Debian "Stretch" release delayed slightly

[Posted March 4, 2016 by corbet]

From:		Jonathan Wiltshire <jmw-AT-debian.org>
To:		debian-devel-announce-AT-lists.debian.org
Subject:		Bits from the Release Team: A Slightly Moveable Feast
Date:		Thu, 3 Mar 2016 22:13:59 +0000
Message-ID:		<20160303221359.GA1401__22118.1516805247$1457044615$gmane$org@lupin.powdarrmonkey.net>
Cc:		debian-release-AT-lists.debian.org

Hi,

Updated freeze dates for Stretch
--------------------------------

At a recent release team meeting it was decided that the freeze
for Stretch will be slightly delayed from earlier announcements.
We anticipate releasing Stretch with version 4.10 of the Linux
kernel, which means a longer upstream support period and improved
compatibility.

All previously announced dates are deferred by two calendar
months; that is:

   * 5th November 2016: transitions freeze
   * 5th January 2017: "Soft" freeze
     - no new packages
     - no re-entry
     - normal migrations
   * 5th February 2017: Full freeze

For the avoidance of doubt, this change is a one-off to align with
an expected release of Linux only. We aren't in a position to try
and accomodate other projects, however much we'd like to be able
to.


("But you knew there would always be the spring, as you knew the river
would flow again after it was frozen."
                              -- Ernest Hemingway, "A Moveable Feast")


For the release team:
-- 
Jonathan Wiltshire                                      jmw@debian.org
Debian Developer                         http://people.debian.org/~jmw

4096R: 0xD3524C51 / 0A55 B7C5 1223 3942 86EC  74C3 5394 479D D352 4C51

Debian "Stretch" release delayed slightly

Posted Mar 4, 2016 16:13 UTC (Fri) by tbm (subscriber, #7049) [Link]

In case it isn't clear, note that February 2018 in the announcement is a typo. It should be February 2017.

Debian "Stretch" release delayed slightly

Posted Mar 4, 2016 16:46 UTC (Fri) by shemminger (subscriber, #5739) [Link] (1 responses)

I know Debian takes a long time to release, but it really would have been better to use 4.4 kernel.
By the time Stretch is released, the kernel will have been more than 3 years old

Debian "Stretch" release delayed slightly

Posted Mar 9, 2016 19:46 UTC (Wed) by smcv (subscriber, #53363) [Link]

Where did you get the idea that stretch is going to release with a kernel older than 4.4?

The current in-development version of stretch has 4.3, because 4.4 has been uploaded to unstable but has a release-critical regression for some people. An upstream kernel developer is looking into it and hopefully it will be fixed soon, at which point 4.4 can "migrate" into stretch.

However, that doesn't mean that stretch will release with that kernel: it started as a copy of Debian 8 (jessie), and has received new packages on a regular basis since then. stretch will continue to get new kernel releases until either the freeze, or the last LTS release that the kernel maintainer expects to be able to integrate before the freeze. This article is about the freeze being delayed slightly, so that we can hopefully have the early 2017 LTS kernel (probably 4.10) instead of staying at 4.4.

Debian "Stretch" release delayed slightly

Posted Mar 4, 2016 17:24 UTC (Fri) by b7j0c (guest, #27559) [Link] (1 responses)

everyone who has any concern for timely packages just ends up on sid because they are tired of waiting

the only place i used jessie is in throwaway instances where i don't care about the underlying os at all

its not just debian, freebsd-RELEASE is also almost hopelessly behind

Debian "Stretch" release delayed slightly

Posted Mar 11, 2016 8:37 UTC (Fri) by sbergman27 (guest, #10767) [Link]

So what if the packages aren't bleeding edge? Do you *really* need the new features (and bugs)? It used to be that having the newest packages had some advantages on desktop machines. But that's not the case anymore. I still have ~100 business desktop users on Wheezy, and don't see much advantage to moving to Jessie. If it works, don't fix it.

