Hi Craig, > > 1) Are you using unofficial repositories on production servers ? > > no, i run unstable on several dozen production servers without a problem. i > find that doing that is an excellent way of both keeping software up-to-date > and also keeping several months ahead of the script-kiddies. i upgrade, on > average, once or twice a month by first upgrading my workstation (which > generally has the same packages as the servers for testing and development)
[...] first, thank you for you long and comprehensive answer, but we wont use unstable. we wont do for at least these two points 1) unstable packages are upgraded _very_ often. my workstation is "testing", and i upgrade every week. there are always plenty of packages to upgrade. of course a server will not have that much packages installed, but its still way to much. 2) unstable is, as the debian developers put it, unstable. the major point is, that you cannnot chose to have a stable packages of, lets say, gd, but an unstable php. if you install the unstable php with gd support it will ask for the depended gd-version. so many packages will be unstable. > i really don't see the point of stable+backports - installing backports defeats > the original purpose of running stable, it's like saying "i'll have a black > coffee......but with a little bit of cream"*, so you may as well run unstable. i dont think so. the purpose of debian stable is running a stable system and you still do to a certain point if you run a few backported packages. of course its not a black coffee anymore. if you have a firewall that guards every single port and denies every connection that comes in you might be pretty safe. if you now open port 80 to make the world connect to your webserver you are not that safe as you were before, so now theres some cream in the coffee. but there is also an advantage: people can connect to your webserver. its the same with backports in my opinion: using a stable system has the advantage to be stable. but for a few packages you are in the need for features. whats better now: putting some cream in the coffee or go for pure milk ? Regards, Philipp -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
