Comments on: Slap a Patch on It and Call it Good

By: Dhaval

Dhaval — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 07:10:18 +0000

Do you have any patching michanisam software ?? artical on such software will help. people how avoid using settelite to update softwares.

By: double104s

double104s — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 16:20:54 +0000

Ken,

Thanks for the article. Look forward to reading future ones on this topic.

By: naugrim

naugrim — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 11:21:42 +0000

Tallship, I’m very happy that you know all is needed to know about patching basis, but I’m afraid not all Gnu/Linux users aré IT technicians, but only users. That point of view is the point of view that exclude and not help. A good magazine must be able to divulgate and I’m sure that Ken will cover more specific and advanced themes, but when ALL the people would can understand at least what we talking about.
Ah, and sorry for my english. Greetings to all of you.

By: Ken Hess

Ken Hess — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 04:26:23 +0000

That is in an upcoming post. Stay tuned.

By: Ken Hess

Ken Hess — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 04:25:52 +0000

True, but sometimes the proper function of software depends on updated versions of support software.

By: Ken Hess

Ken Hess — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 04:24:30 +0000

Did you see the article I did on Redo a few weeks ago? Check it out. It tells you what you need to know to do just that.

By: Ken Hess

Ken Hess — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 04:20:14 +0000

Well, as I told someone on another such article, I have to establish a baseline. That baseline is to begin at the beginning. Think of this as “once upon a time” and a brief character introduction. While this piece might seem trivial to you, for others, it’s a breath of fresh air.

I mentioned the two most used package managers. RedHat and its derivatives have quite a huge following in corporate enterprises and Debian and its derivatives have a huge following as well. There’s no mention of Slackware’s package management because its market share is relatively sparse these days.

As for installing software from source, I cover that in almost every article. This is not a 30 page treatise on the subject, mind you, but a weekly column. Stay tuned for a mixture of introductory to advanced material for the widest possible audience. That’s the thing about Linux Magazine, there’s something for everyone at every level.
Going into a 3,000 word geekfest over patching is going to alienate more than educate.
Remember, we’re trying to win folks over to Linux, not scare them away with difficulty. Think of an Apple commercial. They show how easy it is to use not how complex it can be at the command line.
I hope you understand that the purpose is to educate everyone. I appreciate your feedback and some of my biggest critics are now my friends on Facebook and email me regularly about editorial ideas.
In fact, I welcome ideas. Please send me any that you might have.

By: tallship

tallship — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 23:27:30 +0000

I don’t really understand the purpose of this article.

I mean, [almost] everyone on the planet who has installed Linux has, at some point, use their package manager to install an app they wanted – while all administrators know not only how to run YUM or apt-get are also aware of how to use them to perform updates.

You only covered the brainless package managers too – That doesn’t really inform anyone.

I would hope that next time you would include Slackpkg and Pacman and other package management systems that actually might need a few pointers.

Moreover, Why was there no coverage, or even MENTION, of how to find patches or compile them from source, diffs, or delta patches, which are other methods to consider?

When I click on a link from LinuxMag that comes to my email, I expect to actually read something interesting, instead of just fluff that any n00b probably already knows.

This article lowers the standards by which people will judge LinuxMag’s editorials, IMO, and seems as if it was written only to have *something* to post.

Please do better in the future okay?

Kindest regards,

Bradley
http://NorthTech.US

By: grep_boy

grep_boy — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 16:27:33 +0000

Well, while I agree that making sure stuff is patched and up to date, I also fear that too many of the industry support folks use this as a cop out to troubleshoot issues. Case in point, I had an issue with a blade chassis with a bad controller, which the vendor would not support until I had the latest firmware on the controller – which was impossible since the controller was bad.
I fear that support folks are going to use the “Latest Patch” in place of the old defacto standard created by the developers in Redmond who claim a reboot is all that is needed to fix an issue.

By: sassinak

sassinak — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 14:21:48 +0000

oh. I thought you would address “kernel” patching, not just updates….

By: stevemadere

stevemadere — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 13:32:20 +0000

Of course it is a good idea to back up in a way that you can do a complete EXACT system restore (including partitions and MBR) prior to any patching. Advice on how to do that easily and quickly is what I was hoping to get out of this article.