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On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 1:22 PM, Volker Armin Hemmann |
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<volkerarmin@××××××××××.com> wrote: |
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> Am Dienstag 27 September 2011, 13:07:02 schrieb Michael Mol: |
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>> Except they have drivers which are buggy and require backported fixes. |
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> |
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> and that is the reason stable series exist. They are stable and they backport |
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> fixes. Exclusively. |
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I hadn't even heard of these until Mark's email 20 minutes ago. It's |
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useful information. You might have saved us some arguing if you'd |
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presented it more specific and in an explanatory fashion, rather than |
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dropping a noun and assuming it was specifically known. I assumed you |
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meant the kernels maintained by distributions. Obviously, I was wrong, |
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but Mark's email cleared that up for me. |
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> |
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>> The reasons might be that they're using an old software |
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>> package which was abandoned, and taking ownership of the code isn't |
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>> always sane. I was actually approached by someone in my area a couple |
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>> weeks ago who was in just this kind of scenario. |
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> |
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> and if the system just works - why touch it at all? |
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Because, in this case, the hardware, which is unreplaceable, went tits |
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up. Meaning it no longer works. It can't be replaced, and they're SOL |
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until they get the software ported forward. Their remaining hardware |
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of the same vintage had already died on them, and they didn't have any |
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migration path or hedge set up. |
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Other reasons--and this is why I *loathe* unnuanced "if it works, |
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don't touch it" mentalities--include security updates and migration |
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difficulty in the event of *necessity* of upgrades. |
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I know someone who's running Ubuntu 7.10 on a server that accepts |
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incoming, public connections--because they got it working, and didn't |
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even want to update to the Ubuntu 8.04 LTS, because of a "if it just |
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works, why touch it at all?" mentality. Eventually, they _will_ be |
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hacked as a consequence, even if it's just from someone scanning the |
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public IPv4 space with tools looking for vulnerable versions of |
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software. |
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The other general class of cases is something Gentoo users should be |
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able to understand in the abstract; the longer you go without |
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updating, the more difficult and expensive (in terms of time fixing |
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incompatibilities from un{tested,supported} version jumps, at the very |
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least) it becomes when you no longer have a choice. |
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-- |
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:wq |
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