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by gruez 132 days ago
>Which is why package managers with well-maintained repositories are the civilized solution to software disruption.

How does that model work with distros like debian, where they freeze package versions and you might not get claude code until 2027 (or whenever the next release is)?
2 comments
idle_zealot 132 days ago
Sounds like you either shouldn't use Debian or should find a repo with maintainers who align with your preferred style of package inclusion.

In principle you could even make such a repository, or otherwise promote one.

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gruez 131 days ago
>Sounds like you either shouldn't use Debian or should find a repo with maintainers who align with your preferred style of package inclusion.

Are there actually viable alternatives to the default debian repo? At best there's repositories run by various projects, but that's basically the same as level of security as "run a random binary you downloaded off the internet". The only plausible way that package managers increase security is through curation. If you're just blindly adding whatever repo to get some software installed, you're back at square one.

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TheDong 132 days ago
If the debian maintainers don't align with your preferences you can:

1. Create your own apt repository with newer software, and install from that. It's easy to package things, you can share the repository with trusted friends, running linux with friends is fun.

2. You can switch to a distro, like NixOS or Arch, which values up-to-date software more than slow stable updates.

Debian does seem to be more aligned with mailservers and such, where updates can be slow and thoughtful, not as much with personal ai development boxes where you want the hot new ai tool of the week available asap.

... Either way, learning to package software correctly for your distro of choice is a good idea, it's fun to bang out a nix expression or debian package when you need to install something that's not available yet.

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Spivak 132 days ago
And installing a .deb package is equivalent to executing arbitrary code as root so I'm not sure what this actually buys you in security terms.

I would love for folks to start packaging their software for major distros if for no other reason than to see just how annoying the tooling is to use.

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