Linux on Alpha...

[David Hummel]

On Sun, May 15, 2005 at 05:30:14PM -0400, dsr at tao.merseine.nu wrote:
> 
> On Sun, May 15, 2005 at 05:21:18PM -0400, David Backeberg wrote:
> >
> > In the gentoo case, many things are usable, but are nonetheless
> > marked experimental. My understanding is that this situation also
> > applies to much of Debian.  "Stability" seems to take into account
> > feedback from the users, and since an alpha user group is
> > drastically smaller than an x86 group, it follows that this cycle
> > drags out longer.
> 
> Debian doesn't work that way.

Actually, Debian does work that way.

Packages enter "unstable", and once the number of release-critical bugs
is minimized, the packages move into "testing".  At some point when
"testing" becomes mature enough, it is frozen (as "sarge" is now), and
eventually becomes the "stable" branch.

The bug reports are submitted by developers as well as users, so these
reports constitute user feedback.  You could say that user feedback is
directly related to package migration and the "stability" of packages
and distributions in Debian.

> "Stable" is supposed to be across all supported architectures.

That is correct.  Rule #2 for migration of Debian packages into
"testing":

  It must be compiled and up to date on all architectures it has
  previously been compiled for in unstable

-David