On Fri, Mar 22, 2002 at 09:58:17AM +0100, Tony Earnshaw wrote:
...
| The examples that I mentioned are mostly of utilities that simply have
| to be compiled by hand, to get the desired results (they often need
| special patches and bug fixes can appear almost daily).
http://security.debian.org/
In particular
http://www.debian.org/security/2002/dsa-097
http://www.debian.org/security/2001/dsa-058
I agree that Debian "stable" (potato) is ancient, and much of the
software (eg exim 3.12) included in it is now ancient. However, you
see those security fixes that were released in 3.35? The Debian
security team backports the fix to the version in included in stable
so that overworked admins can obtain the fix quickly and easily
without worrying about any migration or compatibility issues. All the
admin needs to do is 'apt-get update && apt-get upgrade' and he's
safe. With a decent network link and enough memory in the system to
unpack the package it takes no more than a minute or two, and doesn't
really require active thought. Of course, the admin _must_ have
configured exim properly in the first place (requiring active
thought), but extra effort is expended in obtaining the security fix.
If you're talking about new features, then that's a different story
and you should not be using "stable".
| As far as kernel compiling is concerned, without having compiled my own,
| the RH 7.2 machine that I'm writing this on now just wouldn't (and
| didn't) work at all.
Why? (I'm curious since it's been a while since I used a RH kernel)
The new initrd stuff allows for a single kernel to be built that will
work in almost every situation. (diskless nodes and other specialty
setups aren't covered, obviously, but that is going to be customized
anyway)
| As far as Exim's concerned, there are many compile-time options that
| suit some and not others.
Sure, but if you include most of the features then it's just a matter
of runtime configuration. In addition there can be several packages
(eg 'exim' vs. 'exim-tls') for different sets of specific features.
-D
--
The wise in heart are called discerning,
and pleasant words promote instruction.
Proverbs 16:21
