On Tuesday 12 April 2016 17:08:10 The Wanderer wrote: > On 2016-04-12 at 11:43, Harris Paltrowitz wrote: > > On 04/12/2016 11:06 AM, Lisi Reisz wrote: > >> On Tuesday 12 April 2016 15:14:08 Harris Paltrowitz wrote: > >>> I tried Firefox 45 last week but as you may remember from my > >>> recent emails, I experienced major issues with choppy videos in > >>> Youtube using Firefox 45, but not with Iceweasel 38.7.1. I've > >>> since done a Debian re-install and I want to start fresh using > >>> optimal applications, so I'd like to stick with 38.7.1 (as it > >>> appears to be more compatible with Jessie) but I'm curious about > >>> the security updates to it. > >> > >> Would firefox-esr (same site) solve that? I wouldn't bank on many > >> updates for iceweasel now it is somewhat deprecated. > > > > I realize now that the selection list on that Mozilla/Debian website > > has several release options that I don't understand -- besides esr/45 > > (which is the version I had problems with) there's release, beta and > > aurora. Do you know what the differences are here? > > The Firefox development process follows a type of cascading release: > http://www.askvg.com/mozilla-updates-firefox-update-channels-nightly-aurora >-beta-and-release/ > > There are nightly builds, which are compiled every night from the public > source tree (assuming it actually builds at the moment), and made > available for developer use. These are bleeding-edge, potentially > unstable and buggy code. > > There's the 'Aurora' release channel, which is the next stage of > stability after nightly builds. It's more or less the "experimental > release" niche, the first step towards designating something as a > release; think of it as comparable to an alpha release. After the old > 'Aurora' becomes the new 'Beta', a version of the latest nightly code > becomes the new Aurora. Not every new patch gets into Aurora - only > patches which the developers agree are important for the coming release. > > There's the 'Beta' release channel, which is the next stage of stability > after Aurora. After the old 'Beta' becomes the new 'Release' version, > the old Aurora becomes the new Beta. As with Aurora, not every new patch > gets into Beta - and the standards for what qualifies to get in are > tighter than with Aurora. > > There's the 'Release' release channel, which is what gets published as a > new official Firefox version. Once every six weeks (or thereabouts), the > old Beta becomes the new Release. No patches at all are accepted into > Release, unless a critically urgent oh-shit-that's-bad issue is > discovered and the developers decide to make a "chemspill" point release > (e.g., the difference between 45.0 and 45.0.1). > > There's the 'ESR' release channel, which is maintained over roughly a > year-long period. Once every seven Firefox major versions (which come > once every six weeks), a copy of the new Release version becomes the new > ESR. In theory, only security and stability patches make it into the > ESR; new features, and anything which might introduce a regression, are > verboten. (In practice, the developers sometimes don't live up to that > ideal.) > > > The more you need stability, the lower down this list you should go > with. The newer and faster you need new features and potential bug fixes > (at the risk of new bugs being _added_), the higher up the list you > should go with. > > For myself, I always recommend that anyone not actively developing > Firefox should run the ESR.
But in this case it was the ESR with which he was having problems, so it might be worth trying something else - and release is what Debian offers by default. Lisi
