On Wed, Oct 04, 2000 at 01:15:33AM +1100, Chuck Dale wrote:
> Perhaps there are new features that would be useful. If there are, then
> upgrade. Don't upgrade just because of some general belief that there
> are so many new features and software packages that you're losing out by
> not upgrading.

i think "apt-get source -b <package>" needs to be mentioned here
somewhere..

that will download the source for a particular package, extract it and
compile it using your current system.

ie: you get php4 (to pick a piece of "latest fluff") compiled against
whatever libraries were current on your distribution.

if it doesn't compile cleanly (except for build dependencies, you need
a newer apt for that ;)  its a pretty serious (to debian at least) bug
against the package.

i use it fairly often when i need features from unstable on stable
(eg: newer x server).

if you have many machines, its pretty straightforward to setup your
own apt'able repository of packages, compiled just how you like them.


> It's a good point that if upstream authors are not supporting such
> versions then it would be time to upgrade. With FreeBSD however, old
> packages seem to be supported for a much longer time than with
> Debian/Linux. 

interesting, given that its usually the same software anyway, and i
would have thought the freebsd development and user community were
smaller than the debian and linux communities.

how far back do freebsd support packages?

and do they fix problems by offering a newer version of the package,
or backporting each and every fix?

-- 
 - Gus


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