[asterisk-users] Asterisk on Debian Lenny with timerfd

[Kevin P. Fleming]

On 01/24/2011 12:46 PM, RR wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 12:09 PM, Kevin P. Fleming <kpfleming at digium.com
> <mailto:kpfleming at digium.com>> wrote:
>
>     On 01/24/2011 07:29 AM, RR wrote:
>
>         On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 4:56 AM, RR <ranjtech at gmail.com
>         <mailto:ranjtech at gmail.com>
>         <mailto:ranjtech at gmail.com <mailto:ranjtech at gmail.com>>> wrote:
>
>             On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 4:06 AM, Roger Burton West
>         <roger at firedrake.org <mailto:roger at firedrake.org>
>         <mailto:roger at firedrake.org <mailto:roger at firedrake.org>>> wrote:
>
>                 On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 02:58:45AM -0500, RR wrote:
>          >In the meantime, does anyone have a nice way to update a
>                 stable/stock lenny
>          >installation with the updated glibc as well as the latest kernel
>
>                 At this point the easiest option will be to upgrade to
>         squeeze.
>
>                 R
>
>             Umm yeah that might not be a smart thing to do since
>         eventually all
>             of this needs to run in a production environment and Squeeze is
>             still in a RC mode. Would be nice if I could go to it though but
>             don't think it'll be that smart esp. all other software that
>         needs
>             to work along with it might break too...who knows
>
>
>     This a statement we hear from people periodically that just confuses
>     me... they say they can't update to an 'RC' release of something
>     (Linux distro, Asterisk, etc.) because they need to run in
>     production mode, but they're willing to consider replacing something
>     as fundamental as the Linux kernel (a bit scary) or glibc (very
>     scary) instead.
>
> haha touché Kevin :) Mate, the response to that is one word: Ignorance
> :) people like me, who're not developers nor experts of the platform
> have absolutely no clue what glibc actually does or the impact it
> actually has. Nor do I know, as a user, how stable Squeeze RC2 really is
> at this stage of its development. If I had more people in the community
> say that they're running it in production, then maybe I'll just believe
> them and start working with Squeeze directly instead of wasting my time
> like I did trying to have it compiled in Lenny. I just believed when the
> developers of Debian say that Squeeze RC2 is in "testing" and Lenny is
> "stable" and decide that it's probably not a good idea to run RC2 in
> production. I guess part of the thinking was that "other" software
> besides {*} that needs to run on this machine "may" not even build
> or run or be stable on Squeeze RC till the authors/users of that other
> software state that it's been tested with it and it's stable or even
> builds on it. So, people like me believe that if I upgrade ALL
> components that depend on glibc and that glibc depends on to the current
> version, then we'll be ok but we wouldn't have touched anything else in
> the system, not realising or understanding that satsisfying dependencies
> doesn't mean anything and something somewhere could just break because
> of this unsolicited upgrade thus making the system more unstable. I have
> really no explanation for you as to why people (incl. myself) say these
> things other than just lack of insight and knowledge about the
> intricacies of things like glibc and the impact it can have on the
> stability of the system when upgraded out of "context". *sigh* :(

And you've made my point: You chose a specific version of Debian to run, 
which you are happy running in 'production'. Given that you have made 
that choice, you can *only* install packages that distribution provides 
on your system. Any other packages you install are not part of that 
version, and thus have not gone through the same testing/qualification 
processes (whatever they may be). Discussing installation of packages 
(any packages) from a later Debian release, or installation of a package 
from source that overwrites the Debian package, seems totally 
inconsistent with being 'in production', no matter how small or large 
the package may be. Each such decision must be thoroughly researched and 
the possible ramifications understood before any changes are made, so as 
to keep the system as stable as possible.

In essence, this is somewhat like buying a car with a high efficiency 
powertrain because you want to save fuel, but then later complaining 
that it doesn't accelerate as fast as you'd like... so you make plans to 
replace the engine. Sure, you can do it, but you've defeated the purpose 
of the choice you made in the first place :-)

-- 
Kevin P. Fleming
Digium, Inc. | Director of Software Technologies
445 Jan Davis Drive NW - Huntsville, AL 35806 - USA
skype: kpfleming | jabber: kfleming at digium.com
Check us out at www.digium.com & www.asterisk.org