It is probably and stupid question, but what version of PHP5 is 5.2.0-8+etch13 ?
Is it really 5.2.0 ? Because maybe it is just the debian version that covers something else.
+3
A:
Not really. -8etch13 signifies that the Debian maintainer has applied no less than 13 revisions of his own patchset to PHP 5.2.0 and 8 of some other patchset.
Much of this goes towards backporting fixes from newer versions of PHP, so it doesn't really correspond to any particular PHP release.
So while it's better than PHP 5.2.0, it's not as good as PHP 5.2.11. If you have issues, I would recommend trying to upgrade to the latest PHP 5.2 (on a testing server, obviously). I've experienced strange bugs before with Debian's PHP packages.
mikl
2009-10-14 19:42:13
+2
A:
Have a look at the Debian Policy Manual, section 5.6.12 describes the versioning scheme for packages.
The format is: [epoch:]upstream_version[-debian_revision]
etch13 is the Debian version, which is explained by the other posters.
Dana the Sane
2009-10-14 19:43:55
Occasionally the upstream version will be incorrect -- I seem to recall Debian or Ubuntu abusing the version field and releasing packages named "firefox_2.0-ubuntu1~really.1.9.96" or something like that. The only way to disseminate a downgrade to a package that's already in the archives is to screw with the packaging revision like that, or to bump the epoch.
ephemient
2009-10-14 19:51:57
Well, no one is perfect ;). I've never noticed that though, although I haven't been watching upgrades much lately.
Dana the Sane
2009-10-14 19:57:59
Speak of the devil... right now Ubuntu Karmic has `emacs_23.1+1-4ubuntu2+22.2+0ubuntu6`, which is actually a metapackage installing `emacs22`.
ephemient
2009-10-17 04:43:27
Would be nice to come up with a less obscure way to handle these things. Complexity always gets out of hand I guess :-\
Dana the Sane
2009-10-17 06:25:07
+2
A:
http://packages.debian.org/changelogs/pool/main/p/php5/php5_5.2.0-8+etch13/changelog.txt
According to the Debian changelog, it is 5.2.0 with many security fixes merged from upstream development.
You can also see debian specific patch information for php5 / 5.2.0-8+etch13 for details on exactly what patches have been applied to 5.2.0-8+etch13 relative to upstream's 5.2.0 release.
ephemient
2009-10-14 19:44:06