Re: Why are backports of Squeeze packages in etch-backports?
On Fri, Mar 06, 2009 at 09:54:02PM +0100, Gerfried Fuchs wrote:
> * Chris Butler <chrisb@debian.org> [2009-03-06 16:51:24 CET]:
> > backports.org is a semi-official repository provided by Debian GNU/Linux
> > developers, which provides newer packages for the stable release, based
> > on a rebuild from the packages from the “testing” archive.
> >
> > The backports.org repository mainly contains packages from “testing”,
> > with reduced version numbers so that the upgrade path from etch
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> > backports to lenny still works.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> >
> > That may have been true at the time of release, but now that squeeze
> > packages are going into bpo, it should probably be amended.
>
> Why? squeeze is testing, this is still true. And this is the thing this
> thread is about.
I understand the above to mean that the version numbers of packages in
etch-backports are lower than those of packages in lenny, so that you can
upgrade from a package in etch-backports to the package in lenny. I doubt
I'm the only person who reads it this way.
That sentence would probably be a lot clearer if it mentioned release
codenames, and maybe explicitly mentioned that packages in etch-backports
may have HIGHER version numbers than those in lenny.
The risk here being that someone may remove backports from their sources
after upgrading, assuming that the "upgrade path from etch backports to
lenny" has worked, and therefore all their packages are now running lenny
versions and they no longer need backports.org in their sources list. The
reality is that they may have squeeze packages on their system which won't
receive updates.
--
Chris
Reply to: