OpenBSD won't update Firefox, advises users to switch to ESR • Hacker News Board

Re: OpenBSD won't update Firefox, advises users to switch to ESR

#261

Post by microtonal » Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 3:44 PM UTC

progval wrote: post #211

jcelerier wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but you can just use Mozilla's official binary packages, which are tested to work with a specific set of libraries, and I think are built with higher optimization levels (O3/pgo) than what distros conservatively do (O2) because of cargo-culting early-2000 gentoo forums (that was the case a few years ago, not 100% sure it is still the case today as I could not find easily the current release flags).

Mozilla doesn't provide binary packages for all architectures and OSs supported by Nix/NixOS Maintainers also sometimes need to patch software to conform to their distribution's norm. For example, Debian patches it to accept extensions installed with APT. And I'm glad distribution maintainers always recompile software themselves, it helps making sure: 1. binaries are really made from the open source code (I know, it'…

I fully agree. It should be said that nixpkgs also provides the firefox-bin derivation, which is just want the grandparent suggested. But there is a lot of value in checking that software builds are actually reproducible from the sources.

Re: OpenBSD won't update Firefox, advises users to switch to ESR

#262

Post by fao_ » Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 4:08 PM UTC

celticmusic wrote: post #175

jolmg wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see, when you said "break", I thought you meant because of a bug or other error, but now I guess the fact that it needs configuration and learning how to do that configuration is what you're calling broken. Certainly, Arch is definitely not a "it just works" OS. It's a tinkerer's OS. Different distros favor different types of users. By what you said, probably something like Ubuntu or Mint is better, something that…

Why respond in this dishonest manner? When I left Arch I had been using it for over 10 years. I probably still understand it better than you do. Is your supposition that a "misconfiguration" just "happened" randomly over night? No, it's a rolling release distribution, software on it will break randomly on updates. You need to read their FAQ, even their official document will tell you this happens and it's not their r…

My main computer was an arch box for about 7 years (I moved computers after 3 years, hence why my other comment says 4, I just remembered my old tower from around 2014 that also runs arch). In that time, the only breaking updates that occurred always had clear solutions on the homepage, with something you could paste in and fix. I stopped using it because systemd randomly hung on boot, for no clear reason (even after debugging it and trying to speed up boot), but I've had that with several other systemd-related distributions, too.

Re: OpenBSD won't update Firefox, advises users to switch to ESR

#263

Post by the_why_of_y » Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 4:11 PM UTC

School-Cotton wrote: post #258

the_why_of_y wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's similar in Rust, you specify the language edition with a line in Cargo.toml. https://doc.rust-lang.org/nightly/edition-guide/editions/cre...

Rust language editions are not similar to C++ standard versions. Every new version of the Rust compiler brings changes to the language, so the language you're actually using depends on the tuple (compiler version, edition), not just on the edition.

Rust language editions are similar but not equivalent to C++ standard versions, because compiling code written for an old edition with a new edition is not guaranteed to work, due to breaking language changes like new keywords.

But you are correct to point out that old Rust editions will get new language features if they do not break existing code.

https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/12/rust-2018-is-here/

The release process claims that the changes in new Rust releases are purely additive and backward compatible; the only exception is soundness fixes, which I'd expect affect a negligible amount of code.

Re: OpenBSD won't update Firefox, advises users to switch to ESR

#264

Post by bayindirh » Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 4:31 PM UTC

wolrah wrote: post #246

kursus wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's funny because I've been running Debian Sid for 15 years as my main OS doing weekly updates and the two single cases of breakage I've seen were glibc6 transition (which was announced and expected) and proprietary video card drivers. You must be thinking of Ubuntu specifically.

To keep the anecdotes going, I've been using a mix of Debian and Ubuntu, both stable/LTS and testing/biannual, for pretty much exactly the same 15 years as you've been running Sid and I've never had any breakage that wasn't caused by me fucking around with binary drivers. ndiswrapper was the main cause back in the day, shockingly giving Windows drivers access to the Linux kernel can cause problems. The most recent ti…

I'm running Debian testing since 4.0 beta and never had an un-bootable system or something got broken due to normal updates. I've just reinstalled the system once to migrate it to 64 bit, since there was no proven procedure to migrate a running 32 bit system to 64 bit.

There were rough patches along the way but, all distros were having the same problem in someway or another (vdpau, fglrx, multi-gpu support, ndiswrapper & wireless stuff, etc.) but it's a set it and forget it affair for a very very long time.

...and obligatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/963/

Re: OpenBSD won't update Firefox, advises users to switch to ESR

#265

Post by zokier » Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 4:35 PM UTC

blackhaz wrote: post #177

zokier wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that the whole point of "stable" distros like Debian and RHEL that you can run apt upgrade/yum update and it'll never break your system? I thought that's the big reason they bend over backwards to backport patches and muck around packages so that they retain compatibility.

Perhaps, but in which case this concept actually adds value? Imagine you have a working environment (development, scientific research, etc) carefully set up to do your job. You wish to upgrade, say, your web browser, but now have to upgrade the whole environment. Changing versions can be very disruptive in many situations.

> Changing versions can be very disruptive in many situations.

You assert that, but is that really true? Updating "stable" distro should be non-event, the very opposite of disruptive.

