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The Debian/Ubuntu policy of not keeping their end user apps in repositories up to date is very strange. Generally when apps are not kept up to date on other ope

by melony 5y ago

The Debian/Ubuntu policy of not keeping their end user apps in repositories up to date is very strange. Generally when apps are not kept up to date on other operating systems it is usually due to limitations of hardware, performance issues, or software API support. Given that Libc doesn't exactly change between versions, why are apps not kept up to date aside from those that rely on specific kernel syscalls?

dralley 5y ago
Why is it strange? They are intended to be stable distros - "stable" in the sense that they don't change / break randomly. The default is therefore to not change things, rather than to come up with reasons to avoid doing so.
- melony 5y ago
  This makes sense for the core operating system applications. It doesn't make sense for end user applications. If I install a web browser or a game I expect it to be kept evergreen. The way Debian handle their updates is barely marginally better than sending Windows installation wizards around. What's the point of an automatic update system if they insist on limiting themselves to the occasional security patch and not release feature updates if you don't upgrade your entire OS? The update policy needs a revamp.
  - marginalia_nu 5y ago
    Yeah I don't think you are the intended audience for LTS.
  - foobarbaz33 5y ago
    The point is to avoid breaking things. New versions remove or change APIs which breaks things. Even when interface is preserved, implementation changes can break things. The new software may have a side effect that changes state somewhere and break things. Even something you think is an an independent island can break things. Because you might be using that island and it is therefore no longer an island but a dependency. Software can invoke a browser and expect it to be able to receive certain messages. Maybe it really is an island. A video game that mutates nothing, is used by no other software and is purely for human use. Maybe you are enjoying an RPG, but the devs decide to "balance" the power of some characters and it ruins the play style you were enjoying. There's trade offs to all things of course. But you can't have your cake and eat it to.
- kingkongjaffa 5y ago
  Adding your own PPA’s to get even recent versions of things is not a great UX imho. For example for up-to-date VIM you need to add ppa: https://launchpad.net/~jonathonf/+archive/ubuntu/vim https://launchpad.net/~jonathonf/+archive/ubuntu/vim

by melony 5y ago

dralley 5y ago

Why is it strange? They are intended to be stable distros - "stable" in the sense that they don't change / break randomly. The default is therefore to not change things, rather than to come up with reasons to avoid doing so.

melony 5y ago
This makes sense for the core operating system applications. It doesn't make sense for end user applications. If I install a web browser or a game I expect it to be kept evergreen. The way Debian handle their updates is barely marginally better than sending Windows installation wizards around. What's the point of an automatic update system if they insist on limiting themselves to the occasional security patch and not release feature updates if you don't upgrade your entire OS? The update policy needs a revamp.
- marginalia_nu 5y ago
  Yeah I don't think you are the intended audience for LTS.
- foobarbaz33 5y ago
  The point is to avoid breaking things. New versions remove or change APIs which breaks things. Even when interface is preserved, implementation changes can break things. The new software may have a side effect that changes state somewhere and break things. Even something you think is an an independent island can break things. Because you might be using that island and it is therefore no longer an island but a dependency. Software can invoke a browser and expect it to be able to receive certain messages. Maybe it really is an island. A video game that mutates nothing, is used by no other software and is purely for human use. Maybe you are enjoying an RPG, but the devs decide to "balance" the power of some characters and it ruins the play style you were enjoying. There's trade offs to all things of course. But you can't have your cake and eat it to.
kingkongjaffa 5y ago
Adding your own PPA’s to get even recent versions of things is not a great UX imho. For example for up-to-date VIM you need to add ppa: https://launchpad.net/~jonathonf/+archive/ubuntu/vim https://launchpad.net/~jonathonf/+archive/ubuntu/vim