Are previous versions safe ?
 

Hi everybody,

I'm using "apt-get" from Debian with "stable only" option on. Of course, the most recent version for packages aren't available to download. Here is my question : Are previous versions safe ? I mean, have security patches been applied to those versions ?


Thanks,
Mathieu

As far as I know, things in Debian Stable are supposed to be the "safest" as long as you have been doing an upgrade every week from the security repositories.

Some background on the repositories, stable, testing and unstable. If you use a defined repository like stable then you are best advised to only use applications from this repository.
Only stable has security updates. Testing and unstable only get updates as and when the original developer has had the time to update the file and they could be insecure.
Your question as to whether security patches have been applied to earlier versions of a package depend entirely on whether there was a security flaw in the package. A package in stable 3.1 may be newer than a previous one but that does not necessarily mean that the package was updated only for security reasons. The only way to establish this is to go through the history of the package.

Thanks to both of you, it answered my question.

also try to keep your kernel rather uptodate. You dont have to do it every release but periodically you should check it.