I previously (fairly recently) asked for advice on which distro to use
between Debian Etch, Debian Lenny, Ubuntu, Fedora. After reading all the
contributions I plumped for Ubuntu. However I came up with a problem in
OpenOffice. In a Calc spreadsheet file it would not print any sheets other
than the first. I filed a bug report and got an answer that this was fixed
in the upcoming Hardy so it was going to be ignored for Gutsy.
This meant I couldn't use Ubuntu for one of my applications so I had to
continue with Windows for the time being. Not a big deal for me at present,
although I am now questioning whether Ubuntu is the right choice.
I really much prefer to wait and run stuff after it has been properly tested
and debugged, so Debian Stable really appeals to me as a system more than
Ubuntu. (I also much prefer simplicity rather than fancy stuff - I'm not
sure if Ubuntu is going down the line of being too bloated).
At present I have dropped using Ubuntu and reverted to Debian Etch - the one
package I couldn't run in Etch was Gnucash because I was using a later
version in Windows and the scheduled transactions file format was
incompatible. I intend to wipe out my scheduled transactions and reinput
them in the earlier format, so I can use Etch.
The real point of all this is to ask about bug fixing as regards Debian
Etch. Taking Gnucash as an example, when I look at the progress of updates
on Gnucash's web site, I see that each update fixed bugs in previous
versions (naturally). However suppose I am running an older version in Etch
and a bug comes to light. This may well have been fixed in a later version,
but I am assuming that Etch won't have adopted that version. I presume the
Debian philosophy is that fixing most software is not a Debian issue
(exceptions maybe are security problems). So what are my choices?
Obviously I could run multiple OS's and use one which supports the later
version for just this one application - perhaps using Virtualbox or similar
(at present I multiboot a few OS's, but switching between them involves a
round of rebooting, and is much less convenient e.g. re cut and paste across
apps).
Another might be a backport. There isn't a backport of Gnucash for Etch, so
this is not available as a binary package.
Could I get the source and recompile it for Etch? I have never attempted
compilation, so I don't know what is involved. I suspect there is a
significant learning curve. I fear that I may break something in the
packaging system. Is this what other people do? How difficult is it to
maintain such a tweaked system when new components, point releases or
system upgrades are released?
Well these are my thoughts. Please feel free to rubbish them (preferably
adding some other ideas).
Russell
