Quoting Charles McLaughlin ([EMAIL PROTECTED]): > If you run Debian Woody or maybe even Testing and have your sources.list > setup for security updates, does "apt-get dist-upgrade" update to the > most recent stable kernel-image?
Maybe. First thing: Do you even have a kernel-image*.deb package installed?[1] By default, the installer used through woody doesn't: You get a copy of the installer's own kernel put in your /boot directory, but it's not registered in the package database. (It's intended that you'd immediately apt-get some kernel _appropriate_ to your CPU/motherboard, but most people don't figure that out.) This will not be the case starting with the new installer (now in beta). So, if you've installed, say, the "kernel-image-2.4.18-1-686-smp" package available from the stable collection, then the Security Team guarantees that it will keep patched upgrade versions of that package in its apt-gettable archive, the one you track by including... deb http://security.debian.org stable/updates main contrib non-free ...in your sources.list. That's the Security Team's primary task -- producing packages with backported security fixes that are versioned so as to upgrade smoothly from standard stable-branch packages already issued. If you're on the stable branch, but are using a kernel you acquired some other way, from some other sort of package source, then automatic acquisition of patched kernels in that fashion probably won't work. If you're on the testing branch, the Security Team doesn't promise to keep you updated, but they do publish quite a lot of security-fix packages for that branch. Making sure your system actually gets all the security fixes it needs is up to you to ensure: You should subscribe to the security-alert mailing list, read the occasional Debian Security Advisories (DSAs) it sends you, and take whatever corrective action seems best for advisories relevant to your system. [1] Do "dpkg -l | grep kernel-image". -- Cheers, Bad Unabomber! Rick Moen Blowing people all to hell. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Do you take requests? -- Unabomber Haiku Contest, CyberLaw mailing list _______________________________________________ vox-tech mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.lugod.org/mailman/listinfo/vox-tech
