Re: Debian home page -> Download link broken:
On Sun 11 Jun 2023 at 19:06:02 (-0400), songbird wrote:
> Greg Wooledge wrote:
> ...
> > The overwhelming majority of people who track testing think that it's
> > a rolling release. It's not. It's actually a series of evolving
> > release candidates, with periods of great disruption interspersed with
> > periods of relative calm.
> >
> > You're clearing replying to someone who thinks it's a single rolling
> > release, so set your expectations accordingly.
>
> yes, we experience it as it happens, which can sometimes
> be months or even years before the official stable release
> happens and new images are built. the comment about
> release candidates is appropriate because that is why
> such things as RC bugs are filed and attempted to be
> fixed before a release actually happens, but that
> release is a stable and official one and not as far as
> i've ever seen it is not a "release" so calling it a
> rolling release is a contradiction in terminology. it
> is not a release, but it is a collection of packages
> in a certain state of being which can change as new
> packages migrate from unstable (or via testing-pu or
> via other means that perhaps i'm not aware of). i just
> know that for sure it is not "magic". :) someone has
> to do it and make the upload and other things may come
> along and make changes (janitor programs are now doing
> some things, etc.)
I can't understand that paragraph. Too many "this", "that"
and "it"s to know what refers to what.
> release notes may not be written and some cases may
> even be forgotten about.
Which release doesn't have any Notes? Forgotten about
by whom?
> with testing, stuff can happen, like sid, stuff can
> break. that is just how it goes and i'm quite ok with
> that because i also do keep a stable partition (which
> is currently not upgraded yet and won't be until a
> point release or two down the line). my stable is even
> more stable than the released stable. there's nobody
> to force me to upgrade or mysterious software controlled
> by someone else running to mess with my machine (as i do
> not run auto updates).
That's very conservative, and most people don't have twin
installations as you and I do. You also have years of Debian
experience, and a degree in computing, I believe. Probably
a good candidate for running testing.
> can you point me to any official statement from the
> project as a whole which says that testing is released
> and there are official images for people to download?
> i know of daily and weekly builds of the installer and
> some images but i have never seen any statement from
> the project as a whole that "testing" is a release
> candidate and treated as such. yes, it is the basis
> of the next stable release, but it is not anything
> more than a pool of packages in a directory structure
> which can be copied and updated like any other
> directory.
Well, it depends when you look at it. The day before a
Release Day, the codename that testing points at looks
very like a release. The next day, that codename becomes
a Release, but of course testing has moved on to point
at the next codename, currently trixie.
Trixie could become a mess, but then again, it probably won't.
If it were, then it wouldn't look like a release, would it.
> it is, in other words, the collection of packages
> which are used which are the stable release and not
> anything else which is the main product of making such
> a stable release and it is the release team which
> builds that and puts it all together. as far as i'm
> concerned it is the release team which has that
> delegated authority but i guess if they wanted to
> build "official testing" images or any other
> collection they surely could, but i'd be a happy
> little potato doing as i have been and running from
> the testing viewpoint (which can change from moment
> to moment).
Clearly it would be a waste of time and resource to
put testing/trixie onto a DVD and start selling it.
> i consider the release process as a whole which
> includes at some point making copies of symlinks to
> the package pool and renaming various pathways or
> copying things as the whole point of making a
> release and then building images and such which do
> include the codename and not using things such as
> "testing", "sid", "experimental" or "rc-buggy" or
> ...
More nonsense. They don't add/include a codename.
What they do add upon release is the release number.
The codename is the primary collection that is being
built be Debian. The way in which it is built and
maintained depends on its current status, and that
status is reflected, not defined, by the symlinks
pointing to it. So, a few days ago, bookworm became
a Release, obtained the number 12, had the stable
symlink moved to point at it, and now has a policy
for its modification that differs from what it was
before.
> i don't really think my viewpoint is far from
> the reality of what does happen, but if anyone
> from the release team cares to pipe up i'd listen.
They shouldn't need to. It's all been documented in
the Debian reference/policy manuals, should you care
to read them.
Cheers,
David.
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