[KLUG Members] Package Manager Problems

[Jamie McCarthy]

bob@acm.org (Robert G. Brown) writes:

> Jamie, I'd like to know how apt handles some critical updates,
> like the Kernel itself, or a ciritcal library like libc/glibc.
> Are there updates that require a reboot, or is this handled in
> some particularly clever way?

Kernel updates require a reboot, yes.  The "stable" tree is still
on 2.2.19 so that tells you how often that needs to happen!
"Testing" is on 2.4.18, which was released Feb. 25, my "uname"
says I updated to it on Apr. 26, and 2.4.19 came out on Aug. 2,
to give you an idea of how often the maintainers decide to bump
a version on the mid-range tree.

You know, I don't know how glibc updates are handled.  I don't
believe it required a reboot but now that I say that, I don't
know if it stopped/started all the daemons, either.


bruce@armintl.com (Bruce Smith) writes:

> Jamie, would you consider doing a KLUG presentation on apt &
> Debian?

Sure, but I'm no expert, I just use it.  I'd have to refresh my
memory about a lot of how it works :)

> The few times I've installed Debian, I've found the install
> process to be somewhat, ah, well, "confusing" ...  I would very
> much like to see a presentation on the subject.   Thanks!

Yes, Debian's install is its most painful part.  Tough outer shell,
smooth creamy middle.

I'm told Xandros is a good distro, based on Debian but with a nice
graphical installer.  But it costs money and strangely I don't see
free downloads.  There's Progeny but it's defunct, not sure if
there is a user community.  LibraNet uses apt I guess.

Knoppix is a name that more people may know, and it uses the deb
package system and has a graphical installer.  It's also the distro
with the famous boot-from-a-CD feature -- no permanent installation
required, good for testing or playing around, just boot and go.


By the way, I found a cool way to see at a glance how "cutting edge"
a distro is:

http://www.distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=debian

Pick a package you know and read across to see how current each
release is.  On Debian, for example, Mozilla 1.1 is installed on
"unstable", with "testing" and "stable" stuck back at 1.0.