keeping the packages up to date

[Mario Vukelic]

On Sun, 2008-06-29 at 16:34 -0400, Michael P. Varre wrote:
> I see, very interesting.  So, and please forgive my ignorance again, when I
> run aptitude changelog apache2 on my installation, and I see...
> 
> apache2 (2.0.55-4ubuntu2.3) dapper-security;
> 
> Obviously the 2.0.55 is the major Apache version, but what is the
> significance of the _4_ as well as the _2.3_? 

See
http://www.ducea.com/2006/06/17/ubuntu-package-version-naming-explanation/

>  <snip>
> 
> Also, obviously this particular example I've given is from a box running
> dapper.  If I keep my packages up to date, is there significance from a
> security point of view to get my system up to hardy 

Not in the sense that security updates would be missing. Dapper Server
is supported until June 2011 and full security updates for the "main"
repository will be released until then. See
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases 

Of course there are never any guarantees for "universe" et al.

If some package had a major new release in Hardy, which included
improvements to the security model in some way, you would of course only
get them with the newer major version, either from "dapper-backports" or
by upgrading to Hardy.

> or would I expect just
> feature improvements for a major version upgrade of Ubuntu?
> 
> Thanks again for the info - this is helping a lot!

BTW, another nice way to get informed about updates is apt-listchanges.
You can configure it to send you email with the changelogs.