Re: [Lynx-dev] How stable is 2.9.0?

[Bela Lubkin]

Mouse <mouse@Rodents-Montreal.ORG> wrote:

> The lynx I've been using - 2.8, from 1999 - started exhibiting a
> disturbing failure mode, today: I got "lynx in free(): warning: chunk
> is already free.", indicating a memory-management bug, and, in at least
> one session, got a coredump (ditto, but even more so).
>
> I could just treat this as a debugging exercise.  But I wanted to at
> least look at version-jumping instead.  It appears to me that the
> latest release is 2.8.9, with 2.9.0 being still in development
> versions.  But a lot of development versions, especially for
> open-source software, are plenty usable enough.  And I notice that
> 2.9.0dev looks relatively stable; the last-change time I see is
> 2021-08-07.  So, my question is, is 2.9.0 in good enough shape that I
> should (FWVO "should") use it, or would 2.8.9 be better?  (Of course,
> it's possible that either one has some property that will render it
> unsuitable for my purposes, but I figured I should at least look into
> it.)

Thomas will be more modest, but basically every 'dev' release of Lynx is
rock steady and might as well be released as a simple point release.
Stability bugs are extremely rare.

Now if you are really leaping forward from a 1999 release, there may be
differences which bug you.  You should leap forward and then report any
issues, so that they will cease being issues.

>Bela<