Support structure and upgrades

I am relatively new to LinuxCNC, only a few years under my belt, but I am an old worn out hat when it comes to systems, networks, applications and development, just not for Linux. I have a high level of respect for what you all have accomplished in opensource Linux over the over the last 30 years.

I need to have a better understanding of your support structure. I have recently debugged a problem with my Debian 9 stretch system that causes the installation to crash within a couple of days. I am well aware that this installation is no longer supported but I have not been able to find a good replacement. That is not the purpose of this thread.

Refer to my Debian thread:  forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=152665

Perhaps I should have opened this here. I seem to be getting pushback from Debian support saying this is not a Debian problem. I view LinuxCNC as a subsystem, or module, installed on top of a Debian 9 OS, and other applications and network under the OS umbrella. Please tell me if this is incorrect.

Ultimately, this problem was caused by a Buster update being applied to Stretch updates from the source deb deb.debian.org/debian/ stretch main non-free contrib. The bad update is amd64-microcode. Who in the support schema controls this?

I would also like to know what the support schema is for network, and desktop applications.

Thank you in advance

The "support schema" is that people help out, in their spare time, when they can and feel like it. It's a pretty helpful community where many people try to help each other out.

That said, please keep in mind when you ask questions that you are actually asking people to spend their leisure time to help you. So, as already hinted to in your Debian User Forum thread, please try to describe your problem succinctly and clearly, in a way that makes it easy for people to help.

Between your Debian thread and this one, you "hint" at multiple problems/questions, some that might be related to LinuxCNC (RT kernel installs and logfiles filling up your harddrive), and some that certainly aren't (network and desktop applications in general).

This forum might be able to help you with the LinuxCNC-related stuff. After reading through your Debian thread and your original post, my *guess* is you actually want help finding out why your harddisk is filling up. Is that correct? If so, did you follow the advice from the Debian thread to look into your logs? What's the result? What kind of messages are filling them up?

Thank you for your reply. I do have a plan to look at the problem in depth now that I know what the problem is. The biggest question in my mind right now is should I have started this thread here, or was Debian support the right place for this.

I will have to run the install again to re-create the problem. Not hard to do. Now that I know what to look for I can catch it before it crashes the system.

I still do not know who manages the updates and upgrades. Is that Debian OS, or LinuxCNC?

At this point, I will continue with the Debian thread for this problem.

The only linuxcnc package in the Debian repositories is found in Debian Bookworm (Debian 12)  and Sid (Debian Unstable).
ref: packages.debian.org/search?keywords=linu...uite=all§ion=all
This is a snapshot of Debian master taken from time to time.
It will not work on Buster due to python version changes and a lot more.
So yes, Debian are not involved at all in Buster.

If you find a bug, you can report it here
github.com/LinuxCNC/linuxcnc/issues
If you fork the linuxcnc repo and fix a bug, you can create a pull request on git hub for consideration by the dev team.

In my view Linuxcnc is quite different to most open source projects as there is no sponsor or commercial body of work to fund any development. Its all 100% volunteers!


 

Tommy, sounds like you need to upgrade! LOL

Thanks for all the information you have provided guys. I have asked the Debian guys to close that thread. Not sure I will be trying that again.

My stretch install is running, and I will be leaving at the long from now on.

I will move to Buster at some point in the future, but it does not run well on my old machine yet.