Re: Some proposals
On Thu, Feb 27, 2003 at 05:58:58PM -0500, Noah L. Meyerhans wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 27, 2003 at 10:51:01PM +0100, Janusz A. Urbanowicz wrote:
> > > In the BSD world, ports are not part of the OS. A release of the OS (on
> > > CD or whatever) typically includes a snapshot of the ports tree. I
> > > think we could do something similar using testing. Maybe any package
> > > with priority optional or extra doesn't ever actually get "stable", but
> > > instead lives forever in testing and unstable. Since the OS that we
> > > actually release is significantly smaller without optional and extra, we
> > > can release more frequently, which makes it easier to insure that
> > > packages in testing are going to be installable on stable.
> >
> > Please don't. It is its support for packages (lack of separatiln between
> > core and ports) that gives Debian the foothold as server OS.
>
> I disagree. I use FreeBSD at work (had to, it was already there before
> I arrived) and while I'd much prefer to run "my" OS, I am very happy
> with the ports system. It allows for a rapid release cycle (Typically 1
> release per quarter) and still produces a high quality server OS with
> loads of apps.
I also use FreeBSD (and OpenBSD) on production servers (due to historical
reasons) and it is exactly qualities you mention that in my opinion
disqualify FreeBSD from usage on production servers (this also applies to
some commercial platforms as well):
I am unhappy with the ports system. It sometimes work, sometimes not. For
the applications I use it (24/7 uptime, short windows of time for upgrades
or maintenance due to bugs, lots of machines) i see following problems:
- There isn't a working set or snapshot of ports I could get and stop
thinking about it (modulo security updates).
- The core FBSD system is bare to say the least. Applications aren't
'supported' in any way similar to core, and lets face it, it is hard to
do something practical with the bare system except a firewall. Even
apache is in ports. And it is not gauranteed to work, since it is in
ports.
- There usually isn't any upgrade path for packages (nor for core system).
- Packaging system is very primitive.
- There isn't any well-tested set of general-use 'offcial' (in the sense of
supported) binary packages.
Please not thet I don't, DON'T say that one can't run a production system on
FreeBSD. I say that this, while possible, should not be done for any
installations except very small sites up to two or three machines (or
without uptime requirements) and very dedicated admin person. In the
situation when there's say 10 or 50 or 100 (think datacenter) specialized
machines, FBSD needs much much more work.
> I think that if we could tie the testing distribution into such a
> system, we'd be able to offer smoother upgrades and better stability
> than the BSD ports system while still speeding up our release cycle.
I'm not sure about any of those. You can easily destroy stability of debian
packages this way, without gaining anything. It is testing period and
'vintageness' of debian packages that builds my trust in Debian and makes me
fear not of major upgrades on abovementioned production servers. With making
Debian more like ports, this trust will vanish.
Alex
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