Escaping "upgrade hell"

[Bob Shaffer]

I was looking at linux distributions.  I haven't looked at Debian
recently, but I probably will.  The weakness with Red Hat in the past has
been that they release updates for security/errata which can be applied to
you existing release, but actual upgrades had to be done in a huge batch
(like from a CD) when the new release came out.  If I could upgrade
anything and/or everything without doing that, it would make things much
easier in the long run.


Jeff Vian said:
>
>
> Alexander Dalloz wrote:
>
>>Am Di, den 04.05.2004 schrieb John Aldrich um 19:59:
>>
>>
>>
>>>I think he's probably talking about Debian and related distros where you
>>> just
>>>do an "apt get" every night and it "automatically" updates everything to
>>> the
>>>latest version and there's no need to wipe and reinstall the way that
>>> it's
>>>often easier to do with RedHat / Mandrake / etc style distros.
>>>
>>>
>>
>>I fear he could mean that. But that is a wrong impression, by two
>>meanings:
>>
>>
> I read his post differently.
> I thought he meant a non-linux OS, and his notion there is wrong as well.
>
> I do not know of ANY os that does not do an upgrade (read new version
> release) periodically.  Even if you can do the upgrade version of the
> new release it does have some limitations, and may not work well without
> upgrading the applications.  Many applications that worked in 1995 may
> not work on an upgraded version in 2003 or later..  And many drivers
> that worked for the hardware in 1995 will not work with the new versions
> of the OS. Most applications written for todays versions of an OS will
> NOT work on an os from 1995 so you are stuck with old versions of the
> applications as well..
>
> Thus, as you upgrade the OS you are also stuck with upgrading the
> applications you use as well, and vice-versa.
>
> As a result I am not really sure what he is claiming, and I would like
> more information about what his thoughts are and what he is comparing
> RH/Fedora to.
>
>>1) Running Debian you have not "most current versions" like Bob claimed
>>in his original posting. I am speaking here about the stable release.
>>Running "Debian unstable" you are certainly some kind of most current
>>but at the price of a bleeding distribution with very often fights
>>against the system and to get it proper working. "Debian testing" might
>>be taken a good choice by many Debian users, but it is neither stable
>>nor does is have security updates.
>>
>>2) You could upgrade Redhat releases the same way like Debian too. There
>>are a lot of people who upgraded from former releases step by step. Of
>>course, Debian is an exception because it ships a new stable release
>>only once per decade, so upgrading is more rare. But upgrading means for
>>all distribution: changes on the base system. Debian is no exception in
>>that way. And if you did customize your system in a huge way you will
>>face upgrading difficulties with each distribution.
>>
>>I do not want to bash Debian. But Fedora meanwhile has with up2date and
>>yum apt like tools on board too. And apt lovers can get it for the RPM
>>system too from external.
>>
>>Alexander
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
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