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Re: support for older distributions



On Wed, May 09, 2001 at 04:49:04PM +1000, Brian May wrote:
> You say stable is "old". That is exactly Russell's point. Some people
> want a mostly stable system, but need some up-to-date packages from
> woody.

that's a choice people have to make.

you can have an old 'stable' release, or you can have an up-to-date
'unstable' release. there really is no in-between, no matter how hard
you might try to convince yourself otherwise.

if you upgrade one package, you may have to upgrade another...and
another...and if you're going to do that, you're better off upgrading
to the version(s) in unstable because they're more likely to be tested
and debugged by other people than a package recompiled for an old debian
release.

> I wouldn't suggest going any further back then stable though.
> 
>     Craig> for example, ask yourself: why is libc6-2.2.2-potato1 (or
>     Craig> whatever the potato version would be) any "better" or
>     Craig> "safer" than just installing libc6-2.2.2 from woody or sid? 
>     Craig> i can't see how it could be, and all you've achieved is
>     Craig> having two divergent versions of 2.2.2 to support.
> 
> I think you missed Russell's point.  That was: compile unstable
> packages against stable's libc6. So libc6 would not be included in
> this list.

libc6 was only an example.

if not libc6, then libgtk or libfoo or libbar - or any application or
tool.

why is application bar any *more* reliable or trustworthy just because
it is compiled against an old version of libc6 in potato?

it's not. all you're doing is deluding yourself that your system is more
stable than it would be if it was running unstable. the truth is that
it is likely to be *less* stable because that particular combination of
compiler/libraries/application version is less tested than what is in
unstable.

the sole advantage to this is so that you can lie to your boss and say
"we're running the stable release" and be telling only a half-truth (or
half-lie...doesn't matter, it's still bullshit)


now it's your system, you can do whatever you want with it. that's not
the point i'm making. i just don't like self-deception being touted as
reality.


>     Craig> debian is a "live" distribution, easily upgraded in place
>     Craig> at any time over the internet - why limit yourself to
>     Craig> looking at debian in a way which is more suited to
>     Craig> commercial CD-ROM only closed source systems?
> 
> Because some people don't want to upgrade libc6 on a stable system
> (ie. they want a mostly stable system), but require new features of
> particular packages in unstable, and are willing to risk the chance
> that these new packages may be broken.

isn't this what 'testing' was supposed to be for? so that people could
run almost-bleeding-edge systems where packages have had the really
serious bugs discovered and fixed by foolhardy people like me who run
unstable?


>     Craig> IMO, forcing debian into that model is missing a large part
>     Craig> of the point of debian.
> 
>     Craig> potato's been released. woody's getting closer to
>     Craig> freeze. lets move on.
> 
> woody's release is still months away (dare I say almost a year?).

it might not take so long if people didn't get distracted by obsessively
backporting rather than moving on to the next release.


> Sure, another approach is to compile your own version of the unstable
> package, but Russell takes then one step further to have a central
> repository for unstable package for stable. Instead of the current
> situation of having many different apt repositories, each with
> different selections of packages compiled for stable, you would have
> one big repository that could be used by everyone.

a fine idea (really, i'm not being sarcastic).

but ALL it is doing is making yet another unstable. 

think about it: that's all it is - just another unstable tree, but with
different versions of stuff.

why bother?

craig

--
craig sanders <cas@taz.net.au>

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