Debian 10.1 Expected For Release In One Month

[pmorph]

Currently, when I'm a grown up, even year old software is good enough for me, unless there are critical bugs (which get backported anyway), because I use a computer as a tool to get a job done.

Same here. TBH, I was a bit surprised on how quickly time had passed, that it was YET AGAIN time to upgrade to a fresh debian release

Edit: I have been using debian for many many years, and thinking back, I have rarely (almost never) been missing anything from the bleeding edge distros. Actually, I have way more often been missing something *after* an upgrade, due to packages getting obsoleted/abandoned and removed from the repos.

[dungeon]

Still waiting for Debian testing / unstable to start rolling. Kernel and KDE Plasma are getting seriously outdated there.

https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/linux
https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/plasma-desktop

I build kernel from source to work around that stall.

kernel 5.2.6 is currently in NEW, someone from ftpteam just needs to click on it to build then to roll to unstable

https://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html

[increasechief]

GCC in debian can be over two years old, ....

@debian:~$ gcc --version
gcc (Debian 8.3.0-19) 8.3.0
Copyright (C) 2018 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

@debian:~$ apt-cache search gcc-9
gcc-9 - GNU C compiler


Explain, what is the issue exactly?

[Baguy]

Honestly,... Having latest fancy software mattered to me, only when I was an young boy toying with computer...

Currently, when I'm a grown up, even year old software is good enough for me, unless there are critical bugs (which get backported anyway), because I use a computer as a tool to get a job done. And, for few specialties of my expertise, I use an extra repository,...

Less updates, less maintenance burden, more time to do the real job.

That still leaves plasma a mess on debian though. It doesn't use a LTS version, and it doesn't use the latest version with all the bug fixes.

[skeevy420]

Honestly,... Having latest fancy software mattered to me, only when I was an young boy toying with computer...

Currently, when I'm a grown up, even year old software is good enough for me, unless there are critical bugs (which get backported anyway), because I use a computer as a tool to get a job done. And, for few specialties of my expertise, I use an extra repository,...

Less updates, less maintenance burden, more time to do the real job.

I suppose it just depends on your workflow and what you use. I dedicate a one or two hours one day a week to do my updates, rebuild any compiled packages (AUR stuff), ensure everything is still in a good working order, etc.

My experiences back in the day with Debian and Debian-based was never good. Yeah, it usually just worked...and then came time for a dist-upgrade and my systems broke every single time which resulted in a day or two of reinstalling and reconfiguring my system. Rolling and basic maintenance has always been better for me than stable distributions in the long term.

[Citan]

Honestly,... Having latest fancy software mattered to me, only when I was an young boy toying with computer...

Currently, when I'm a grown up, even year old software is good enough for me, unless there are critical bugs (which get backported anyway), because I use a computer as a tool to get a job done. And, for few specialties of my expertise, I use an extra repository,...

Less updates, less maintenance burden, more time to do the real job.

Honestly... Taking your particular situation and describe it in a way that means something like "people who fancy latest software are just behaving like children"...
Is kinda behaving in the way you hint. ^^

Yeah, indeed, when you have a few particular needs, and are in a somewhat limited scope of infrastructure (like "personal" or "solo entrepreneur") using extra repositories are the perfect way to have the best of both worlds.

When you have a very big infrastructure, with several teams of varying skills in system management, and use softwares that rely on many components... You're very happy when you find a distribution that tries it best to balance stability and evolution for you. That's a very significant payload brought off you.
Case in point: php. D9 had 7.0, D10 has 7.3 horray. Except that 7.4 is coming around very soon. If Debian stays as usual, we'd skip it altogether and get PHP 7.6 or 7.7 on next release two years after. Which is very bad for several reasons: keeping code in check with deprecations and best practices, benefitting from performance improvements (with applications under heavy pressure you usually want to reduce as soon as possible ).

So, this is an isolated case. If if was only this, well, sure, use a repository. Sadly, in my project and many other in my entity, cases like this when you really need more than just security fixes number by the dozen.
For now, as a result, we use a slightly customized Ubuntu for less critical machines, and CentOs for the most critical.
This does not relieve all pressure from sysadmins, far from that, but it does alleviate it.

I don't doubt Debian provides a more robust basis though so if they take a small yet controlled step to come a bit closer to software lifecycle without endangering their legendary stability, it's a great news imo.

(This was a reaction from my "professional" point of view. From my "personal geek" point of view, I agree with you if that wasn't clear enough, one should develop the skills to adapt his own OS by using repositories and the like, the investment is usually worth. )

[Guest]

I don't doubt Debian provides a more robust basis though so if they take a small yet controlled step to come a bit closer to software lifecycle without endangering their legendary stability, it's a great news imo.

Software life cycle differs for different software projects. It's impossible to align distribution life cycle with all software it ships with.

Also, project doesn't necessarily follow the latest released versions of software in project's stack. For example, software developer in consultancy company sometimes has to accommodate with software version, which is used on project (sometimes ages old...), as there are no resources dedicated for upgrading to newer versions. And, no developer would like to take that risk on his head,... So, I don't align project's software stack with distribution at all. I'm using distribution to keep my programming workflow running.

Things might differ for PHP world, and operations side, and software development company (not consultancy).

PHP server version makes sense... Actually, for projects I work with, stacks software is installed separately from distribution... So. I have never thought software versions shipped with distribution might actually affect project..

Also, in modern development, things move towards containers, and docker. That helps heavily to isolate project software versions from distribution it runs on. However, there are also costs...

[Citan]

Software life cycle differs for different software projects. It's impossible to align distribution life cycle with all software it ships with.

Also, project doesn't necessarily follow the latest released versions of software in project's stack. For example, software developer in consultancy company sometimes has to accommodate with software version, which is used on project (sometimes ages old...), as there are no resources dedicated for upgrading to newer versions. And, no developer would like to take that risk on his head,... So, I don't align project's software stack with distribution at all. I'm using distribution to keep my programming workflow running.

Things might differ for PHP world, and operations side, and software development company (not consultancy).

PHP server version makes sense... Actually, for projects I work with, stacks software is installed separately from distribution... So. I have never thought software versions shipped with distribution might actually affect project..

Also, in modern development, things move towards containers, and docker. That helps heavily to isolate project software versions from distribution it runs on. However, there are also costs...

In modern development...
Yeah, that's the key words man. I'm working in an environment where technologies are 2010-2015 at best and project management early 90... XD
(Although to be honest I think containerisation is growing overboard and leading to the regression of a 90ties state but that's another topic. ^^)