Yay for Lenny! (But nay for installation media)

Yay!

This blog post is not strictly speaking news anymore - But for those who don't know it yet, three days ago Debian 5.0 «Lenny» was released, after 22 months of work (plus fun, plus flamewars, plus everything that makes a Free Software lover tick). And, of course, that makes us all very happy and proud. As always, upgrading is a breeze. Hats off specially to Wolfgang and everybody who worked towards the great release notes - No, it is not a simple task, by far. And I _do_ feel ashamed I didn't even beep that way :-(

So, many of us are in the middle of planning/executing our servers' migrations. So far, I'm amazed for good. Even hairy issues such as firmware removal are magically and beautifully taken care of - i.e. my firewall kindly informed me during update that I would need to install the non-free firmware for my BNX2 (Broadcom) network interfaces, and I was just a package away from absolute happiness. Lets see what happens next Friday, as I will be upgrading our storage+application server (which is _way_ more complex than the servers I've dealt with so far).

Anyway... But what good is a blog post if you are not ranting?

Many people recognize me as one of the most Debian-connected people in Mexico, and that's very good. And yes, besides being a Debian Developer, I am a co-sysadmin for the main Debian mirror in Mexico. Some people have already asked me for CD-ROMs and DVDs. Of course, if I had a BluRay drive, I'm sure I'd also get requests for it.

People: Do you really want such media? Think again... Do you really want 31 CDs or five DVDs for your favorite architecture? Ok, maybe many will say "nah, just give me the first one" - Then, do you want to limit your Debian experience to just the software that lives on the first 1/31th (or 1/5th) of it all?

Of course there are many situations where it is desirable. Low bandwidth users, or people with no regular connectivity, will be much better served by suitable media from which to install. However, most of us (computer geeks living in Mexico City - Yes, that's the people contacting me) have at least a 1Mbps connection at home. People, just get the Netinst or Businesscard (180 or 40MB) images and download whatever is left via the network. Debian is extremely network-friendly. And, believe me, even if packages are sorted by popularity (and that's why most people will be happy with the first DVD if needed), you never know if you will want precisely a package that sits towards the lonely tail of popularity.

And, yes, I did have my CD images handy for the Potato, Woody and Sarge cycles - but increasingly, it became easier for me just to ask apt-get to fetch stuff from the web (which is done without me moving from my comfy chair while I do anything else) than asking apt-get to ask me to go search for the f.*ing CD which I left dont-remember-where.

Anyway... I'm not saying I won't burn your CDs - If you want them, please tell me in advance and come to my office, I'll be glad to give you some Debian disks. But spare the environment. We don't need to burn more and more disks. Use the network, be a better human being!