[Lel4_user] Update LEL4

[Raimo Koski]

pertti.helander at pp.nic.fi wrote:
> Is it safe to update manually programs included in LEL4?
> For example: Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird and OpenOffice.org included 
> in LEL4.xxx
> are quite old versions and there are available stable versions of each:
> Firefox 1.5, Thunderbird 1.5 and OpenOffice.org 2.0.
> How long time does it take when these versions are being updated by 
> apt-get or Synaptic?
> Should I wait for it or should I update manually these programs?
> I think LEL4.xxx- updating by Synaptic is much easier for such a Linux- 
> novice like me
> but I hope updated packages for these important programs should become 
> available by Synaptic as soon as they appear.

They and any other programs won't get any major version upgrades for LEL 
4, only minor or release version upgrades. LEL 4 will get some feature 
enhancement upgrades for some time, but only hardware related ones and 
that means mainly kernel module additions or upgrades.

In general it is safe to upgrade programs that don't act as network 
servers or clients and don't require upgrading of system libraries. In 
practice, that means very few are safe. Another aspect is how easy it 
is. Big programs usually have many dependencies and that makes upgrading 
both difficult and unsafe.


> P.S. What are the main differences between LEL3 and LEL4? They look 
> similar to me.

The first is the kernel. 3.0 has 2.4.x and 4.0 has 2.6.x. Now that there 
are GFS, RHCS, RHDS and other add-ons available for 4.0, there is seldom 
any valid reason to install 3.x. 4.x has simply better hardware support.



-- 
Raimo Koski  http://www.lineox.net/  http://www.raimokoski.com/