jdong's article on DistroWatch

[matthew]

Well done, jdong! I recommend everyone interested in backports read it:

http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20051212#3

[jdong]

Thanks -- It's an honor to be quoted in Distrowatch Weekly :)

[earobinson]

grats Jdong

[btdown]

Nice article!

[ubuntu_demon]

nice article! And I'm sure it clears things up for some of the backport users.

[strikeforce]

nice article! And I'm sure it clears things up for some of the backport users.

I would agree with you on this hopefully it does clear things up.

Congrats to jdong :)

[WayneSchuller]

great article

backports were always a mystery to me

i've been using linux a long time, and used to be happy just updating using tarballs.

I'd never understood why binary backports were so much harder to do well.

I moved from fedora to ubuntu hoping it would be better in terms of backports. It is alot better, thanks.

[Adrian]

Well done, jdong! I recommend everyone interested in backports read it:

http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20051212#3

A very nice read indeed. Thanks.

[paul cooke]

At the same time, there are many Ubuntu users who use Ubuntu as an enterprise-class workstation OS for getting job-critical work done. For me to decide to introduce a new package that breaks a core application for them is not considerate to them, and causes them countless headaches.
surely anyone using an "enterprise-class" workstation with backports in the sources list is asking for trouble?

[jdong]

surely anyone using an "enterprise-class" workstation with backports in the sources list is asking for trouble?

I don't think so. Since official Backports (on archive.ubuntu.com) has started, we've had a 100% bug-free track record, and even a good portion of our work is closing stable release bugs via backports. We've maintained full system compatibility with non-Backports and upgrade paths have been tested and verified to be clean.


Think of Backports as the equivalent of RHEL update packs, only released a package at a time.