[vox-tech] Debian Woody Officially Released

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Matt Roper (matt@mattrope.com):

> No, the change of the stable label is *not* an incremental change.  I
> suspect you might be a little confused about how Debian's stable
> distribution works.

<boggle>

I suspect, to phrase the matter delicately, that you lack a foundation
for that opinion.  A point we will return to, below.

> Unlike testing, which receives package updates two weeks after they go
> into unstable (sid)....

Your information is obsolete.  Please see:
http://people.debian.org/~jules/testingfaq.html

> ...the stable distribution receives absolutely no updates/changes at
> all *except* for security fixes.

This is also incorrect.  Please see the Debian Developer's Reference 
section 4.7.4.1, specifically the section concerning proposed-updates.

> You're missing the point.  Stable is just a name.  The system itself is
> much different now.

But it upgraded reliably from Thursday's stable=potato to Friday's
stable=woody, didn't it?  And the result was a stable system, same as
before.  That's _my_ point, sir.  

> It would be like saying that when someone upgrades from Windows 3.1 to
> Windows XP....

I'm sorry, but your simile is lost on me:  I don't run legacy
proprietary systems.  You are perhaps confusing me with someone else.

> Right now, Debian stable isn't really out of date compared to other
> distributions.

I've been hearing bitching and moaning in the usual places, such as
LinuxToday.  

But honestly, I really don't care.  Debian-stable ceased to be of
interest to me the moment the testing branch proved reliable enough over
time to move servers to it.

> This is exactly what I did do -- and why they never tried Debian.

They lose.

Taken to water, not drinking, they lose.  Too bad for them; not my
problem.  Maybe they'll like the PGI image, or Libranet.  I keep them
both in my installfest kit.

And I have my Debian Tips document for those who have the patience to
actually read and contemplate.  (It's a horrible mess, granted.  It's
grown by accretion over quite a few years, and basically needs to be
redacted and written over from scratch.)

>> The obvious installation media would have probably been one of the 
>> woody / 3.0 CD images or boot-floppy sets.
> 
> Yes, if a Debian user finds one and burns it for them.  A non-debian
> user won't know that these exist or where to look for them.

You know, *I* was a non-Debian user.  I was curious, so I looked in the
obvious places, pulled down (at the time) about three floppy images, 
wrote them out to disk, and used them.

So, I call bullshit on your assertion.

> As I said earlier, at this moment, stable is actually up to date
> compared to other distros.  As time goes on, it will fall out of date
> again because of the way Debian handles its releases.

In as much as sarge and woody are basically exactly the same for a brief
moment, right now, yes.  But you're being tiresome:  You knew precisely
what I meant.  I was referring to the general state of the stable branch
when it does _not_ happen to be at the exact moment of a symlink change.

> I think you're right on this one, I remember hearing this somewhere.

Well, _gosh_, Matt.  That's awfully big of you.  You'd almost think I'd
been studying all these subjects carefully in order to maintain a piece
of documentation on the subject.

But by all means, don't take _my_ word for it.  Consult the primary
sources.  *I* did.

-- 
Cheers,                                     SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM!         
Rick Moen                                   SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM!    
rick@linuxmafia.com              (_Nobody_ expects the Spammish Repetition!)