[olug] Debian releases (was: Problems Setting up DHCP for Cox Migration)

[Christopher Cashell]

On Sat, Jan 19, 2002 at 01:43:50PM -0600, Robert A. Jacobs wrote:
> > Nope, there won't be and shouldn't be.  Such a thing has caused problems
> > on Debian systems in the past.
> > 
> Oh, really?  Like what?  I used Debian exclusively in the past and loved
> it.  All the networking information was stored in one location (which
> was VERY nice - Mandrake/RPM-based file organization in general still
> seems arcane and confusing by comparison).  

You've got my agreement, here.  Debian does a great job of organizing
things in a sane and usable way.

> Unfortunately, Debian's release cycle finally bit me when I needed to
> use "newer" software on my one and only system.  I didn't feel
> comfortable running Sid (unstable) on a system I didn't have time to
> spend fixing if something broke (Full-Time Grad School/Full-Time Work)
> so I migrated to Mandrake.

Just a note, since a lot of people aren't aware of this, a while back
Debian added a /really/ helpful feature to apt, allowing you to run the
stable distribution, but easily add specific packages from the testing
or unstable distribution.

For example, I have one server that runs Debian stable, but a few
specific packages (such as Mozilla) are painful to use, when you're
stuck with the version in stable.  On that box, it's as easy as:

  sudo apt-get install mozilla/testing

to get the Mozilla packages from the testing release installed.  And, as
always, it will automagically handle dependencies and such for you. ;-)

> Ximian-Gnome, Nautilus and Evolution are awesome, so I'm probably here
> to stay.  A bit off-topic for this thread, but is anyone running this
> combination of software on Debian?  

Yep. ;-)

Although, I'm not using Ximian's release of Gnome anymore.  Nearly all
of the Ximian packages were merged with the Debian packages a while
back, removing the need.

Also, I don't know how long ago you last used Debian, but in order to
make stable releases easier, they've adopted a new release system that
involves having 3 package pools at any one time: stable, testing, and
unstable.

Packages in stable are locked with each release, save for minor updates
which go through extensive testing.

Packages in unstable are the "latest and greatest", straight from the
package maintainer.

The new one, testing, is very interesting, though.  It contains packages
from unstable once they meet the following conditions: 1) Been released
for 2 weeks without a normal or higher bug report being filed, and 2)
Have been released for 2 weeks without a new package replacing it, or 3)
have a priority set to high (in order to speed it in, for things like
security fixes).

Tracking the testing release makes for a great compromise between stable
and unstable, as it gives you recently released packages, but first
ensures that there aren't any major bugs in them.  Of course, for
maximum stability, you can't beat Debian stable (with a few updates from
testing, where desired;-).

> Rob

-- 
Christopher

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