Squeeze LTS?

[keithpeter]

Hello All

https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-a ... 00004.html

Scroll down to the bottom under the heading LTS.

Does anyone know more about this initiative to extend security updates for Debian Squeeze? Any ideas who the stakeholders might be? I imagine it would be the people running servers in data centres rather than desktop users.

[kenharkey7]

I would think that if the support for squeeze was extended then the target would be, as you said, mostly for server owners rather than desktop users. Although I wouldn't be opposed to the idea for desktop either. Perhaps some more knowledgable people can do with debian similar to how the Suse evergreen works http://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Evergreen . Then again debian's release cycle is so long (compared to other distros anyway) that one can make an argument that the entire idea, is really not necessary. At least for anything other than servers.

[vbrummond]

Thanks for pointing this out. I would be really interested in extended support. I could run it on servers that requires more than a few years without upgrades. On the desktop side, have repositories working longer for 'grandma' use case.

This might be something holding Debian back from some business adoption in the past. Long releases, but perhaps not long enough.

[Randicus]

A probable theory. I often see CentOS and Red Hat recommended when people enquire about systems with long-term support when contemplating putting Linux systems on servers.

[keithpeter]

Hello All

The RHEL/Oracle/CentOS/Scientific Linux/Springdale Linux community attempt to support major releases for 7 years applications and 10 years security with deltas roughly once a year or slightly more frequent in the first 5 years.

You also have 5 providers of what is essentially the same distribution (so if one of the free clone providers goes down, you can basically reconfigure YUM to point to one of the others).

I think any initiative from a group within Debian to equal this long term and timetabled release schedule is going to need support from a large sponsor or a large number of people. I shall try to keep tabs on it

Cheers

[Debian4ever]

Kind of a good thing either way, extending server support while maintaining desktop,
Though doing this sort of thing may cost debian a little, debian doesnt have the same backing Redhat does.

[michapma]

Exactly. Without new backing, there could be four to six Debian releases being supported concurrently, depending on the regularity of the release cycle (assuming two or three years). It could prolong time between freeze and release due to conflicting developer resources.

[keithpeter]

Hello All

Looks like Squeeze LTS is going ahead for x86 based machines, mainly with server folk as stakeholders, and without leeching too much support effort from Debian itself.

https://lists.debian.org/debian-securit ... 00082.html

Via the gNewSense mailing list, where Marcus Moeller is keeping an eye on this stuff.

My understanding is that there will be a squeeze-lts 'suite' taking over from squeeze when the EoL happens in end of May and providing basic updates until Feb 2016. I'm *assuming* that means changing sources.list &c.

[llivv]

add it to the sources.list - to reduce confusion, probably - if that's possible anymore.

[cra1g321]

I think there is quite a large amount of people thinking that this LTS will be supported the same way as Wheezy & by the same people.

squeeze-lts is not handled by the Debian security team, but by a separate group of volunteers and companies interested in making it a success (with some overlap in people involved).

From this page - https://lists.debian.org/debian-securit ... 00082.html

[golinux]

Well, I just enabled the squeeze-lts repo for my desktop install because I have a project I need to finish before I migrate to wheezy. Here's the debian-security-support report in case anyone's interested:

Code: Select all

# check-support-status
Ended security support for one or more packages

Unfortunately, it has been necessary to end security support for some
packages before the end of the regular security maintenance life cycle.

The following packages found on this system are affected by this:

* Source:chromium-browser, ended on 2014-05-31 at version 6.0.472.63~r59945-5+squeeze6
  Details: Not supported in squeeze LTS
  Affected binary packages:
  - chromium-browser (installed version: 6.0.472.63~r59945-5+squeeze6)
  - chromium-browser-inspector (installed version: 6.0.472.63~r59945-5+squeeze6)

* Source:libv8, ended on 2014-05-31 at version 2.2.24-6
  Details: Not supported in squeeze LTS
  Affected binary package:
  - libv8-2.2.24 (installed version: 2.2.24-6)

* Source:vlc, ended on 2014-05-31 at version 1.1.3-1squeeze6
  Details: Not supported in squeeze LTS
  Affected binary packages:
  - libvlc5 (installed version: 1.1.3-1squeeze6)
  - libvlccore4 (installed version: 1.1.3-1squeeze6)
  - vlc (installed version: 1.1.3-1squeeze6)
  - vlc-data (installed version: 1.1.3-1squeeze6)
  - vlc-nox (installed version: 1.1.3-1squeeze6)
  - vlc-plugin-notify (installed version: 1.1.3-1squeeze6)
  - vlc-plugin-pulse (installed version: 1.1.3-1squeeze6)

Limited security support for one or more packages

Unfortunately, it has been necessary to limit security support for some
packages.

The following packages found on this system are affected by this:

* Source:webkit
  Details: No security support upstream and backports not feasible, only for use on trusted content
  Affected binary packages:
  - libwebkit-1.0-2 (installed version: 1.2.7-0+squeeze2)
  - libwebkit-1.0-common (installed version: 1.2.7-0+squeeze2)

[buntunub]

Updating the sources was a touch confusing because I guess you are not supposed to change the security.debian.org lists, but I think I got it:

Code: Select all

Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be upgraded:
  libgnutls26 libssl0.9.8 openssl
3 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 4,641 kB of archives.
After this operation, 324 kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y
Get:1 http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ squeeze-lts/main libssl0.9.8 i386 0.9.8o-4squeeze15 [3,090 kB]
Get:2 http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ squeeze-lts/main libgnutls26 i386 2.8.6-1+squeeze4 [524 kB]
Get:3 http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ squeeze-lts/main openssl i386 0.9.8o-4squeeze15 [1,028 kB]

And thus my migration appears to be complete.

[golinux]

I found the first part of these instructions helpful (the non-turnkey part.

[buntunub]

I found the first part of these instructions helpful (the non-turnkey part.

Ahh, thanks. I see that in addition to the packages reported above, that it reports php5 is also unsupported.

[anastasis]

It's just my humble opinion, but I was beyond happy to discover that Squeeze would be supported until 2016.

I'll be keeping Squeeze on my old Toshiba laptop, even after support ends. Keeping this is a backup system as it is rock solid and is in stasis.

I hold that Squeeze was and is the epitome of everything Debian strives to be. The best GNU/Linux distro ever released, bar none.

GNU/Linux is in a great state of flux and chaos right now. It has been this way since about 2011. A lot of good will come from this once the smoke clears. But for now, it is nice to have at least one distro that knows exactly what it is.

I have been and will continue to be an unabashed Squeeze fanboy.

[llivv]

for me, a long time sid user, testing and sid have become much less exciting to use.
I find I have to keep track of silly deps that bring other more less silly deps and so on and so forth.

New users that what OS interoperability should be right at home with jessie and beyond.

I have lots of respect for the devs and backporters that are keeping the oldstable base system usable
for most intents and purposes.

Thank You !

[andre@home]

I found the first part of these instructions helpful (the non-turnkey part.

tnx.. works like a charm. I noticed to receive no updates... so went searching and found this.

A few day ago I searched whether Wheezy (D7) already became a LTS, but that's not... so far:
see Timeline in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian

6.0 Squeeze 2011-02-06 11 ≈ 29,000 [25] 2014-05-31 Dependency-based booting, free firmware[25]
B=Long-term support for the IA-32 and x86-64 platforms until February 2016.[183]

7 Wheezy 2013-05-04 13 ≈ 36,000 [184] TBA Multiarch[184]

8 Jessie TBA[C] TBA TBA TBA -

So I think to stay with D6 till 2016... (else a good reason may come).