Although I usually like being brave, when it comes to my NethServer installation at home - I have to treat it as Production class which means I do need to be a little conservative with it.
Ok let’s give a name to the available choices. A name is important to understand what we’re talking about and for documentation references. I don’t like “brave”, I’d prefer “expert” because one must understand what is being updated. It gets the best of security fixes and updates. “Conservative” still needs some expertise but is less error-prone.
So this is my proposal
Conservative
Expert
I’ll send a screenshot soon
About stable/edge mode: both policies are stable in the same way IMO. It depends on how they are used.
Make that all repositories that are not able to differentiate between minor / point updates. The goal is to not break a running server because of upstream point updates.
But if you are expert but can’t differentiate between updates (choose what to update and what not), there is not much ‘expert’ about updating. Then it’s more like rolling dice.
Wouldn’t it be feasible to have an option to allow and disallow updates on a per-package basis?
To be able to cherry pick updates, you need a deep understanding of rpm packages interactions and system libraries.
That proposal was not able block dependencies, so I abandoned it because it solves the problem partially.
What changes with “software update policy” is the set of repositories enabled during updates.
I’d name it “expert” because it requires some expertise about what’s happening, as we learned during the past week, when some people just pressed “update” even if a “new distribution is available” warning was displayed. The “conservative” policy would make that kind of mistake impossible.
…but please suggest other names! I’m sure my proposal can be improved!
Both policies wouldn’t save us from a badlock-like regression coming from upstream. If that happens again in the future, the only thing that can help is a careful review (and backup) before updating.
Come on guys, if you’re able to choose what updates to select, you’re enough expert do it by from the command line line. It’s just a couple of commands to learn!
“Bleeding edge” is as stable as “conservative”: it only needs more care and skills. It is more balanced than conservative IMO, because it offers the latest version of every package.
If it’s stable, why ‘alpha’ or ‘beta’ where choosen as definition into topic name?
Or why there are bugs blocking the upgrade process?
Even “bleeding edge” definition do not exactly seem to mean “Rock solid”…
Please…
If one is going to use “bleeding edge”, then I feel that “conservative” is a bit more appropriate than “stable”. “solid” or “(well) balanced” just doesn’t seem to fit well and could be open to misunderstanding.