Uncovering and Mitigating the Impact of Frozen Package Versions for Fixed-Release Linux

Fuente: arXiv
Gespeichert in:
Bibliographische Detailangaben
Hauptverfasser: Tang, Wei, Xu, Zhengzi, Liu, Chengwei, Luo, Ping, Liu, Yang
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2024
Schlagworte:
Online-Zugang:
Tags: Tag hinzufügen
Keine Tags, Fügen Sie den ersten Tag hinzu!
_version_ 1866916390362939392
author Tang, Wei
Xu, Zhengzi
Liu, Chengwei
Luo, Ping
Liu, Yang
author_facet Tang, Wei
Xu, Zhengzi
Liu, Chengwei
Luo, Ping
Liu, Yang
contents Towards understanding the ecosystem gap of fixed-release Linux that is caused by the evolution of mirrors, we conducted a comprehensive study of the Debian ecosystem. This study involved the collection of Debian packages and the construction of the dependency graph of the Debian ecosystem. Utilizing historic snapshots of Debian mirrors, we were able to recover the evolution of the dependency graph for all Debian releases, including obsolete ones. Through the analysis of the dependency graph and its evolution, we investigated from two key aspects: (1) compatibility issues and (2) security threats in the Debian ecosystem. Our findings provide valuable insights into the use and design of Linux package managers. To address the challenges revealed in the empirical study and bridge the ecosystem gap between releases, we propose a novel package management approach allowing for separate dependency environments based on native Debian mirrors. We present a working prototype, named ccenv, which can effectively remedy the inadequacy of current tools.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2408_11631
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Uncovering and Mitigating the Impact of Frozen Package Versions for Fixed-Release Linux
Tang, Wei
Xu, Zhengzi
Liu, Chengwei
Luo, Ping
Liu, Yang
Software Engineering
Towards understanding the ecosystem gap of fixed-release Linux that is caused by the evolution of mirrors, we conducted a comprehensive study of the Debian ecosystem. This study involved the collection of Debian packages and the construction of the dependency graph of the Debian ecosystem. Utilizing historic snapshots of Debian mirrors, we were able to recover the evolution of the dependency graph for all Debian releases, including obsolete ones. Through the analysis of the dependency graph and its evolution, we investigated from two key aspects: (1) compatibility issues and (2) security threats in the Debian ecosystem. Our findings provide valuable insights into the use and design of Linux package managers. To address the challenges revealed in the empirical study and bridge the ecosystem gap between releases, we propose a novel package management approach allowing for separate dependency environments based on native Debian mirrors. We present a working prototype, named ccenv, which can effectively remedy the inadequacy of current tools.
title Uncovering and Mitigating the Impact of Frozen Package Versions for Fixed-Release Linux
topic Software Engineering
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.11631