On Sat, 04 Jun 2011 10:12:42 +0200 Harald Dunkel <harri@afaics.de> wrote: > Installing testing for the whole system is no option. The base > system (the core packages) should be provided by the most recent > release. I don't want to get an unbootable system. You are more likely to get a problematic system by MIXING versions than you are by sticking just to stable or just to testing. Unbootable is fairly unlikely (boot loader bugs aside). The fewer people are running that precise mix of versions, the harder it is for anyone to give assurances about how that system may perform. > In the new system the main/testing packages should be _guaranteed_ NOTHING in Debian is guaranteed. Not even in a stable release is it guaranteed that all packages will work together. Fairly likely, yes. Our best effort to achieve as good as we can make it - definitely. Guarantee? Impossible. Dreamland. Tell you what, you do all the testing and maybe Debian might refund the cost of the software - oh wait.... It all comes down to how many people test any one particular combination of packages. Many eyes make all bugs shallow; many testers make for higher probability of packages working together nicely. If there are fewer eyes on one variant than on another then the more popular variant will, in all probability, be less buggy - that's just simple maths. Nothing is guaranteed. There is no warranty. If you sincerely want the Debian system which has had the most testing of all possible variants and which Debian can honestly describe as "the most likely candidate for a system where packages work together as nicely as it is practical to achieve" you MUST use stable and then keep that up to date with the stable point releases and security updates. Building stuff then takes place in chroots, e.g. using pbuilder, based on whatever suite or mix you require. Many, many software development companies use this approach for their own GNU/Linux software development, whether proprietary or not. > to work together with the most recent core/stable packages. Of course > they should also work together with core/testing, as they do now. Who is going to find the many thousands of testers who currently file bugs against unstable and testing to make a stable release? Any split would have to have at least as much testing for all possible permutations, so you have just volunteered to coordinate testing amongst a set of users as large and as varied as all of the current Debian userbase for each possible permutation. Well done. I look forward to seeing all popcon scores treble in the coming weeks.... > Making this scheme work would imply more frequent releases for the core > packages, but I am sure this can be done. I would expect that we would > get <1000 core packages. No, it would require huge numbers of testers to use each possible permutation as their daily use systems across all of the fields in which Debian is currently used. If not, then the alternative can never be as good as the current stable release and the whole exercise is pointless. -- Neil Williams ============= http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/
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