Re: We might need a better wording for our release page
Holger Levsen wrote:
> Justin B Rye wrote:
>> If we're going to use the word "suite" at all we should introduce it
>> at the top ("Debian always has at least three suites in active
>> maintenance") and use it consistently. It's probably easier if we
>> avoid that, though.
>
> Suite is very commonly used to describe the different, aehm, suites of
> Debian.
Indeed, that's how it got in the Glossary!
> https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/developers-reference/developers-reference.en.html
> mentions suites 21 times, mostly in this sense.
Yes; DevRef 5.5 uses the word "suite" quite a bit (and 5.5.1 even
refers to bookworm and bullseye as "suite names"), but it introduces
these target repositories as "distributions".
> https://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/ implies distributions however I think
> that's outdated / not helpful.
I suppose the clue's in the name "ftp". But then again
https://ftp.debian.org/debian/ talks about four Debian "releases":
buster, bullseye, bookworm, trixie, and sid. So apparently as well as
being hazy on what "release" means, it can't count and has yet to hear
about experimental...
> https://piuparts.debian.org/ tests many suites (see menu on the left).
I would guess that piuparts.d.o started by taking it for granted it
was going to be operating on suites in the standard sense, and then
just kept the same label for all the not-actually-suites it ended up
being capable of handling. That sidebar is the only place I see the
word "suites" being used to cover things like "oldstable222sid" ("the
upgrade path from oldstable to stable to testing to sid").
> man apt explains: "Alternatively the version from a specific release can be
> selected by following the package name with a forward slash (/) and
> codename (bookworm, trixie, sid ...) or suite name (stable, testing, unstable).
> This will also select versions from this release for dependencies of this
> package if needed to satisfy the request."
>
> https://wiki.debian.org/DebianRepository/Format#Suite and
> https://wiki.debian.org/DebianRepository/Format#Codename confirms
> the apt man page.
These are the only sources I've seen so far using the even stricter
sense that distinguishes codenames from branchnames and doesn't allow
for DevRef-style "suite (code)names".
> I now think https://piuparts.debian.org needs an update. :)
The word it wants is something more like simply "tests". "Test
suites" would be conveniently ambiguous...
--
JBR with qualifications in linguistics, experience as a Debian
sysadmin, and probably no clue about this particular package
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