Re: Future releases of Debian

[Adrian Bunk <bunk@fs.tum.de>]

On Sat, Jul 19, 2003 at 12:03:10PM +0200, Mathieu Roy wrote:
>...
> > If you need more recent software there are currently the following 
> > choices:
> > 1. unstable (the name says everything)
> > 2. testing (lack of security fixes, changes every day)
> > 3. stable with one or more backports, often of varying quality and
> >    with additional problems if you mix different backport sources
> > 4. RedHat, SuSE, Gentoo,...
> > 
> > In production environments you usually have to choose between 3. and
> > 4.
> 
> What is a production environment? I would not advise to get backports
> on a server... Woody is wonderful for servers, with no experimental
> stuff and correct security update.

For me, a "production environment" is an environment where a system is  
once installed that should then work without problems for years.

This ranges from dedicated servers to a computer with a scanner for the 
secretary.

> For desktop, the fact that testing changes frequently is absolutely
> not a problem: if you install the distros in 4, and update whenever a
> new version is available, you already frequently change the tools you
> are using.
>...

The lack of security fixes for testing is a real problem.

With the distributions listed in 4. you don't half to switch once a new 
release is available, depending on which products you use companies like 
SuSE give you up to five years support for a release.

Besides, the daily changing basis makes it even harder to install some
computers and to try to install another one similar a few weeks later -
wou'd need to keep a mirror of all the pacakges you installed on the
other machines.

> Mathieu Roy

cu
Adrian

-- 

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       "Only a promise," Lao Er said.
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