2

I understand Raspbian has moved-on; to be Debian Jessie based. But, on the official Raspberry Pi website the update from Wheezy to Jessie is discouraged (as also discussed on this StackExchange question. Instead they recommend to make a clean Jessie install. However I am not in the position to do so any time soon. Hence my question:

  • Until when does Raspbian Wheezy receive security updates (wherever from)?

On that same site there has been some discourse in the comments-section about: whether or not security updates for Raspbian Wheezy will still be released, or (only) pushed downstream from Debian, or none at all. But it is not quite clear to me what is / is not to be expected in practice, as a Raspbian Wheezy user (that can not migrate for another month orso).

1 Answer 1

4

Wheezy in general has been handed over to the Debian LTS team as of 25 April of this year (2016). The official answer for LTS support is May 31, 2018 (https://www.debian.org/News/2016/20160425.en.html).

Since Raspbian Wheezy uses the same package management as the rest of Debian Wheezy, it's official security support should cover the same timeframe. In short, you have a little less than 2 years before upgrading becomes a necessity for security reasons.

2
  • Thanks; that is what I read on other sites too; e.g. Raspbian wheezy will almost certainly keep pulling in updates that can be pulled automatically from Debian wheezy until Debian stops providing them. It is this part that keeps me worried (a bit) though: Updates that require manual attention are more likely to get neglected. Questions pop-up: Which would packages would they be referring to? Am I likely to be using any of those (and at the same time them having an exploitable vulnerability) in the upcoming couple of months?
    – woosting
    Commented Aug 26, 2016 at 11:18
  • Probably: Packages that the Raspbian gang have tweaked. The network configuration springs to mind, but if that is only about configuration it may not matter. Similarly, the LXDE desktop and various bits created by the Foundation -- although I think most of those are new with Jessie anyway. If you want $0.02 you should think hard about switching to Jessie, using an extra SD card.
    – goldilocks
    Commented Aug 26, 2016 at 12:50

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.