Re: No 'self life' of packages.
09/10/2011 09:57, dE .wrote:
> Hi.
Hello,
disclaimer: I am no authority regarding Debian Testing, or Debian, or
anything else if it matters ;-) .
>
> I'm using Debian testing for use with Win/Mac migrants, it's good but
> has a lot of problems also, one of which I'd like to address.
Debian Testing isn't intended for production use, let alone for Linux
newcomers. Discussion about a "contently usable Testing" are ongoing,
but Testing status didn't change yet: it is a testing ground, expect a
steady flow of updates outside of freeze periods, and expect breakages,
some of them requiring quite some skills to be fixed.
Testing users should read bug reports (apt-listbugs), keep a close eyes
on changes (apt-listchanges), and follow closely a couple of diffusion
lists, not an average windows/mac switcher profile.
> Suppose I serviced a Desktop PC for some friend and he didn't update it
> for a week,
Bad idea, with Sid and Testing updating often usually results in better
results than the opposite in my experience. My rational is "better deal
with smaller chunks of packages being updated every day, it's easier to
deal with less bugs/breakages at a time and track them through a smaller
set of updated packages.
in the mean time in the testing tree, packages update and
> the old packages are _removed_. If the end user wants to install a
> package which pulls this removed package, download fails and the user is
> bewildered.
The user should have updated it's packages list, then "download"
wouldn't fail. When it (rarely) happens it means a packages has been
removed from Testing because it was blocking a larger ongoing migration,
or was otherwise broken or orphaned (unmaintained). Cherry picking
(search for "apt pinning") from Unstable is sometime required to
workaround such situations.
Older packages can be found at http://snapshot.debian.org/ .
>
> Updating is not a good idea since it usually results in major dependency
> issues with core libraries, thus effectively, one has to upgrade the
> system which results in more than 700MB downloads (in a month old
> system) which takes a long time, also issues may arise after the upgrade.
Again, it's testing, expect many updates, core changes, and such.
>
> That's what I meant by shelf life; I'd suggest the package should stay
> for a longer period before being removed. This will require a lot of
> space though, but that's cheep nowadays. As an alternative, I suggest a
> separate set of mirrors specifically for this purpose.
Debian Stable has a ±3 years "shelf life", plus some additional months
of security updates as "oldstable".
>
> Debian stable is too old (contains FF 3.5 and chromium 6) which miss out
> a few enhancements which might be necessary for the user; backports
> ain't always available and there're no updates for them. These are
> suggestions to make the testing branch appear less dynamic and more
> suitable for the Desktop.
Google for discussions about "contently usable testing". Use external
depots with Stable, like http://mozilla.debian.net/ for Mozilla
products. Backports ARE updated, but it's on a "best effort" basis,
don't expect zipping fast backports for the latest version of just about
any application. This is not what backports are for.
> I'm discussing this on both debian-desktop and debian-testing.
As an alternate, Linux Mint is offering a "LMDE" edition [1] (Linux Mint
Debian Edition), which from what I understand is basically a Debian
Testing/Sid "rolling release", plus some "Minty" add-ons and quality
control. It seems to be in the experimental phase still, but already
more easily usable for reasonably technical users than Sid or Testing.
It's targeted toward end user friendliness, which is not Debian Testing
or Sid main goal.
Have fun.
[1] http://www.linuxmint.com/download_lmde.php
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