GPG update?

3 Antworten [Letzter Beitrag]
FLOSS
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Beigetreten: 05/06/2018

I just realized that I have an older version of GnuPG on Flidas. I checked for updates, but nothing for GPG. Are there a lot of programs on Trisquel that I have to manually install to update?

chaosmonk

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Beigetreten: 07/07/2017

> I just realized that I have an older version of GnuPG on Flidas. I
> checked for updates, but nothing for GPG. Are there a lot of programs
> on Trisquel that I have to manually install to update?

This is something that confused me too when I first started using
GNU/Linux.

Trisquel is a long-term stable (LTS) distro. This means that you get
security updates and bug fixes, but you don't upgrade to newer versions
of most packages until the next version of Trisquel.

There are some exceptions. For example, Abrowser generally keeps up with
the latest version of Firefox. Firefox is updated so frequently and has
so many security updates that I imagine it is easier to just use the
latest version rather than try to backport all of the security fixes.

There's a tradeoff though. Quite often, a new Firefox release will
introduce new bugs into Abrowser. The most recent example that comes to
mind was a few months ago when a Firefox update caused the browser to
hang at the dialog window when downloading certain files. We had to put
up with this issue until the next version of Firefox. Meanwhile, Icecat,
which is based on Firefox ESR and is updated less frequently, never
suffered from this bug. Newer isn't always better.

Now imagine that not only Abrowser but every single program on your
computer were constantly being upgraded to the latest version. Parabola
is an example of a "rolling" distro that does this. The advantage is
that you get benefit from all of the latest features, but the downside
is that you suffer from all of the latest bugs. Your system can break
overnight without warning.

That's why in an LTS distro like Trisquel (or it's parent Ubuntu)
Abrowser is the exception, not the rule. For a program like GPG,
Trisquel 8 sticks with the version Trisquel 8 started with. If a newer
version of GPG fixes some bugs, those fixes can be backported without
upgrading at the risk of encountering new bugs.

When Trisquel 9 is released, you can choose to upgrade. When you do so,
you'll get newer (though still not the newest) versions of every package
in the repository, and then those versions will remain frozen (only
backporting security updates and bug fixes) until Trisquel 10.

When deciding whether to manually install a newer version than the
version in the repository, here's what I suggest: Ask yourself, "What
feature(s) do I need that the stable version lacks?" If the answer is
"nothing," then the only reason to upgrade is to try out the latest
bugs. If you do have a specific reason to want the latest version of a
package, then go for it.

Off the top of my head, I can only think of two packages for which the
versions in Trisquel 8 are too old for me. I have a later version of
mcabber installed so that I can use its "vim-mode" feature, and I have a
later version of Lilypond installed for compatibility with openLilyLib.
When it comes to something like GPG, I have no particular reason to seek
out a newer version as long as the current version works.

amuza
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Beigetreten: 02/12/2018

Thank you! And everyone in this forum who patiently explain how things work.

FLOSS
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Beigetreten: 05/06/2018

I see your point. I don't really need bleeding edge - I do want to make sure that I'm not lagging so far behind in a version of software that I'm potentially exposed to security threats, but I'll trust your experience in this, and not worry about it. Stable is good - and as long as it's secure, too, I'm not so worried about a version number.