Linux Distributions' Tracking of Upstream Projects Examined 132
An anonymous reader writes "Linux distributions track upstream projects, releasing a particular version with each official release. But how far behind the latest versions do these releases linger? Scott Shawcroft did an interesting new study into this relationship between distributions and upstream projects. Shawcroft says: 'Over the last 10 months I've been working on Linux evolution research. Similar to distrowatch, I track the current versions of packages in a number of distributions and the current upstream version. Based on that data I then graph a number of metrics to understand the relationship between upstream and downstream.' His presentation on the topic scheduled for [this] week's open source convention, OSCON, should provide an interesting insight into that relationship. Currently he is tracking 20 projects including the Linux kernel, Firefox, GCC, OpenSSH and GNOME on Arch, Debian, Fedora, Gentoo, openSUSE, Sabayon, Slackware, and Ubuntu."
Tracking Debian Stable instead of Testing (Score:3, Informative)
In Debian, all software in the repositories is frozen when a release is cut (e.g. Lenny). Only security updates are applied. If the author is going for accuracy, he should track Debian Testing, which gets updated frequently with new releases of various packages. The name "testing" is somewhat misleading. Packages in testing are considered stable enough for everyday use. The stable branch is intended to minimize updates, which is what you'd want for servers.
fair comparison ? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:He fails to see.... (Score:3, Informative)
Yeah my take on it is 95% of Debian has been around for a while and
has been field tested so it's probably a good fit for that mission
critical server your about to build.
I don't need the latest and greatest most of the time, just something
that I know, with confidence, will work well for a particular purpose.
Re:Older versions of distributions? (Score:4, Informative)
I don't know about those distributions, but I backport packages from Fedora to RHEL frequently. It's simple, really: just grab the fedora srpm and run rpmbuild on it. Most of the time, it'll work fine. Occasionally, you might need to adjust the spec file to accommodate some slight differences, but it's not a big deal. You end up with a package that integrates nicely with the package manager, satisfies dependencies in the normal way, and so on.
Also, I'm not sure why the parent is moderated flamebait. It's a legitimate to want to run a stable distribution, but use later versions of particular packages.
Re:Linux package management is a mess (Score:2, Informative)
The point in ubuntu is being always a couple of months late. You probably want to use a more up to date distribution such as debian unstable (note: unstable does not mean will crash after a reboot, just that they may contain bug).
it is also possible to keep a mixed system, that is to say, use mainly debian stable but borrow some packages from unstable. It uses teh preferences options of APT and you can find information on the debian website http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/apt-howto/ch-apt-get.en.html [debian.org]
BTW, there exist an even more closer to upstream distribution of debian which is called experimental. I would not recommend a non debian developer to use that but it can be useful sometimes.
gentoo (Score:4, Informative)
I think labeling gentoo at 75% obsolete is rather crazy. gentoo gives you the choice between the stable, and the latest and greatest, and they can be mixed too. I got the newest kernel just days after it was released, no problem at all.
Re:Linux package management is a mess (Score:3, Informative)
There are PPA repositories for those masochistic enough to want to work with nightly builds. For instance the following repo has nightly builds of Firefox.
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mozilla-daily/ppa/ubuntu [launchpad.net] jaunty main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mozilla-daily/ppa/ubuntu [launchpad.net] jaunty main
It's also possible to add Debian unstable or testing to your repositories, but set the preferred distribution to Jaunty (Package>Preferences>Distribution in synaptic). Then you can selectively install certain packages from unstable.
Re:What's Firefox? (Score:3, Informative)
It's available in experimental. See packages.debian.org/iceweasel [debian.org] and bug #535192 [debian.org].
Re:What's Firefox? (Score:1, Informative)
Arch is pretty nice, if you want a minimalist distro. It is fine for a desktop, but you're going to have to do a bit of work at first. I'm using it on multiple servers.
Re:Linux package management is a mess (Score:3, Informative)
It's brain dead easy on Windows to try beta software, and uninstall it if it breaks something. What am I missing on Linux?
/opt
seriously in a worst-case scenario linux package management becomes the same as windows package managment (you install and maintain all versions yourself).
that I want to always have the latest released version
You are on the wrong disto then, /opt and maintaining them yourself (as you would under windows)
If you want the latest version of everything, you definetly want a rolling release distro (sid/arch) of those if you want cutting edge i suggest arch.
If you just want the latest stable version of a few apps, then:
AUR, PPA, (other people compile them and host them, then apt updates them, most distros have these but they are particularly prevevalent on ARCH)
grokk apt/yum and figure out how to safely use package from a cutting edge release (e.g sid/F12) alongside your stable release.
Ideally all projects would host their own cutting-edge/stable repo, however while most of the time the same binary will run across most distros: :(
1) packaging it up and providing the correct metadata for each release is a PITA, although opensuse have a tool that will do this for you, but nobody seams to bother
2) testing against all distos is a major PITA, its much easier to let somebody familiar with the distro do it (hence PPAs/AUR are quite good)
3) bug spam, not to be too harsh, but if a newbie can't figure out how to install the vanilla version of your releases, they are probably not going to understand enough about their system to understand when something is/isn't your fault and you end up with bugs opened against the wrong projects.
Re:fair comparison ? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:He fails to see.... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:fair comparison ? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:What about distros further downstream? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Older versions of distributions? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Obsolete vs Stable (Score:2, Informative)
Re:gentoo (Score:2, Informative)
Re:What about distros further downstream? (Score:3, Informative)
Some distros (notably Slackware, Mandriva, and Sabayon themselves) went from being based on other distros and started at some point doing the package integrations themselves.
I could be wrong, but I believe Sabayon still uses portage and the Gentoo portage repository directly. They potentially have their own packages in their overlay, but AFAIK you can't really say they do the package integrations themselves. They still very much rely on upstream Gentoo.