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The problem for me is this weird concept of tying my application updates to my OS updates. If I want the latest Visual Studio I don't need to update my whole OS

The problem for me is this weird concept of tying my application updates to my OS updates. If I want the latest Visual Studio I don't need to update my whole OS first. But without adding untrusted repos updating clang Somehow requires updating everything.

flukus 9y ago
> If I want the latest Visual Studio I don't need to update my whole OS first. "apt-get install visual-studio" would do this, it would only update dependencies of visual studio, which is pretty identical to what a stand alone visual studio installer would do. > The problem for me is this weird concept of tying my application updates to my OS updates. The only alternative seems to be bundling what should be in the OS with the application, which is why your printer driver is a 600MB download. This way is much more secure though because the OS pushes security updates, having random apps with random old binaries on your computer is a growing security threat. The equifax breach was an example of this, had the library they were using been provided by the OS it would have been much more likely to be patched. > But without adding untrusted repos updating clang Somehow requires updating everything. What do you mean here? Updating clang should only require a handful of developer tools to be updated.
- slededit 9y ago
  > "apt-get install visual-studio" would do this, it would only update dependencies of visual studio. When I install VS I don't want other applications sharing dependencies with it to get upgraded or change. > What do you mean here? Updating clang should only require a handful of developer tools to be updated. No because the newer clang is not in the repo. By policy most distros will only backport security fixes not provide updates to applications.
  - flukus 9y ago
    > When I install VS I don't want other applications sharing dependencies with it to get upgraded or change. Generally they won't change, you'll just get the security updates you would/should have installed anyway. > No because the newer clang is not in the repo. It sounds like you're adding a more bleeding edge repository that contains much more than just clang, is that correct? On debian based distro's I believe this can be done by pinning, but it's been quite a while since I've done that, from memory I do think it was a bit of a pain to setup correctly.
    - slededit 9y ago
      To understand the complaint I think you need to step back a bit. When someone wants to install a program on their box they are told to run: apt-get install XYZ (or through a GUI wrapper). You install it and everyone is happy. A year later a new version comes out. The only way to get it is to upgrade your distro to a version that includes it in the repository. Sure you have other alternatives like ppa's, .debs, and good old fashioned make install but now your off the happy path and into expert land.
      - flukus 9y ago
        And you get a stable system without things updating at random times, which seems to be what you're asking for. If you want the latest stuff all the time then there are rolling distros you can install. The important thing is you can choose what you prefer, or even go with a mix. You can't do that with windows.
the_af 9y ago
The package manager is not for those kinds of applications. You usually don't install huge IDEs (or games) using a package manager on Linux either.
- slededit 9y ago
  I haven't used desktop Linux in a while, but when I did it was common to install Fire Fox and Open Office via the package manager. The Ubuntu apt repository had thousands of desktop applications. Has that changed?
  - the_af 9y ago
    Sure, you can install Firefox or LibreOffice using apt. You can also download them. You probably won't install an IDE (such as Eclipse, IntelliJ, etc.) using a package manager, but by downloading the latest version from the project's website.
pjmlp 9y ago
Same applies to Linux, try to use a more modern compiler in a LTS version. It is as easy as compile from source, assuming the source is available, until you start the cascade of updating the dependencies to actually be able to compile it and make it run.

flukus 9y ago

> If I want the latest Visual Studio I don't need to update my whole OS first. "apt-get install visual-studio" would do this, it would only update dependencies of visual studio, which is pretty identical to what a stand alone visual studio installer would do. > The problem for me is this weird concept of tying my application updates to my OS updates. The only alternative seems to be bundling what should be in the OS with the application, which is why your printer driver is a 600MB download. This way is much more secure though because the OS pushes security updates, having random apps with random old binaries on your computer is a growing security threat. The equifax breach was an example of this, had the library they were using been provided by the OS it would have been much more likely to be patched. > But without adding untrusted repos updating clang Somehow requires updating everything. What do you mean here? Updating clang should only require a handful of developer tools to be updated.

slededit 9y ago
> "apt-get install visual-studio" would do this, it would only update dependencies of visual studio. When I install VS I don't want other applications sharing dependencies with it to get upgraded or change. > What do you mean here? Updating clang should only require a handful of developer tools to be updated. No because the newer clang is not in the repo. By policy most distros will only backport security fixes not provide updates to applications.
- flukus 9y ago
  > When I install VS I don't want other applications sharing dependencies with it to get upgraded or change. Generally they won't change, you'll just get the security updates you would/should have installed anyway. > No because the newer clang is not in the repo. It sounds like you're adding a more bleeding edge repository that contains much more than just clang, is that correct? On debian based distro's I believe this can be done by pinning, but it's been quite a while since I've done that, from memory I do think it was a bit of a pain to setup correctly.
  - slededit 9y ago
    To understand the complaint I think you need to step back a bit. When someone wants to install a program on their box they are told to run: apt-get install XYZ (or through a GUI wrapper). You install it and everyone is happy. A year later a new version comes out. The only way to get it is to upgrade your distro to a version that includes it in the repository. Sure you have other alternatives like ppa's, .debs, and good old fashioned make install but now your off the happy path and into expert land.
    - flukus 9y ago
      And you get a stable system without things updating at random times, which seems to be what you're asking for. If you want the latest stuff all the time then there are rolling distros you can install. The important thing is you can choose what you prefer, or even go with a mix. You can't do that with windows.

the_af 9y ago

The package manager is not for those kinds of applications. You usually don't install huge IDEs (or games) using a package manager on Linux either.

slededit 9y ago
I haven't used desktop Linux in a while, but when I did it was common to install Fire Fox and Open Office via the package manager. The Ubuntu apt repository had thousands of desktop applications. Has that changed?
- the_af 9y ago
  Sure, you can install Firefox or LibreOffice using apt. You can also download them. You probably won't install an IDE (such as Eclipse, IntelliJ, etc.) using a package manager, but by downloading the latest version from the project's website.

pjmlp 9y ago

Same applies to Linux, try to use a more modern compiler in a LTS version. It is as easy as compile from source, assuming the source is available, until you start the cascade of updating the dependencies to actually be able to compile it and make it run.