[SOLVED] Debian development freeze alert?

mzsade · 12-11-2015, 06:54 AM

Will it be anytime soon? How will it affect my Sid edition? When and for how long do i stop updating and upgrading Sid?
Please bear with the jitters, I began using Debian with Jessie and wish to prepare myself for, as someone once put it with reference to this freeze, "when the sh*t hits the fan".

maples · 12-11-2015, 08:05 AM

As far as I know, Sid is rolling-release and will never be "frozen". It is Debian Testing, and packages go from there to Unstable (currently Stretch). Stretch will become the new Stable in a few years.

There might be some slow-down on Sid around the freeze, because developers might be busy getting ready for the release, but that's purely speculation on my part.

TobiSGD · 12-11-2015, 08:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mzsade

Will it be anytime soon?

Given that the last Debian releases took about 2 years to develop, that the freeze usually is about 6 months in duration and that Debian 8 was released in April: No, not very likely

Quote:

How will it affect my Sid edition?

It is likely that package upgrades in Sid will slow down a bit, other than that Sid will not be affected at all.

Quote:

When and for how long do i stop updating and upgrading Sid?

You don't. Why would you?

Quote:

Please bear with the jitters, I began using Debian with Jessie and wish to prepare myself for, as someone once put it with reference to this freeze, "when the sh*t hits the fan".

You don't have to prepare at all, you will not be affected in any way that you can influence.

mzsade · 12-11-2015, 08:53 AM

Thank you so much, this is a huge relief.

Daws · 12-25-2015, 04:57 AM

I've watched Sid through many freezes and stable releases. Sid updates do indeed slow down in the run up to a new Debian stable release.

Quote:

wish to prepare myself for, as someone once put it with reference to this freeze, "when the sh*t hits the fan".

They may be referring to the 4-6 weeks or so after the stable release is completed. That's when the developers who were busy and bored with the new stable release come back to Sid and start uploading like cowboys. Every beta version they can find, every brand new sparkly feature into Sid it goes!

Fun times indeed. Things end up so wonky you think it may be time for a fresh install, but of course the same people have uploaded the new beta version of the installer specially for aquatic lifeforms, breaking the autobuild of your favourite installer iso.

Long story short you end up living off a live cd for about a week, muttering curses under your breath.

273 · 12-25-2015, 05:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daws

Long story short you end up living off a live cd for about a week, muttering curses under your breath.

I tend to find that this can be largely avoided by keeping a close eye on what is being removed and added and only doing an "apt-get update" not an "apt-get dist-upgrade" until vital packages aren't marked for removal. I also tend to find that when something is removed or broken it's fixed pretty quickly afterwards -- for example XChat went missing form my install for around 24 hours the other day.

mzsade · 12-26-2015, 04:31 AM

I never do dist-upgrades anyway, not since i learned the hard way that they bugger up my system, i update the kernel by compiling it..so that's covered i think. i will keep an eye on what packages i upgrade/install during, and a few weeks after, that period though, thanks.

PS: There will be announcements before it happens, right?

273 · 12-26-2015, 04:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mzsade

I never do dist-upgrades anyway, not since i learned the hard way that they bugger up my system...

I'm not sure why you would run Sid then. If you're not doing dist-upgrades the you're slowly getting further and further behind until, eventually, you're just running Testing and the packages go out of date, surely?
You may want to look at something like LMDE if you're not comfortable with major packages being upgraded.

mzsade · 12-26-2015, 06:33 AM

Doesn't an apt-get update mark the same packages as upgradable? The only difference i can tell is that a new kernel is not automatically installed/upgraded with a simple upgrade, and which is exactly what suits my hardware. So what am i missing here?

Code:

:~$ sudo apt-get upgrade
[sudo] password for sade: 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
sade@Sinai:~$ sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

Code:

:~$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Debian
Description:    Debian GNU/Linux unstable (sid)
Release:        unstable
Codename:       sid

273 · 12-26-2015, 08:07 AM

It's not just the kernel that's upgraded though. Besides, why run Sid if you don't want a fairly up to date kernel?
Apologies, obviously do what works for you but I find it odd to use an unstable testbed distribution in a conservative way.

mzsade · 12-26-2015, 10:15 AM

But i do upgrade the kernel whenever a new one is released, just not the precompiled one from the repos which as i said, buggers up my system, i compile it from source, if it's all systems go, i keep it, else i boot from the older one and flush it, modules, initrd and all.

Code:

:~$ uname -a
Linux Sinai 4.3.3-4.1.15-4.1.14-4.1.12-3.16.0-4-amd64 #1 SMP Mon Dec 21 03:37:47 IST 2015 x86_64 GNU/Linux

TobiSGD · 12-27-2015, 04:27 PM

The difference between upgrade and dist-upgrade is pretty simple (and described on the man-page): upgrade will not remove packages and not install packages that aren't currently installed, dist-upgrade will. So, on Debian Stable it doesn't really matter which one you use, on Testing and Sid you should always use dist-upgrade, otherwise your system will not be fully upgraded in case of changing dependencies.

273 · 12-27-2015, 04:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TobiSGD

The difference between upgrade and dist-upgrade is pretty simple (and described on the man-page): upgrade will not remove packages and not install packages that aren't currently installed, dist-upgrade will. So, on Debian Stable it doesn't really matter which one you use, on Testing and Sid you should always use dist-upgrade, otherwise your system will not be fully upgraded in case of changing dependencies.

This is how I have always thought about it and why I think it odd to use Sid but only "cautiously" update with the possibility of it actually being more damaging.
As for using Sid day-to-day I would not recommend it on a machine you are not willing and able to rebuild at a moment's notice but I have managed to run Sid for a few years with only passing issues with dependencies causing me to be cautious with updates.

mzsade · 12-27-2015, 08:14 PM

Just did this;

Code:

:~$ sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade
Hit:1 http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian sid InRelease 
Reading package lists... Done                       
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
sade@Sinai:~$ sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

As far as i can tell, as long as there's no precompiled kernel in the offing, which as i keep saying buggers up my system (and i am not the only one who has shutdown and reboot issues after that), it makes no difference to the status of Sid whether you do a plain upgrade or a dist-upgrade. Still confused..

273 · 12-27-2015, 08:23 PM

I'm not sure why you're using sudo but, in any case, the dist-upgrade will remove older packages and install newer ones -- without doing that you are not running Sid but some kind of frozen Sid.
I can understand why you would not want to use Sid as it is annoying at times but if you don't want to use it you may find it simpler to use LMDE or another distro which tracks Testing rather than using Sid where the main point of using it is that you dist-upgrade and it breaks...