fri) by codermattie (guest, #42239) [Link]

Debian is a great distribution, I ran it for years. In contexts where
risk is unacceptable it is a good choice still.

However for a developer or user who wishes to selectively track the upstream for both features and bugs the protracted stabalization on a branch model has been fraught with difficulty. The success of the 2.6 series in comparison to the previous 2.4 and 2.2 kernels is a good distro-agnostic example.

When using debian it is difficult to diverge from the distribution mainline without learning a complex package format/system. Forking debian unstable to stabilize and release as a new distribution is now classic. Without a better generalized solution for merging it will have the same problems
as debian, just with newer versions.

Merging technology is fundamental to the linux development model. Git
IMHO points towards a sane future. I can maintain my system kernel as
a private branch from a tag such as 2.6.19 and then pick single changes
that fix or improve the kernel without importing a large body of changes
where it is difficult to predict or analyze the effects and interaction of those changes.

It would be interesting to see a distro that was based on the git ideas.
Gentoo IMHO has moved the farthest towards flexible branching while integrating mainline updates.

Kanotix seeks stability, sidux follows unstable

Posted Jan 8, 2007 0:49 UTC (Mon) by cleary (guest, #41669) [Link]

"Forking debian unstable to stabilize and release as a new distribution is now classic"

Just to clarify, sidux does not "fork" debian unstable, it sticks as close as possible to pure debian sid, including using the same repositories.
What sidux attempts to provide is timely patching/package holding/highly visible warnings for problem packages in dist-upgrades, current kernels - stable and rc (for the game) as well as a community to help when things go awry.
It provides open source livecd-from-scratch building tools, as well as various other live cd related utils.
It (will) provide a fast hd installer in a similar way to Kanotix, which at best I've managed to boot and do a full install in under 10 mins (using the toram cheatcode).
It's aimed at desktop users who want bleeding edge software with the least amount of pain.

The points you raise about merging technology/Git look very interesting, my experience with code repositories is currently very limited so I'm not in a position to comment in any detail :(