[Mageia-dev] How will be the realese cycle?

[andré]

Olivier Méjean a écrit :
> Le mardi 5 octobre 2010 16:27:20, Ahmad Samir a écrit :
>    
>> On 5 October 2010 16:21, Olivier Méjean<omejean at yahoo.fr>  wrote:
>>      
>>> Le mardi 5 octobre 2010 15:47:20, Ahmad Samir a écrit :
>>>        
>>>> On 5 October 2010 15:28, Tux99<tux99-mga at uridium.org>  wrote:
>>>>          
>>>>> Personally I think the way Mandriva maintains both updates and
>>>>> backports for each release is a waste of resources.
>>>>>            
>>>> How is it a waste?
>>>>
>>>> A practical example is the college professor / school teacher (see
>>>> Fernando Parra post a few emails back); he doesn't want to upgrade the
>>>> boxes in the lab, he doesn't care if they have the newest/shiniest
>>>> versions, just that the distro is stable and works(tm). The same
>>>> applies for a company, servers... etc. We aren't talking only about
>>>> personal boxes that can break without too much drastic consequences.
>>>>          
>>> No need to update. What on earth is that feeling that a rolling distro
>>> forces users to update ?
>>>        
>> Really? they wouldn't be interested in security updates at all?
>>      
> I just say that updating is not something imposed, you are free to update or
> not to update, you are free to just install security updates. Either under
> fixed or rolling no one is imposed to do updates. When reading the topic i get
> the feeling that some think that rolling distro means to be forced to do
> updates.
>
>    
>>      
>>>> Again a rolling distro is something that's not clearly defined. And to
>>>> be honest, a rolling distro isn't suitable for new or inexperienced
>>>> users. Simply because you can't guarantee that a new package won't
>>>> introduce regressions (or totally break an app), in this case an
>>>> experienced user will know how to revert to an older version, a new or
>>>> inexperienced user won't.
>>>>
>>>> Look at the rolling distros that've been mentioned, Debian or Gentoo,
>>>> right? would anyone recommend Debian or Gentoo for a
>>>> new/inexperienced/non-power user?
>>>>          
>>> PCLinuxOS is a rolling distro and is to inexperienced users.
>>>
>>> Olivier
>>>        
>> And nothing breaks? no critical apps get broken in that model?
>>
>> Personally I haven't use PCLinuxOS before, so can't tell for sure; my
>> guess would be yes, stuff break because new versions are prone to
>> introduce regressions. Note that this happens in cooker, which is
>> indeed a rolling distro.
>>
>>      
>  From what i've heard (mainly former users of Mandriva who switched to PCLOS
> because they did not want to change their distro every 6 months while wishing
> to have up-to-date softwares) there is no major break.
>
> Rolling distro does not mean no test for updates or no development version.
>
> I find it odd for a user llike me to read that we can have a rolling
> distribution unstable, but we can't have a stable rolling distribution
>
> Olivier
>    
The point is that to ensure that the distro collectively is stable, is a 
lot more work than just ensuring that each single application works.  
There are a lot of factors, such as timing and interaction between 
modules that come into play.  The advantage of periodic releases is that 
these problems tend to get resolved.
If there is a constant flux of applications, that will be much less the 
case.
If you are worried about updating as often (although it isn't a 
difficult process), you can always update the distro release once every 
12, 18, or 24 months, and depend on security and bug updates (of 
course), and whatever backport and other updates wanted in the interim.
The advantage of the current system is that the various applications are 
much more likely to play nicely together.

By the way, I do understand that many users have limited bandwidth for 
download.
Maybe some sort of program to distribute Mageia DVDs - for a nominal fee 
to cover costs - would be a good idea.

- André (andre999)