On Sun, Nov 20, 2011 at 4:32 PM, Greg Lindahl <greg at blekko.com> wrote: > When I install "foo" from 6.0-CR, I am now running a combination of > 6.0 + a single 6.1 rpm. This combination has probably never been > tested by upstream; almost all of the upstream people installed almost > all of the new 6.1 rpms together. > > I'm here posting about this issue because I'm responding to this > question: > >> What stability problems would you expect from updates beyond a point >> release? The whole point of an 'enterprise' distribution is the >> effort they make to not break api's across a whole major-rev's life. >> Would an upstream system break if you selectively update packages >> beyond a point release without doing a full update? > > The fact that upstream hasn't tested these rpm combinations means that > there's risk involved. FSVO risk, sure. Except that upstream recommends this all the time when troubleshooting customer systesms. We have several systems deployed at customer sites that are RHEL 5.3... with the 5.6 glibc. And this was recommended by 3rd level support, not some 1st level person following a script. Sure, I'd prefer to have 5.6 (or 5.7) on the systems, but they're on an isolated network scattered all over the globe physically, so doing that isn't very easy. And upstream understands this, as well as the desire from some customers to not change from a particular sub-version without cause. They may not have explicitly tested various package combinations, but the commitment to a stable API/ABI means that mixing packages from within the same major version number is safe with a small number of exceptions (which are in the tech notes). IOW, the risk is exceptionally small. Tom Sorensen