Tim Hull wrote:
Yes, you CAN upgrade individual system components on
Debian (or any Linux/UNIX), but it's not really that simple, as you
can't, for instance, download "Debian etch" .debs of Xorg 7.2 (for
instance).
Also, with my suggestion with respect to point releases - I don't mean
backporting *everything* - mainly the components that improve hardware
support (the kernel,Xorg, etc). I actually don't mind the current
Debian release cycle - it's just the fact that often, the release can
be hard to use on newer hardware.
It is a good idea for possibility to install (and to be used during
installation) more recent kernel during installation of stable branch.
Before more than 1 year i could not install Sarge on DELL PowerEdge
Server due an unsupported SATA RAID controller and i was forced to
install testing - it was 7 months after Sarge release, but the server
was bought before this date.
On 7/27/07, Kamaraju S Kusumanchi <kamaraju@bluebottle.com>
wrote:
Tim
Hull wrote:
> On a side note, I will say that the one area I think FOSS lags
behind
> Windows and Mac is in updating individual system components. I
LIKE being
> able to update a few things without hackish solutions (
i.e. build from
> source tarballs) or updating my whole system. You can do it easily
on
> Mac/Windows, but it's quite difficult and unreliable on nearly
every
> distribution.
IIUC, you are comparing apples and oranges.
Think of it this way. If the glibc (and certain similar packages) is not
upgraded, then installing individual packages is possible even in Linux
(be
it via stable or via backports). This is the kind of situation you have
in
windows/mac etc., where the core system is not upgraded (you always run
windows XP) and you install additional software on top of it. This is
what
backports try to do. From your email, I assume you are well aware of
its
functionality and limitations.
> I think Debian really ought to look into making backports
> an official project and integrating it into the stable release as
a way to
> get updates on an as-needed basis.
Making backports official would be a good idea. However if it delays the
release of next stable branch, then I am not a big fan of it.
> It may even be an interesting idea to do
> point releases of stable with some backports included.
What about security support? Windows/Mac do not provide any security
support
for all the individual packages that a user installs. Having official
backports or point releases as you call it is useless unless there is
security support. I think providing security support for all the point
releases needs quite a bit of man power.
hth
raju
--
Kamaraju S Kusumanchi
http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kk288/
http://malayamaarutham.blogspot.com/
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