Re: The freeze and IMMINENT 2.2.0p1!!
On Sun, Oct 11, 1998 at 02:34:28PM -0400, Michael Stone wrote:
> > > Quoting Avery Pennarun (apenwarr@worldvisions.ca):
> > > > Slink is a badly-needed cleanup release. Don't hold it back for any
> > > > package.
>
> I still think that calling slink "a badly needed cleanup" implies that
> hamm is horribly broken. I agree that it would be good for debian to
> release more frequently, but that's not the same as saying that hamm
> doesn't work.
"Horribly broken" is probably not the term I would use for hamm. Red Hat
5.0 was horribly broken. Slackware has always been horribly broken.
But hamm was so close to perfect -- it almost installs wonderfully, except
for a few critical things that mess up as I mentioned in my previous mail.
In particular, the X packages install in the wrong order and thus don't work
without twiddling. The kernels don't boot on some systems because they have
too many drivers. APT isn't the default. Multi-CD support doesn't work (or
perhaps it does work, but it's non-obvious if it does).
If we avoid delaying releases, Debian 2.2 could be out by April. That
gives lots of time to integration-test the Linux 2.2 kernel, and it means
slink will be rock-solid for users while they wait.
People who really need kernel 2.2 can install it from the new unstable.
After all, that's where it belongs -- 2.2.0 is bound to be unstable for a
while.
Linux 2.2 will break things that we don't expect. I know -- I'm running the
2.1 kernels already, and I've had to hack around a bit of funny behaviour
from setserial, ipchains, and a few other packages. That's just me. Other
people will have other problems. Not serious ones, but quite a few of them,
and if we rush the release of slink we'll miss some. If we don't rush it
out, Joey's estimate of a 2-month delay is very reasonable. I don't want to
see a two month delay.
Have fun,
Avery
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