Re: Problems with 1.2.1
> My approach would be to treat the distribution as a whole in the same way
> you treat a large application program. After a new package is integrated
> into the release the entire release passes a series of tests (performed by
> various people on various platforms) before the package is accepted.
>
> The process would probably delay the release of "stable" distributions by a
> couple of weeks, but I think it would be worth it.
I think this is an excellent idea. I personally was rather disappointed by
the number of bugs in 1.2 -- it was a lower-quality distribution than 1.1.x.
You are right -- something needs to be done before the next release. This is
the bottom line. It doesn't matter to me if it's your idea or somebody else's
that is adopted, but we need to do *something*.
Also in 1.2.1, I was disappointed that all of a sudden sendmail was upgraded
from 8.7.6-patched (a known-stable version) to 8.8.4 (which has serious
problems for UUCP or non-Internet-connected sites). IM(NS)HO, this is
something that should come in bo, not rex-fixed. Also, of course, 8.7.6 .cf
files may not necessarily work in 8.8.4, I gather. After struggling with
8.8.4 for some time, I finally went back to 8.7.6 that was in the original rex
distribution. Everything worked fine after that. I thought that upgrades to
new upstream sources, with the possible exception of bug fixes, should *not*
be made in stable but rather in unstable. Hmm, yes, according to the
programmer's manual, "Once the distribution is stable only major bug fixes are
allowed." From what I saw, new bugs were introduced -- not bug fixes.... So
I think that more attention needs to be placed on where packages are placed.
This, I think, is something that package maintainers need to do (and I haven't
seen a lot of problems with this, so I think we're OK in general).
Maintainers of vital system programs like bash, inn, sendmail, cron, etc. need
to be especially careful.
--
John Goerzen | Running Debian GNU/Linux (www.debian.org)
Custom Programming |
jgoerzen@complete.org |
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