Re: apt sources.list
Jason Gunthorpe wrote:
> I don't. We are not talking about sudden silent upgrade from slink to
> potato. It is rather evident by the huge number of packages to upgrade,
> the large list of 'new' packages, and the various other little signs.
So then what? Someone has a 33K6 modem and thinks that "apt-get install
<package>" would be nice. Then what? In your opinion, this should break
the very minute the "stable" links point to another directory. There you
go with your nice "debian slink" old-fashioned distro? We're so sorry?
> All you are doing is replacing this rather nice sign with a hard to
> understand (404 File not found http://..../slink/...)
> I guarentee the latter will result in lots of 'Why is the FTP archive
> broken?' mails to root@ftp.debian.org :P
So to ``explain'' one small bug (a couple of links) you come up with
yet *another* bug: if there's something wrong with the links, the
package
comes up with strange error messages, instead of telling "I suppose this
and that is wrong" and maybe even suggesting help ("your distro is out
of date - get you a new one?")
(I'm not sure if I should enter this in the bug report system - I would
not like this to become a bug report system war, so for now, I'll just
leave it as is.)
> If someone is running a system where it is critical to schedual downtime,
[cut, assertions]
Yeah. That is not what we're talking about. What we're talking about is
that the current scheme will get anyone with an old distribution in
heavy troubles the moment the "stable" link changes. I suppose that is
not what we want.
> BTW. Which is the 'unstable' one -> The release named 'cow' or the release
> named 'sheep' Don't know? Thats because they are not descriptive names -
> most users will have no clue that hamm < slink < woody.
Should they? What is the whole point in "educating" a user that he is
using a "stable" or an "unstable" - or a "califragilistic" type of
Debian? And if there is a point: should apt be the wrapper around this
educational statement, or should apt just be a nice, friendly, useful,
non breaking package tool?
I agree that there's more to it than just changing the links. That still
means the current implementation *will* break. It *will* break - and
heavy users might be able to make a good guess about what's going on,
but that's no excuse.
Valentijn
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