Hello Kevin, thank you for responding.
Maybe "Rolling Release" means something different to me than everyone else.
To me, it doesn't necessarily mean cutting edge packages, only that there
is no OS version number (*like version 19, 20, etc*). So, my thought to
make things as easy to maintain (*for spin maintainers*) as possible is to
simply serve 6 month old packages as long as they haven't had a security
update.
I don't know what it would take though. Would this stable RR need hosting
for all its own packages, or would it be it simply be enough to have a URL
to alias to the current version of Fedora? That way, this RR wouldn't need
any extra engineers or qa folks, it would simply piggy-back on the work of
the main Fedora folks. For example, instead of including a Fedora version
number in the repository URL:
http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/updates/*20*
something like this (I'm using a made up word 'suede', which is similar to
'rawhide' in English ):
http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/updates/*suede*
Now, that second link with suede could easily just point to the current
version (*and the existing mirrors*) of Fedora, which is now 20. That way
there would be no need for the end user (*for instance, my mother*) to
bother with FedUp, or other distribution upgrades. The only thing needed
would be to run 'yum update' every so often, perhaps even by cron. The
contents of /etc/issue would state 'Fedora Suede", and the GRUB screen
would state 'Fedora Suede'. (*Without Linux kernel # in GRUB, I'd imagine.
That way there is less to keep updated*).
Do that even make sense? I must be missing something here, as it seems too
simplistic.
On Fri, Jan 10, 2014 at 3:51 PM, Kevin Fenzi <kevin(a)scrye.com> wrote:
On Thu, 9 Jan 2014 21:44:17 -0500
Gavin Engel <gavin(a)engel.com> wrote:
> Is anyone else interested in working on a rolling release spin of
> Fedora?
I'm not sure how this could work as a spin, unless you used rawhide
only I guess, but you don't want to do this that it sounds like?
> I've never put together a spin before, so I'm not sure how much help
> I can give aside from testing. What I'm trying to help achieve is a
> Fedora spin that is basically the same as the Rawhide, except uses
> stable (~6 month old) packages.
You would need the maintainers to maintain those, the infrastructure to
build and push them, the release engineering resources, qa folks, etc.
6 month old packages aren't inately more stable... it depends on how
they are maintained.
> This is my motivation: I'd love to never have to worry about
> distribution upgrades, big modifications to my MBR/EFR, changing repo
> URLs, and all the other junk that goes along with upgrading the
> distribution from x to x+1. Without that *stuff* the OS would be much
> easier to use over time, and certainly something I would have no
> problems recommending to a new Linux user. As it stands now, I think
> the distro upgrade process of Linux distros is an unnecessary
> difficulty for most desktop users, when using 'yum' for continuously
> updating the packages would work just as well.
My take:
rolling release means you have to do large/radical updates as the
maintainer(s) decide, while releases means you can decide when to do
those yourself on your own schedule (within a 6 month window).
kevin
_______________________________________________
spins mailing list
spins(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/spins