Fedora upgrades and LTS

[Jonas Karlsson]

What I never seen in the Fedora updates (within a release) are major 
release upgrades of packages. Example: Openoffice.org is releasing v3, 
but that will never make it into the updates of F9, (might be wrong 
here!) to get upgrades like this, one has to manually install it or 
switch to F10. This is the same for many packages and follows the Fedora 
almost bleeding edge frontline philosophy. I like beeing near the front, 
using new software, but I'm starting to get tired of upgrading every 
6month to a new release. This is because it's never flawless and ultra 
smoth to upgrade (not yet anyway) always some packages thats been 
obsolete or replaced, some functionallity thats totally different and 
needs a bit of working to upgrade. I've done it over the years, but a 
clean install often feels .. cleaner!..  and frankly it's to tiresome to 
do a clean install so you go with the upgrade (command line) ... solve 
the problems that occur and then continue to work.. This is still not 
anything for your grandma to attempt (and that is what it should be in 
the end) easy and clean! (a notification that appears, F10 is now out! 
upgrade system?) So this is something that an LTS version absolutely 
must have, new versions of software within a release and a smoth upgrade 
path. And smoth upgrades on a system that has additional software 
installed, not only a basic system setup.
Even if this isn't any news, upgrading a system has never been a ride in 
the park.. not with any os / platform other than maybe a basic install 
without additional components.

Why even have releases... F8, F9 F10  etc.. I guess freezes are good for 
making new install media. But shouldn't updates/upgrades be sufficient. 
And sometimes on the time line functionallity changes will be part of 
that updates/upgrades, called mailestones. Wouldn't this be the ultimate 
LTS distro? (It would almost be as an neverending stable version of 
rawhide)

//Jonas

[Rahul Sundaram]

Jonas Karlsson wrote:
>  What I never seen in the Fedora updates (within a release) are major
>
>  release upgrades of packages. Example: Openoffice.org is releasing v3, 
>  but that will never make it into the updates of F9, (might be wrong 
>  here!) to get upgrades like this, one has to manually install it or 
>  switch to F10.  
Incorrect. Fedora releases *do* get major revisions as updates. Kernel 
releases or even major KDE versions have gone into updates for an 
existing release. We don't push everything as updates however.

>  Why even have releases... F8, F9 F10  etc.. I guess freezes are good
> for 
>  making new install media. But shouldn't updates/upgrades be sufficient. 
>  And sometimes on the time line functionallity changes will be part of 
>  that updates/upgrades, called mailestones. Wouldn't this be the ultimate 
>  LTS distro? (It would almost be as an neverending stable version of 
>  rawhide) 
Never ending  "stable version of rawhide" is just not possible. If all 
major versions are pushed as updates into existing releases, Fedora 
releases will become just like rawhide ... with the associated fun *and* 
instability.

Rahul

[Steven Moix]

On Mon, 2008-10-20 at 13:18 +0200, Jonas Karlsson wrote:
>  What I never seen in the Fedora updates (within a release) are major
>
>  release upgrades of packages. Example: Openoffice.org is releasing v3, 
>  but that will never make it into the updates of F9, (might be wrong 
>  here!) to get upgrades like this, one has to manually install it or 
>  switch to F10. 
It happens sometimes, Firefox 2 to 3 was an example if I remember
correctly. The problem with OpenOffice is the number of dependencies.
Try a "yum update --enablerepo=rawhide openoffice*" and you'll see the
problem. The main problem here is that your needs (an up to date Desktop
Fedora) may not be the same as other people's needs (up to date LAMP
install). So it's difficult to decide what to upgrade in the first
place.

>   This is the same for many packages and follows the Fedora 
>  almost bleeding edge frontline philosophy. I like beeing near the front, 
>  using new software, but I'm starting to get tired of upgrading every 
>  6month to a new release. This is because it's never flawless and ultra 
>  smoth to upgrade (not yet anyway) always some packages thats been 
>  obsolete or replaced, some functionallity thats totally different and 
>  needs a bit of working to upgrade. I've done it over the years, but a 
>  clean install often feels .. cleaner!..  and frankly it's to tiresome to 
>  do a clean install so you go with the upgrade (command line) ... solve 
>  the problems that occur and then continue to work. 
Why don't you simply have a separate /home and keep a list of installed
programs somewhere? A standard Fedora installation + a big yum install
yoursoftwarelit and you have a clean new system in about 2-3h. Sometimes
there is just a bit of housecleaning to do in you /home.

>   This is still not 
>  anything for your grandma to attempt (and that is what it should be in 
>  the end) easy and clean! (a notification that appears, F10 is now out! 
>  upgrade system?) So this is something that an LTS version absolutely 
>  must have, new versions of software within a release and a smoth upgrade 
>  path. And smoth upgrades on a system that has additional software 
>  installed, not only a basic system setup. 
This type of notification would be a good thing, it's exactly what
Ubuntu does. I just don't see a solution for tainted systems. Maybe we
should have a document on the wiki explaining how to upgrade (if it
doesn't already exist).

>  Even if this isn't any news, upgrading a system has never been a
> ride in 
>  the park.. not with any os / platform other than maybe a basic install 
>  without additional components. 
Preupgrade is exactly supposed to do this, but again you can't make
miracles on tainted systems. The same happens on Windows, upgrades never
work well as soon as you have software installed.

>  Why even have releases... F8, F9 F10  etc.. I guess freezes are good
> for 
>  making new install media. But shouldn't updates/upgrades be sufficient. 
>  And sometimes on the time line functionallity changes will be part of 
>  that updates/upgrades, called mailestones. Wouldn't this be the ultimate 
>  LTS distro? (It would almost be as an neverending stable version of 
>  rawhide) 
People like releases, releases make news on websites, having a reachable
goal is the very basic of project management. That's how we freeze
rawhide, that's how we debug correctly. Having rawhide and a
continuously up to date and stable release are two mutually exclusive
things IMO.

Steven

[Mathieu Bridon]

> >  This is still not
> > anything for your grandma to attempt (and that is what it should be in
> > the end) easy and clean! (a notification that appears, F10 is now out!
> > upgrade system?) So this is something that an LTS version absolutely
> > must have, new versions of software within a release and a smoth upgrade
> > path. And smoth upgrades on a system that has additional software
> > installed, not only a basic system setup.
>
>  This type of notification would be a good thing, it's exactly what
>  Ubuntu does. 
http://blogs.gnome.org/hughsie/2008/08/22/packagekit-03x-new-features/


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Mathieu Bridon (bochecha)
French Fedora Ambassador

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"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." ~Benjamin Franklin