On Thu, Mar 24, 2022 at 10:00:16PM +0000, Andrew M.A. Cater wrote: Bad form to follow up to myself - but the second list was debian-kernel NOT debian-boot
> On Thu, Mar 24, 2022 at 10:27:42PM +0100, phil995511 - wrote: > > Hello, > > > > Don't you think it would be smart to integrate all the updates contained in > > the Backports directory with each new minor update of our favorite OS ? For > > example for the versions 11.3, 11.4, etc ? > > > > In my (limited) view: no, this would not be a useful idea if we wanted > to maintain some degree of stability / backwards compatibility between > point releases. > > The packages in backports generally are less general they are also very > much less tested. The net effect would be to render each point release > (roughly every three months or so) potentially less stable than the last. > > > This would make Debian easily compatible with all the new devices > > available, without having to use the line of code too much... it would > > therefore make Debian more accessible to all non-experienced Linux users. > > > > It generally takes quite a time to make sure that Debian works on new > devices - certainly longer than a point release. Updates once every two > years on a major release seem sensible. [And some new devices never > achieve Debian support - that's in the way of things, especially, say > some with minority architectures]. > > > This would also facilitate the work of updating packages such as the Linux > > kernel, which would hardly need to be in the LTS version to be used on > > Debian and therefore maintained for many years by the Debian and Kernel.org > > maintainers. > > > > You need a kernel maintained for about five years by the time you reach the > end of ELTS: "shiny new stuff" is always sligthly problematic. > > > It would seem to me to strengthen the overall security of Debian, with less > > effort/labor. > > > > Sadly, the same amount of labour to package and increased amounts of labour > to maintain distribution-wide I fear. > > Best regards. > > > > Philippe > > All the very best, as ever, > > Andy Cater >
