[clue-tech] Re: Hello sidux?

[David L. Anselmi]

Collins Richey wrote:
[...]
> A typo - should be upgrade. The basic reason is that the dependency
> checking with upgrade is less stringent than is the case with
> dist-upgrade.

What is "less stringent dependency checking"?  If anything I would say 
it's the other way around.  But apt-get(1) has a better answer than 
yours I think.

[...]
> A little bit of confusion here. Except for the LiveCD and installer
> methods, the 'smxi' and 'Ceni' scripts, and some artwork, there is
> nothing about sidux that is not pure sid.  Any (very occasional) fixes
> that are discovered locally are fed back upstream. The intent of sidux
> is to provide a filter to help users avoid the occasional grief caused
> by packages in sid that really weren't adequately tested.The principal
> effort is in detecting and holding back (temporarily) such packages
> until upstream has provided a fix. This is done on the fly by the
> 'smxi' script - dubious packages are held just before doing
> dist-upgrade and then unheld before completing the script.

I wonder what the real criteria are.  Are they trying to avoid packages 
whose dependencies aren't adequately mature so have install problems, or 
trying to avoid packages that don't work after install?

[...]
> If I had been running pure sid for the past six months, I would have
> suffered major breakages that I have avoided thanks to the diligence
> of the sidux team and that I would have had to unravel by myself,
> thus reinventing the wheel.

I don't know about that.  I use sid (sort of started by accident).  I've 
yet to see a new version of software that worked less well than the 
previous one.

I have seen issues where a package can't be upgraded because its depends 
aren't satisfied in sid.  Sometimes the suggested fixes seem bizarre 
(but it's trying to fix a "shouldn't happen" situation).

I have also seen issues where upgrading the kernel leaves you without 
wireless because the corresponding module package isn't ready yet (and 
dependency handling doesn't catch that).

So really, the "unstable" part of sid has to do with whether a given set 
of packages can be upgraded easily at a particular time.  But (at least 
with aptitude) it isn't hard to notice that something odd is happening 
and either wait for more packages to upload or tweak it until it works.

Tweaking upgrades isn't a very useful pastime, but it isn't hard. 
Usually packages migrate to testing quickly and I've never seen a 
dependency problem there.

Dave