Distribution Packages

Distribution Packages

And why you should generally not use them.

A great explanation of the Debian / Ubuntu packaging mess can be found here: ​Matthew Garrett: There's more than one way to exploit the commons and also here: Debian Distribution-Specific Issues.

The worst is without a doubt the situation with the Ubuntu packages

Debian's hand waving about backports is rightfully ignored here.

Apart from the obvious danger of running versions without any security updates - which is documented below, there are other problems with downstream packages:

• unusable builds, ie: fedora : invalid mode 'start'
• invalid and unnecessary package dependencies (ie: Fedora)
• enabling untested options or dangerous codecs (all distros)
• gratuitous patching, causing breakage ie Debian arm builds were unusable for years etc

See also: list of currently supported versions of xpra.

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For more details on just how dire the situation is, please see the original version of this page