Hi!
The question a little bit off topic, but I'm sure you canhelp me :-)
Usually, I used Redhat, but as they stopped their free update service, I'm looking for a new platform.
In older postings, most people recommend debian, that's why I want to give it a try. The debian homepage tells me, that security updates will only be available for the stable release, so I wanted to use stable. But stable does not support mysql 4, which is required for serweb.
So, what are your common practices to overcome such problems (the trade off between stable/old software and unstable/new software)?
Do you use Debian testing? Do you use just the base packages on stable and compile mysql 4 yourself? Do you use backports or do you mix stable/testing?
thanks, Klaus
On (26.02.04 16:31), Klaus Darilion wrote:
So, what are your common practices to overcome such problems (the trade off between stable/old software and unstable/new software)?
Do you use Debian testing? Do you use just the base packages on stable and compile mysql 4 yourself? Do you use backports or do you mix stable/testing?
I use testing/unstable mixed environment on my desktop machine (mainly because the fancy features of recent KDE/Gnome versions). I prefer stable on my server machines (for matter of stability and security updates).
When i need a more recent version of a certain package for my system, i try to build a "backport" by myself by downloading debian source packages of the testing version onto my stable maching, and dpkg-buildpackage(ing) it. If that doesn't work without changes, i try to use backports from eg. www.apt-get.org. I try avoiding mixing "native" stable/testing/unstable packages.
So, my recommendation would be to fetch mysql 4 source packages from packages.debian.org, and try to build them. If that fails, try a backport.
Another option (not the best one, though!) would be to use "alien", which tries to convert rpm packages into deb packages. YMMV depending on the package.
What i try to avoid at (nearly) any cost is "./configure; make; make install" type of software installation. That clutters your machine with myriads of files, invisible dependencies, and makes it quite hard to upgrade to a new Debian release. Therefore, i love SER just for the fact that Debian packaging files are included.
cheers
axelm
Hi,
Klaus Darilion wrote:
The question a little bit off topic, but I'm sure you canhelp me :-)
sure thing :)
In older postings, most people recommend debian, that's why I want to give it a try. The debian homepage tells me, that security updates will only be available for the stable release, so I wanted to use stable. But stable does not support mysql 4, which is required for serweb.
So, what are your common practices to overcome such problems (the trade off between stable/old software and unstable/new software)?
Do you use Debian testing?
not for production systems. On server systems i install the stable branch and on my development system i have "testing".
Do you use just the base packages on stable and compile mysql 4 yourself?
Yes. Pretty easy. If the linux binary package from mysql.com would had the .so libs you wouldnt even need to compile it from source. But as the .so libs are missing you need to compile the source anyway.
Do you use backports or do you mix stable/testing?
I wouldnt recommend mixing. That may render your system unuseable if Murphy is with you.
-- Arnd
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Alexander Mayrhofer -
Arnd Vehling -
Klaus Darilion