On Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 12:52 PM, Camaleón <noela...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Thu, 27 Oct 2011 14:41:46 -0300, francis picabia wrote:
>> However I don't use Suse so I wouldn't be on top of the latest here. I >> am talking about major upgrades, like 11 to 12, not 11.3 to 11.4. > > For such "big jumps" the official supported method is using the DVD (off- > line upgrade) but AFAIK, it is the same here in Debian, only "one jump" > is supported which does not mean that you cannot upgrade from Debian 4 to > Debian 6, but like openSUSE, that scenario is noy "oficially" supported, > but still you can do it if you want :-) Comparing apples to apples, Debian is able to do what Suse cannot. Debian can upgrade from 4 to 5, or 5 to 6, while running. You never need to boot from the network or CD/DVD after the initial Debian install. I have systems now running Debian 6 which were initially installed as Debian 3.0. Media such as CD/DVD have never been used on them since the 3.0 installation. "aptitude dist-upgrade" (or apt-get - whatever is in vogue in the upgrade instructions), is the method to do a major upgrade. One should reference the upgrade documentation for complete instructions and caveats on any packages which are incompatible, tips on use of screen, etc. >> In Debian, the system can stay up and we don't boot from medium to >> perform a major upgrade. In Debian it requires only a quick couple of >> reboots to load the newer kernel, etc. > > The same remains true for openSUSE, as I said, since newer versions > (IIRC, 11.3 onwards). It seems they are just getting a capability Debian has had for a long time. For minor updates like Debian 6.0 to 6.1, it takes nothing special, just a regular 'aptitude safe-upgrade' while running. >> That is pretty much like the Fedora life cycle. Yuck. > > Not quite. Fedora support cycle is even more limited (13 months!). That's why I said "pretty much". With Debian's continuous path of upgrades without downtime (other than quick reboot, which is 14 seconds on a virtual system such as KVM), it doesn't even feel like a life cycle. >> Another thing that would make me hesitant is the future of Suse. A >> distro which is owned by someone new every few years comes with some >> uncertainty. > > That's always a risk, true. But now SuSE is a stand-alone business, no > more part of Novell but a self-managed project of Attachmate. This year, and then... ? I've seen a few software companies get traded around like this, and one of two things usually happens: it becomes absorbed into another product, or it flickers out. By 2020, I predict both Solaris and Suse will be gone or a minimal legacy install base. Debian will still be going strong. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/ca+akb6gtdsvckbhko+rxw--wsxq29cyoehtb4chrj3pqfdy...@mail.gmail.com
