Debian Sarge gets an update -- and YES, I DO MEAN SARGE
The Debian GNU/Linux distribution is, in my opinion, the crowning achievement of free, open-source software. But figuring out what Debian is all about and what's happening in every inch of the Debian universe is difficult.
I've always wondered how long a Debian release will be supported with security updates and bug fixes. I don't know if there's even a set length of time that a Stable version of Debian will be supported. The current Stable edition -- Etch -- received its "stable" designation in April of this year. And Debian has no set release schedule, preferring to go by the "it's ready when it's ready" dictum. I'm more than OK with that.
I assumed that once a release is declared stable, the old stable release fades into unsupported oblivion.
Not so.
I just got word on Distrowatch that Debian Sarge, the former stable release of Debian before Etch, has received an update, called Debian GNU/Linux 3.1r7.
So even if you never moved to Etch in April, and stuck with Sarge, you are STILL getting security updates and even bug fixes from the Debian project.
And yes, I do think that is great.
In case you're keeping track (and yes, I am), Debian 3.1 Sarge became the project's stable release in June 2005. So three and a half years later, that release is still being supported.
Now don't get me wrong, I don't advocate picking a distribution and sticking with it for three or more years. Hell, I rarely keep the same distros on a hard drive more than a couple of months (although Debian Etch has stuck on this laptop for at least three months).
But if you do find a distro that works especially well with a certain hardware configuration, it's nice to know you can stick with it for a long time. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (and the free RHEL clone CentOS) offer years and years of security patches, and it's very nice to see Debian -- and Slackware, too -- supporting older releases many years out.
That said, I've made clear my displeasure with dual-booting (even as I continue to do it myself; this laptop dual-boots Debian Etch and Ubuntu Feisty), one thing I do endorse is a single-OS system with a separate /home partition. If you have your Linux swap partition, then a partition for your OS, then a /home partition for your data (which MUST be backed up regularly -- especially before any changes are made), it's easy to change distributions while keeping your data accessible by any new system you install.
One thing puzzles me (and I haven't experimented enough to know the best way to proceed). You can either delete all the configuration files from /home before installing the new distro .. or leave them. I don't know what will provide the best outcome. It's certainly something to look into.
I do know, however, from my experience that dual-booting with a single /home partition shared by two distros inevitably leads to configuration conflicts that are just plain annoying.
Comments
Warning: the following is untested, use at own risk.
Shearing one /home between two distros might work better if you manually set your home folder to /home/me/etch and /home/me/feisty respectively.
Then manually syncronise /etc/passwd and /etc/groups so you have the same uid and gid on both systems (a huge hassle for a corporate admin but for a pc with 1 - $family users it should be fine)
The result should be that its basically two entirely seperate OSs, but you can wonder over to the other OSs files easily. But you'll default to two diffrent folders for your diffrent OSs, Maybe its possible to change your home folder with konquror and nautilus, and use a few symlinks for when you want to share a programs dotfiles
Posted by: Someone | December 30, 2007 1:54 PM
People usually just want to set up their server computer quickly and then pretty much forget about it as long as it keeps working without any problems. Having to upgrade your server every year would be a major nuisance.
More info about the life cycle of Debian "oldstable" can be found here:
http://wiki.debian.org/DebianOldStable
Posted by: Laika | December 30, 2007 5:08 PM
Your comment reminded me of a dozen servers I set up more than two years ago. Some of them show up-times in excess of 500 and 700 days. They were set to auto update and auto upgrade every weekend. Of course, their sources.list file is set to download Sarge (instead of stable) upgrades.
I seldom touch them, and I was not aware of this upgrade.
Anyway, I think that I will make a dist-upgrade soon.
Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
Regards
Posted by: Ilde Giron | December 30, 2007 8:56 PM
Sarge will be supported until April 2008 OR a new stable is released.
This is much better than any other NON enterprise class distro out there ... almost 3 years for Sarge support.
It is a far cry from the 7 year support provided by RHEL (paid) and CentOS (free) though.
Still, a fairly long lifetime if that is required.
Posted by: Johnny Hughes | December 31, 2007 12:20 AM
It's nice to have choices. I really appreciate the commitment CentOS has made to offering a free version of RHEL. Along with Debian, I count CentOS among the most important software projects in the FOSS world.
Still, I had no idea Sarge was still being supported at all.
Being able to go with a new version of a distro every six months (Ubuntu, Fedora and seemingly many others) to a full three years (Ubuntu LTS) or more (Debian Stable, Slackware) and all the way out to seven years (Red Hat, CentOS), I'm glad there is such a range of options for just about every want and need.
Posted by: Steven Rosenberg
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December 31, 2007 1:09 PM
Re: uptime of 500-700 days with Sarge. That is amazing.
Posted by: Steven Rosenberg
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December 31, 2007 1:11 PM