[vox-tech] debian questions - packages under testing / unstable

[Ted Deppner]

On Wed, Mar 26, 2003 at 11:40:29PM -0500, Mike Simons wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 26, 2003 at 08:00:02PM -0800, Ted Deppner wrote:
> > I plan on waiting until a complete upgrade is available, ie when sid is
> > released.
> 
>  Sid will never be released... that is the code name for unstable
> (he's the kid who blows up toys afterall).

Sarge then...  I must be confused.

>   The fact that libc6 is moving into testing means that the developers
> _think_ they have all the really bad bugs worked out and they are trying
> to get more wide spread testing of the package.  They would not move
> it into testing if they _knew_ it was going to break everything.

I followed woody when it was testing, and even without a libc6 major
version it was at times hairy.  Managalbe and fun, but hairy.  I enjoyed
solving the problems raised, but it takes precious time.

>   I agree caution is a good thing... but people who don't want to hurt 
> every now and then should not be updating a testing system right now.

The issue to me is that RedHat gets absolutely lambasted for their use of
beta/alpha libc6's and here with debian testing we have the exact same
situation... except not only is this libc6 bug prone it is also
incompatable with the previous version, meaning your entire installed
binary set could well have bugs and problems due to that version
inconsistency during testing process.

It's a mess I don't want to deal with even on my home test system.  Once
they reach a critical mass of packages this will be a managable problem,
but I think that's a ways off. 

I've not followed this too closely the last month or two, so maybe there's
some brilliant new news I'm missing... hopefully.

-- 
Ted Deppner
http://www.psyber.com/~ted/