Debian adds security support for testing [LWN.net]

Debian adds security support for testing

Posted Sep 9, 2005 19:53 UTC (Fri) by peace (guest, #10016)
Parent article: Debian adds security support for testing

Go Debian!

I'm amazed that they feel they can pull this off given the history of their release schedule. It reflects very well on the leadership and maintainers. This will make Debian a very interesting choice for the desktop as being able to run fairly bleeding edge apps, with security updates, is something I have not seen in any other distribution.

I wounder how the availability of these packages will effect Ubuntu. If Debian can really be agile and current it might be nice to see Ubuntu work from within Debian as a great preconfigured desktop option. Basicaly get rid of the *-ubuntu packages and use Debian main line.

Kind Regards

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Debian adds security support for testing

Posted Sep 9, 2005 20:30 UTC (Fri) by peace (guest, #10016) [Link]

I thought of Gentoo as I wrote that but wasn't aware that they had security updates for testing, at least not as an official policy. Obviously if a package maintainer wants to keep their testing tree updated with security patches they can. The last I saw Gentoo was still working out the security patch system for the stable tree, but that was awhile ago now. Anyway, as usual, Gentoo also does X.

Kind Regards

Debian adds security support for testing

Posted Sep 11, 2005 3:06 UTC (Sun) by ferringb (subscriber, #20752) [Link]

Gentoo doesn't have 'testing' keywords; strictly stable/unstable; that said, we already have security teams for all arches, plus usual glsa postings (with tools for upgrading just the pkgs that are affected).
(Thoroughly offtopic, just correcting misview) :)

Debian adds security support for testing

Posted Sep 11, 2005 15:50 UTC (Sun) by peace (guest, #10016) [Link]

Hmmm, what are the ~x86 and -x86 keywords for if not testing /and/ unstable?

Good to know there is a dedicated security effort.

One thing about Gentoo, you sure can't say anything about it without being corrected! :) (this is a good thing, it's got a very active and helpful community. Even though it's hard to peg down it's ever evolving features.)

Kind Regards

Debian adds security support for testing

Posted Sep 12, 2005 12:59 UTC (Mon) by farnz (guest, #17727) [Link]

Gentoo has three keywords per architecture:

Plain arch (e.g. "x86"). This is used for software believed to be stable on that architecture.
~arch (e.g. "~x86"). This is used for software that needs testing on that architecture (but should work).
-arch (e.g. "-x86"). This is used for software that is known not to work on that architecture (such as binary-only software, or things like arcboot which depend on a specific architecture).

In addition, you've got masked packages (which are in the tree if you want to use them and give feedback, but which are expected to break - think GNOME and KDE alphas, for example), and unkeyworded packages (which are not known to work or fail on that architecture).

Debian adds security support for testing

Posted Sep 9, 2005 20:55 UTC (Fri) by neilm (subscriber, #28422) [Link]

I wounder how the availability of these packages will effect Ubuntu. If Debian can really be agile and current it might be nice to see Ubuntu work from within Debian as a great preconfigured desktop option. Basicaly get rid of the *-ubuntu packages and use Debian main line.

Unfortunatly, this probably won't happen.

Ubuntu freezes Sid when they release, and thus there may be no equivilent package in Debian.

1.0-1 is uploaded to unstable, but doesn't reach testing due to it not building on $arch_which_ubuntu_ignores.
Ubuntu snapshots Sid
1.1 is uploaded to unstable, which fixes some bugs, and introduces some more features. It reaches testing.

Now Ubuntu has a version which Debian doesn't and won't be able to provide security support for.

Debian adds security support for testing

Posted Sep 9, 2005 21:56 UTC (Fri) by dwheeler (guest, #1216) [Link]

But this doesn't happen in EVERY case; Ubuntu only needs to handle the cases where it does. And I suspect it's a minority case. And Debian may start to winnow architectures too (not that they're completely shedding them, but poorly-supported architectures will no longer slow down common architectures).

Debian adds security support for testing

Posted Sep 9, 2005 22:35 UTC (Fri) by peace (guest, #10016) [Link]

Ubuntu's release methodology and package management would have to change, of course. With Ubuntu's success Debian might even consider stretching a little in order to take advantage of the great work and momentum Ubuntu is generating. Consider it like the egcc/gcc split where a venerable well repsected application needed a kick in the pants by renagade upstarts to join the modern age but they all lived happily ever after. You know, "Ubuntu is what it is because of what we all are", and all that :)

Kind Regards