[Mageia-dev] Release cycles proposals, and discussion

[Thorsten van Lil]

Am Montag, 13. Juni 2011, 23:28:04 schrieb Renaud MICHEL:
> On lundi 13 juin 2011 at 23:06, Thorsten van Lil wrote :
> > A rolling release has following advantages:
> > 1. the distribution is always up to date (also hardware support)
> > 2. no re-install over and over again
> 
> I don't get it why people think a re-install is necessary.
> My current computer was installed with mandriva 2007 (don't remember if it
> was .0 or .1), it is now mageia 1 and has been updated to all intermediary
> mdv releases.

An Upgrade is nearly the same, than reinstalling. The difference is only, that 
you can use your system in the mean time and you are not forced to install the 
missing packages. 

> > This could look like this:
> > Bring up a release once a year. The core (kernel, glib, ...) will only
> > get  minor updates. Apllications like firefox, libreoffice, ... will
> > always be up to date (rolling). Maybe also the desktop envirenments
> > could be rolling but this is very heavy.
> 
> If I understood correctly, that is exactly what the backports should
> provide, new versions of programs when possible (no update of half of the
> core system libraries).
> 

Yes, but Backports are not officially supported and we wouldn't advice new users 
to backports normally. It's not what is possible with current repos but what 
we offer for the "normal" user. Because this also influence what release cycle 
we use. If we use such a light rolling release, it's enough to offer one 
release per year or maybe one in 18 month. If we stay with the static release 
model, we are almost "forced" to release every 9 months or earlier.

Greetings,
Thorsten