[Grml] Grml philosophy

[Michael Prokop]

* T <mlist4suntong at yahoo.com> [20060628 20:55]:

> I'd like to know the philosophy behind the grml releases. I used to use
> Debian testing, but recently revert to stable because the vulnerability of
> Debian testing. So you know I'm always on the cautions side. I know
> Knopsis, Ubunto does a lot of QA testing before the release. How about
> grml? Seems to me that grml pick its release packages only based on the
> cut off date. How about the problems/errors that inherited from the
> packages of the cut off date? Can't imaging so many tools will have one
> perfect day to be error free. Do you revert several versions back on those
> packages that have problems? In short, Debian unstable always has
> the potential to be unstable. What's the mechanism in place for grml to
> avoid it?  

I'm running several quality checks. I run daily updates and report
problems to the Debian Bug Tracking System (BTS).

I also maintain an "upgrading webpage" in the grml-wiki:

  http://wiki.grml.org/doku.php?id=upgrading

The site is up2date at least from release to release. Unstable does
not mean that the software has to be unstable but that the package
pool is the unstable part of it. So the uncomfortable stuff is the
package upgrades, not the software itself. ;)

Therefore: before grml 0.8 will be available I'll make a full
upgrade from a grml 0.7 system and check what's failing. If
something is failing I'll report it to the BTS. If it isn't fixed
when next grml version is coming I do provide a working
package/instructions how to solve it.  To upgrade all relevant
grml-packages a virtual package named 'grml' exists. Upgrading all
grml related stuff from one release to the next one is possible
therefore via running:

  # apt-get update ; apt-get install grml

It won't touch the installed kernel and as we do maintain the
grml-packages on our own (and test them before they are going into a
public release) this upgrade process can be considered as stable.

Between the stable release I provide several develreleases to grml
developers and betatesters (see http://grml.org/beta-tester/ for
details). And of course I (and several grml developers and users)
use grml at work, at home,...

regards,
-mika-
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