Re: Jessie sufficiently stable for general use?
Brian wrote:
On Sat 07 Mar 2015 at 09:14:31 -0500, Miles Fidelman wrote:
Well, yes and no.
-- Yes: Typical desktop operating systems (e.g., Windows, Mac OS),
and applications, "call home" periodically to check for updates,
Debian doesn't work like that unless it is configured to do so.
Duh.... The recommendation made here is, however, to do daily update.
but,
-- No:
--- in enterprise environments, that's typically disabled - with
updates distributed internally on a less frequent basis
--- this is particularly true in server and system environments,
that are under maintenance -- one doesn't want updates to the O/S to
break application software (as it quite often does)
Breakage in Debian in this regard does not appear to be common. Do you
have an example?
Can't think of a specific example, but it's fairly common to install a
package, and find that it pulls in lots of dependencies. Perl
applications come to mind as particularly finicky about "requires
version xxx or higher of package yyy."
Beyond that, pretty much any systems administrator will tell you
that "stable" is a pretty well understood concept. It's the point
at which:
-- most bugs, not caught during product testing, have been caught and fixed
-- enough security scrubbing has been done that the code has been
relatively well hardened
Sounds like Debian stable.
Does, doesn't it. Though... I've yet to find a "stable" version of
anything (Debian included) that's really wrung out in its initial
release. And, I'll repeat, if folks are recommending daily updates to
Jessie, then it doesn't sound all that "stable" to me.
There will always be a few bugs, and there's always the new security
exploit around the corner - but with any halfway decent coding and
testing practices, those should be few and far between - to the
point that an update/upgrade should rarely be necessary.
Sounds like Debian stable.
I hope we are not going to quibble about how many months there are in
"months at a time".
I'll repeat - not if folks are saying it needs daily updates.
To me, a "stable" system - and mind you, I'm talking about servers
here - is one that doesn't need updating or upgrading for months at
a time, if at all; except in the cases of:
-- deploying new application software that requires a new o/s featurea
Sounds like Debian stable.
Same again.
-- responding to a CERT alert about a newly discovered vulnerability
Sounds like Debian stable.
Same again.
Which brings us back to the OP's original question, paraphrased
slightly: "Is Jessie stable?" (In either the plain English, or the
Debian sense of the word.)" To me, I'd answer that two ways:
- by the Debian definition, Jessie is "testing" - hence explicitly NOT
"stable"
- by the plain English definition - if it needs daily updating, then
it's NOT "stable" enough for general use
Miles Fidelman
--
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is. .... Yogi Berra
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