Re: Something I've noticed.
On Sun, 26 Jul 1998 magnwa@lionking.org wrote:
: Evening..
:
: Okay, here's the deal. I've got a game playing addiction, and it is
: really messing me up now :) You see, I like this game called FreeCiv.
: It's at version 1.6.3 right now, and the Stable of Debian has it at
: 1.5.x . Now , I realize it's untested and unsafe and oh no, we
: can't.. and it's in slink, and such..
It's in slink? Then download it and install it with dpkg.
: But here's my question. Games are not mission critical. They often
: cannot produce bugs so mammoth to reach critical. What is the harm in
: introducing the CURRENT games/non critical applications into
: hamm/stable? I know I can go to slink, grab it, and install it.. but
: I don't like this wonderful dselect tool going to waste because nobody
: feels that packages like games should be modernized. The thing that
: seperates us from others, IMHO, is fluidity. If this distro stays
: static, it's only going to become outdated, and prompt us not to use
: binaries. BTW, if I install it using Slink's package, dselect nails
: it as an obsolete package.
When anyone marks a distribution as "stable", it is by definition
static, except for patches for severe bugs. This is how most Linux
dists work, as well as FreeBSD, etc.
Since binaries from slink can, for the most part, installed into hamm, I
don't see the issue. dselect does mark them as "Obsolete/Local"
("Local" is the important part, eh?) but that's not a big deal (is it?).
Anyone who's using apt has seen this in dselect for some time now; the
only downside I can see is that it places more responsibility on you,
the system administrator, to update the package when a new version comes
along.
I'm failing to understand your assertion that dselect will "prompt us
not to use binaries".
>From this point on, hamm will remain static, and slink will grow until
it is designated for release, at which time it will become static, a new
unstable distribution will be created, and so on.
: See my problem?
Quite frankly, no.
The very fact that dselect/dpkg -know- about the package, even if it's
marked obsolete, is of benefit to you as the administrator. "Why?",
you ask? Well, let's imagine a situation where you get the tar-ball
yourself, configure and compile it, and do `make install' without paying
attention. If this package decided to install somewhere other than
/usr/local/, you now have a problem when it comes time to remove the
package. I ran into this more than once with Slackware - it does give
you an appreciation for /usr/local/ :) However, since dselect/dpkg have
the package details in the dpkg database, removal is no more complex
then `dpkg -r <package>'. The only reason the package is marked
"Obsolete/Local" is because the entry from the Packages file is missing
(it's in the slink directory), so dselect can't classify the package by
section. Oh well.
--
Nathan Norman
MidcoNet - 410 South Phillips Avenue - Sioux Falls, SD 57104
mailto://finn@midco.net http://www.midco.net
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