Debian "Stretch" release delayed slightly

Posted Mar 4, 2016 18:40 UTC (Fri) by MoSal (guest, #103113) [Link] (5 responses)

I thought Greg Kroah-Hartman had a policy of never announcing what kernel versions will go LTS, so developers wouldn't have an incentive to push/sneak code before it's ready!

Debian "Stretch" release delayed slightly

Posted Mar 4, 2016 18:44 UTC (Fri) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link] (4 responses)

Doesn't matter. The latest upstream kernel is likely to be supported for a longer time and have more hardware support. That is true regardless of whether it is a LTS kernel or not.

Debian "Stretch" release delayed slightly

Posted Mar 4, 2016 20:15 UTC (Fri) by Otus (subscriber, #67685) [Link] (1 responses)

> Doesn't matter. The latest upstream kernel is likely to be supported for a longer time and have more hardware support. That is true regardless of whether it is a LTS kernel or not.

What would be the point of delaying by approximately one kernel release if they did not expect that one to have longer support than the earlier? Might as well delay by one more... and one more... and...

Debian "Stretch" release delayed slightly

Posted Mar 4, 2016 20:40 UTC (Fri) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]

That's a question for the release team.

Debian "Stretch" release delayed slightly

Posted Mar 4, 2016 20:59 UTC (Fri) by philh (subscriber, #14797) [Link] (1 responses)

If you want to understand the justification, read this:

https://lists.debian.org/debian-kernel/2016/01/msg00598.html

> "Greg's new policy is to pick the first Linus release in each year for longterm maintenance."

Debian "Stretch" release delayed slightly

Posted Mar 5, 2016 10:34 UTC (Sat) by MoSal (guest, #103113) [Link]

> "Greg's new policy is to pick the first Linus release in each year for longterm maintenance."

I wasn't aware of the new policy. Thank you for pointing that out.

Debian "Stretch" release delayed slightly

Posted Mar 5, 2016 10:58 UTC (Sat) by tuna (guest, #44480) [Link] (5 responses)

Why doesn't Debian always rebase to the latest Linux? Linus has promised ABI/API compability for everything that is in use.

Debian "Stretch" release delayed slightly

Posted Mar 5, 2016 12:04 UTC (Sat) by seyman (subscriber, #1172) [Link]

> Why doesn't Debian always rebase to the latest Linux?

This would break compatibility (kernel modules would be in a different path than previously, for one thing).

Debian "Stretch" release delayed slightly

Posted Mar 5, 2016 12:54 UTC (Sat) by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784) [Link]

Because then you open the door to endless arguments about what else you should liberate from obeying the policies that "there is a freeze before the release" and "packages in stable do not get material upgrades (as opposed to security updates)".

Debian "Stretch" release delayed slightly

Posted Mar 5, 2016 15:45 UTC (Sat) by ballombe (subscriber, #9523) [Link]

Not at the driver level. It is not uncommon for an updated driver to required an updated userspace.

Debian "Stretch" release delayed slightly

Posted Mar 7, 2016 6:24 UTC (Mon) by ras (subscriber, #33059) [Link]

> Why doesn't Debian always rebase to the latest Linux?

You can run "the latest Linux" (for some definition of "the latest") on Debian Stable via several mechanisms. Just installing it from Unstable usually works, and failing that there will be a fairly recent version in the official backports area.

But speaking from experience, you would only do that if you had unsupported hardware. The kernel in Debian Stable is _very_ stable compared to its newer brothers.

Which brings us to the answer to your question - it takes an enormous effort to get it that way, and Debian simply doesn't have the resources to put in that effort for every kernel release. As an indication of that effort - if you try to display Debian's bug list for the kernel [0], you will occasionally get a 500 response - because the system timed out waiting for the query to return, due to the large number of bugs.

[0] https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?src=linux;a...

Debian "Stretch" release delayed slightly

Posted Mar 7, 2016 16:27 UTC (Mon) by Sesse (subscriber, #53779) [Link]

Performance characteristics change, for one (occasionally for the worse). And bugs get introduced.