On Sun, Jul 30, 2000 at 11:09:28PM -0600, Art Edwards wrote:The question was "Why is Debian the last, rather than the first, distribution?" To a large degree your response is the answer. People brand new to Linux eat kernels, they don't compile them. So, if you don't want it to be the last distribution, perhaps you shouldn't expect them to compile their own kernels! So, as usual, Debian has to know itself. It IS the last distribution. It requires more than a newbie level of sophistication. It also has large rewards. If Debian decides to change so that it is more accepted by a larger audience, it should find a way to make the point releases stable with the new kernels, and it should not be so exceptionally pure about free/non-free. Regarding kernel updates, there could be two kinds of test cycles. For a point release, you keep the same packages you had with the last major release and test for stability with the current kernel and the new security patches. For the major release, you keep the current Freeze method. I would think, perhaps naively, that the point release test cycles could be more rapid than the major test cycles.
> If I am right, then to keep users, you should try to update kernels in
> minor releases.The kernel is upgraded in point releases when justified (an exploit
for example). However, there's no way Debian can release a new major
kernel revision in a point release and still call it stable (think
about a "feature freeze" as to why this is the case).More to the point, there's no reason a user can't upgrade the kernel
themselves!--
Nathan Norman "Eschew Obfuscation" Network Engineer
GPG Key ID 1024D/51F98BB7 http://home.midco.net/~nnorman/
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-- Arthur H. Edwards AFRL/VSSE Bldg. 914 3550 Aberdeen Ave SE KAFB, NM 87117-5776