On Wednesday 21 February 2001 16:44, Roman Drahtmueller wrote:
We provide update packages for two different reasons:
1) Bugfix 2) Update to a new version just to offer it. Examples: XFree86-4.0.x and kde2 for the not-too-recent distributions.
Item 1) divides up into two major categories: a) sec fixes b) bug fixes (plain bugs)
a) gets more and more attention (we're working at it), and b) is something that we just owe to our customers, especially if some bug is critical. Sometimes it takes a bit longer to have the bugfix out, but we have to live with that. In all cases, the bugfix may be faulty (see the mutt update rpm for 7.1), something that can be minimized but not excluded. Unfortunately you only see the (bad) updates that made their way through to the ftp server, but not the ones that get eliminated before.
If I may add something that been a longtime bother to me, I think the current update solution in place lacks in several key points... [Sorry if I drift off-topic.] First, I would like it if SuSE indeed made more of a difference between bugfixes and securityfixes. Now they're in the same ftp-updates tree. An approach where there are several different trees for several different levels of severity is much more pleasant, and it helps people avoiding upgrading several huge CMap-Adobe-* rpms on systems that do not need those rpms even if they did have holes big enough to drive trucks through. What I'm wishing for is a single update-directory containing all critical-level security fixes. Preferably not divided in series sec, n1, ap etc. because it only confuses ftpclients and it doesn't matter; if it's critical that's enough, and it doesn't really matter whether it comes from n1, sec, d1 or ap. Or does it. On a side note, those symlinks are a pest too, because they're retrieved completely as well, thus take double bandwidth. (just try it with wget) [sendmail.rpm -> sendmail-8.8.8.i386.rpm] To cut this story short, I personally would be much happier with this: critical/ server/ workstation/ security/ server/ workstation/ bugfixes server/ workstation/ Oh and by the way, I think yast2 needs upgrading with a few more install choices than just minimal / default / default with office / full. Like this it is neither; minimal is too minimal for use, full is way too big, default is okay but serves only one purpose. What I miss is "server", "server w/o X", "basic FW", "complete", "multimedia", "gaming" and the like. I myself just carry a floppy around with some custom configs, but that's tedious and besides, not everybody takes that effort. Back to updates. If one day I can get a server completely up to date with just 1 wget command, and one rpm -F command that'd be perfect. Up until now I have to choose between downloading ALL and let rpm -F sort it all out, or manually (with an ftp/web client) lookup the name of the package and retrieving it with wget. That ehm... suc^H^H^Hcosts time. and resources.
That's true. We are about to restructure parts of the internal process of providing updates to guarantee a more sophisticated quality management.
Keep up the good work, SuSE. Maarten