Let's Discuss Interim Releases (and a Rolling Release)

[Tobin Davis]

On Fri, 2013-03-01 at 16:52 +0000, Colin Watson wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 28, 2013 at 12:12:34PM -0500, Barry Warsaw wrote:
> > Long gone are the days where a `apt-get upgrade` has broken my system
> > (knock on wood) and while I do inspect dist-upgrades a little more
> > carefully, they are usually pretty reliable too.
> 
> FWIW, I have come to believe that nobody should use 'apt-get upgrade' as
> a general rule.  In particular, since it tries its best to install as
> much as it can under the constraint that it never installs new packages
> or removes installed ones, it will carry merrily on without installing
> any new Recommends introduced by the upgrade set, and you will never
> hear about them again unless some other package starts recommending the
> same target packages.
> 
> Just using 'apt-get dist-upgrade' all the time, or something with closer
> semantics to that, is better.
> 
> -- 
> Colin Watson                                       [cjwatson at ubuntu.com]
> 

Oh, then you've fixed the issue where dist-upgrade removes packages due
to unmet dependencies (aka pool churn)?  dist-upgrade should only be
used within a release, not during development (your words a few years
ago).

I quit tracking the Ubuntu daily builds shortly after 12.04 release
(Canonical people know why).  Have the issues of missing dependencies
been resolved during library update induced pool churn?  Have the issues
of systems not booting due to lack of 3D driver support been addressed?

These are serious issues, and frankly I haven't seen any progress to
indicate otherwise.



Tobin Davis 

"One Architecture, One OS" also translates as "One Egg, One Basket".