New versions of programs with older Mandriva?

[solarian]

6 months has always seemed a bit too fast of a cycle for me, I'm actually quite happy that Mandriva has chosen the one year release cycle.

But then.. I'm not a bleeding edge fanatic.

[Crashdamage]

neddie wrote:

 

Seer of Souls sounds like the kind of thing I was thinking of, although I can't find mentions of 2005 rpms there and can't find them on pbone.net either. Thac seems by his own admission to deal more with "bleeding-edge" stuff...

SOS mentions 2005LE rpms - he mentions that he no longer hosts them on his site. He (Hawkwind) and Thac are more concerned with the newest stuff, usually for the newest OS version. We're not talkin' Debian Stable here...

 

I know I shouldn't compare Mandriva with other, non-Free operating systems, but in those cases once a new application comes out, it's out, and you can get it right away not wait till 2007.

You're right, you shouldn't compare Linux to a pay-to-play OS. Once an application's out, yeah, you can BUY it, but that doesn't always mean it will work. And it sometimes will break other things already installed. I've been toasted in DLL hell too many times.

 

I guess there's always Debian

That's no solution. Debian has the same problems any other distro does. Apt-get works basically the same way urpmi does and is prone to the same type of problems. To update Debian to a newer version or an application to a version available only in say, unstable (aka Cooker) you have to setup the Debian unstable sources to get the app and any dependencies. Basically, it's just as I described doing with urpmi, with the same risks.

 

maybe the combinations of dependencies and permutations of interacting software make it a lot harder to make these rpms play nicely everywhere than I thought.

Well, yeah. It's a big job, and that's why it's hard to keep doing packages of new apps for old OS versions. But I've managed to install almost anything with a bit of effort. I've only resorted to using Checkinstall a few times, and '--force' only once - and the installations instructions stated to do so. But I admit, not using KDE or KDE apps or much GUI stuff in general really simplifies keeping my system current.

 

daniewicz said:

 

I am a 2005 user and plan to stay on 2005 for several years...The rapid aging of my OS is a consequence of the yearly upgrade cycle, where a new version of Mandriva is generated each year. Is this really necessary?...Why not a two year cycle?

I'm with you, to a point. I'll use 10.1 until I can't use what I need anymore or I get new hardware and need to reload the OS. I don't want or need to update any more than that. Consider Windows and how often M$ offers a new OS. Anyone here think we'll ever see M$ go to a 6 month release cycle? 1 year? Even at their pace, it's stil best to skip some releases (ME, XP, Vista). At my business all the desktops run Win2kPro SP4 and will 'til hell freezes over if possible, 'cause that's the closest thing to a real OS M$ has made or will offer for the forseeable future. If it ain't broke don't fix it.

 

But given the speed of development in Linux my feeling is the yearly cycle between new releases is about right. Those who want 3 or 6 month releases can get the Club versions. Those like us can skip a few releases. Something for everyone!