Re: When bug fixes are applied on stable ?
2014-06-05 10:41 GMT+02:00 Bob Proulx <bob@proulx.com>:
> Prunk Dump wrote:
>> My debian wheezy clients are all affected by the following bug in gdm-3.4.1 :
>> https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=683338
>>
>> This bug is marked as Fixed, because it does not appear in gdm-3.8.3-1
>> witch is in the Debian archive.
>
> Ah, yes. A typical situation. The Debian BTS is designed around the
> Unstable Sid track. Bugs get reported against versions. If a newer
> version appears in Unstable then the bug is closed.
>
>> This bug is forwarded to the gdm bug tracking system but it was never
>> fixed in the 3.4.1 version.
>>
>> My question is when this bug will be fixed on Debian Stable ?
>
> It will be fixed when the version that no longer has the bug is
> released as a Debian Stable rlease.
>
>> -> On the next wheezy release ?
>
> No. Or rather very unlikely. It is not up to the package
> maintainer. Most package maintainers would like their packages to be
> released into the next minor point release. But it is not up to the
> package maintainer. It is up to the Debian release team what goes
> into a minor point release.
>
> Packages are updated in point releases for security issues. They are
> updated when the package has a bug that makes it significantly
> unusable. But being a production stable release packages are not
> normally updated for normal bugs.
>
> https://www.debian.org/News/2014/20140426
>
> If someone were really motivated this could be patched into 3.4.1 and
> a package submitted to stable-proposed-updates. Of course then you
> could simply use that patched package yourself outside of the official
> Debian packages. When you upgrade to the next Stable they would be
> replaced and all would be normal.
>
> If the package were one that was available in debian-backports then
> you could install it from there. Unfortunately for your problem with
> gdm3 that package isn't in backports. Someone could prepare a
> backported package however. Using debian-backports is generally much
> easier than pushing something through stable-proposed-updates.
>
> http://backports.debian.org/
>
>> -> Never on wheezy, I need to wait for the stable Jessie ?
>
> Correct. Unlikely on Wheezy due to it not meeting the criteria for a
> stable point release update. Would need to convince the Debian
> Release team. Normally the fix would appear in the next release. The
> next release is Jessie.
>
>> -> When the bug will be fixed by the gdm maintainers in the 3.4.1 version ?
>
> My best advice is to use one of the other xdm programs such as lightdm
> which does not suffer from that problem. Give lightdm a try and you
> might find it superior to gdm3. I did.
>
> apt-get install lightdm
>
> Bob
Thank you very much Bob for your detailed explanation !
This is exactly what I want to know. On Debian, the stable release is
very stable ! Only the critical bugs are corrected.
The only problem I found with this release system it that, for the
users like me that use Debian stable, it is not very motivating to
find bug fixes because they are never applied to my version.
Moreover, in my network, I need to manage 120 Debian Wheezy clients.
So if I made the patch myself and create a new Debian package et is
difficult for me to deploy the patched version to the client.
I have started to try switching to lighdm.
Thanks your very much Bob ! And excuse my English.
Baptiste.
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