Re: Packages temporarily disappearing from Testing/Lenny

[David <wizzardx@gmail.com>]

Hi and thanks for your reply.

>
>  I'm not an expert, but I think that packages in testing are just that -
>  under test.  Not just the individual packages, but also how they fit in
>  with other packages.  I imagine these packages were removed for a good
>  reason.  Again, I'm not sure about all this, but this may be useful
>  regarding xmms, one of the examples you mentioned:
>
>  http://packages.qa.debian.org/x/xmms.html

Thanks, I didn't notice before that there were log messages for
removal (and reason) from testing in the QA pages. For each of the
packages I listed there was a reasonable explanation.

Personally I don't agree that packages in testing should be removed if
a) version in testing is very old, and b) there is an updated version
in unstable which hasn't gone to testing yet, but I'm sure that Debian
has a good reason for this (to give the maintainers a metaphorical
'kick in the pants'?). Anyone have more info on this? XMMS being
removed is a surprise too, since the most similar media player
Audacious still has a lot of problems for me, and my work uses XMMS
for one of our main services.

>  If you want stability, then go for 'stable' ?

Touche. I mainly wanted to know why packages were disappearing - maybe
it was a bug in the testing -> unstable process. It's mainly my own
desktops (work, home, etc) which I run against testing, but I also
recommend it for other people when Stable is getting long in the
tooth, or they need updated video drivers, kernel versions, etc.

I'll dist-upgrade my desktop from Testing to Unstable (crosses
fingers), install the missing packages, and then track (dist-upgrade
every few weeks) Testing again. Maybe I should be running Ubuntu if I
want a desktop with up-to-date packages, but reasonably well tested
:-) (which Debian Testing *usually* gives me).

Thanks again for your reply.

David.