Ideas about official Debian CD
[Medium Length--you've been warned :)]
Perhaps it would be wise to consider a different timeline for the release
of an official CD image:
How about the following timeline (using 1.2 as the example)?
1. rex is frozen and public alpha testing is requested on debian-user.
2. rex is released as Debian 1.2b where the b designates beta status.
3. at about the time bo is frozen, an official _Debian_1.2_Stable_Release_
is assembled where some of the following points are observed:
a. All required/standard packages are included.
b. All packages with no outstanding bugs are included (here we
should definitely exclude feature-request bugs).
c. All other packages are included with contrib status.
d. Care is taken such that the latest stable security fixes are
included.
e. The default installation should be thouroughly tested for from
scratch installations on a variety of hardware (we will need a
list of volunteers with 486's, Pentiums, Alpha's, etc).
f. The default installation should be recommended to those people
demanding of a secure, reliable base un*x platform.
g. Reasonable documentation should be assembled regarding the default
installation in html and ps formats, so an installation manual can
be printed and included by official CD manufacturers.
I'll stop here though I could spout off with many more similar ideas.
I remember that Red Hat was still running kernel 1.2.13 for some time
after Slackware and Debian were using 2.0.x. This was because of their
need to insure a stable system. IMO, we could provide a stable system,
even with occasional screwups like our release of packages depending on
libc5-5.4.17 in 1.2. People who needed a truly stable system would be
running 1.1 right now for at least the next three months while we work
out all these problems with 1.2.
IMHO, the idea of an official CD could be used to build up an excellent
reputation for stability without the loss of our present state of
upgradeability.
Thanks for your patience. Syrus.
----------------------------------------------------------
Syrus Nemat-Nasser <syrus@ucsd.edu> UCSD Physics Dept.
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