[Mageia-dev] Release cycles proposals, and discussion

[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.
Another was not actually installed, an older was installed with mandrake 8.2 
(yes, that is as old as 2002), was updated to each subsequent release, was 
copied on a new computer (create partitions, copy, reinstall grub in MBR, 
check graphic driver, and it worked), it is now running mandriva 2010.2 
(mageia to come) without being reinstalled since.

> Some users also wants the a mix of both (also called a light rolling
> release)  and combine the advantages as far as possible.
> 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).

cheers
-- 
Renaud Michel