General Repo Questions

[Duskao]

Hey guys/gals,
So I am just wondering how the official repos work with pardus. I have used many different distros and many of them work differently and have different philosophies.
Are the official repos static or dynamic/evolving? Meaning the stuff that is in there, will programs, drivers, KDE be updated when new versions are released or will they stay the same? Other then security updates of course.
I am asking this because a new KDE 4.6 has been released, also some Nvidia drivers have been updated. There has been no activity with the official repo so far, no updates, no patches, and no security stuff. Is this normal in Pardus?
Thanks in advance.

[John A]

My experience is when they release a new developed line as this 2011 (thats why its name is 2011 and not Pardus 2009.3) the first update package take some time to come. But all stuff will be updated, program and drivers etc... when it arrive.
I think they also will include some missing applications (like Licq and other programs who is not avaible in 2011 at the moment) which was in the previous 2009.2 to.

It was same when they moved over to the old 2008.2 to the new line 2009 to, that time it was some weeks. But I hope we not must wait so long this time.
After the first major update the process is normaly faster.

[Duskao]

Thanks for the info. If thats how it goes then I certainly will be one very happy Pardus user, which by the way is a truly fantastic distro. Thats one of the things I very much dislike about a couple of the distros out there that are very static with their repos and they are mostly just for security updates. Not gonna name names cause this is just an opinion and I am not a distro basher.

[John A]

I can also add when they release Pardus 2011.1 and later 2011.2 you get the latest versions with the Pisi updates to so it not necessary to do a fresh install.

Its generally around 4 months or so between them.

[atolboo]

...Meaning the stuff that is in there, will programs, drivers, KDE be updated when new versions are released

All programs in the Official package source + mirror(s) are maintained by the developers of Pardus.
When new versions of programs for this version of Pardus are released (after testing), they will be offered as an update through Package Manager.
This means that the official repp of Pardus is a dynamic repo.

Pardus has, in principal, a so called rolling release system.
This means that whenever it's possible, the transfer from the "old" Pardus to the new version will be through updates and the user only has to apply all updates to get the new Pardus.
If this isn't possible, because of software reasons, they will offer an Upgrade Manager sometime after the release of the new version of Pardus.
With this Upgrade Manager, made available in the software repo of the "old" Pardus, the user can upgrade to the new Pardus.
And as the manpower of Pardus isn't unlimited, it can take some time for this Upgrade Manager to appear in the software repo of the "old" Pardus.
At this moment they are (I think) still busy with fixing blocking bugs and filling the repo of the new Pardus.

And the best summary for Additional (non-official) package source can be in  this Post with:

On Pardususer.de we are actually 5 people creating packages. Three german guys, one dutch man and one turkish guy.
My knowledge about package building is limited, but everybody is trying to help. Its a good teamwork.

When you have this source in your Package Manager, there updates will also go through your Package Manager.

[Duskao]

Fantastic. I wasn't aware that Pardus is what I would call a semi-rolling release, now I am uber happy

[Craig]

That sounds like a good balance between rolling and stable... or a combo of the two.