Re: OpenBSD won't update Firefox, advises users to switch to ESR

#266

Post by enriquto » Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 4:54 PM UTC

blackhaz wrote: post #14

I am arguing about this on FreeBSD forums - from an end user perspective. I think the benefits of saving disk space by sharing libraries do not justify the inconveniences we, desktop BSD and Linux users, obtain from being forced to disrupt and upgrade hundreds of installed software packages, just because one single desired upgrade requires to pull its dependencies. The whole ecosystem falls down like a card house - o…

> I think the benefits of saving disk space by sharing libraries do not justify the inconveniences we

This is really sad. It seems that we are moving from the complexity of shared libraries to the complexity of "docker images" and the like, where the whole OS is embedded in each program for convenience. The sweet spot of static executables has been shamefully bypassed.

Re: OpenBSD won't update Firefox, advises users to switch to ESR

#267

Post by School-Cotton » Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 4:56 PM UTC

the_why_of_y wrote: post #263

School-Cotton wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rust language editions are not similar to C++ standard versions. Every new version of the Rust compiler brings changes to the language, so the language you're actually using depends on the tuple (compiler version, edition), not just on the edition.

Rust language editions are similar but not equivalent to C++ standard versions, because compiling code written for an old edition with a new edition is not guaranteed to work, due to breaking language changes like new keywords. But you are correct to point out that old Rust editions will get new language features if they do not break existing code. https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/12/rust-2018-is-here/ The release proc…

> compiling code written for an old edition with a new edition is not guaranteed to work, due to breaking language changes like new keywords.

This is not at all similar to C++ standards, and the specific case being discussed in this post demonstrates exactly why!

Barring bugs in implementations, developers could develop against whatever version of the compiler they like, and as long as it supports the same language version, distro or OS maintainers wouldn’t have to update theirs, and everything would work.

I worked on an open-source project that targeted C++11. It could build on basically any Linux distro you can imagine, even ones with very old versions of GCC. (it didn’t support BSD, but for unrelated reasons).

This is the point the Rust project seems to miss when harping on about backwards compatibility: forwards compatibility is just as important.

Re: OpenBSD won't update Firefox, advises users to switch to ESR

#268

Post by enriquto » Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 4:56 PM UTC

bscphil wrote: post #84

blackhaz wrote: post #14

I am arguing about this on FreeBSD forums - from an end user perspective. I think the benefits of saving disk space by sharing libraries do not justify the inconveniences we, desktop BSD and Linux users, obtain from being forced to disrupt and upgrade hundreds of installed software packages, just because one single desired upgrade requires to pull its dependencies. The whole ecosystem falls down like a card house - o…

> I think the benefits of saving disk space by sharing libraries do not justify the inconveniences we, desktop BSD and Linux users, obtain from being forced to disrupt and upgrade hundreds of installed software packages, just because one single desired upgrade requires to pull its dependencies It's funny, from your point of view having a centralized repository with a (usually) single (usually) latest version of a lib…

> From my point of view having a centralized repository with a (usually) single (usually) latest version of a library is an awesome thing

This reasoning assumes that future versions of software are always better. This is certainly not the case. I would like that a working program does not spontaneusly break because a third party "upgrades", thus introducing a new bug. I am willing to give up anything else to be assured that working programs continue to work no matter what.

Re: OpenBSD won't update Firefox, advises users to switch to ESR

#269

Post by GarryShawn » Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 5:03 PM UTC

wolrah wrote: post #246

kursus wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's funny because I've been running Debian Sid for 15 years as my main OS doing weekly updates and the two single cases of breakage I've seen were glibc6 transition (which was announced and expected) and proprietary video card drivers. You must be thinking of Ubuntu specifically.

To keep the anecdotes going, I've been using a mix of Debian and Ubuntu, both stable/LTS and testing/biannual, for pretty much exactly the same 15 years as you've been running Sid and I've never had any breakage that wasn't caused by me fucking around with binary drivers. ndiswrapper was the main cause back in the day, shockingly giving Windows drivers access to the Linux kernel can cause problems. The most recent ti…

I'm not old enough to be able to run a Linux distribution for 15 years. And I also never run Debian on any of my personal computers. Thus, my anecdotes are definitely way less convincing. In other words, you can stop reading here.

The only two major distributions that I used for a sufficient amount of time are Ubuntu and Arch. Arch "unstableness" is exactly what I want most of the time on my personal computer as it's my to-go Petri dish. "Stability" would mean that it's harder for me to break it apart, and make a Frankenstein out of it. That's exactly what I have been experiencing with Ubuntu LTS releases --- stability.

Most of the time, I want to have all the available LLVM versions alongside with all the GCC versions, with all the available binutils (Qemu, Docker, Oracle VBox, etc.) versions on the latest kernel full of my monkey patched printk's. When I finally get to break its back I dive the Wiki for few hours to restore it.

I can imagine a non-office, hacking desktop OS that follows the Arch packaging strategy being highly successful.

I also maintain a few compute servers for 10-20 people. They are on Ubuntu LTS. The packages that I need there are always the ones that just work and don't let anyone do anything "cutting edge".

Re: OpenBSD won't update Firefox, advises users to switch to ESR

#270

Post by pjmlp » Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 5:20 PM UTC

ChickeNES wrote: post #37

blackhaz wrote: post #14

I am arguing about this on FreeBSD forums - from an end user perspective. I think the benefits of saving disk space by sharing libraries do not justify the inconveniences we, desktop BSD and Linux users, obtain from being forced to disrupt and upgrade hundreds of installed software packages, just because one single desired upgrade requires to pull its dependencies. The whole ecosystem falls down like a card house - o…

I wish NeXTsteps's app bundles had caught on outside of OSX.

On Windows they are called xcopy install, and they have also caught on mobile OSes.