Re: support for older distributions
On Tuesday 08 May 2001 01:28, Chad C. Walstrom wrote:
> On Mon, May 07, 2001 at 02:45:53PM +0200, Russell Coker wrote:
> > I would like a version of potato that is not entirely frozen.
> > ...
> > I am willing to be involved in back-porting packages (there's many
> > things that I back-port for my own use and should share).
> > ...
> > Also we have to consider the long-term view of this. I would
> > like to see back-ports to woody being done in a year's time...
>
> It's not an easy request to address, really. Opinion is largely
> subjective as to what one would find valuable for potato, and you run
> into the problem of making "slushy" potato look more like woody. It's
> a catch 22 if you take it too far.
I agree that it is a matter of opinion as to what is required. But if
someone is willing to back-port a package, and to maintain it (fixing any
bugs that may be reported against it), then why not make room on the archives
for it?
> I think the long view on this subject focuses less on back-ports and
> more on shorter release cycles. If we can get release cycles for
> stable down to a year or less, back-ports would simply be less
> important.
Even if we get release cycles down to less than a year there will still be
commercial considerations of the users. I can't install some serious Linux
servers for a company and say "I'll be back before the end of the year to
upgrade everything"!
> So, contribute your efforts to improving and stabilizing woody, so we
> can get it out the door! ;-)
Actually if it was easier to share work with other people who are forced to
back-port packages to Potato then I would have more time for working on
woody. My aim here is to spend less time working on Potato not more! The
more I can work with other people and share the load then the less work on
Potato I have to do.
On Tuesday 08 May 2001 09:28, Brian May wrote:
> Another suggestion (one which you may not like, I haven't considered
> it in to much detail):
>
> Create a new Packages file for a new distribution (not sure what you
> would call it) that lists stable Packages. Then once Y is convinced
> that package X from {testing,unstable} runs OK, Y updates the new
> Package file to include the new version of X. Any broken package
> should not appear in this new distribution.
>
> So it would be sort of like testing, only based around stable, not
> unstable.
>
> Pitfalls:
>
> Of course, it goes without saying, that you can't copy the new package
> into the new distribution until all dependencies have already been
> satisfied. Including libc6 + libc6 related packages.
As for woody we are strongly encouraged to compile with the latest libc6
which means that such packages would never get into potato. That's just not
workable.
--
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