Significant change in Mandrake Linux Development Process [LWN.net]

Significant change in Mandrake Linux Development Process

Posted Feb 3, 2004 3:55 UTC (Tue) by dlang (subscriber, #313)
Parent article: Significant change in Mandrake Linux Development Process

I seriously wonder how much benifit they will get from this change.

as Linus pointed out during the 2.5 timeframe the number of testers does go up when he released a 2.6.0-testXX kernel, but nowhere near the amount that it increases when he released the 2.6.0 final kernel. there will always be a lot of people who won't try it until the final, official version is released.

that being said, good luck and I hope it helps, I just doubt it will help nearly as much as you are hoping

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Significant change in Mandrake Linux Development Process

Posted Feb 3, 2004 10:00 UTC (Tue) by hingo (subscriber, #14792) [Link]

I was thinking the same thing. With time, it might be that only a minority of users take the
community edition, while most (all those with LG cd-roms...) will wait for the official. And
then we are back to square zero.

There is one major difference though. While the release candidates have been only for
testing, this community edition will actually be supported by *erratas* (-: That means that
installing it, and using it, and updating it, you will end up with the same official edition that
comes out later and without re-installing or otherwise putting too much effort into it. So it
might be appealing to a larger audience than the release candidates have been.

henrik

Significant change in Mandrake Linux Development Process

Posted Feb 3, 2004 13:01 UTC (Tue) by coriordan (subscriber, #7544) [Link]

I think your discussing a theory that has been disproved long ago.

Who runs Debian "stable"? I'd say the percentage breakdown of stable/testing/unstable is probably 5/25/70. I've always run "unstable", I'd hate to downgrade to "testing" :)

Significant change in Mandrake Linux Development Process

Posted Feb 3, 2004 16:29 UTC (Tue) by tjc (guest, #137) [Link]

I've always run "unstable", I'd hate to downgrade to "testing" :)

The gap between "testing" and "unstable" is way too big. I run "testing", but I use icewm and install Firebird / Thunderbird from a Mozilla subscription disk. But most Gnome and KDE users would probably not find "testing" to be a very attractive alternative.

If Mandrake can keep the gap down to two or three months, the "official" release might be nice. If it starts lagging behind by a year or more like Debian, I expect it will wither on the vine.

Significant change in Mandrake Linux Development Process

Posted Feb 3, 2004 18:45 UTC (Tue) by dlang (subscriber, #313) [Link]

if you are talking about debian devlopers then I would gree with your breakdown, but elsewhere running anything other then stable is a sure way to risk your job.

Significant change in Mandrake Linux Development Process

Posted Feb 3, 2004 19:40 UTC (Tue) by coriordan (subscriber, #7544) [Link]

Running unstable has never caused me any problems at work. Managers only know that I run "that gnu thing", and the local techs have no issues with it. Most debian users I know run unstable, except for sysops who use a testing/stable mix depending on how important the box is.

Ah well, that's just my experience. I don't know of any respectable data to back up either side.

Significant change in Mandrake Linux Development Process

Posted Feb 4, 2004 13:15 UTC (Wed) by hingo (subscriber, #14792) [Link]

I think your discussing a theory that has been disproved long ago.

I actually don't think we can truly compare Debians process with this one. With Debian, testing is a slightly more stable version of unstable and the stable thing is in it's own universe. With Mandrake, the community edition will be a slightly rougher version of the Official edition while Cooker will be only a developers toy. And let's repeat the fact that Mandrake Community is a supported release, that Debian testing is not. So really this is more like Debian's system upside down, Debian has two unstable versions, Mandrake two stable versions.

But I see what you might be saying, that if there are people who are willing to run Debians testing and even unstable, there should be no shortage of people running Mandrake Community.

Other than that, if nobody runs Debian stable (and I sure don't since I run mdk:-), why does it exist at all?

henrik

Significant change in Mandrake Linux Development Process

Posted Feb 4, 2004 15:35 UTC (Wed) by coriordan (subscriber, #7544) [Link]

This gets messy. Debian actually has 4 package categories now. ("experimental" being the fourth)

There isn't a whole "experimental" distribution though, it's more like a testing area or a pre-unstable category for individual packages or groups of packages. This change happened in 2003.

So now, "unstable" is for packages that are known to work, so "unstable" is tested and quite stable, much like Mandrake "Community", except that "unstable" isn't officially supported (but it is supported by it's package maintainers).

"testing" is like Mandrake "Official" and *is* supported AFAIK. (security updates etc.)

"stable" is for boxes that you intend to install on the moon.

So 99% of users can ignore "experimental" and "stable". Newbies or people that need very high reliability should choose "testing", for everyone else "unstable" is best.

Mandrakes system improves on Debian in one aspect: they've decided not to bother supporting moon based installations.

Significant change in Mandrake Linux Development Process

Posted Feb 6, 2004 11:03 UTC (Fri) by hingo (subscriber, #14792) [Link]

Ok, thanks for the update. I used to follow Debian rather closely once, but it seems I've
let my interests in that direction fade a little in the last year. From next week on I will
again be administering a Debian box, the current plan is to go with the
"moon-distribution" :-)

henrik

Significant change in Mandrake Linux Development Process

Posted Feb 4, 2004 14:18 UTC (Wed) by ekj (subscriber, #1524) [Link]

It's comparable to Debian to a certain degree, but the match is not very close.

First, if I understood it correctly, the stable and the "community" version will actually be identical 90% of the time, the only exception being twice a year a new community-version comes out, and after shaking out the bugs, "community+bugfixes" gets released as the "official".

Secondly, Debian "Stable" is commonly refered to as "stale", I'm not saying it's good or it's bad, but the fact is Debian Stable tends to at all times be rather far away from the bleeding edge, thus Debian is probably unique in being the only distribution where basically noone uses, or even recommends on using, the "stable" version.

Least of all home-users and enthusiast, but even for a sever, stable is in many cases inapropriate. (and in other cases where stability is everything and you need no features not present a year or two ago it's perfectly apropriate)

Everyone I know who use Debian runs unstable or testing. And they recommend it to newbies too; "Don't use stable, that'll only give you a dated impression".