Rolling-release model

I posted a question about the rolling-release model of Arch Linux:
http://bkhome.org/archive/blog2/201303/major-fixes-for-arch-linux-build.html

Distrowatch Weekly has a link to this argument against Ubuntu moving to a rolling-release model:
http://thepcspy.com/read/arguments-against-rolling-release-ubuntu/

...yes, I agree, excellent point!

I particularly liked his comment about Ubuntu Phone - desktop convergence.
Yeah, their phone-thingy isn't even Ubuntu, it is something entirely different. Desktop convergence may happen, but for now it is just a dream.
However, the convegence thing does have a roadmap, so we shall remain optimistic for now.

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Comments

Test post
Username: beerstein
'beerstein' has registered.

Arch testing repos
Username: BarryK
"At least the Arch repos do have various "testing" repos, before they get moved into 'core', 'extra' or 'community': https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Official_Repositories The 'core', 'extra' or 'community' apparently get upgraded sometime in the first half of each month. So, it is not quite "rolling", it is a new release every month. ...which of course is an admission that a true rolling-release is bad news.

Arch's rolling-release
Username: noryb009
"Arch packages are upgraded whenever a new version is released. There are updated packages every day (see https://www.archlinux.org/packages/?sort=-last_update). The 'testing' repo is just for important packages that are bad to break, like the kernel. A snapshot CD is released every month, but it is just an installation CD. After installation, Arch doesn't need to be reinstalled. Ever.

LTS please!
Username: Terryphi
"There [i]may[/i] be problems likely to arise with rolling releases. However, there [i]is[/i] a problem with static versioning. In the Puppy world new Puppy versions sometimes break existing save files. This is a major irritant to users. Many of us use Puppy as a base and add programs which are essential to us. Recreating this for a new version is a time-consuming PITA. Recent forum posts confirm that I am not alone in this view. Developers are overly excited by bringing out 'new' versions which frankly offer little more than the predecessor except minor upgrades to in-house programs or an unnecessary kernel upgrade. A broken save file is a high price to to pay for very little. As a user I am more interested in a reliable, long term support build.

Rolling towards...?
Username: mavrothal
"When windows XP is still used today in 25% of the computers globally, 20% in Europe and 15% in N. America, ([url=http://gs.statcounter.com/#os-ww-monthly-200902-201302]see stats) is clear that users do other things with their computers, than "updating". Even on Macs (with $29 OS price, "affluent" users and a usually problem-free OS upgrade) [url=http://update.omnigroup.com/]almost 50% is still using the previous versions. Given the pathetic (to be nice) backwards compatibility of Linux-based OSs and OSS, a rolling release only assures that the OS will be a marginal geeky toy.

XP vs Vista
Username: K Godt
"Yeah, Windos C:Users is only virtually lanslated into another language, still it remains us_EN physically on the disk. Thats why XP still has it's friends. Would like to see :SPACE: support in the initrd.gz for the Puppy files since [code]"C:UsersMy NAME NAME"[/code] might contain the Pup* files. That would also involve searching three levels deep. Nevertheless it is difficult enough to be in sync with the updates of woof code. Personally i keep Puppy-4.3 until the bitter end.

rolling, FHS?
Username: darkcity
"It doesn't sound like Ubuntu is definitely going with rolling release- http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/1228 Regarding the Filesystem Hierarchy, what happened the standard the Linux Foundation was developing. I can only find a draft from Aug 2011- http://www.linuxfoundation.org/collaborate/workgroups/lsb/fhs-30-draft-1

testing repos
Username: BarryK
"I thought that I read that all packages go through 'testing'. Furthermore, I could have sworn that I read somewhere, they move packages from testing into 'community', 'core' or 'extra' in batches, about once a month. Which would make sense. If 'community', 'core' and 'extra' are changing all the time, without notice, it would be difficult even to download a snapshot of the packages.

rolling release with multisession
Username: Ted Dog
"You know we already have a way of supporting rolling release that easily fixes its gottas. Good Old Multisession DVD. The issue with rolling release is minor changes breaks stuff sometime, so having the previous good working files saved in a ready to go format to fall back on. Multisession DVDs already save only the changes, and deletes aren't really deleted, just not reloaded. You can roll back as many sessions as you can count. If we add a file manifest method like Slitaz-Linux. we could support roll-backs at the project level.

re: testing repos
Username: noryb009
"[url=https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/DeveloperWiki:Package_Testing]"Not all packages need to go through this testing process" The link in my last comment shows packages being moved to 'core', 'extra' and 'community' every day, not in batches. A cd only includes a snapshot of a few core packages - enough to run the installer. The installer installs updated base packages to the hard drive from online, which again isn't big, as it only has a command line. While these core packages change, its unlikely that they would change while you are downloading it.

rolling release
Username: disciple
"I think the rolling release in Arch works really well, even for bandwidth-stingy people like me, who ignore all the warnings to update daily and only update if there is actually something new that we want... and even update particular software without doing a full system update. > At least the Arch repos do have various "testing" repos, before they get moved into 'core', 'extra' or 'community': > ... > The 'core', 'extra' or 'community' apparently get upgraded sometime in the first half of each month. If anyone can find a source for that claim about packages being released from testing or something once a month, it would be good to see. As has been mentioned, I have only ever seen the policy that new versions are released "when they are ready". Sometimes this involves a frustrating wait ;) e.g. libreoffice 4 wasn't released for a month, so obviously somebody felt it wasn't ready until 4.01 came out. FWIW I filtered the release dates of the first 5% of packages to only those released this January and February (in case there has been a recent policy change), and approximately half were released in the second half of the month. But I don't know how many of them would have been in testing first. > So, it is not quite "rolling", it is a new release every month. Well, even if that was true, this conclusion could be completely wrong: > ...which of course is an admission that a true rolling-release is bad news. e.g. it could just be that the packagers or testers have more time available at the beginning of the month, or that some key packages have a monthly [i]upstream[/i] release cycle and other packages which depend on them also need to be rebuilt each time they are updated... --- > Given the pathetic (to be nice) backwards compatibility of Linux-based OSs and OSS, a rolling release only assures that the OS will be a marginal geeky toy. Really? What exactly do you mean by backward compatibility? New software doesn't work with old libraries? That's exactly why you need rolling releases... I've got to say, in my experience the situation on [i]Windows[/i] is truly awful. Generally compatibility problems are avoided because each program installs its own copy of all the libraries it needs. But a good proportion of programs install libraries into system directories, where they automatically mask the libraries that other programs install in their own directories, so these programs fail to start and produce cryptic error messages whenever the library is incompatible. This is hell for the users and hell for the maintainers of the innocent programs. So people might have all the latest security updates for their "operating system", but their computer will be full of multiple copies of these libraries, some of them 10 or 15 years old, with every security vulnerability ever found in them...

Dbus
Username: BarryK
"How about this anti-dbus post: http://blog.ngas.ch/archives/2011/12/13/the_destructive_desktop__mdash_linux_in_trouble/index.html Actually, we really don't need dbus, Wary is proof of that.

Tags: general