[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: post-release package update policy




On 28 Oct 1995, Kai Henningsen wrote:

.
.
.
> dwarf@symnet.net (Dale Scheetz)  wrote on 26.10.95 in 
> > > [...]
> > > > Product is. While trying to build a system, dpkg changed enough to loose
> > > > it's old database (rather than provide a conversion) and "forgot" that
> > > > it had installed the base package. When I went to remidy that problem,
> > > > the only
> > > [...]
> > >
> > > That's a bad experience all right, but I just don't see how having a non-
> > > changing release would have avoided it.
> >
> > Well, I do! It would have given me the opportunity to fall back to the
> > "release" package anytime I install an updated package that, for one
> > reason or another, fails to opperate to my liking.
> 
> Why do you think this wouldn't have hapened with the "release" package?
Because the base package that WAS installed (even though dpkg didn't know 
it was) was working fine at the time I upgraded to the "new" base 
package. If that had been the "release" version, and were available on 
the ftp site, I could have simply reinstalled it.
>
> Why could you not go back to whatever package you had installed  
> previously?

It was originaly obtained via winsock ftp tranfered to floppy and 
installed. The floppies were never expected to hold the data for longer 
than was necessary to tranfer it and are no longer available.

Now that I have a working system, I am learning what I need to keep and 
what I can safely throw away. I am also getting farther away from the 
time when these issues were of primary importance and significant impact 
on my time. I can still remember enough though, that I continue to make 
these points in the hope that we can make getting here easier for those 
yet to arrive.

> 
> Sorry, but I don't think your problem had anything at all to do with  
> whatever is labelled a release.
> 
If this doesn't make it any clearer, I don't know what else to say.

Sinserely,

Dale


Reply to: