Newbie questions about updates

[Kristian Rink]

Scott;


Am Wed, 23 Aug 2006 00:03:26 -0700
schrieb Scott <geekboy at angrykeyboarder.com>:

> Ubuntu (and Debian) always seem to be a bit behind on Firefox security
> updates.  

kr at node428:~> dpkg -l|grep firefox

ii  firefox   	 1.5.dfsg+1.5.0.6-2   [...]

... running an up-to-date Debian unstable.




> I've seen it take 7-10 days after Mozilla releases the updated
> versions (Firefox and Thunderbird) before Debian or Ubuntu make them
> available.


Fetching a binary update from an FTP or web download repository is one
thing. Building a release from sources to fit into a distribution is
another one. About that, the package maintainer needs to take some time
investigating the sources of the new release (even if it's just a
security / maintaineance update), possibly adjust patches applied to
the previous version (note the FF version number printed above), apply
them to the new source, build the package and hopefully test whether it
works with the rest of the distribution (or at least the most relevant
pieces of it). This is something that simply takes some time. But
you're always free to fetch binaries from mozilla.org and manually
install them to /usr/local or /opt if you want to. ;)

Cheers,
Kristian




-- 
Kristian Rink *  http://zimmer428.net * jab: kawazu at jabber.ccc.de
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"One dreaming alone, it will be only a dream; many dreaming together
is the beginning of a new reality." (Hundertwasser)