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Re: snapshots: first resort, or last resort?


Science Guy wrote:
In http://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2006-06/msg00434.html, Brian said "using the
latest snapshot should always be the first thing you try when encountering a
problem before reporting it to the list."

However, the instructions for installing snapshots at
http://cygwin.com/faq/faq-nochunks.html#faq.setup.snapshots say:  "First,
are you sure you want to do this? Snapshots are risky. They have not been
tested. Use them ONLY if there is a feature or bugfix that you need to try,
and you are willing to deal with any problems, or at the request of a Cygwin
developer."

For a non-expert, such as me, this dichotomy of views is perplexing.  This
is made all the more perplexing because there does not seem to be (I could
not find) a user-readable list of bugs that each snapshot fixes vis-a-vis
the latest release.  So how would a user know whether the "risky" step of
installing a snapshot will have any chance of fixing a particular bug?

-- Joe

You asked, "Should I be eager to try snapshots or nervous?", to which my answer is "yes". :-)


If you have a problem, you should try a snapshot. However, you should keep in mind that doing so means trying a potentially unstable setup. Therefore, when trying a snapshot, you should do as little as possible while using that snapshot. If it doesn't fix your problem, it is safest to go back to a stable version. If it does, *then* you have to decide if you want to use a setup that might be unstable (more so than usual), or if you can wait for an official release.

Of course, OSS is always in need of people willing to live on the edge; otherwise no testing (or at best, poor testing) happens and the releases aren't a whole lot better than the alphas.

--
Matthew
The hippo made me do it! What? What do you mean you can't see the hippo?


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