On Wed, 30 Oct 2013 16:21:17 +0000 Mark Rogers mark@quarella.co.uk allegedly wrote:
I'm confused about this "rolling update distro" phrase. Are we talking about LM13/16/etc or LMDE (which I though was the only rolling LM distro, but which is described on their website as being very unsuitable for my needs here)? I feel like we're talking at cross purposes somewhere...
A true "rolling update" distro never needs re-installing. In the rolling update model individual /packages/ get rolled out when they are upgraded. There is no "point release" of a complete new working distribution a la *buntu or debian.
Debian is seen as a "rolling release" distro only because you can do an apt-get update, apt-get upgrade, apt-get dist-upgrade in place and actually get a new working version of debian at the next point release. To some extent *buntu does the same - but as others have pointed out, I too have had had *buntu crap all over my disk and force a completely clean installation. And of course they forced that bloody awful unity desktop on users.
Mint does NOT do a rolling release. It specifically tells you to do a complete clean install of the new point release. If you /really/ want a rolling release distro, then look at Arch (but that might be a tad tricky for your users to handle) or its derivative Manjaro. I had Manjaro XFCE on a laptop for a few months (during my distro hopping) and I quite liked it. But its package manager is very different to apt. The upside would be no more point installs, the downside would be an initially tougher time for you as you get your head around a new distro.
The advantage of a rolling distro is, as I say, no more point releases, but that is also its biggest weakness. When debian releases a point release upgrade, I KNOW that they have tested all the packages together. With a rolling update that complete testing doesn't happen and there is a risk that new version of package "X" will not play nicely with the new version of package "Y". You pays your money.....
As an aside, if you are really bothered about the risk of trashing your users' data at a point release, why not have all their home directories as network mounts?
Mick ---------------------------------------------------------------------
Mick Morgan gpg fingerprint: FC23 3338 F664 5E66 876B 72C0 0A1F E60B 5BAD D312 http://baldric.net
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