On Thu, Dec 28, 2006 at 06:44:38PM +0000, Digby Tarvin wrote: > > Thanks - in that case I will give it a go. Just wanted to be sure > everything looked normal before letting it run. your caution is justified, don't get me wrong. > > I have had problems in the past after upgrades on gentoo which has led > me to be reticent about updating software in advance of actually needing > some new feature... I have not used any distro but debian and can't speak to how it holds up against others, but I do know... I have made some massive upgrades in sid (like 300+ packages) with no real problems. > > > Finally, if you aren't prepared to > > maintain the system properly to avoid these issues, maybe you shouldn't > > be running a more volatile set of packages like testing and focus on > > stable instead. no offense intended if so perceived. > > Point taken, and it was my intention to stick to stable for my first > Debian install, but I was forced into Etch because the Toshiba Lifebook > included hardware that needed drivers not included in stable. In fact > even Etch hasn't managed to get everything working - but at least it > allowed me to get most of what was working under a Ubuntu live CD > also working in Debian. (I can survive with microphone and modem > problems, but not a non-working X server..) fair enough. and as I said, I truly meant no offense. You have to use what works for you. > > Can you elaborate on what you consider to be necessary to 'maintain > the system properly'? I recall reading somewhere that it was considered > anti-social to update with excessive frequency, but I don't recall > seeing any warning that using unstable involved a commitment to a > minimum upgrade frequency. > testing, when its churning heavily post-release, and sid all the time, have large numbers of packages upgraded quite regularly. If you aren't upgrading regularly, you will quickly have a large number of packages to upgrade, which can certainly be scary. For example, I upgrade pretty often (maybe twice a week) and my last upgrade was about4 or 5 days ago (I think): I currently have 150 packages to upgrade (sid). It doesn't take long to get a real backlog. I don't think its anti-social to regularly upgrade your system. It is anti-social to gratuitously download stuff and throw it away to download it again. To spread the load, I use cron-apt to download packages overnight (when, at least theortically, the load is lower) on a nightly basis. This means that I get a few packages a night which spread *MY* impact over several days. This is as opposed to waiting for several days and hammering the server by downloading 150 packages at once. You are right, there is certainly no committment with any system to any sort of upgrade frequency nor, frankly, any other committment at all :). If one is running a more volatile system, then one must be prepared to face a massive upgrade if one chooses to upgrade the system at all. And, one must be prepared to handle a massive upgrade at some point in the future as a result of just installing a package as that package's dependencies may have moved so far as to force the massive upgrade. Maintaining a system properly is, of course, subjective. If you use a volatile system and don't regularly upgrade, then you will have to face a massive upgrade and be prepared for the consequences. I bet those consequences are minimal at this time. My choice of words was unfortunate. I should have said something like "if you aren't prepared to handle the massive upgrades involved in a more volatile system, maybe you should be running a less volatile one." And I was definitely feeling a bit ornery this morning, so I apologise if I came off wrong. > Regards, likewise A
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