Jaunty still in Beta?

[H.S.]

Dotan Cohen wrote:
>>> In the general sense, installs from RC can be safely upgraded to the
>>> released version. This is _not_ true of alphas and betas, no matter
>>> what the release notes or rumour says.
>>>
>> No, in general this is not true.
>>
>> The alphas and betas are just a release in development. In other words,
>> the updates are going to be more frequent and bugs are quite likely and
>> stability is an issue. But as betas approach, all these gradually
>> subside. Finally, when a release is 'released', the software is
>> considered stable enough or satisfactorily stable so as to be released.
>>
>> During all this, no one ever changes his apt sources list. So one is
>> effectively tracking a release in its evolution.
>>
>> This has always been the case, even in Debian. Debian has Testing and
>> Unstable versions. These are constantly being updated.
>>
>> So, no, alphas, betas and releases are just the same thing, but at
>> different development stages. The only problem during updates could be
>> that alphas are more prone to bugs. If latter is what you meant, then
>> please note that release notes always warn about the stability of alphas
>> and betas.
>>
> 
> There are often critical configuration changes going from alpha to
> beta or beta to RC. That is not typical of the RC to release
> transition. Go parse the release notes for specifics.
> 

Conf changes are dealt with during updates. The update manager *should*
be telling the user about the changes and asking for suggestion what to
do with them (install new version, see diffs, leave them alone, etc.).
For a taste, try aptitude (command line) for an update which involves
conf changes. This happens all the time in Debain Testing and more
frequently in Debain Unstable. Aptitude is designed to deal with these
things gracefully. In your case, if the GUI update manager does not deal
with these gracefully, then the GUI manager is broken in some way.
Please file a bug.

Again, other than bugs and stability (including conf changes), nothing
is different. If the release notes tell otherwise, that is just an
aspect of stability and bug fixes. But aptitude tracks the same release
as it evolves. By the time you reach a stable release, it is no
different than a newly installed release except your own conf changes.


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