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  • Re: Debian versions

    From Greg Wooledge@21:1/5 to brian mckee on Mon Nov 11 13:40:01 2024
    On Mon, Nov 11, 2024 at 03:26:26 +0000, brian mckee wrote:
    I have a work station.
    If I put debian on it.
    I want it to have 5 monsters.
    5 key boards.
    5 mice.
    So 5 people can long in. At same time.
    What Verizon should I download

    Autocorrect is a monitor. I mean, monster.

    What you're describing doesn't sound like it's possible using a single computer. (If it's possible, then I have no idea how you would do it.) Usually, if a machine has multiple monitors connected to it, those
    monitors are arranged to form a single large virtual display that
    encompasses all of them -- and the most I've ever seen in such an
    arrangement is four.

    If you hadn't said "mice", I would have suggested that perhaps you're
    looking for terminals. Five or more ASCII terminals connected to a
    single host was a popular model from the 1970s to 1990s.

    However, with mice in the picture, what you're looking for more closely
    matches the "X station" model that was used in the 1980s and 1990s,
    where a single host computer would support X sessions running on multiple remote "X station" devices which did not have their own full operating
    systems installed. They would all communicate over an ethernet network.
    The host computer would run a display manager running the X Display
    Manager Control Protocol (XDMCP), and the stations would connect to that
    and login to the host.

    I don't know where one would acquire X stations in 2024. They're no longer
    in fashion.

    However, you could still approximate that model by buying 4 cheap
    computers and installing a minimal Debian + X server on them. On the
    main computer, run a display manager in XDMCP mode, and tell the other computers to connect to that.

    You wouldn't get the full "benefit" of X stations, which is that you
    don't need to maintain security patches on 5 separate instances of Debian.
    But this would come pretty close to what you're asking for.

    Another possibility would be to install a slightly fuller Debian on
    each of the cheap computers, and use VNC sessions running on the host
    computer. Each of the cheap ones would need an X server and a VNC
    client; the host computer would need a VNC server, and you'd run four
    instances of it, one for each client.

    The main advantage of VNC over XDMCP would be that there are VNC clients available for Microsoft Windows and so on. Your client computers wouldn't
    need to be running Linux; they could run anything you want.

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  • From [email protected]@21:1/5 to Greg Wooledge on Mon Nov 11 18:00:01 2024
    On 11/11/24 07:39, Greg Wooledge wrote:
    On Mon, Nov 11, 2024 at 03:26:26 +0000, brian mckee wrote:
    I have a work station.
    If I put debian on it.
    I want it to have 5 monsters.
    5 key boards.
    5 mice.
    So 5 people can long in. At same time.
    What Verizon should I download

    Autocorrect is a monitor. I mean, monster.

    ...

    However, you could still approximate that model by buying 4 cheap
    computers and installing a minimal Debian + X server on them. On the
    main computer, run a display manager in XDMCP mode, and tell the other computers to connect to that.

    ...


    Another possibility would be to install a slightly fuller Debian on
    each of the cheap computers, and use VNC sessions running on the host computer. ...

    Very thin clients or laptops booting over the LAN (PXE?) would maybe be
    easier to administer but probably more expensive and slower.

    --
    Frankly, your argument wouldn't float were the sea composed of mercury.
    -- Biff

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  • From Paul Scott@21:1/5 to All on Mon Jul 21 05:50:01 2025
    Hello,

    I have run sid/unstable for about 20 years. The only active line in my /etc/apt/sources.list is

    deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ sid main non-free-firmware

    cat /etc/os-release gives"

    PRETTY_NAME="Debian GNU/Linux 13 (trixie)"
    NAME="Debian GNU/Linux"
    VERSION_ID="13"
    VERSION="13 (trixie)"
    VERSION_CODENAME=trixie
    DEBIAN_VERSION_FULL=13.0
    ID=debian
    HOME_URL="https://www.debian.org/"
    SUPPORT_URL="https://www.debian.org/support" BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugs.debian.org/"

    Shouldn't it show sid or unstable or forky?

    TIA for any help understanding this,

    Paul

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  • From Michael Paoli@21:1/5 to [email protected] on Mon Jul 21 06:40:01 2025
    You're configured to follow sid/unstable.
    Since things regularly migrate from sid/unstable to testing,
    in most regards the installed OS can't tell which you're on, though one
    can look at one's APT configuration to see what one is following.
    But they may not necessarily be distinguished by what's currently
    installed, notably, e.g.
    base-files provides /etc/debian-version and /etc/os-release, and at
    any given time,
    the version of that package, and thus its files, in testing and
    unstable may be the same.
    That's also why /etc/debian_version may a bit more fittingly accurate,
    with form of
    codename/sid
    notably as, if it's at least reasonably current, APT may be configured to follow
    codename, testing, sid, or unstable, and only looking into the APT configuration, etc.
    will distinguish. The case of /etc/os-release is a bit different, and
    it may need to satisfy
    some additional requirements (e.g. LSB?).

    Not long after trixie is released, base-files will be updated in
    sid/unstable (currently under freeze)
    and will likewise make its way to testing, at which point it will
    indicate forky, instead of trixie,
    but it won't indicate forky before that.

    On Sun, Jul 20, 2025 at 8:42 PM Paul Scott <[email protected]> wrote:

    Hello,

    I have run sid/unstable for about 20 years. The only active line in my /etc/apt/sources.list is

    deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ sid main non-free-firmware

    cat /etc/os-release gives"

    PRETTY_NAME="Debian GNU/Linux 13 (trixie)"
    NAME="Debian GNU/Linux"
    VERSION_ID="13"
    VERSION="13 (trixie)"
    VERSION_CODENAME=trixie
    DEBIAN_VERSION_FULL=13.0
    ID=debian
    HOME_URL="https://www.debian.org/" SUPPORT_URL="https://www.debian.org/support" BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugs.debian.org/"

    Shouldn't it show sid or unstable or forky?

    TIA for any help understanding this,

    Paul



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