View Single Post
Old 6th November 2009
ocicat ocicat is offline
Administrator
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Posts: 3,318
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by IronForge View Post
I'm having problems installing packages, so after I RTFM a bit more, may post another thread in that category - thanks.
-current can be a volatile environment especially when it comes to synchronizing snapshots to what -current packages are available. Depending upon timing, flag days, etc., packages may be unable to be installed. If the application is required immediately, the only other option is to build the application from source. For small applications, this can be trivial (depending upon the speed of the hardware used...), but for massive applications such as Java's JDK, OpenOffice, GNOME, or KDE, building can take several hours.

Those that live in the -current world are expected to be flexible & be able to deal with the problems which can arise. If this is more volatility than you care to manage, then -release or -stable may be better choices. Per Section 5.1 of the FAQ (emphasis added...):
Quote:
Most users should be running either -stable or -release. That being said, many people do run -current on production systems, and it is important that people do so to identify bugs and test new features. However, if you don't know how to properly describe, diagnose and deal with a problem, don't tell yourself (or anyone else) that you are "helping the project" by running -current.
Reply With Quote