XPost: linux.debian.project

On Thu, Mar 24, 2022 at 10:00:16PM +0000, Andrew M.A. Cater wrote:

Bad form to follow up to myself - but the second list was debian-kernel NOT debian-boot

On Thu, Mar 24, 2022 at 10:27:42PM +0100, phil995511 - wrote:

Hello,

Don't you think it would be smart to integrate all the updates contained in the Backports directory with each new minor update of our favorite OS ? For example for the versions 11.3, 11.4, etc ?

In my (limited) view: no, this would not be a useful idea if we wanted
to maintain some degree of stability / backwards compatibility between
point releases.

The packages in backports generally are less general they are also very
much less tested. The net effect would be to render each point release (roughly every three months or so) potentially less stable than the last.

This would make Debian easily compatible with all the new devices available, without having to use the line of code too much... it would therefore make Debian more accessible to all non-experienced Linux users.

It generally takes quite a time to make sure that Debian works on new
devices - certainly longer than a point release. Updates once every two
years on a major release seem sensible. [And some new devices never
achieve Debian support - that's in the way of things, especially, say
some with minority architectures].

This would also facilitate the work of updating packages such as the Linux kernel, which would hardly need to be in the LTS version to be used on Debian and therefore maintained for many years by the Debian and Kernel.org maintainers.

You need a kernel maintained for about five years by the time you reach the end of ELTS: "shiny new stuff" is always sligthly problematic.

It would seem to me to strengthen the overall security of Debian, with less effort/labor.

Sadly, the same amount of labour to package and increased amounts of labour to maintain distribution-wide I fear.

Best regards.

Philippe

All the very best, as ever,

Andy Cater

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XPost: linux.debian.project

Hello,

Don't you think it would be smart to integrate all the updates contained in
the Backports directory with each new minor update of our favorite OS ? For example for the versions 11.3, 11.4, etc ?

This would make Debian easily compatible with all the new devices
available, without having to use the line of code too much... it would therefore make Debian more accessible to all non-experienced Linux users.

This would also facilitate the work of updating packages such as the Linux kernel, which would hardly need to be in the LTS version to be used on
Debian and therefore maintained for many years by the Debian and Kernel.org maintainers.

It would seem to me to strengthen the overall security of Debian, with less effort/labor.

Best regards.

Philippe

<div dir="ltr">Hello,<div><br></div><div>Don&#39;t you think it would be smart to integrate all the updates contained in the Backports directory with each new minor update of our favorite OS ? For example for the versions 11.3, 11.4, etc ?<br></div><div><

</div><div>This would make Debian easily compatible with all the new devices available, without having to use the line of code too much... it would therefore make Debian more accessible to all non-experienced Linux users.<br></div><div><br></div><div>

This would also facilitate the work of updating packages such as the Linux kernel, which would hardly need to be in the LTS version to be used on Debian and therefore maintained for many years by the Debian and Kernel.org maintainers.<br></div><div><br></

<div>It would seem to me to strengthen the overall security of Debian, with less effort/labor.<br></div><div><br></div><div>Best regards.</div><div><br></div><div>Philippe</div></div>

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XPost: linux.debian.project

On Thu, Mar 24, 2022 at 10:01:37PM +0000, Andrew M.A. Cater wrote:

On Thu, Mar 24, 2022 at 10:00:16PM +0000, Andrew M.A. Cater wrote:

Bad form to follow up to myself - but the second list was debian-kernel NOT debian-boot

On Thu, Mar 24, 2022 at 10:27:42PM +0100, phil995511 - wrote:

Hello,

Don't you think it would be smart to integrate all the updates contained in
the Backports directory with each new minor update of our favorite OS ? For
example for the versions 11.3, 11.4, etc ?

In my (limited) view: no, this would not be a useful idea if we wanted
to maintain some degree of stability / backwards compatibility between point releases.

The packages in backports generally are less general they are also very much less tested. The net effect would be to render each point release (roughly every three months or so) potentially less stable than the last.

(I now Andrew is aware of this, but just to make it absolutely clear:)
There are cases when software in the backports suite brings incompatible changes - there is a reason some updates have to go to backports and not
into the stable suite itself. Some of these updates will *break* a
working system if installed automatically. This is one of the reasons
for the many warnings in the backports documentation and the "don't let
Apt install these packages unless specifically requested" configuration
of the repository itself; another reason is, as Andrew mentioned,
the lower amount of testing that these packages generally get.

G'luck,
Peter

--
Peter Pentchev roam@ringlet.net roam@debian.org pp@storpool.com
PGP key: http://people.FreeBSD.org/~roam/roam.key.asc
Key fingerprint 2EE7 A7A5 17FC 124C F115 C354 651E EFB0 2527 DF13

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